Sitting with the purpose of meditation you can follow a tremendously beneficial process of breathing in twelve stages. Just by reading them, you will see right away that they are progressively sublime, calming and expansive. They will be effective and helpful from your very first attempt and every time you follow them! Following them, you will gradually benefit from increasing contentment, gentleness and peace.
Think of drawing water from a well, of extending a bucket (your mind) on a long rope (your probing attention). As the bucket goes ever deeper into the water, it seems to disappear. Otherwise said, your mind reaches deep within formless depths to draw the vital resources of cosmic life and illumination back to nourish your body, mind and spirit.
1. Settle your body, sitting with spine erect, hands placed on the thighs, palms upward. Do nothing but watch your breath in its regular motion of inhalation and exhalation. Your breath is your focus and your teacher.
2. With each inhalation and exhalation feel that you reach into a deeper realm of self-awareness beyond the mere physical motions.
3. A divine process of circulation is itself unfolding within you, connecting your breath with God’s life breath.
4. There is a restorative harmony and greater experience of calmness pervading your body and mind.
5. Entering deeper subjectivity, you inevitably discover many reflections and refractions of the mind. Without distinguishing specific thought-contents, samskaras and patterns of desire, simply enter the current of mindfulness. Your focus on breath alone will nourish and strengthen your non-attachment to those passing contents of “mind-stuff” (“Chittwa”).
6. Elevate and expand your desire to merge your individual mind with the creative Source of the Universal Mind. This union is Raja Yoga, the Royal Path of the Mind.
7. Higher powers draw you to the light that illumines the entire cosmos. Do not look back. Lesser charms, desires and fears have faded in this freedom, this renunciation.
8. Inspired by its attunement to cosmic vibratory joy and peace, your heart enters the “bhav” (state of consciousness) of renewed hope, gratitude and contentment.
9. With every breath, you realize that Peace is dynamic, never static. Your state of mind is serene and infinite, resonant in Silence.
10. In the joyful state of universality, all duality is resolved by Divinely beneficent and pure will.
11. Self-remembrance floods and dissolves all distinctions of “within” or “without.” Here is Freedom (Moksha) in the Ocean of the All,
12. the “I am That I Am.”
Swami Kamalananda
The Breath of God and Pranayam