Well, I drank coffee too late last night, and paid for it today. For a while, I used to stay up through the night so I could make it to morning Sadhana, and then sleep through the morning. Not the most effective plan, but I made Sadhana the priority in a warped sort of way. So today I missed the Orange Grove Quaker Meeting in Pasadena that seems to make my week go better. But sometimes rest is as important as silence. Especially in the wake of the cold I’ve been recovering from. But I also missed playing bass at Elderberries this afternoon with Kevin, so that was a disappointment.
Tonight, Sunday eve, is the 12 step meditation meeting at the Vedanta Center in Hollywood, and that’s one of the cornerstones of my week. I pulled out my copy of the next Master’s Touch meditation, p. 65’s “Meditation to Brighten Your Radiance,” and it was silent and 21 minutes long; the meditation meeting has 20 minutes for silent meditation; perfect. OK, one minute shy, but perfect enough.
I did a bit of bound lotus to try to re-align my energy and started to feel a bit better; this meditation seemed to build on the previous Masters Touch meditation, in which you pressed your shoulder blades back as you held your raised arms at your sides, this time with the hands in gyan mudra, facing forward, breathing long and slowly, in and out, through round lips. Curiously, I mentioned Yogi Bhajan having us breathe intensely through rounded lips as a kriya by itself in my last post, and here’s that breath.
Frequently I do the “one minute breath” when long deep breathing is prescribed, as it’s done in the last segment of Subagh Kriya; in for 20 seconds, held for 20 seconds, and then out for 20 seconds. Supposedly one of the gurus spent his whole life breathing in one-minute breath, but I forget which one, and that seems a bit difficult if he ever had to chant or talk to anybody. Regardless, it does seem to bring balance to the mind and body.
The meditation was pretty powerful, and helped to focus me a lot. Having a clearer head helped my meditation go deeper too. There was a wonderful hug from a charming lady afterwards too, that I didn’t want to end. There are so many great people at that meeting that I usually feel like I can’t connect with all of them afterwards, and had to cut things a bit shorter with some than I would’ve liked tonight.
I asked two friends to come over and try to help me move my new enormous file cabinet on top of my desk afterwards, and they obliged, but the thing was just too heavy for all three of us, even, and ended up leaving a big dent in the sheet rock. Ugh. So they left, actually I drove one home, and then I rearranged the file cabinets, leaving humungo on the floor, and began to sort my yogic paperwork. Actually I sorted and filed a slew of really technical papers and old business project files, but then realized I was more interested in sorting my yoga stuff.
I’d had some problems finding my favorite hand-written or xeroxed yoga sets lately, as a consequence of clutter and the mischief, undoubtably, of elves. I remember seeing Gurushabd’s file cabinets filled with his years of yoga sets, and thinking how sensible that was. So the piles are sorted into folders and many are filed now. I found the sets I couldn’t find before, and have piles of others I haven’t tried yet.
Many other things turned up too; a nice little post-it from Gurmukh from when I was doing seva at Golden Bridge, my teacher’s training notes, and my notes from years of Guru Singh’s classes. Also many non-Kundalini Yoga materials; Kriya Yoga instructions, Steve Leslie’s Ashtanga book, which he was publishing as he wrote it on Facebook, and many others too. There were some notes from a few years ago that prescribed doing “Aap Sahae Hoa” in early May. So many meditations, not enough time.
It’s late, early actually, and my sleep schedule is still out of whack. But I’m going to do the “har” meditation, and perhaps Mayra Man Loche, which isn’t anything like a cafe con leche, before turning in.