Question On Rest After Practice

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So I've been doing a lot of rounding in the morning and well, a round and then in the afternoon a regular med. I was just kind of wondering about the um post-meditation, two minutes in a regular meditation, as opposed to say the ten minutes in a shavasna. Is the practice for those the same other than one lying down? Because it's like generally absence of instruction as far as when you're lying down, you're doing in that ten minutes. Yeah. Is that different?

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Yes. So to create some context for some of you who may not know what rounding is, it's an advanced program in the Vedic meditation um system uh that involves doing a sequence of uh roughly what we refer to as a hatha-based asana, which is otherwise known as yoga. Uh so 15 to 20 minutes of of gentle asana, then two to three minutes of pranayam, alternate nostril breathing, which is in in administering life force, prana into the brain. And then after two to three minutes of pranayam, we close our eyes and meditate for 20 minutes, and then we

What Rounding Is And Why

SPEAKER_01 1:23

lie on our back for uh 10 minutes in shavasana. And this sequence of asana, pranayam, meditation, shavasana constitutes one round. And what it does is it amplifies the effect. We refer to it as industrial strength meditation, and what it does is it uh increases the capable the capacity of the nervous system to let go of stress. So we practice this specifically to increase capability of stress release or purification. So the big the the there's two primary functions in this in this technique, in this process. The first is for the mind to expand into its baseline, like a wave. I'm making a sort of uh a depiction of a wave. We have a wave, it has a peak, and it has a base. And what this implies is that our individual consciousness state is like a wave, in so much as that it is emergent out of a fundamental field like the ocean. Our individuality is emergent out of an ocean of consciousness whereby we have an experience of individuality, and if we are sufficiently de-excited in our individuality, we can detect that what we are emerging out of is a field of pure consciousness. Yoga is the Sanskrit word that refers to the experience of being the peak of the wave

The Wave Model Of Consciousness

SPEAKER_01 3:05

and the ocean simultaneously, the unity of individuality and universality, the merging of the two, where both experiences are stabilized and mutually exclusive as one whole comprehensive experience of the self. This is what yoga is. And so, what this technique does is first it enables our awareness to become acquainted with the unboundedness that is at the baseline of our experience of our humanity, and then to come back out and go, oh, there I am as an individual again, and then to go deep again, kind of, oh, unbounded, and so often not aware that we're having this experience until we come out and go, oh, I went unbounded. And then we come back into our individuality again. And through the repetition of this beautiful, elegant process, we two things happen. We expand and stabilize the baseline of our awareness while simultaneously having an experience of our individuality. So consciousness is becoming far more complex in so much as it can it can contain the complexity of our individual localized consciousness state, and simultaneously have a vast underlying sense of my beingness, which has apparently no beginning or no end. And while we're doing this, what we're doing is challenging the model or the structure by which we see reality. Each of us are being conditioned by our parenting and our culture and our schooling and all the things that influenced us as we were growing up. And uh unless you were very fortunate to grow up in an environment where all the adults around you saw you very clearly from the perspective of your spirit, your soul, and you were nurtured spiritually, uh the chances are you're wearing some kind of very uncomfortable mind suit, a suit that doesn't quite fit who

Conditioning Trauma And The “Mind Suit”

