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meditation is a great help. But meditation is not only a technique. If your awareness is not there, and you do not have all the other qualities we have heard about, it is difficult. Without a little devotion, it is difficult, and so on. But of course, the technique is very important. We have heard from Swami Yogabhakti how yoga nidra helps people. Yoga nidra is a technique and so is antar mouna. Dr. Benson starts with the technique of mantra meditation and he says that later on you can just say "1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3," instead of the mantra , and that is a technique. I do not believe that you can go deep enough by such a method. I think there should be more to it.
The technique of antar mouna is the most subtle one. It is not like repeating a mantra. It is using your senses, first the outer senses and then the inner senses, but not the eyes. You close the eyes, and then you listen to all the sounds around you. Right now, if you hear all the sounds while I am talking, you can have your eyes open or closed, you will experience that we are all part of a very big totality. A helicopter is flying by just now, people are outside, a car is honking, and so on. If you make it a whole experience, your state and your mood will change, and this is the first step of antar mouna.
At first I thought that maybe this stage is not so important. Maybe it is more important to watch the breath, feel the body, and things like that, but the people came back to me. A student who joined me here at the last conference twenty years ago, in 1973, came to me later on and said, “Now I have got to know you, and I know that you are a teacher, but I haven't learnt anything yet really. I want to; I am curious. I want to learn a meditation. Can you teach me one?" He was actually lying to me, because he had a problem, but he would not say that, he just said that he was curious. I said, “Yes, I am just starting an antar mouna course and you can join that. It is conducted at noon for eight sessions over three weeks.
So, he started and learnt the first step. At that time I did not use yoga nidra in that course; I only taught antar mouna. Later on, I added yoga nidra, because it is a little easier if people have released their tension before they sit up and meditate. Anyway, he went home and came back for the next class. He was a little excited and he said, "I must talk to you afterwards, because I simply can't understand what is happening." So I said, "OK. Let's talk."
After the class he came and said "You know, I was lying to
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