8 practices

The opening stage of Ajapa Japa, a meditation that synchronizes the mantra Soham with the felt movement of breath rising from the navel to the throat on inhalation and descending on exhalation — an entry point into the chakra-linked practices that follow in later stages.

A practice of discovering that the breath itself already forms a natural mantra — So on the in-breath, Ham on the out-breath — then following that sound as it appears to travel along an imagined psychic passage between the navel and the throat.

The opening stage of Antar Mouna ('inner silence'), a multi-stage meditation that begins not by suppressing the outer world but by deliberately, non-judgmentally attending to it — sound especially — as the doorway into witnessing awareness.

A humming exhalation practiced with the ears plugged, so the sound reverberates inside the head — framed in this text less as breath control than as a meditation that traces the heart centre's 'unstruck sound' to its source.

A single sitting that moves attention in sequence through ajna, mooladhara, swadhisthana, manipura, anahata, and vishuddhi chakras, pausing at each to locate a subtle pulsation, before sweeping awareness up and down the whole chain several times.

A three-stage eyebrow-centre gazing practice combined with chanting Om, moving from external awareness of the gaze, to internal awareness of the mantra at the eyebrow centre, to awareness of the mantra's vibration filling the whole body.

A concentration practice of steady, unblinking gazing at a candle flame, alternated with holding its after-image in the mind's eye once the eyes are closed — training one-pointedness through a single unmoving object rather than through withdrawal from the senses.

A steady, unblinking gaze at a candle flame, then at its after-image behind closed eyes, used in this book's ajna chakra program to sharpen concentration and settle a restless mind.