SPEAKER_01 5:30

you are. And um as adults, when we realize all this constriction and uh lack of confidence and hesitancy in being ourself in the world, is as a result of conforming into some state that is not expressive of who we feel ourselves to be, what our value systems are, how we view ourselves, how we experience ourselves. And so we we we engage in a process, whether it be through yogic practices like meditation or through some form of therapy, um, we or all of the above, we begin to investigate what it what it means to become ourself and to alter the infrastructure of our conditioning so that it can actually become something that can fully hold us and contain us comfortably, becoming ourself. And what generally contains us is belief systems that are upheld by impressions that we can refer to as stress or trauma. Experiences we are exposed to that reinforced some idea that is contrary to our understanding of our divine nature, such as we may not be as valuable as we feel we are, we may not be as lovable, we don't have the kind of worth that would warrant the quality of attention that we're desiring from the people that are supposed to be caring for us. These are just some examples. And those impressions are complex because they become enmeshed in the personality structure, in the ego structure. We formulate our identity based on the way in which we've been informed by the world about who who we are. Now, for some of us, we might be in deep conflict about that. You say I'm like this, but this is how I feel. So I'm in conflict. And for others, it's like, oh no, no, I just bought the whole thing. You told me who I was, and I just invested completely in that, and now I'm I'm I'm I'm realizing that actually none of that is actually who I really am. And it's the reason why I'm miserable and I lack confidence and you know, all of these other things that are undesirable in our adult life. So when we are constantly leading our attention into these deeper states, what we're doing is we're deconstructing. We're starting the process of deconstructing, pulling apart the model that has us believing that really all we are is a bag of bones with some aspirations, and that I'm deeply conflicted about my confidence and capability to achieve what it is that I desire. You know, that at the at the at the most superficial level. We start to deconstruct that and expose ourselves to a deeper, more complex state of an experience of ourself that challenges the model that we have been deeply invested in or trying to reject. And the beautiful thing about this technique is it just very elegantly deconstructs it and exposes us to the truth of who we are in our unboundedness. And when we re-emerge, we we come back out and we pull with us a wake of energy, an upsurge of coherence that floods the mind and starts to reorganize our consciousness and the way in which we see ourselves and reality. Incrementally, bit by bit, we expose ourselves to a truth that is beyond some intellectual reckoning, it's beyond some conception, it is just the abstract experience of self. Knowingness doesn't require any pretext, it just is. We notice ourselves knowing the truth of who we are, and it becomes increasingly more clear about how not quite right I am viewing myself and the world is. And so, with that upward surge of energy, that coherence, that intelligence also causes a purifying effect. Stress that's contained in the nervous system and in subtler spiritual organs known as the chakras, you've all heard of chakras, I'm sure energy centers, the upsurge causes a particular coherent effect that triggers a release of something that we're carrying that reinforces these ideas that we have about ourselves that are just not true. And we refer to that as purification. So we have expansion in the inward stroke, and as we come out, we we're we're drawing that coherence up, and that causes a detoxing of the memories that do not correlate to the truth of our being. Rounding turns that whole thing up, that whole process up. It's a very sophisticated um uh sadhana. Sadhana is a spiritual practice that brings us closer to our divine nature. It's sophisticated in so much as that it's very effortless uh in terms of the effect that it has. And rounding is normally practiced in a retreat format. You can, as Jim was describing, you can

Purification Heat Metaphor And Retreats

SPEAKER_01 11:35

practice it once in the morning, once in the evening. It's it's never advised that you do any more than that. And uh, because of the purification aspect of it, it's you know, you can find yourself feeling quite rough if you're doing it twice a day every day. Because it's literally, you know, if you look at it like putting your nervous system on an element of heat to heat it up, to cause the purification, like we do when we put butter in a pot to make ghee. What is that, what does it do? When we bring it to the boil, all the impurities rise to the top, and what's left is the pure golden liquid ghee, clarified butter. So it's the same. When we when we do add these extra things into our practice, it turns up the heat and it causes a purification. And this is the desired effect, but only to the extent to which we can integrate it and and be our normal self during the day rather than being a cantankerous, you know, reactive psycho, you know, that's intolerant to our partners and family and whatever. You know, we we don't want to be that because it kind of misses the point. However, the the the best time to practice rounding and to have the experience of really turning up the heat is on retreat. And I thoroughly recommend that anybody that's serious about waking up and really resolving what's going on inside of themselves is to attend a rounding retreat at least once a year. Either a weekend retreat or a seven-day retreat. Doing seven, doing two days or three, normally in a weekend rounding retreat, it's like a Friday night, Saturday, Sunday, and then you leave Monday morning. That's equivalent to six months morning and evening meditation. Just doing one weekend. It's amazing. Doing a seven or ten day is equivalent to up to two years of of med daily meditation. That's how deep you get, and that's how much purification occurs. In a rounding retreat, you wake up in the morning, you you don't you don't have breakfast, you you dive straight in, and you'll do the yogasana, the pranayam, little shavasana, meditation, and then shavasana. That's one round. It takes about an hour, and then when you finish that, you sit back up, you go again. Asana, praniam, shvasna, meditation, shvasna, sit up, go again. It's called rounding because you just go round and round and round like this. And on a rounding retreat, you can get up to 10 10 rounds a day. And uh it's you know, it's it's the most potent um tool in our in our tool belt. It's it's really, really extraordinary. So I I thoroughly recommend that. We have a rounding retreat happening in November in the south of India um for seven days. Thoroughly recommend it. If you're interested, just WhatsApp us and we'll we'll give you the details. We've still got a bunch of spots left for that. Um, yeah, so Jim, you asked the question, because I had to qualify rounding. Um, what do we do when we're lying in that 10 minute shavasana? You just are in your innocent awareness. You can come into your heart, you can interact with whatever's coming up, be with your feelings. But the idea is just resting. Why are we in that 10 minutes? Because the the asana prana meditation stirs so much up that we want to just let it settle and then we sit back up. Now, on a normal day, you don't do another round, you know, you just get into activity and that's great. Uh but when we're when we're doing it round and round, that settling uh is a a really effective

