November/December 2014 - Transformation Journal

American Meditation Institute americanmeditation.org

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2014

AVERILL PARK, NEW YORK

Self-Care for Healthy Living

IS GURU! But Without Your Discrimination, You Could Be In Trouble.

By Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev) see p. 8

Upcoming Classes and Events Inside this Issue: AMI Stress Management Beginner’s Meditation Comprehensive Meditation If you want to start and maintain a meditation practice, this course is perfect for you. / P. 2

FREE Guided Meditation Every Sunday morning at 9:30 you can experience a “guided meditation” with Leonard. / P. 4

This six week “self-care” program offers the complete science of Yoga, and lifelong support. / P. 3

Transformation

Practical essays by respected Yoga scientists to support and deepen your meditation. / P. 8

This one day course provides the tools to transform stress into useable creative energy. / P. 5

Advanced Tantric Healing A two day course that teaches the powerfully healing Yoga Nidra practices of Tantra. / P. 4

COMPLETE AMI CLASS SCHEDULE: Pages 2-5

AMI Classes for November - December 2014

BEGINNER’S MEDITATION: The Basics for Getting Started Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev), AMI Founder LEVEL I: Have you ever thought about trying meditation, but didn’t know how to get started? In AMI’s two-session course, you’ll receive step-by-step guidance on how to start—and stick with—a daily meditation practice. It’s easy to learn the basics: how to deal with distractions, reduce stress, enhance your body’s immune system and become more focused, creative and content. This class includes a FREE “guided meditation” CD.

What is Meditation?

In meditation you are fully alert, but the mind is relaxed and allowed to let go of its tendencies to think, analyze, remember, solve problems and focus on events of the past or expectations for the future. Meditation helps the mind to slow down its rapid series of thoughts and feelings that often lead to stress and dis-ease, and to replace that mental activity with a quiet, effortless, one-pointed focus of attention and awareness. Thus, meditation is not thinking about problems or analyzing a situation. Meditation is not having an internal conversation or argument with yourself. It is an inner attention that is concentrated, yet relaxed. It does not conflict with any religious tradition.

and body are calm and relaxed, dis-ease from a previously agitated system (that may have intensified issues such as high blood pressure, headaches, back pain, insomnia, digestive problems or PMS) is lessened, and you feel better.

• Meditation can improve all relationships.

By offering you tools to deal with stressful thoughts, meditation helps you remain calm, compassionate and skillful with others and to be more loving toward yourself.

• Meditation makes you smarter. A 2005 Harvard Medical School study showed that meditation increased thickness in the regions of the brain associated with attention, sensory awareness and emotional processing.

Why Should I Meditate?

• Meditation makes you more creative. By

According to ABC World News Tonight, meditation is used today by many Americans including the U. S. Marines and students in classrooms all over the country. In 2011, 10% of U.S. adults (over 20 million) practiced meditation and 3 million patients, on the recommendation of their physicians, established their own meditation practice.

resting the mind from its habit of thinking, planning, judging and worrying, you create more space for new ideas to arise and to be noticed. Meditation also lowers resistance you may have to new concepts and ways of thinking.

• Meditation can make you healthier.

Daily meditation is an essential ingredient in your own personal “self-care health program.” Scientific studies at the Mayo Clinic show that “meditating slows breathing rate, heart rate, lowers blood pressure and aids in the treatment of anxiety, depression and a range of other ailments.”

• Meditation calms the mind. The mind and body are inter-connected. When the mind is calm, the body becomes stronger, more flexible, and less inflamed. When the mind 2

Meditating in a Chair: AMI teaches you to meditate in a straight-back chair. For proper posture, the head, neck and trunk should be comfortably erect (no slouching). For best back comfort, your buttocks should be slightly higher than your knees.

