Passage Meditation Instruction & Nonviolence

Nonviolence is the bridge between spiritual practice and social change.

I'm Michael Negler,

President of the Metta Center for Nonviolence.

The classic definition of yoga is the second Sutra of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

And that runs in Sanskrit,

Yoga-Shitavrtti-Nirodha.

Nirodha is a very strong word.

It means suppression,

Control.

It can even mean elimination.

But here it means withholding or control.

And what you're controlling in meditation is with this unique term that he uses,

Chitta-Vritti.

Vritti means perturbation and chitta is consciousness thought of as a kind of substance.

So,

You can think of it – think of the mind as a lake with something very interesting at the bottom,

A brilliant light at the very bottom.

But you cannot see it because of the perturbations in the water and the mud that's stirred up.

So,

What you're trying to do in meditation is get those perturbations to subside so you can become aware of the reality of the universe and which is available within every one of us.

Now,

There are different methods of doing this,

But I'm going to teach you today the method that I know because you cannot really master or communicate a method of meditation that you're not practicing.

I've been practicing this one for many years.

It's called,

Passage Meditation.

And it was developed by a man from South India,

Sri Eknath Eswaran.

His spiritual teacher was his own grandmother.

And of her antecedent,

Spiritually or otherwise,

We know next to nothing,

But she was apparently a God-conscious woman who was a very powerful and very loving influence in his life.

Most meditation methods will give you something to hold onto because you cannot just suppress all the thoughts that pop up in the mind.

And I might point out,

Now that what thoughts means in this context is not just a rational thought like,

I think I'm going to go swimming.

But any desire,

A bit of anxiety,

A plan,

Really any kind of mental content that you can identify as a feeling or put words to is perturbation.

And that whatever they are,

Positive or negative,

They ultimately want to be completely brought to a standstill.

So,

As I was saying,

We can't just go ahead and do this.

The conditioning,

The habit of the mind to keep moving,

To keep producing these little bursts of perturbation is so strong that we can't just turn them off.

We need a method.

So,

Most teachers will give you something to hold onto.

The image that they sometimes use here is that of an elephant going in procession down a village street in India.

It will reach out and grab all kinds of things off the stall unless you give it a bamboo stick to hold onto when it's drunk.

And then it just marches proudly along without bothering anybody or anything.

So,

What's distinctive about the method that Sri Isharan discovered is that you meditate on an inspirational passage.

It can be from any tradition.

In fact,

He recommends a variety of traditions because all religions have their own aspect,

Their own way of looking at the supreme reality.

But it has to be positive.

And so,

At this point,

I'd like to refer you to his website because I'm only giving you,

Of course,

A bare introduction.

And there are a lot,

A lot of resources on this very pretty website which you can reach at bmcm.

Org.

Okay?

So,

One of the things that you can find at bmcm.

Org along with video recordings of Isharan and so forth are these meditation passages which are also in a large book called,

Timeless Wisdom.

Here's a passage that we find very suitable for meditation because it talks about converting negative to positive.

It's the Prayer of Saint Francis.

Lord,

Make me an instrument of thy peace.

Where there is hatred,

Let me sow love.

Where there is injury,

Pardon.

Where there is doubt,

Faith.

Where there is despair,

Hope.

Where there is darkness,

Light.

Where there is sadness,

Joy.

Oh,

Divine Master,

Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console.

To be understood as to understand.

To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.

It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.

So,

What we do is memorize that passage,

That prayer,

Or some other that you find inspiring and positive.

And close your eyes,

Sit with back,

Head,

And neck in a reasonably straight line,

A fairly comfortable way either on a chair or on the floor if you can do that.

And close your eyes gently and start going through the words in your mind.

Now the key to the technique is this,

As you're doing it,

Some distraction is very likely to come up.

An association with one of the words,

Something that's been on your mind,

Whatever.

Whatever that comes up that is not in the passage is a distraction.

And the important thing here is not to struggle with the distraction,

Not to get annoyed,

Which then gives you two distractions,

But rather use that as a signal that you should concentrate more on the words.

When you get to the end of the passage – let's say you're meditating for 30 minutes in the morning,

Which is recommended.

When you get to the end of the passage,

30 minutes having to lapse,

You can either go onto another passage or start this one over again.

It's a good idea to have your nice repertoire set up before you start meditating.

So,

We find that doing this half an hour every morning,

Trying to be pretty regular about that is what makes this technique of passage meditation really work.

There are other aspects to the program,

But this is the way that the meditation in particular works.

And the connection with nonviolence is very interesting.

If someone threatens you,

You have a reaction of fear or anger,

That reaction is actually a distraction.

It's distracting you from your awareness of that person's inner reality.

Having practiced pulling the mind back from distractions over and over again,

You really have to practice it a lot.

You're in very good shape to do that with the emotion distraction that comes up in a threatening situation.

So,

It's really quite remarkable when you first notice this happening.

It feeds directly into our capacity as nonviolent practitioners.

So,

That is the technique in essence.

And I wish you all the best of luck.

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