The Power of Personal Practice

Shared years ago, by Hari Charn Kaur Khalsa and Shanti Shanti Kaur Khalsa (Date Unknown)

A few years before Yogi Bhajan left his body, he began traveling less, began to make fewer lectures in person, began to hold fewer personal appointments. He did this in part because of health reasons. More importantly, he focused on launching Kundalini Yoga teachers for the Aquarian Age. We felt this change significantly. As a result, we wanted to strengthen our sensory system to be able to face these accelerating times more effectively.

Remember that saying, “Be careful what you pray for”? Well…..on July 13, 2000, the first day of that summer’s Master’s Touch KRI Teacher Training course, the answer to our prayer came. Yogi Bhajan taught a meditation that develops the sensory system of the practitioner and links the subtle body of the student with the subtle body of the Master. The hitch? It is to be practiced for 2 1/2 hours in one sitting, each day until one has the experience. “In the Age of Aquarius, the message is, ‘Take me where I can get experience’, that is the difference.

Experience means work, experience is not talking, it is practice. I am grateful to that man of God who touched me and put me through it,” Yogi Bhajan said before he instructed the meditation. He titled it “The Meditation to Invoke the Master’s Touch.”

Right away we knew this was the personal practice we were asking for and right away we began to talk ourselves out of it. We are already so busy, when would we have time to meditate an extra 2 1/2 hours beyond sadhana? Why start something and not carry it through? We each travel so much in our jobs, we would never be able to work this in, would we? Yet the inner guidance was compelling. We knew. What were we waiting for?

Since the first day we started our personal practice, we have taught this meditation wherever we travel, all around the world. People brand new to meditation, people who have never meditated before, people who had never practiced a meditation for 2 1/2 hours in one sitting, have experienced the Meditation to Invoke the Master’s Touch. We have started Master’s Touch meditation groups in cities throughout the world, and are inspired by the people who keep them going.

We are not practicing the Meditation to Invoke the Master’s Touch for what it promises for the future. We are practicing it for what it delivers now. We never thought we could practice this meditation for 2 1/2 hours every day for more than a thousand days. Yet we have. And we have made a decision to continue for another
thousand. We are grateful to Yogi Bhajan, that man of God who touched us and put us through it. We’ve come to realize this meditation has been given as a gift from the Master, and we want to share it with you.

What is The Master’s Touch?

Excerpts from July 13, 2000, and September 22, 2002, lectures by Yogi Bhajan:

The Master’s Touch is like a Philosopher’s Stone, any matter which touches that stone becomes gold. In the Age of Aquarius, people will say, “take me where I can get experience”. That is the difference. Experience means work, experience is not talking, it is practice.

Your touch will create the state. Now tell me what that state is. Aad such jugaad such, haibhee such, Nanak hosee bhee such. This mantra will give you a power, not that you are good or bad, right or wrong, high or low. I am not discussing that. This mantra will give you the power of the Master’s Touch. And when you perfect this mudra with the Jupiter finger you touch, and you chant this mantra in one sitting for 2 1/2 hours, which is one tenth of the day, the practice will bring you the Touch. You will be shocked and surprised yourself. There is no power on this earth, neither black magic, green magic, light magic, there is nothing that can stop it. These are the words of Guru Nanak. They are the permutation and combination and projection and power to bring the entire Purkirti, the existence, into the being of the purkha. That is the definition.

This will bring you the power so that when the Age of Aquarius comes, and the hordes of people come and seek you and you have not time but to touch and that has to bring the entire psyche and being of the person into balance. And they should be grateful to you, you will find honor and grace, respect, love. And over and above all of this you, will find satisfaction that you are serving the humanity, the creation of God. Then you’ll start seeing God in everybody. Then it will come true if you cannot see God in all, you cannot see God at All. And you will see God. You shall see God, God will not be alien or foreign to you.

Developing the Sensory System Through Practice of the Meditation to Invoke the Master’s Touch Journal of Our First Thousand Days

Day 1 Here we are at the European Yoga Festival in Loches, France. After over two weeks of knowing we were going to practice this mediation, and talking ourselves out of starting, we decide that we will just do it once, just to break through our resistance. Today, August 1, 2000, is the day. SSK tells Guru Dev Singh, of Sat Nam Rasayan, about the meditation and he is excited. He invites us to practice in a group in the Bois–the French forest on the outskirts of the Yoga Festival site. We agree, and with three others, we embark on our journey. Walking to our place in the woods, HCK wonders, “What am I doing? Two and a half hours sitting doing this–I’ll never make it!”