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SATURDAY MORNINGS, 9:30 -10:30AM, $95. (2 WKS) DEC 6 & 13; JAN 10 & 17; MAR 7 & 14

•*

Your entire $95 registration fee will be applied to your COMPREHENSIVE MEDITATION tuition should you decide to register for that additional class within one year.

americanmeditation.org • Tel. (518) 674-8714 TMTM

COMPREHENSIVE MEDITATION: The Heart and Science of Yoga Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev), AMI Founder

LEVEL I: AMI’s acclaimed six-week course teaches you how to apply meditation principles to every situation. This complete “self-care health program” includes all the Beginner’s Meditation material plus breathing techniques, nutrition counseling, easy-gentle yoga exercises, instruction on how to make the best possible choices and lifelong support for your meditation practice. It provides you all the tools you’ll need to ease stress, reduce pain, boost your immune system, heal relationships, enhance your problem solving ability and find inner peace, happiness and security.

A retrospective case study of former Heart and Science of Yoga TM students

recently found these positive, reproducible, long-term health-promoting changes: • Lowered blood pressure • Lowered heart rate • Reduced cholesterol levels • Weight loss

• Increased breathing capacity • Increased exercise capacity • Improved restorative sleep • Improved energy levels

• Increased creative capacity • Diminished migraines • Reduced stress and fear • Eliminated irritable bowel

• Enhanced happiness/optimism • Diminished or extinguished acute and chronic pain

TM

The Heart and Science of Yoga Curriculum is Endorsed by

Dr. Oz (Mehmet Oz MD), Dean Ornish MD, Bernie Siegel MD, Larry Dossey MD WEEK 1: YOGA SCIENCE How to use the mind for the best choices How to create new, healthier habits Understanding pain as an agent for healing Increasing energy, will power & creativity Antidotes for worry, stress and depression

WEEK 4: PSYCHOLOGY & AYURVEDA How the mind supports optimal health The power of the present moment Building and healing relationships Introduction to Ayurveda WEEK 5: EASY-GENTLE YOGA Yoga stretches and exercises for: muscles, joints, glands and internal organs Physiological benefits of Hatha Yoga WEEK 6: MIND-BODY CARE PLAN The healing power of prayer The practical benefit of contemplation Creating a therapeutic care plan Learning to budget your time Integrating spiritual beliefs

WEEK 2: MEDITATION Systematic procedure for meditation How to diminish distractions Learning the one-minute meditation Building focus, fearlessness, and strength WEEK 3: BREATHING TECHNIQUES Breath as Medicine How breathing irregularities foster dis-ease Complete (three-part) yogic breath WEDNESDAY NIGHTS, 6:30 - 9:00PM, $475.

Registration Includes: Lifelong support for

Required Texts: The Heart and Science of Yoga

your meditation practice, a Guided Meditation CD, a complementary subscription to Transformation journal and a copy of The Physiology of EasyGentle Yoga.

(6 WKS) Physicians $775; PAs, NPs, Psychologists: $675; RNs: $575 NOV 12 – DEC 17; JAN 14 – FEB 18 TM

and The Art of Joyful Living.

PHYSICIAN ACCREDITATION (15 CMEs)

NURSING ACCREDITATION (15 contact hours)

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and Policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education through the joint providership of Albany Medical College and The American Meditation Institute. Albany Medical College is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

This continuing nursing education activity was approved by the Massachusetts Association of Registered Nurses, Inc., an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialling Center's Commission on Accreditation.

The Albany Medical College designates this Live activity for a maximum of 15 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits TM. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

The American Meditation Institute (AMI) has been approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists.

AMI maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

PSYCHOLOGIST ACCREDITATION (15 CE hours)

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americanmeditation.org • Tel. (518) 674-8714

Our Founder LEONARD PERLMUTTER is a noted educator and founder of The American Meditation Institute. He is the author of The Heart and Science of Yoga TM and the mind/body medicine journal, Transformation. Leonard has served on the faculties of the New England Institute of Ayurvedic Medicine, the Himalayan Yoga Teachers Association and the College of Saint Rose. He is a disciple of Swami Rama––who, in laboratory conditions at the Menninger Institute, demonstrated that blood pressure, heart rate and the autonomic nervous system can be voluntarily controlled. Leonard has presented courses at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, the Commonwealth Club, the Albany Medical College and The New York Times Yoga Forum with Dean Ornish, MD.

Professional

ENDORSEMENTS “Traditional medicine is very good at treating physical illness. However, studies show that the state of one’s health has more to do with lifestyle choices than with heredity or medical care. Patients need something beyond what we can offer them. Meditation relieves stress, allows clearer thinking and helps to control many chronic illnesses, all at very low cost and a small investment of time. We are fortunate to have the excellence of AMI in our area.”

