A common question I get about meditation is: what do I do to keep my mind from wandering? (more…)

Any amount of time you spend meditating is going to help you.

Meditation is like food; you need food, and any kind of will do when you’re hungry. But there are different kinds of meditation just as there are different kinds of food.

Heart Rhythm Meditation, where you coordinate your breathing and heartbeat (8 beats in, 8 beats out), while focusing attention on your emotional-energetic heart, is the best possible way to energize your heart, and it can work wonders for your health on all levels. For myself, it’s been by far the best thing I’ve ever learned.

When you’re learning HRM, I’d recommend you meditate twice a day, 20 minutes in the morning, and 20 minutes in the evening. Set a timer so you won’t have to look at the clock. Your sense of time tends to shift when you’re meditating, often time goes by quicker than you think.

If you can’t fit that amount of time in, do 10 minutes twice a day. I think everyone can spare that. Try to sit at the same time in the morning, and the same time in the evening.

Work on your breathing; see your breath as an art form. Try to perfect it. Make it deeper, more powerful, while at the same time smooth, silent, and subtle. Erase all hitches, gaps, or uneven aspects. Let your breath flow like an river, endlessly pouring into the sea of your heart.

Toward the One,
Asatar

This morning, I sat in the baseball field in the park near my house. It’s before dawn. Fall nights are cold here in San Francisco; the fog and wind moves in around sundown and keeps things cool all night. I’m sitting beneath a stately tree, whose branches spread out overhead.

I do my meditation practices, feeling my breath expand my heart and energize my whole being. I sometimes feel anxious when I heard sounds nearby, like the creaking of branches, the occasional fall of a twig, the rustle of the wind. I’m in a public park, and it’s basically still night. I have my eyes closed. I feel vulnerable. But today, it feels like the life around me and within me have joined together. The branches cannot help but dance in the wind. I breathe in, and the wind blows over my body, which has become this hillside park. I breathe out, and the city comes to life. I feel people awakening, (and many still dreaming), I feel cars traveling on the freeway a mile away, I feel the animals and plants around me pulsing with life.

When my practice has ended, I open my eyes. Still dark, the fog shrouds the ballfield. As it says in Living from the Heart, “There is no end to awakening.” (p. 27)
From my heart to yours,
Asatar

Hello and good day to all,
I would like to ask something about the square breath pattern. In the different dimensions (elements) of the heart. We use different points of inhalation and exhalation. How about in the Square Breath? Do we use only the nose for both inhalation/exhalation, or we follow what is in the companion cd of EYH to breathe in and out both from the nose and mouth together? Is there any benefit if we use the square breath pattern for each of the dimensions (elements) instead of just using the swing breath pattern?Live long and prosper,Christopher Go

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Dear friends,

Easter is a time of great inspiration for all of us as the great celebration of rebirth and renewal.

How can you be reborn and renewed and make rebirth and renewal happen in your life? That is, how can you make real change in yourself that is aligned with your soul, removes the distortions and pain in your being and takes you on the next step toward your purpose? And could this happen not just once and not just on Easter, but continually?

The answer is so simple that people just dismiss it - “It couldn’t be that easy.”

It doesn’t require membership in any organization and it’s not limited to any tradition. No matter what else you believe about spirit, life and the material world, you can still make it work for yourself.

It even works if you don’t believe it will work. But it works better if you understand how it works.
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I am very confused and require some help.
I started meditating a few days ago and found that I have a little heaviness in the body and problems with vision such as minor blurriness. I believe it is as a result of the mental state I am in. I really don’t know what to do. Should I stop meditating and will it go away? Or should I try something else. When I try focusing on my breathing, it causes me to become dizzy. I don’t know what is happening.
Thanks for the help.
Regards,
David

