Self-inquiry Meditation with Swami Shankarananda

Track 14. Speaking to Your Mind

Say to yourself:

• Oh my mind, think positive thoughts.
• Think well of me.
• Think well of others.

Notice the feeling tone that comes with each of these three statements.

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Track 13. Looking For The Upward Shift Inside

Close your eyes and search for feelings or ideas within yourself. Is there joy inside (confidence, satisfaction, pleasure)? Is there love inside (gratitude)? Is there clarity or wisdom inside? Is there peace or contentment inside? Is there energy inside? Is there doership or ambition inside? In each case, locate where
in the body the feeling is held.

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Track 12. Who Has Entered My Inner Space?

The next time you feel depressed, unbalanced or contracted, turn your attention inside, become aware of the state of your inner world, and ask yourself, ‘Who is in here?’ or ‘Who have I let in?’ You will be surprised at what you understand from this simple inquiry.

Hint: If there’s someone with whom you’re somewhat obsessed, or even thinking about a lot, it’s likely that they are ‘inside you’. You should remember, however, that sometimes this happens in the unconscious, and when you discover who is inside you, it comes as a revelation.

Ask, ‘Is it my mother? My father?’
‘My spouse?’
‘The culture?’
‘A false or limited “I”?’
‘Some imagined person who views me critically?’

Once you find who it is you’ve let in—and you can also find how you have weakened yourself to enable them to come in—politely ask them to leave.

Now call on the Self, God, Guru or Consciousness, and ask that your inner space be expanded and empowered.

Track 11. The Marvelous Technique of Proxying

You can proxy another person when that person’s feeling invades you or when you are a well-wisher of that person and you want to help them. In either of these cases, proxying has a magical effect.

Since Consciousness is one, we can work with another’s feeling inside of ourselves and we can help another in this way and we also can decontaminate ourselves when we’ve been affected by another’s feeling. Use proxying.

To proxy, you look at the feeling within you and you assume that it comes from the other person and you make statements, as you would for yourself. You begin with A-Statements. You say, ‘I’m X …’—X being the other person— ‘and I feel angry. I feel sad. I feel scared’. You can be specific and find their underlying statements. ‘I’m X, I feel unlovable. I’m X, I feel weak. I’m X, I feel like a failure.’ To help the other person, when you come to the end of the A-Statements, you can make B-Statements. ‘I’m X and I feel optimistic. I’m X, I am capable. I’m X, I love myself.’ You can go seamlessly into G-Statements. ‘I’m X and I am Shiva.'

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Track 10. Advanced Personal Inquiry

This is a streamlined version of personal inquiry for adept meditators:

• Discover where you hold the most second force, and make A-Statements.
• Keeping in mind that any second force or tension you hold is based on some sort of wrong understanding, ask yourself, ‘What do I have to do to shift this feeling?"

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Track 9. Personal Inquiry

Look within. Scan the four chakras for tension.

• Find where you hold the most tension or second force.
• Give yourself A-Statements until you are satisfied that you have accurately described the feeling.
• Give yourself B- and G-Statements until a shift occurs.
• Meditate.

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Track 8. G-Statement Contemplation

Read the following G-Statements. They are either directly from the Shaivite scriptures or glossed from them. With each one, you should watch how they impact you. See if they are easy to accept or not, and notice where they affect you. Do they go into your heart, your third eye? Do they uplift you? See if any of them open up a doorway within you. In these G-Statements, ‘Shiva’ is synonymous with the Self, God, or universal Consciousness.

• Everything is Consciousness.
• Consciousness is the most healing and desirable thing.
• I am Shiva.
• Every thought and feeling, even my blocks, are Shiva.
• The way I think creates the experience of my life.
• This universe is drenched in love.
• I am the Lord of Matrika.
• There is absolutely no problem.
• All these people are Shiva in their own universe.
• Everything is perfect as it is.
• Whatever meditation I am having is Shiva.

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Track 7. Making A-Statements

Go inside. Say to yourself, ‘I feel …’—mad, sad, bad, scared or glad. It might be a mixture of things. You might feel a cocktail of emotions. Don’t worry or torment yourself about accuracy.

Make an A-Statement in this moment: ‘I feel …’—let the word come to you, then fit it to the feeling and see if it seems true. Then make the A-Statement to yourself.

Feel what it is like to make an A-Statement.

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Track 6. You Can Always Have The Meditation You Are Having

Sit down and look within. Whatever you experience, pleasant or unpleasant, is what is given. This is the meditation you are having. Shaivism says every thought, every feeling, even every contraction is Shiva.

If you can make a verbal A-Statement, do so. If not, simply ‘be as you are’ in this existential moment. Say to yourself, ‘I am this form of Shiva’ or ‘I am Shiva in this form’ or ‘All this is Shiva’ or, as Popeye would say, ‘I yam what I yam’. Meditate with this awareness—your present experience is Shiva. As you do this, you honour your present experience. You do not reject it in favour of some imagined ‘better’ experience. You do not compare it with other possible meditations or with the meditation the person next to you is having. You simply have the meditation you are having, knowing that it is Shiva.

At the beginning, your acceptance of your present state might be tainted by the hope that Shiva will reward you by taking it away and revealing something more profound. Gradually you let that thought go and settle into your present experience. As you relax into it, it will reveal your deeper nature to you.
This method gives peace because it eliminates the phantom of the better meditation and the higher state we’re always seeking. ‘You can always have the meditation you are having’ is a meditative technique you can use forever.

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Track 5. Becoming Present Contemplation

Close your eyes, think about the past; everything that’s happened leading to this moment has gone. Think about the future; the future has not yet come. What’s real, what’s actual, is the present moment. In the present moment, listen to the sounds. Now feel the sensations in your body—the sensation of sitting, your neck, your back. Now be aware of your breath coming in, going out. You’ve breathed a lot in the past, you will breathe in the future; the only breath that gives you air is the present breath. Breathe that breath.

Now turning to the inner world, become aware of your mind, of thoughts in your mind. The mind is thinking. We’re not concerned with the content of the thoughts, but just that thoughts are occurring. Be aware of thoughts. At the same time, there’s a feeling aspect of your inner experience. Be aware of your feeling or your mood in present time. It doesn’t matter what the mood is, just be aware that there is some feeling, some mood.

Going deeper, go to the sense of ‘I’. Say ‘I am’ and feel the feeling of being you in this moment. The feeling sense of ‘I’—it’s the most intimate, most personal, closest to the centre feeling: ‘I am.’

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