ADVANCED TANTRIC HEALING “Yoga Nidra” Practices To Benefit Mind and Body Leonard Perlmutter –– AMI Founder LEVEL II: This course provides important instruction on employing the subtle energy healing of Tantra, a system of powerfully effective tools for self-care and stress management.

Each week you will be taught new skills that reduce the effects of stress, illness and physical exhaustion by purifying the mind and body.

These deeply therapeutic yogic practices minimize tension, facilitate energy flow, calm and train the mind, awaken creativity, enhance memory and retard the aging and disease processes by boosting the body’s innate healing wisdom. This advanced two-week course will provide you complete instruction in the practices of yoga nidra, shitali karana, shavayatra, trataka and tantric visualization.

This study is recommended for physicians, nurses, counselors and therapists as well as the general public.

SUNDAY AFTERNOONS, 2:00 - 4:00PM, $125 (2 WKS) NOV 23 & 30

FREE GUIDED MEDITATION Leonard (Ram Lev) and Jenness Perlmutter LEVEL I: Join AMI’s FREE 20-minute guided meditation and satsang teaching. Participants may sit on comfortable chairs or on the floor.

SUNDAYS, 9:30 - 11:00AM, FREE

RICHARD RUBIN MD Internal Medicine, Slingerlands, NY

PREMARITAL COUNSELING The AMI Curriculum is also endorsed by:

Dr. Oz (Mehmet Oz MD), Dean Ornish MD Bernie Siegel MD, Larry Dossey MD

Directions to A MI • 60 Garner Road I-90 Exit #8 (Rt. 43 E). Take Rt. 43 for 4 1/2 miles. In W. Sand Lake, take a right turn at the lighted intersection onto Rt. 150.

Go 1 mile on Rt. 150. Take a left turn on Cnty Rd #52/Sheer Rd (at stone wall). Go 1 mile on Sheer Rd and bear left at fork onto Garner Rd. AMI is the 3rd house on the right.

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Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev), AMI Founder Int’l. Association of Yoga Therapists Our own hopes, attitudes, expectations and assumptions will shape the marriage determining what joy, stability and fulfillment we create together. This counseling can help you create a loving philosophy of life that can identify the strengths and needs of both partners.

AMI HOME CENTER, By appointment. $125 /hr.

AMI Classes for November - December 2014

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YOGA PSYCHOLOGY BHAGAVAD GITA STUDY

Leonard (Ram Lev) and Jenness Perlmutter Available by CDL (Computer Distance Learning) Attend this in-depth course from your own home or anywhere in the world. Call 518.674.8714 for details.

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LEVEL II: In continuous six week installments this course presents the profound teachings of the Bhagavad Gita as a handbook on the science of life and the art of living. If you are seeking a manual or guide for the supreme task of living in the world today, this ongoing study will provide you practical wisdom, meaning and purpose for your life. Each week Leonard and Jenness will teach you how to reduce stress, confidently enhance your health and creative abilities, while providing you a fresh, positive perspective on all your family and business relationships.

MONDAY NIGHTS, 6:30 - 8:30 PM, $150. (6 WKS) OCT 27, NOV 17 - DEC 15; JAN 5 - FEB 9

PHYSICIANS’ CME CONFERENCE Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev), AMI Founder November 5-9, 2014 Cranwell Resort • Lenox, MA • 30 CMEs

According to the National Institutes of Health, more than 1 in 3 Americans are now seeking mind/body healing therapies to supplement their conventional care, and a growing number of patients are seeking guidance about the value of various holistic modalities. This conference (at one of the nation’s premier golf and spa resorts) provides an opportunity for physicians and other health care providers to deepen their understanding of Yoga Science as mind/body medicine in a stimulating immersion course led by Leonard Perlmutter and a panel of other leading medical experts. Physicians receive 30 CME credits; nurses receive 30 contact hours.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: TEL. (518) 674-8714 OR VISIT: americanmeditation.org/cme

