Day 7: AUM

Hey yogis, here we are, day seven. So today's technique, similar but adding on. So we're going to begin seated as usual, we'll align the body. I'm going to gently guide you through the counting technique. And then once we've had some silent quiet time with that, I'm going to introduce kind of the first stages of mantra meditation.

We're going to keep it simple and we're going to use Om, the vibration of Om. Really ancient, powerful mantra, Om. So let's begin, sitting in Virasana or your crossed leg seat of choice, close your eyes and moving right into the physical adjusting, the fine tuning of your body. Creating your base, creating your spinal alignment, very important that all the curves are intact for optimal energy flow, optimal movement of your diaphragm. The Shishumna, main energy channel, nadi, that correlates with the spine.

It also means we have to effort much less when we've aligned from the tail to the crown. So do your thing in adjusting your body, scanning for tension, lining the shoulder girdle, imagine if you could see yourself from the side, shoulders sync up with the ears. Begin through for any spaces of gripping as you systematically begin to relax. Every day is different, every meditation is different, we are constantly changing. So now that inner check-in, how are you today?

What is true today? As you get still and as you get quiet. Where we recognize and see that those thoughts and emotions and even our bodies that it's all changing, the less disturbed we are by the change and able to go inside and underneath all of that to that aspect of ourselves that isn't changing, inner stability that exists within each of us, but we have to get still and quiet in order to access it. So onto the breath, observing your breathing. Soon as you feel like the breath is natural, you're not kind of pulled to change the breathing, it's just breathing itself.

Then you're going to layer on the technique beginning with counting exhalations 50, inhalations 49, exhaling 48, so every exhale is an even number, every in-breath is an odd number, down to 20, if you distract, go back to 50, eventually if you make it to 20, just count each out-breath and again that sense of slowing yourself down even more if you make it down to 20. So we're going to use this technique for a few minutes before we add on a new point of time.