Thank all of you very much for coming. It’s Saturday evening, I know there’re a lot of things to do on Saturday. Everybody had many choices, so we appreciate you’re choosing to come here.
We are going to be speaking tonight about yoga, specifically we will entitle it: «The health, harmony and peace of yoga.»
There are different yoga systems. Some are much more popular than others today. But they all have one thing in common: they all revolve around the main activity of meditation. So any presentation on yoga would have to include some meditation. And so it will be tonight.
We’re going to begin our program with the very easy meditation. There are three main reasons for this. Number one, we‘ve been busy all day in the outside world doing whatever we were doing. Now it is time to slow down, relax and be receptive. So our meditation will help that to occur. Number two, by doing this meditation we’ll be able to understand the subject matter a little more easily. And finally, you get to learn this meditation. You can take it home with you, practice on your own.
The type of meditation that we’ll be doing is called mantra meditation. Mantras are transcendental sounds. Transcendental means transcendent or beyond the material realm. Beyond the material realm is the spiritual realm. So transcendental sound means spiritual sound. These mantras originate in the spiritual world and descend into the material world, and they bring with them great spiritual power. When we contact this sound vibration, automatically we receive great spiritual benefit.
In the package that you received, there are two cards which have mantras on them. The mantra we’ll be using now is on this yellow card. It is the mantra GAURANGA. If you look, you see GAURANGA is divided into four syllables: GAU-RA-ANG-GA. That is how we will be using GAURANGA in this meditation. To make sure we have our pronunciation correct, we can all practice saying it now. First I will say the mantra, and then everyone can respond. Ok, is everybody ready? All right. GAU-RA-ANG-GA. GAU-RA-ANG-GA. All right. Very good.
Our technique is also very easy. It’s a deep breathing technique. Sometimes we even call this GAURANGA breathing. We breathe in through our nose very slowly and gently, but also very deeply. Take the air all the way down to the low abdomen. When we inhale, silently in our mind we chant the mantra GAU-RA-ANG-GA. When our body’s filled with air, we begin to exhale and out loud we chant GAU-RA-ANG-GA. Then we’ll repeat this several times.
Before we begin the meditation, we want to relax. To help us relax we’re going to take a big breath and let it out. Then while we do our meditation, we want to listen closely to the sound and put the mind on the sound, meditate on the sound. So that’s the process.
I’m going to give you a demonstration to show how it works. Then we can all do it together. We encourage everyone to take part in the meditation. The more we all take part, the more we all benefit, and you get to experience the meditation directly. Ok, here is the demonstration. I’m going to begin by taking a big breath and relaxing. Now very slowly, gently and deeply I inhale and chant GAU-RA-ANG-GA in the mind:
GAU-RA-ANG-GA. GAU-RA-ANG-GA.
Ok, it’s just that easy. Let’s all do that now. It’s good to sit erect in your seat, it helps us to breathe. Feet flat on the floor is the best. Now all you have to do is to follow my guidance. Remember to relax, meditate on the sound. When we finish, just sit quietly for a couple of moments and feel the effect. All right, everybody take a big breath, let it out, and relax. Now very slowly, gently and deeply inhale, and chant GAU-RA-ANG-GA in the mind.
GAU-RA-ANG-GA. GAU-RA-ANG-GA. GAU-RA-ANG-GA…
So you can see this is a very easy meditation to do. Maybe also you found it’s very relaxing. This is an excellent way to begin your day and an excellent way to end the day. So take your cards with you and you can practice on your own.