A MI STRESS MANAGEMENT Techniques to Transform Stress Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev) AMI Founder The pace of modern life makes stress management a necessary skill for everyone. Many people juggle multiple responsibilities: work, family, school, caregiving and a variety of other relationships. Learning to identify stressful situations and implement solutions is the key to successful stress reduction. Stress is a normal psychological and physical reaction to the demands of life. Remember that your brain comes hard-wired with an alarm system for your protection. When your brain perceives a threat, it signals your body to release a burst of hormones to fuel your capacity to respond. This has been termed the fight-flightfreeze response. Once the threat is gone, your body is meant to return to a normal relaxed state. Unfortunately, the nonstop stress of modern life means your alarm system remains on high alert and never shuts off. Over time, high levels of stress can lead to serious health problems. That’s why stress management is so important. AMI Stress Management provides you a range of helpful tools (like diaphragmatic breathing) to reset your alarm system.

Don’t wait until stress has a negative impact on your health, relationships or quality of life.

Start today to learn a range of simple and easy to use stress management techniques that have worked for over 5,000 years.

TUESDAY NIGHT, 7:00 - 8:30PM, $75 NOV 18; DEC 9

PERSONAL COUNSELING Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev), AMI Founder Int’l. Association of Yoga Therapists Meditational therapy is the world’s oldest form of mind/body medicine. With over 35 years of personal practice, Leonard will teach you how to observe and harness the power of your thoughts, desires and emotions to enhance your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well being.

AMI HOME CENTER, By appointment. $125 /hr.

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CALENDAR FREE: SUNDAY GUIDED MEDITATION & SATSANG Sundays 9:30-11:00 AM with Leonard (Ram Lev) and Jenness

NOVEMBER 2014 OCT 27, NOV 17-DEC 15: GITA/YOGA PSYCHOLOGY see p.5 Mon. Nights, 6:30 - 8:30 PM (6 wk.Gita Study)

NOV 5 - 9: PHYSICIANS’ RETREAT (30 CMEs) see p.5 Wed. through Sun. Cranwell Resort, Lenox, MA

NOV 12 - DEC 17: COMPREHENSIVE MEDITATION see p.3 Wed. Nights, 6:30 - 9:00 PM (6 weeks)

NOV 18: AMI STRESS MANAGEMENT see p. 5 Tues. Night, 7:00 - 8:30 PM

NOV 22: FREE THANKS-GIVING DINNER see p. 10 NOV 23 & 30: ADVANCED TANTRIC HEALING see p. 4

15% OFF ALL ITEMS A MI BOOKSTORE Through December 31st BOOKS • CDs • COFFEE MUGS STATUARY • YOGA MATS HOMEOPATHIC MEDICINE G.I. SUSTAIN

NEW ONLINE MEDITATION COURSE INCENSE • JEWELRY NETI POTS • MASSAGE OILS At AMI’s Bookstore in Averill Park or Online at: americanmeditation.org/ami-shop

American Meditation Institute

Self-Care for Healthy Living

November-December, 2014 • Vol. XVIII No. 1 ©2014 60 Garner Road, Averill Park, NY 12018

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Sun. Afternoons, 2:00 - 4:00 PM (2 weeks)

DECEMBER 2014 DEC 6 & 13: BEGINNER’S MEDITATION

see p. 2

Sat. Mornings, 9:30 - 10:30 AM (2 weeks)

DEC 9: AMI STRESS MANAGEMENT see p. 5 Tues. Night, 7:00 - 8:30 PM

DEC 31: FREE NEW YEAR’S EVE see p. 11 Wed. Night, 6:30 - 10:00 PM

JANUARY 2015 JAN 5- FEB 9: GITA/YOGA PSYCHOLOGY see p.5 Mon. Nights, 6:30 - 8:30 PM (6 wk.Gita Study)

JAN 10 & 17: BEGINNER’S MEDITATION

see p. 2

Sat. Mornings, 9:30 - 10:30 AM (2 weeks)

JAN 14- FEB 18: COMPREHENSIVE MEDITATION see p. 3 Wed. Nights, 6:30 - 9:00 PM (6 weeks)

Print & eBook Versions Now available at the AMI Bookstore and Booksellers Nationwide

AMI’s 18th Annual

GIVING CAMPAIGN AMI needs your contribution.

americanmeditation.org \ Tel. (518) 674-8714 ami@americanmeditation.org

Thank you for your generosity.