When we arrive, Guru Dev Singh is waiting with a number of his students. One is a harp player from Spain, another a master singer of Naad from England. What an auspicious beginning. The harp music keeps us in tune, the melodious voice of the singer keeps us going, entranced. The mosquitoes and crawling bugs are hardly a bother. We started with about 8 or 10 people and 2 1/2 hours later, we had attracted about 40 more. We return to the main Yoga Festival site knowing we have begun our practice.

Day 3 What is it with this meditation? We are both ravenously hungry following it. So much so, we have taken to preparing food before we start so we can just start eating when we are done with the meditation. One day HCK is tempted to take a bite out of SSK. She demurs.

Day 5 Yoga Festival is over. We get our first test of regular life with 2 1/2 hours of extra daily meditation. We are taking the train from Paris to Amsterdam. HCK has the idea to wrap herself in a shawl, with hands in the mudra tucked neatly underneath. We whisper the mantra for the next 2 1/2 hours, looking like we are nearly asleep, so the attendant does not ask us what we want to drink. This is the plan we use throughout our travels thereafter. Still works, 1,000 plus days later.

Day 22 SSK notices she has more energy. Not the hot-wired adrenaline kind, but a quiet, deep vitality that builds a little each week. She decides to teach the meditation to her clients with chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and the clients with HIV and the clients with cancer who are fatigued from the medical treatment they receive. Since they are not up to a 2 1/2-hour practice as yet, she teaches it to them for 1 1/2 minutes, 3 minutes, or 7 minutes, with the instruction that they are to build up more time as they continue to practice (since the meditation is taught to be done for 2 1/2 hours). Nearly all report increased vitality and endurance, and something SSK had not noticed–reduced pain and improved sleep. What a discovery!

Day 40 The first 40 days have been a real gift. Most days we have been able to do a regular Amrit Vela sadhana and meditate later in the day. This has been a blessed introduction into the meditation.
Day 60 We are doing what we can to adjust our work and seva schedule to accommodate the meditation. Most days we do it in one sitting, at a time other than sadhana, as it was taught. Some days we do it in the Amrit Vela and some days we break it up. Granted, this is not how it was taught. However, we are approaching this with the idea, let us at least do the 2 1/2 hours each day. Just as doing a consistent sadhana adjusted our lives greatly, our lives are making a further adjustment around this meditation.

Day 70 There is simply a flow of ideas, thoughts, solutions, remedies, resolution while we meditate and between the times of meditation. We noticed this early on, were pleased by it, and now it is a regular occurrence. Any problem, conflict, dilemma we bring to the “Such” to work out. We can distinguish more clearly what is a thought of ours and what is a “Such” occurrence. This meditation is teaching us to listen, to bow, to stay humble and receive. Thank you.

Day 90 The ravenous hunger response has subsided and is now hardly noticeable. Instead, we go through nausea during and after the meditation. What is it with this meditation and the third chakra? All that navel pulsing on each Such is rearranging the flow of prana, at least that is our working hypothesis. We each notice we have to drink fluid often throughout the meditation. This is something we still do, 1,000 plus days later.

Day 120 to 180 Nausea not so noticeable now. Seems the third chakra has stabilized. Now some days one of us is hot, the other is cold, or we are both hot or both cold during the meditation. One of us starts shaking in the mudra, or we both do, for most of the 2 1/2 hours. HCK gets headaches, SSK’s eyes can’t focus well, and light bothers her eyes for about a half hour after the meditation. Her note to self: don’t plan on driving for at least half an hour following meditation.

Day 208 Practice of this meditation has been demanding and commanding from the beginning. We are experiencing the grinding and polishing and the sublety of it as well. To keep practicing it, we must take better care of ourselves. SSK notices she must exercise more, must eat fresh food each day (she had been in the habit of making a pot of soup that would last a few days–this does not work anymore), go to bed earlier. We continue to adjust our life to the requirements of practice.

Day 234 Order, inner and outer is the command of this meditation. SSK finds it uncomfortable to have even her purse in disarray. We are each compelled to clean closets, drawers, the trunk of the car. We are compelled to bring order to our time, schedule, relationships. We realize that our lives as we have led them needs to change in order to accommodate the effects of the meditation.

We are both traveling as part of our work and teach the meditation wherever we go. We take photos of each Aad such meditation group after the 2 1/2 practice. When we get 26 we will make a photo mandala as a gift to Yogi Bhajan.

