Tues: Went to meet my friend Stephen @ USC, did 11 minute “Har” meditation while waiting there for him, then “Guidance of the Soul – Giaan Sudhaa Simran Kriya” Master’s Touch p 38. I wasn’t all the way through the latter when he called, needing to be picked up in San Pedro, his cel phone dead, and thus work commenced – until 3AM. So I hadn’t done all 11 minutes of the last meditation, but felt like I’d gotten a full meditation nonetheless. I also ended up with an enormous file cabinet that I’ve needed quite badly, but don’t have room for in my apartment! (um, prosperity?) Enjoyed helping him prep for his summer class too. There’s such a weirdly distracting energy around college campuses at commencement time, and while it’s invigorating, it still calls to mind my CalArts graduation, which I found enormously depressing, unlike the Hampshire College one, which was sort of a peak experience for me since my first big composition got performed at it.
Wednesday: Did Gurunam’s “Rama” meditation for 11 minutes, then 11 mins. “Har,” then 11 minute “Guidance of the Soul” meditation again. All in my parked car along Venice Blvd before I got dinner. Not a great neighborhood, and got some funny looks from the residents near where I parked & practiced, but what the hey, and I wasn’t bothering anyone.
Thursday: Um, yep, if I don’t write this down every day, I guess this is where I lose track of the practice! I know I did “Har” every day, and sometime this week I did MT p. 25 “Meditation to Open the Lock of the Heart Center, to Increase the Power of the Infinite Within.” I might’ve also done this on Monday… You put your hands together in front of your face, 6 inches apart, and jerk them apart to an abrupt stop. Then in the next one you jerk them up near your ears to an abrupt stop… lots of Herky Jerky. Walla walla bing bang.
Friday: “Har” again, Sat Kriya, and “Meditation to Discover the Beauty and Heavens Within” p 48 MT. You make your hands into fists, hold them facing forward by your shoulders, and fling the fingers open for 17-1/2 mins. Another recording I don’t have is specified; Matamandir Singh’s “Rhythms of Gatka” – not on Sikhnet, either. I think I heard a cassette of it at Yoga West, but it was worn out and unlistenable. I think Seva said it had been difficult to master the recording, but I may be confusing it with another album. I love a lot of Matamandir’s music, especially his James Taylorish Japji versions, but didn’t get an overwhelmingly friendly greeting from him at Summer Solstice when we met. My recollection was that there was a lot of percussion on the recording, so I listened to some African Drumming during the meditation.
Saturday: I headed over to an art opening at the Brand Library and thought I might manage some yoga in the park surrounding it, but it got late, then it got dark, and so I put it off – until way after it was time to go to bed. But I didn’t want to start the count over (not that I’m entirely sure it even really matters after learning the 3HO dirt that’s tarnished my already skeptical faith) so…
MT p 57 “Guided Meditation to Find the Infinite Power Within” & 11 mins “Har” The first meditation you make peace signs and hold them by your head with long deep breathing, listening to Guru Prem & Nirinjan Kaurs “Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo” – at first, being as cranky as I’ve been today, I was thinking it was a waste of time. But by the end of the meditation, when you sing along with it, I was actually feeling a distinct mental change in attitude. I even felt that without doing any “physical” yoga beforehand.
The Sada Sats said the physical yoga gives us the energy to focus and reap rewards from our meditations; it always seemed a bit strange to me that Yogi Bhajan was only teaching meditations towards his final years, as I was attracted to the physical yoga, but I did have some powerful experiences just from simple meditation exercises he taught us, with no yoga beforehand. Once he just had us breathe deeply and fully through rounded lips for 11 minutes, and I felt exuberantly high for the rest of the night; I could barely contain my energy!
Now that I’m back into the “Har” meditation, there’s that issue, often overlooked (because, frankly, nobody knows the correct answer!) about pronunciation.
“Be sure to hit the roof of your mouth with your tongue.”
“It’s a rolled ‘r'”
“Yes, it’s a rolled ‘r’ – but short, like in ‘raisin'”
Then there are the recordings. For sure, they sound like they’re chanting “HUD.”
And somewhere in the middle of sorting through all that, my mind quieted down, and focused for the final few minutes.