AMI is a tax exempt, non-profit 501(c)3 educational organization. Donations are fully tax deductible.

americanmeditation.org/annual-appeal

NEWS & QUOTES Meditation and Yoga Boost Brain Power to Control a Computer According to TECHNOLOGY, a scientific journal featuring cutting-edge technologies in emerging fields of science and engineering, new research by biomedical engineers at the University of Minnesota indicates that people who practice meditation and yoga long term can learn to control a computer with their minds faster and better than people with little or no meditation or yoga experience. The research could have major implications for treatments of people who are paralyzed or have neurodegenerative diseases.

“In recent years, there has been a lot of attention on improving the computer side of the brain-computer interface but very little attention to the brain side,” said lead researcher Bin He, a biomedical engineering professor in the University of Minnesota’s College of Science and Engineering and director of the University's Institute for Engineering in Medicine. “This comprehensive study shows for the first time that looking closer at the brain side may provide a valuable tool for reducing obstacles to brain-computer interface success in early stages.” Professor He gained international attention in 2013 when I don’t want to believe. I want to know.

Carl Sagan, astrophysicist All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), writer The worst thing you can do for anyone you care about is anything that they can do on their own.

Abraham Lincoln, President After the game, the King and the Pawn go into the same box.

Italian proverb In the long run, we only hit what we aim at.

Henry David Thoreau, author

Professor Bin He, Ph.D. Director, Institute for Engineering in Medicine at UM

members of his research team were able to demonstrate flying a robot with only their minds. However, they found that not everyone can easily learn to control a computer by brain power. Many people are unsuccessful in controlling the computer, even after multiple attempts. A consistent and reliable EEG brain signal may depend on an undistracted mind and sustained attention. Meditators have shown more distinctive EEG patterns than untrained participants, which may explain their success.

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

Albert Einstein, physicist Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, poet The road you are always on is the goal. When you enjoy the beauty and wisdom of the road, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple––in itself an ecstasy.

Nisargadatta Maharaj, philosopher All adversities are here to help you. They can become instruments of your progress.

Swami Rama, Yoga scientist 7

IS GURU

By Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev) Photo: abstractatus.com

How many times have you wanted or needed certain information and relied on an internet search engine like Google for the answer?

Was it when you were trying to remember the lyrics to a Beatles’ song? When you needed technical advice to fix a leaky kitchen faucet? Or was it the time you were on vacation in an unfamiliar city searching for a good Italian restaurant?

Before the advent of computers and mobile devices, finding the answers to such questions took significant time and energy.

The answers existed only in the minds of other human beings, or hidden somewhere in a library, atlas or encyclopedia. Because the information wasn’t stored in your own unconscious mind, your conscious mind had no immediate access to the information at the moment the question arose.

So how did we human beings resolve this quandary? Fueled by our shared desire to know answers instantaneously, we developed an interconnecting (internetting) technology to spontaneously retrieve information from other people’s minds––regardless of the time of day or our physical location. In effect, what humanity created was an on-demand, digital repository of humanity’s collective unconscious memories.

As a consequence of our widespread dependence on technology, computer programs and internet search engines like Google have become modern instruments of Guru.

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If you think the concept of Google as Guru is just a trivial idea, please take a look at the traditional meaning of Guru. Contrary to popular cultural myth, Guru is not a person or thing, although everyone and everything can act as an instrument of Guru. Guru is Divine, transcendent wisdom that can be known in every relationship––regardless of whether that relationship is personal or secondary (like the ones we experience through media stories). Guru is an eternal principle––a universal force of light that can dispel the darkness of our personal confusion. As fundamental as the five basic elements of space, air, fire, water and earth that combine to form the entire universe, Guru is considered to be a sixth, naturally occurring element. But unlike the elements that coalesce to form the objects of the material world (like your body and the food that you eat), the Guru principle is invisibly woven into the fabric of every object and every event. Guru exists as a teacher within each manifested form, and is always available to help correct our ignorance and cure our dis-ease.

