Daily Practice

When I was trying out new processes and discovering more and more about my inner life and spiritual matters, I loved the groups that were ‘breakthrough’ – like the Enlightenment Intensive.  There was a sense in such groups that progress was quick and significant. But then I learned that the highs that I experienced after such groups faded, the apparent progress was not sustained. Of course what I had discovered remained, but it became harder to access anything about it as time went on. Despite my enthusiasm and love of intensity I learned that sustainable progress is made slowly over quite long periods of time. This is the core reason for having a daily practice.

The desire to make sustainable progress is a characteristic of the consolidation phase of growth. I found it quite frustrating on many occasions. For example I remember discovering that I was viewing everyone through a childhood filter which required everyone to be either my mother, father, brother, sister, grandfather or other relatives. I vowed to stop doing this and to see other people as they really are, not distorted by my childish filters. Then two weeks later I realised I’d been doing it again, and renewed my resolve not to. This went on for several months and at some point I noticed that I was spotting myself doing this after only one week, not two. Many months later I found that I was catching myself within a day and later still I was able to catch myself within an hour or two. Finally, after persisting for a few years, I was able to catch myself in the moment and finally take control of the behaviour.  This pattern, of noticing my failure over successively shorter periods, was repeated for most of the changes that I sought to make.

Throughout these processes I noticed that if I spent time each day quietly reflecting on what I had been doing – and what I wanted to achieve or change – then the process of change was accelerated. I wasn’t meditating, just recapping the main events from the day and noticing when I was failing to be how I wanted to be.  This was supplemented by keeping a journal. I didn’t write in the journal every day; I wrote only when something significant had happened or occurred to me. I found the discipline of writing down what I had discovered or understood helped ground or anchor the material – it made it easier to integrate somehow. The main trick I learned with regard to the journal was to consciously review it at least once each year – noticing the things that I had committed to and failed to remember or live up to. I was often amused to find myself making the same resolutions repeatedly without realising that I had done so before. The combination of daily reflection, keeping a journal and reviewing it regularly were fundamental to my progress during both the discovery and  consolidation years.

In these early years I also had daily practices that were aimed at helping me physically. I made a point of exercising every day and completing basic yoga stretches, such as the Sun Worshipper. Quite early on a therapist recommended I allow myself to shake for 15 minutes every day to allow my body to recover from being violently shaken as a child. After I had done this for several months I found a host of muscles relaxed that had previously been constantly tense. So daily practice needs to be extended to include most lines of development, not just the emotional.

After I had been Mastering Intensives for 5 years or so, and after I had experienced two kundalini episodes, I became seriously interested in Sahaj Yoga or Natural Meditation. This is a form of meditation, but not of the sitting still and concentrating kind. It requires someone to isolate themselves in a room and to surrender to the Divine and then let whatever  arises be expressed. Traditionally it is at the core of the yogic renunciate path, to be followed only by those devoted to seeking union with God. Berner himself followed this path – as a renunciate – for many years, initially under the guidance of a yogi, Swami Shri Kripaluanandaji. When coupled with the yamas and niyamas it is designed to prepare the body for awakening kundalini. Berner recommended that people not on a renunciate path only practice this meditation one hour, or at most two hours, a day.

As described in the sections on Cleaning up your Act and Purify Physically, I did undertake a minimum level of preparation for this meditation. I found that it suited me to do an hour first thing in the morning and another hour when I had finished work, early in the evening. I am not sure that I made much progress towards liberating kundalini, but I certainly benefitted from the practice. Indeed it was through this practice that I discovered for myself how intoxicants make meditation of any kind very difficult. I also found that when I was particularly busy or stressed, that was the time I needed to meditate most. Although I set an intention to surrender to the Divine at the beginning of each meditation period, the main benefit for me was an increased ability to remain present and calm. I continued this meditation for 12 years – the bulk of the period I would describe as my consolidation phase.

When we moved to our current house, which is in a very isolated, rural setting, I anticipated increasing my time doing Sahaj Yoga significantly. However it didn’t happen. Instead I found myself thrown into new worldly activities, making a different kind of contribution to the world and significantly reducing the number of Intensives I was Mastering. With the new activities I found a more traditional meditation practice, starting by counting my breath and intending to become more aware, more useful and appropriate. Later still my intention shifted from simply being more aware to “Being Love” i.e. manifesting what I had experienced on my first Intensive. These shifts were not designed or chosen by me. At the time each seemed like the natural next step. And by maintaining a regular practice of some kind I trusted that this was what was right for me. However what remained throughout all these changes were the basic lessons, namely;

• the more stressed I am the more and longer I need to meditate
• to be more aware and present it is essential to meditate daily
• as delightful as they can be, intoxicants and meditation do not work well together
• sustainable change takes place slowly and is enhanced by a daily practice