Yoga Sutras, More Techniques for Quiet Mind

Sutra 1.36:Visoka va jyotishmati, Or by concentrating on the supreme, ever-blissful Light within.

Sutra 1.37:Vita raga vishayam va chittam, Or by concentrating on a great soul's mind which is totally freed from attachment to sense objects.

Sutra 1.38:Svapna nidra jnana alambanam va, Or by concentrating on an insight had during dream or deep sleep.

Sutra 1.39:Yatha abhimata dhyanat va, Or by meditating on anything one chooses that is elevating.

Sri Patanjali offers up four more techniques for quieting the mind. Showing up to do the practice is the next step. Seeing an inner light is a well known practice in yoga. My meditation instructor had a strong emphasis on cultivation of innocence when meditating. This is another way of saying non attachment to the fruits of practice. If you expect to see or experience a certain nice experience you've had in a particular meditation then you just might miss the next one coming your way since you're stuck on the past one. I will tell of an experience that I had just to offer encouragement to the novice. I was going to acupuncture school in Santa Fe, NM in the late 70's and early 80's. I was in a meditation group that would meet daily to practice. Sometimes there would be a short period of sharing of experiences after the group practice. At that time I was seeing a cobalt blue light surrounded by a gold light that would pulsate sometimes bigger to smaller and other times it would start small and become larger and repeat. The meditation I was doing involved mantra repetition. When you realise you are not thinking the mantra you gently return. Other experiences were treated like thoughts. As long as I stayed with the technique the light would continue, if I got into thinking about how cool the light was it would start to disappear. So I shared this with the group one day and this guy in the group told me, "Stan, you're seeing the third eye. I'm reading this book by Swami Muktananda who talks all about that experience." I immediately picked up the book (Play of Consciousness) and read about his spiritual experiences. It helped give me more shraddha (faith) and virya (vigor) for the practice. If I had read the book first I might have questioned if I had imagined the experience.

Fixing the mind on "a great soul's mind which is totally freed from attachment to sense objects" is another traditional meditation in yoga. Says Taimni, "It is a well known law of life that we tend to reproduce in our life the ideas which constantly occupy our mind." Further on he adds, "Patanjali recommends meditation not on an abstract virtue but on the virtue as embodied in a human personality. There is a definite reason for this. In the first place, a beginner who is still trying to acquire steadiness of mind is not likely to derive much benefit from meditation on an abstract virtue. The association of a beloved human or divine personality with a virtue increases enormously the attractive power of that virtue and hence its influence on our life."

Another option is meditation on an uplifting dream we've had or the peaceful feeling one awakens with after deep sleep.

"Or on anything one chooses that is uplifting." I once taught a man to meditate using a yoga mantra. At first he seemed to like the technique. After a while I could tell something wasn't going well for him. Eventually he told me that he had an inner conflict with the particular mantra because of his religious background. He told me a mantra that he was comfortable with and then he went with that. About this Taimni suggests, "Which of these methods will be adopted by a Sadhaka (practitioner) will depend upon the Samskaras (subconscious impressions) which he brings form previous lives and the capacity and temperament of the teacher who initiates him." With this last sutra Patanjali makes it known that the practice to quiet the mind is what is important not the technique.