In the Gospel of St. Thomas, Jesus, speaking as the Christ (and the instrument of Guru)––acknowledging the all-pervasiveness of the Guru principle, said: “The kingdom of the Father is spread upon the earth, and men do not see it. I am the Light that is above them all, I am the all, and all came forth from Me and the all attained to Me.

Cleave (a piece) of wood, I am there; lift up the stone and you will find Me there.”

As stated by twentieth century sage Nisargadatta Maharaj, “Guru is timelessly present in our heart. Sometimes the Guru principle is externalized as an uplifting and reforming factor in our life––a spiritual teacher, mother, father, wife, friend, or adversary, or as an inner urge towards righteousness and perfection.”

Experimenting with Guru’s Wisdom In order to help you fulfill the purpose of life and to live free from pain, misery and bondage, Yoga Science asks you to consider every relationship to be a Yoga Science experiment. Participation in the experiment requires you to base your thoughts, words and deeds on your own Inner Wisdom rather than on old, debilitating habit patterns and attachments. Once the experiment is concluded you are always asked to contemplate: Do I feel better––physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually? My personal experience with this form of Self-reliance has always been extremely positive, and that is why I am offering it to you.

Now, at this auspicious moment in your personal search for happiness, security and health, if you are willing to experiment with the wisdom of Guru, you will need to follow a few basic steps.

First, just for the sake of the science, you are asked to accept that Guru is present in every relationship and can dispel the darkness of your own ignorance. Second, you are asked to accept that Guru is present within you too. In fact, the wisdom of inner Guru (within each of us at the core of our personality) is always assumed to be the overriding authority on what is to be done and what is not to be done. In the words of William Shakespeare, “Above all else, to thine own Self [one’s inner Guru] be true.”

Armed with this wisdom of the Guru principle and having the necessary will power to use it, it’s vitally important that you recognize that the inner Guru’s wisdom is accessible through the instrument of your conscience (known in Sanskrit as buddhi).

And the more often your ego, senses and unconscious habit patterns can willingly

defer to the wise and good counsel of the conscience, its capacity to reflect the inner Guru’s wisdom will be incrementally enhanced.

How the Experiment Works When you need to decide whether or not to trust the answer presented by a specific Google search, the following scientific guidelines can help you determine exactly what is to be done and what is not to be done.

1. Whenever the outer Guru (Google’s search result) makes a suggestion to you that is in harmony with the wisdom of the inner Guru (the discriminative wisdom of the buddhi), the advice is to be heeded and served in mind, action and speech and you will be led for your highest and greatest good.

2. Whenever a suggestion from the outer Guru (again, Google’s search result) is in conflict with the inner Guru (your own inner wisdom), the advice is to be honored, respected and lovingly rejected, with gratitude––for your teacher (in the form of Google) has just modeled for you what not to do; how not to act in that specific circumstance. When you serve the inner Guru by lovingly rejecting the suggestion of the outer Guru, you will be led for your highest and greatest good.

This practice of experimentation is known as “meditation in action.” By conscientiously incorporating this procedure into your daily decision making process, you can gain a brilliance of confidence and an imperishable comfort. And as your outer actions increasingly become an instrument of inner Guru, the universe will provide you everything you need.

Higher and Lower Knowledge According to Patanjali, the codifier of Yoga Science and author of the Yoga Sutras (circa 200 BC), dependency on anything other than inner Guru brings pain, and wisdom derived from within alone brings happiness.

From a yogic perspective, higher knowledge (para vidya) is the knowledge of the Absolute Truth and is communicable to human beings through the inner Guru. Lower knowledge (apara vidya) is the knowledge of the ever changing phenomenal world.

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Lower knowledge is obtained through the process of reasoning and from the contact of the mind and senses with objects in the material world. It is received indirectly, as hearsay, from outside sources such as lectures, books, TV, the internet and Google. Lower knowledge is a far-reaching and worthy form of knowledge. It includes the sciences, arts, commerce, management and technology.

When you specialize in knowledge concerning a particular aspect of the world, that lower knowledge can make you successful and prosperous. However, without the higher knowledge of the inner Guru, you will never be content nor liberated from the pain, misery or bondage of human existence. And because contentment (santosha) is the greatest of all wealths, every human being eventually is moved to investigate and cultivate a higher knowledge.

