Part Two - Intense Humming:

There is a mythological story where all the gods and demons are together trying to churn the ocean to extract divine nectar. To their surprise the first thing that comes out after the churning is deadly poison. Later many other things appeared as a result of the churning and finally the last thing to come was divine nectar. This is a very metaphorical story which has a deep significance in the process of meditation. When the mind is churned in the process of meditation to extract the experience of enlightenment, the first thing to come out is always the negativity that was suppressed in the past. We should not feel discouraged because this is an indication of progress that the negativity is been thrown out. We should continue our effort with the meditation until we experience the supreme state.

In this initial stage when the inner chatter can potentially bother us, intense humming can be an extremely useful tool. It helps us to silence the mind. Our inner chatter is created between the manipuraka chakra and the swadhistana chakra. This area is also called as hara. When we hum intensely, so intensely that we create the vibration of the humming right below our navel, then we stop this process of continuous inner chatter. It is like shaking the hara. So the humming should happen from below the navel.

The inner chatter is the sole reason for the mind. Mind is nothing but the inner chatter. And through humming when the inner chatter reduces, automatically we start progressing towards no-mind. We start experiencing a different dimension of our Being.

A good car driver always knows intricate details about his car. Like the noise the car makes at different speeds. If there is any malfunction in the engine and the car noise changes, a good driver immediately senses that and takes corrective action. The passengers won't realize anything but a good car driver certainly will.

Similarly, when we start practicing this meditation regularly, based on the intensity and the quality of our humming, we can start understanding our body functions well. If we over eat certain kinds of foods that do not suit us that well, we will see a difference in the quality of our humming. Automatically, we would adjust our body's needs to make sure that the humming is smooth.

Humming gives us an insight into the subtle vibrations of the body and helps us to take corrective action if necessary. It happens automatically and need not be enforced. Our body and the mind are always out of sync. THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM always tells people that if our body is here then it's almost certain that we are not here. Our mind is always hovering all over the place. Our body has its own innate intelligence which is functioning all the time. It's just that the mind refuses to corroborate with that intelligence. It forces the body into certain actions which later on manifests as disease. Disease means absence of ease. If

the body is made to run forcibly, then it is going to revolt some time or the other.

So many times we overeat. The body is giving us the signals that it is full however, the mind is not satisfied. It wants more. And then it goes on filling the body creating more and more damage. The repercussions are then felt later. Creating a harmony between the body and the mind is important for going beyond both. Else we would be caught in this psychophysical entity and transcendence would be difficult. Humming is one of the best techniques to make a bridge between the body and the mind.

Humming allows us to feel our body as energy. The moment we start humming we start feeling light; as if we are floating. We don't feel the heaviness in the body because humming matches the vibrations of the mind with the vibrations of the body. Body and the mind become harmonious and we start experiencing ourselves as energy.

In this step, we will put our lips together and produce the sound 'Mmmm…' from inside. If we were to put your face inside an empty aluminum vessel and make a humming sound, the sound generated will be similar to this. Note that this is not 'Humm…' or 'Omm…', it is simply keeping your lips together and producing 'Mmmm…' sound.

The humming should be as lengthy as possible between breaths; it should be as deep as possible (from the navel center) and as loud as possible. There is no need to make an effort to take in deep breaths as the body itself will take breaths when needed.

We shouldn't become tense however, just do it in a relaxed manner. We should immerse our whole being and energy into creating this vibration. Try to minimize the gap between the humming sounds. After some time, we will feel that the humming continues without our effort and that we

In this step we can continue to sit in vajrasana or sit crossed-legged if that is more comfortable. In this part of the meditation, we will put our awareness on each chakra (energy center) starting from the muladhara chakra (root center) to the sahasrara chakra (crown center).

We have seven energy centers in our body and we need to understand the metaphysical location of these seven energy centers.

Our personality is made up of three bodies or shariras. The physical body (sthul sharira), mental body (sukshma sharira) and the causal body (karana sharira). Similarly there are three states of consciousness. The waking state, the dream state and deep sleep. Beyond these three bodies and the three states of consciousness lies the true self or Atman, whatever you may choose to call. In Sanskrit we call the supreme state as Sharira Traivalaxana, Panchakosha Teetha, Avastha Trya Sakshi (Witness of the three bodies, beyond the five sheaths and the witness of the three states of consciousness).

The physical body is the body that we know, which eats, moves etc in the waking state. The mental body is that we use when we dream. We might be lying in our house in the U.S.A however our mind may be in some other country. That time we are employing our mental body. We also use our mental body in the waking state as our faculty of thinking is going on continuously in the waking state. The causal body is that we use when we are in deep restful dreamless sleep. During the entire sleeping cycle there are phases when the mind becomes dormant and there are no thoughts. This is the time when we experience the causal body.

These three bodies are not separate as we may think. They are tightly coupled. Consider two curved lines drawn on a piece of paper in such a way that they intersect at seven different points. If one of the lines represent the physical body, the other line represents the subtle body and the paper represents the causal body, the

THE NITHYA YOGA PRACTICE