Day 284 We both notice that our relationship to time is changing. In general, we feel less pressured, less hurried, even though demands on our time have increased significantly due to work and seva expansion. Somehow, things seem to happen just a the right time, even if it is not right according to the schedule. More ease in relationship to time. Feel less hassled. Nice.

Day 366 August 1, 2001, First year anniversary. We are in different continents. SSK in Europe, teaching at the Yoga Festival, HCK is in US, in Espanola. When SSK returns to New Mexico, we give each other greeting cards with a picture related to the meditation. HCK gives SSK a card featuring the face of a little girl. There is a fly on the tip of her nose and her eyes are focused on it. SSK gives HCK a card with a picture of the face of a fluffy white cat. There is a bee on the tip of his nose and his eyes are focused on it. Later, SSK has a friend scan the cards into her computer where she removes the fly and the bee. Now the girl and cat look like they are practicing a meditation with eyes focused on the tip of their nose. SSK makes copies for her altar and gives a set to HCK. We acknowledge that we could not have made it this far without the support of the other. Gratitude again for this practice.

Day 508 The ideas just keep on flowing, especially for HCK. We decide she does not think any more, simply the “Such” just lands in her crown chakra and comes out her mouth. We still make jokes about this, a 1,000 and more days later.

Day 638 April 2002 SSK is teaching in Florida. Martha Arruda, a Kundalini Yoga teacher in Clearwater, describes the effects of the meditation to the students as part of the invitation to come and practice it together. She says, “The practice of the Meditation to Invoke the Master’s Touch enthrones the neutral mind.” Yep.

Day 658 We are noticing what feels like an awake dream state, where we see images in front of us as if dreaming, yet we are awake. When this happens, we don’t know what “Such” we are on. Occasionally we are both in this at the same time and neither of us is chanting accurately or at all. Usually, one of us is in this state while the other keeps the mantra going. Thank God for meditation partners. This occurs off and on including up to the time of this writing.

Day 698 SSK feels like her nervous system is being ground down and then re-wired. She reports that her nerves in her arms, legs and spine hurt when she holds the mudra, and eye focus. Feels like jolts of energy going through them, it is not like the hot sensation of previous months. This makes it uncomfortable to sit still and she moves around during the meditation practice. A lot. If HCK is annoyed by this, she does not say.

Day 731 August 1, 2002, Year two celebration day. SSK is instructing the meditation at the European Yoga Festival in France. It is interesting to her how in this group of nearly 80 meditators, at least one person went through one of “our phases” in this 2 1/2 hours. One student shook most of the time, one said her nerves hurt, some were piling shawls and blankets to keep warm, a few kept taking off layers of clothing because they were so hot. Some told her afterward they had to leave right away to get something to eat, they were so hungry; some noted that they felt nauseous during the meditation practice and asked if this was normal. And more than a few could not recall which Such they were on sometime during the meditation. This group was a microcosm of the meditation experience we have had the last 2 years.

Day 784 As our relationship to ourself changes, so do our relationships with others. We each notice, independently, that there is no longer any room for self-indulgences regarding our communication or interactions with others. What is required more than ever is communication and interaction that is straight, clear, simple, brief.

Day 812 HCK goes on a teaching tour to South America and starts practice groups in every country she visits.

Day 873 SSK is craving walnuts and raisins. A lot. She wants to eat them during the meditation. This significantly interferes with the chanting of the mantra, so instead, she eats lots before and after. Must be feeding some brain thing.  We already know we will do this beyond the thousand days. No effort is made to talk ourselves out of it. The first thousand were just to get us into shape to actually practice. Now we really want to experience. We continue to refine our time of practice, adjusting demands of work and seva and regular life. Just getting ourselves to be with this meditation is a practice all by itself. A genuine working of the psyche.

Day 903 Somehow, for the first time, SSK notices the gaze at the tip of the nose stays fixed. It does not move on its own, as it had for over 2 years. It now moves only when she deliberately moves it. Amazing. And what a difference in the effects of the meditation. She experiences specifically that as her eye focus stays fixed, so her mind
stays fixed. What a relief. SSK still hasn’t gotten the inner ear thing down yet though. Maybe that is next.
Day 967 (or so) HCK has this great idea to make a CD of the monotone version and a melody version of the mantra. She asks Gurushabad Singh and his wife, Sarb Shakti Kaur and their son, Hargobind Hari Singh to produce it. This is a fantastic idea since they sound so wonderful, and we have a tough go carrying a tune.