Para vidya (also known as Brahma vidya––the wisdom of God) is the higher, or direct knowledge, received through your own personal inner Guru. It is a profound knowledge that automatically comes to you as you increasingly base your thoughts, words and deeds on the inner, intuitive wisdom of Guru. It is considered the highest

form of knowledge because it represents a changeless, eternal Truth that lies beyond the changing relativity of the phenomenal world.

When employed in the midst of a relationship (as with the Google example), higher knowledge can heal and support the fabric of all your relationships. Just as a razor shaves off the hair of a beard covering the face, the higher knowledge of inner Guru removes the personality’s superimposed veil of ignorance––the fear, anger and self-willed desires that obscure your Divine Nature: Sat-Chit-Ananda (Eternal, Consciousness / Wisdom and Bliss).

Google is Only an Outer Guru Once we understand the relationship between higher and lower knowledge, it becomes clear that lower knowledge (as delivered by Google) is always considered the outer Guru and higher knowledge is always the superconscious wisdom offered by the inner Guru.

By seeking the convenience, speed, and efficiency of Google and other information technologies at the expense of your own onepointed attention and discrimination, you become attached to relying on the outer Guru without examining what you might be

Free Thanks-Giving Dinner

Saturday, November 22nd, 6:00-10:00 PM Bring a delicious vegetarian dish to share. Love donations appreciated.

RSVP by Nov. 20 10

sacrificing in the process. Rather than employing your discriminative faculty as part of the creative process and expanding your consciousness, modern computer software (a metaphor for many kinds of relationships) can result in the unexamined trading away of your self-reliance, focus and intuitive creativity in favor of a complacency and bias that undercuts your innovative potential to contribute and often leads to mistakes.

As President Kennedy stated in his 1960 inaugural address, “Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger, ended up inside.” Real danger exists when your trust in the outer Guru becomes so complete that you ignore or discount other information sources––most importantly your own inner Guru.

As Above –– So Below The ancient Rig Veda text (circa 1700 BC) first enunciated the accepted axiom, “As above, so below.” These words imply that the ultimate superconscious wisdom existing in the unmanifest reality of spirit is also present

in the manifest universe of minerals, plants and animals (including human beings). But to access and benefit from that higher knowledge requires a dedication to a philosophy of life, like Yoga Science, that encourages the mental skills of detachment, self-discipline, discrimination, one-pointed attention and will power. Echoing this concept, Jesus the Christ taught, “When you make the two into one, when you make the inner like the outer, and the upper like the lower, when you make the male and the female into one, so that the male will not be male and the female will not be female––then you will enter the kingdom.

But by and large, human beings have forsaken the work necessary to attain superconscious wisdom in favor of convenience and instant gratification. Today people seem eager to settle for iPhones and Nikes over fearlessness and contentment. Because of that kind of tradeoff, the wisdom of the inner Guru is ignored as minds mistakenly identify with the body––feverishly forming powerful attachments to sense and ego gratifications.

Attachment is the greatest source of misery.

Free New Year’s Eve

Pitch-In Dinner • Movie • Fire Ceremony Woody Allen’s

Magic in the Moonlight Wednesday, December 31st 6:30-10:00 PM, FREE

Starring Colin Firth and Emma Stone

Simply bring a

delicious vegetarian dish to share.

RSVP by DEC. 28 Love donations appreciated 11

The strings of attachment bind human beings and weaken discrimination and will power.

Instead of relying on the inner Guru as counselor and guide, we act like children playing in a technological sandbox filled with fantasy and illusion. Although scheming, manipulating and holding on to the objects of the world do provide the mind endless hours of entertainment, they also bring about false senses of purpose and security which can lead to despair and danger.

Enveloped in the darkness of such ignorance, and desperately seeking to experience happiness, the mind becomes emotionally paralyzed by its own attachments to selfwilled desire, fear and anger. This mental software diminishes our ability to make skillful choices and condemns us to seemingly endless rounds of adolescent groping in a perpetual state of anxiety and pain. Not recognizing that its limitations are self-imposed, the confused and scattered mind repeatedly concludes that any deeper meaning beyond

ego and sense gratification is illusion. In fact, any suggestion that the deluded mind should examine its choices is rejected because such effort is perceived as irrelevant and boring––a denial of life itself.

