14 practices

"A Drop of Immortality" — a minor Upanishad devoted specifically to training and ultimately dissolving the mind, distinguishing liberation-oriented contemplation from ordinary thinking, whether favorable, unfavorable, or object-directed.

Shankaracharya's 15-step meditation manual — a Vedantic reinterpretation of Patanjali's eight-limbed yoga, expanded to fifteen limbs, all converging on Nididhyasana (profound, continuous meditation on the Self) rather than treated as separate techniques.

Shankaracharya's compact manual of Self-knowledge — using a sequence of similes (fire, light, a rope mistaken for a snake) to strip away everything that is not the Self, before prescribing the meditation that carries a qualified seeker into Samadhi.

"The Bliss of the Infinite" — sage Narada, despite his vast learning, confesses he is still unhappy; Sanatkumara leads him through a graded ladder of meditations on successively subtler realities, from Name up through Understanding and beyond, until the Infinite (Bhuma) itself is reached.

A practice of repeatedly returning to a single recognition — 'I am pure Consciousness; the body and its equipments are projections upon Me, not Me' — held not as a one-time thought but as a constant reflection, letting ordinary activity continue without needing to control it, until it settles into an undisturbed abiding the text calls nirvikalpa.

"The Nature of Meditation" — a short text that defines meditation by what it is not (an action, a form of worship, a repeated chant), arguing instead that true meditation is effortless awareness of one's own true nature.

A short verse text that trains the discrimination between the Seer (the witnessing awareness) and everything seen (objects, senses, mind, thoughts) — and turns that discrimination directly into a meditation method.

A discrimination the commentary explicitly frames as "a technique... to hush up the mind": sorting whatever arises in meditation into the ever-changing 'form' (therefore false) and the changeless awareness that witnesses it (therefore real), then extending that same recognition to the body itself via a mirror-and-reflection image.

"Purification of the Mind" — identifies ignorance and mental impurity as the two obstructions to Self-knowledge, surveys the conventional purificatory practices, and argues that Self-enquiry is the most direct means because it strikes at ignorance itself.

One of the principal Upanishads, best known for its bow-and-arrow meditation instruction: OM as the bow, the individual soul as the arrow, and Brahman as the target — meditation as an act of unerring, one-pointed aim.

A single declarative bhavana (contemplative feeling-conviction) drawn from and named after the Ribhu Gita's constant refrain, repeated again and again until identification with the body and mind gives way to the natural, ever-present sense of being Brahman.

A modern teaching on the Mandukya Upanishad's account of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep, using a 'station master' analogy to guide an inquiry into the changeless witnessing consciousness (Turiya) present through all three.

"The Advice of Lord Shiva" — Ramana Maharshi's 30-verse survey of the four paths (action, devotion, yoga, knowledge), culminating in his own signature teaching: Self-enquiry, the question "Who am I?"

A condensed digest of Vasishtha's teaching to Sri Rama, tracing the spiritual journey from Rama's dispassion through the seven Bhumikas (stages of knowledge) to liberation — including a distinctive practice of watching ordinary life as a detached observer before turning meditation fully inward.