Day 1,000 Piece of cake? Not yet. We give a gift to Yogi Bhajan, in gratitude for the meditation and in celebration of 1,000 days. Remember the computer altered greeting cards featuring the girl and cat looking as though they are practicing a meditation with eyes focused on the tip of their nose? We compile them to make a greeting card for Yogi Bhajan with these images. Fun. We find an elegant gold silk altar cloth to give him as a gift.

Day 1,011 The inner ear thing has started to kick in for SSK Wow. She can feel a resonance of the sound in the small bones in her inner ear. It is specific, not just a vibration in the cranium. This does not stay consistent, however. Maybe later, with practice. Hey, the eyes got steady, didn’t they? Only took two and a half years.
Day 1,044 The Aad Such CD is ready for public debut. We teach the meditation to the group of people taking the Japji Course in Espanola, NM and Guru Shabad Singh and group play live music. It is truly a delight.

Day 1097 August 1, 2003. Three-year anniversary. Still going strong, by God’s grace.

Day 1,265 February 2004 We know we are complete and so we practice one more time, with gratitude. After this time, we practice whenever we are teaching it to others, perhaps twice a month. Now, in April 2008, the fragrance of this meditation remains strong and resonant.

Meditation to Invoke the Master’s Touch

From a lecture by Yogi Bhajan on July 13, 2000, & further communication regarding specifics of practice.

Practice of this meditation develops the sensory system and links the subtle body of the student to the subtle body of the Master. It is a meditation of subtlety. As long as the subtle body is not invoked, happiness cannot be permanent. This meditation works on the seven chakras, the shashara, pituitary, hypothalamus and thalamus. It is quite effective. You can warm up before practice of this meditation with 3 minutes of breath of fire, and 3 to 7 minutes of Sat Kriya.

Sit like you are the greatest incarnation of Lord Buddha. Sit in this posture and be saintly, concentrate. Bring your hands into Maha Gyan Mudra by placing the pad of the right index finger (Jupiter finger) on the pad of the left index finger, so that the fingerprints are touching–not pressing–forming an approximately 45-degree angle with the index fingers pointing upwards. Right palm faces forward, left palm faces toward you. Other fingers are curled into the palms, with the thumb over.

Hold the mudra lightly at the heart center, elbows resting along your ribcage with shoulders relaxed. The eyes are slightly open, focused at the tip of your nose.

The mantra for this meditation is Aad Such, Jugaad Such, Hai Bhee Such, Naanak Hosee Bhee Such. This mantra means, True in the primal beginning; True through all the ages; True here and now; O Nanak, forever and ever True. These are the four stages of truth, which must prevail through one touch.

Chant or sing the mantra aloud, in a monotone. The Such sound is made with the tongue touching the upper palate and then coming down. The ch in Such is emphasized, but not extended. Pull the navel point in on each Such. Chanting in monotone affects the lungs.

As you chant aloud, listen to the mantra with your inner ear. Let the inner ear vibrate. The breath rhythm is a simple, long deep breath. Not too long or too short. Continue for 2 1/2 hours in one sitting. To end, inhale, hold, exhale and relax the mudra and relax your breath. Close your eyes and rest for two minutes.

The Meditation to Invoke the Master’s Touch is recorded in the scriptures to be practiced for 2 1/2 hours. However, it is up to you how long you practice. This is a personal sadhana and does not replace group sadhana in the Amrit Vela.

“In this the kriya that I am giving you; you have to tune your ears. Not the outer ear, it will not help you, it is the inner ear. It has two bones on the side and the hammer, and if the hammer and the bones have a proper hammering then your brain can analyze at the same time what it is hearing, and understand. These teachings will help you for that time which is coming when hordes of people in their insanity will seek you. You will be sought after. At that time you will not have lecture time, or blessing time, or playing time, or sexing time, or romantic time, or party time. All you can do is touch and say, ‘Bless you. I will be with you here and hereafter, God shall guide you. Hail Guru Ram Das and Heal the world.’ ‘That is the Lord of Miracles and that is true.”

When the eyes are at the tip of the nose, this frontal lobe becomes like lead, and at one time becomes so painful and unbearable, you can’t even stand it. And then it breaks, then you find what you are looking for and that is forever, then nobody can take it away.

There are two things to achieve, one is the tip of the tongue with the upper palate so that the thalamus and hypothalamus begin tuning in. The other is the eyes at the tip of the nose, to break the frontal lobe, which controls the personality. Otherwise, you are a yo yo. You see, you don’t see. You know, you don’t know. You hear, you don’t hear.