The Art of Meditation – Deepening Awareness

Excerpts from a lecture given by the Siri Singh Sahib, Yogi Bhajan on December 1, 2001.

The job of the mind is to think and play human energy into many directions. The mind controls the entire human presence and the way one progresses. It gives man the power to penetrate, but it could also destroy it. If you do not direct your mind, your mind will direct you. The mind directs you to what you physically feel. The mind will never direct you to what you spiritually feel. Your physical growth may become humungous, but your mental growth will become narrower, and narrower, and narrower, and your spirit will have no chance to go through it. You must have command over your mind or your spiritual life will go dormant.

People play games because their minds let them slip.  You may be a doctor, an attorney, a banker, the wealthiest person, a businessman or a worker, but if you do not directly control your mind, you are in trouble. And, when the mind tells you to spin yourself and you cannot match up with that spin, this trouble multiplies. If your own mind refuses to obey you, how can the universe obey you? How can Prakirti obey you? How can anyone obey you?

Spiritual disciplines are harsh, I agree. But without that chiseling harshness, the mind does not listen. The mind takes you to sights and places you do not want to go to. Still, you go.

Misfortune guarantees fortune, and fortune is followed by misfortune. Like parallel sisters, they cannot be separated.  To get out the cycle of fortune and misfortune you must have full control of your mind. You must know your mind and your mind must know you. For that there is meditation. The art of meditation is to control the mind.

Says Guru Nanak, “Those who have meditated on their inner identity and taken on this hard work, Oh Nanak, are bright and beautiful. Their accounts are all settled.”

As humans we must think straight, live straight and walk straight. In this way we will be fortunate and prosperous. We will be very easily understood, trusted and believed. Otherwise, we will have problems and spend the rest of our life solving problems.

We have a basic problem: our mind is not with us and we do not know how to concentrate. If we cannot concentrate, we cannot achieve. It is so simple! Technically speaking, man has to have some time to have a discipline for tuning-in. That is why Guru Nanak said,

“Rise in the ambrosial hour, the time of the true identity.”

Count your blessings! That action alone will cover your actions and you will find your self to be respectable. That is how I came to know. Although God knows what I do, I must find time for myself, my thoughts, my virtues and my values.  

You within yourself can find your true identity. Nobody can find it for you. You must get up in the morning and find your true identity. You need time to be all to yourself, where there is nobody else. It will bring prosperity. People will like to talk with you, see you, and enjoy your company.

Your radiant body will become brighter and brighter. There is no make-up that can make your body brighter! There is no make-up for character! You can try anything you want but, for character, you have to work with yourself. You must make your own path in your own life for your own prosperity and richness, and you have to be beautiful, bountiful and blissful. That is the way God made you.

Meditation – Deepening Awareness

1. Sit straight in a cross-legged position. Raise both hands to shoulder level with the elbows relaxed down. Point the index fingers up and hold the other fingers with the thumbs. Eyes are closed. Consciously do very Long and Deep Breathing through the “o” of your mouth. Continue for 11 minutes.
2. Continue the exercise, pulling the navel in with each exhale. Meditate on your mind. Achieve a stage where your mind remains balanced despite what anybody says. If you count your values, you give your virtues a chance, and vice-versa. Continue for 11 minutes. To end, inhale deeply, hold, and squeeze your spine, muscle by muscle. Exhale. Repeat 2 times, on the last breath squeezing every part of your body from toe to top. Relax.

There is no beauty in you if you do not have tolerance. You have to have an exalted sense of tolerance. It does not matter what anybody does, what they say or how they attack you. However things go, you must remain calm, quiet and peaceful. That peace is the source of prosperity. If you are poor, you are the reason for your poverty. If you are not containing yourself, how can you contain anything else? Self-containment is the art of prosperity. It is the highest spiritual strength. There is nothing to match it.

…. Exert your power of mind to meditate on your mind.  By doing so, you will achieve receive a stage of reaching where your mind will remain balanced in spite of what anybody says.  If you start counting your values, you will give chance and birth to your virtues, vice versa…

My idea is that is no beauty if you do not have tolerance.  You have to have exotic sense of tolerance.  Doesn’t matter what anybody does, what they say, how they attack you, what they want out of you.  You remain calm.  That is the faculty of the ocean.  How many river drops in it, how many things go, you remain calm, quiet and peaceful. It is that peace we are talking about which is the source of prosperity.  If you are poor, that is by your own reason.  Because if you are not containing yourself, how can you contain anything else….

View the full lecture here.  Yogi Bhajan teaches the meditation at 37:58 minutes