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My kundalini raised over a year ago and I have developed an extreme sensitivity to energy. I usually feel pressure in my head. Yesterday I tried a meditation technique in which I tried to go into a place of silence. I succeeded and stayed there for about ten minutes. During that time I felt no head pressure, but instead, a very thin, refined feeling. Eventually, I began to let thoughts return, and with them returned the head pressure, which feels like very uncomfortable bulges of mass going through my pituitary gland, crown, back of my skull, etc. What also arose was a feeling of general irritation and judgmentalism. I am just wondering if I am feeling the actual mass of thought, returning alpha brain waves, or what?
I am a student of a Course in Miracles, which states that thought and emotion is of the ego, which is itself a foreign invader. These experiences are raising all kinds of speculation about the nature of energy and whether it is of a divine nature or if it is egoic. I would appreciate your comments.
Majidah

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I have read in Living from the Heart that there should never be retention after the exhalation. Can you explain why this is so? In the yogic Square Breath Pranayam it is described as four equal parts of inhalation, retention, exhalation and retention (after the exhalation). Is this latter practice harmful? Which is the truth?
In appreciation,
Ann-Marie

Dear Ann-Marie,
Some schools teach a breathing technique where the breath is held after the exhalation. The reason for this breath is to force consciousness out of the body. Breath is life; no breath is like no life. When you hold the exhalation, you are sustaining a period of low oxygenation, which puts the body into a weakened state. The sensation of bodiness is reduced, as are all the sensations of the body.
We should remember that many Yogic techniques were developed for monastic use, not for use by those who have obligations in the world. Also, the ultimate aim of Yoga is Samadhi, the “liberation” of consciousness from the body and mind. This is not healthy for the nervous system, or for the rhythm of the heart. It has been shown that the heart stops beating in Samadhi and goes into a high-speed flutter. (I participated in one of these studies, done by Dr. Herbert Benson, author of The Relaxation Response) Furthermore, Samadhi (like Kundalini yoga) creates disassociation, a serious psychological problem.
We teach a method that is designed for use in the world, which improves one’s health, relationships and accomplishments. A key part of this method is the expansion of the capacity of the heart, and this is accomplished partially by the retention of the inhalation. When the in-breath is retained, it increases the sensations of the body, especially the heartbeat sensation. The strong heartbeat draws one into the heart.
Energy flows on the breath in and out of the body; when this energy is stopped and held in the heart, the heart is forced to expand. This expansion is felt physically in the chest, and we use the sensation as a sign of the second stage of Heart Rhythm Meditation. The heart is also expanded in its capacity to hold emotion, which is energy. Expansion doesn’t happen if the exhalation is held, because there is no energy at that point in the breath cycle.
Different meditation practices are designed for different purposes. Before taking a practice, one should consider what is the purpose of that practice — what is it designed to do? The ancient mystics wanted to investigate the great mystery: what is death? They developed meditations that led to Samadhi, in which the body enters a state very close to death: no pulse, nearly flat brain waves, very low oxygen levels in the bloodstream, very low Central Nervous System Activity (CNA). These conditions have all been measured and documented. More recently, the mystics of the world have turned their attention to an even greater mystery: what is the purpose of life? To answer this question, different methods are needed — the methods which energize your heart.
Thank you for your question.

With love,

Puran

hellomy name is candida and i am 16yrs old.i am mentally disturbed completely disturbed and i have so many problems in my life that i donot know what to do so i just want to learn to meditate as i have heard of it from my friends and they said it was pretty relaxing and they really felt peaceful so i would also like to experience that peace so can you please help me out herei am a 16 yrs old girl and i am from ahemdabad.i will be really obliged to hear from you and would be really grateful if you would show me the way to peacei have done the ART EXCEL in the ART OF LIVING course but it did not help me much.candida 

Dear Candida,We can definitely help you learn to meditate.For beginning instructions, I suggest you go to this link and look at the sample.Thank you for writing; it’s a pleasure to hear from someone so young.Blessings to you,Puran

Hello and good day to all,
I would like to ask something about the square breath pattern. In the different dimensions(elements) of the heart. We use different points of inhalation and exhalation. How about in the Square Breath? Do we use only the nose for both inhalation/exhalation, or we follow what is in the Companion CD of Energize Your Heart to breathe in and out both from the nose and mouth together? Is there any benefit if we use the square breath pattern for each of the dimensions(elements) instead of just using the swing breath pattern?
Live long and prosper,
Christopher Go

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