What To Do In Shavasana

SPEAKER_01 15:44

thing for allowing you to find your baseline again, and then we kick into it. Then we find our baseline, and then we go into it again, and then we find our baseline, go into it again, find our baseline.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Is that the same purpose for those as the two minutes of the regular meditation?

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Yes, correct. Same purpose. Just a bigger, longer version of it. Right. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Um, so generally it's basically just staying with your awareness of what that part.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Yeah. Yeah, staying staying with the experience of the body, the mind. You know, you'll notice your mind flitter off and you'll start thinking about the jobs you've got to do on that day or whatever, and that's all fine. But when you realize that you're kind of thinking about stuff that is not related to the experience of yourself, because you've got 10 minutes to lie there, you may as well devote it to cultivating an uh a more intimate awareness of what's going on. You're doing a little audit. Okay, where am I at right now? What's coming up? Because with that awareness, you you bring that into the day, you know, you're you're you're remaining connected with yourself. And it becomes very valuable to have that intimate connection. If you're a little bit edgy, you know, you're gonna be able to regulate yourself. Someone's triggering you. You're like, oh, I did a round this morning. I'm I was a little bit on edge, I'm noticing I'm being triggered here. I'm not gonna react. I'm just gonna allow that to continue passing because I know all that's happening here is I'm unstressing.

unknown 17:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

And equally, if it's like uh sometimes it's like a deeper meditation where you feel like you're connected more to the unboundedness, it seems to me, in my experience, then my awareness tends to stay on that. If you know, if if I'm just staying rather than coming back to a mantra, I'm coming back to the awareness of whatever is coming up. And if I am sufficiently de-excited that my awareness is more aware of totality and being, it tends to want to stay there. So it's kind of like meditating when you've forgotten the mantra.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Mm-hmm. Not kind of, it is.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

It is right. So that's that just yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

And the mantra the intention is there.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

And it's it's sort of in cheeky, enjoyable, so you just sort of stay with it, you know. But it's very it's expansive.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

It's it's like there's nothing cheeky about it. You're not cheating the system. So what you recall, for those of you who have all um received the instruction, thinking the mantra, the instruction is to think it to the extent that you're hardly thinking it. And what's hardly thinking it? Just the intention to come back to the mantra is that's how faint we can we can get. What's what's at the the the essence of thought? Intent. We can, if we trace the the a thought from its most gross expressed state

Mantra Subtlety And Pure Intention

SPEAKER_01 18:40

back down, down, down into ever-increasing layers of subtlety, what we arrive at is some very subtle impulse of intelligence that carries an intention. So just the intention to be thinking the mantra is thinking the mantra faintly. That's how subtle it becomes. So, you know, there's intention to be with the whole practice. It's there. It's just very faint and subtle.