Such an attitude is not surprising because the influence of the mass media constantly reinforces the myopic perspectives of family, race, religion, gender, tribe and age.

From childhood on we are conditioned to believe that we are only the body, senses and ego, and that happiness lies in satisfying their whims and desires.

But sooner or later everyone begins to wake up to the realization that they have been living in bondage. At that auspicious moment, the spiritual work necessary to discover and seek, recognize and employ the Guru principle will suddenly, at last, become an attractive, life-affirming option.

Leonard is available for speaking engagements. For information contact Mary Helen Holloway at AMI.

The American Meditation Institute Since 1996

AMI has taught Classes to thousands.

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By Linda Johnsen Photo: Lifehaker.com

The problem with Swami Rama’s Hansda Ashram, nestled in the gracefully terraced mountains of central Nepal, was that it had no telephone service. (This was over 35 years ago, long before cell phones lobbed tweets off orbiting satellites.) Well anyway, for Western students it was a problem.

Swami Rama himself didn’t seem to have any difficulty getting important messages through.

The handful of Americans on the meditation retreat at Hansda hoped that Swami Rama would show up. He had students around the world and no one knew for sure when he would suddenly come bounding through the door, calling for chai. Swamiji didn’t appreciate the constraints of a preplanned itinerary. Keeping students in suspense about his whereabouts was a problem for them—for him it allowed flexibility to respond spontaneously to the needs of disciples anywhere, any time.

One morning a student at the Hansda ashram noticed a Nepalese laborer climbing into the ashram car and asked where he was going. “To the Katmandu airport to pick up Swami Rama,” the man answered.

“How do you know Swamiji’s flying in today? There’s no way to get a telephone message through.”

“Oh Swamiji doesn’t use a phone,” the

Nepali explained. “He visited me in my dream this morning and told me to come to the aiport.” Sure enough, later that day the would-be chauffeur came chugging back up the mountain with Swami Rama on board, full of his usual boundless energy and calling out for chai.

No phone? No problem!

Lost Abilities You know how you can be busy with one thing or another when suddenly, completely out of the blue, you’re absolutely certain someone is watching you? You spin around quickly and sure enough, there’s a stranger staring straight at you. I like to play a game with this ability when my husband’s driving me down Highway 101. If we’re matching speed with the car next to us, I’ll stare intently at its driver. Five times out of six (yes, I’ve counted), the driver will glance directly over at me. No matter how focused he is on the road, unconsciously he feels someone gazing at him and is compelled to check it out.

I’ve thought about this quite a bit.

Maybe the drivers spot me with their peripheral vision. That makes sense—but it doesn’t explain how we all can feel the intent gaze of someone standing directly behind us, completely out of our line of sight. Maybe 13

our unconscious hears her turn toward us, even hears her head snap into “staring” position. The unconscious, after all, processes exponentially more sensory data than we’re consciously aware of. But that doesn’t explain why we only sense an intensely focused gaze, not a prolonged but uninterested one.

Scientists say humans developed this ability over hundreds of thousands of years.

Those who sensed the intent gaze of hungry jaguar invisible in the forest canopy overhead, or the hostile glare of enemy warriors hiding in the bushes nearby, were far more likely to survive than those who didn’t. This still doesn’t explain how they do it though.

How do yogis send psychic messages to disciples thousands of miles away? How can even ordinary people like us, who haven’t spent years meditating in cave monasteries, sense not so much the physical presence but the mental presence of someone we can’t otherwise see or hear?

The Yoga Sutra (the ancient sage Patanjali’s masterful summary of the essence of yoga practice) devotes one whole chapter to “superpowers,” extraordinary abilities we humans are capable of if only we focus.

Invisibility is one. That’s another skill that greatly enhanced survival potential. A hunter who could move swiftly yet seemingly invisibly toward his prey was more likely to bring home the bacon. There are numerous tales of yogis in India simply vanishing from a room.

Could an adept move through space with his mind so completely still that no one sensed him leaving? What other abilities may ancient humans have developed that we might have lost?

Here’s one. The Yoga Sutra claims we have the innate ability to know the position of the planets and stars. Ask an astronomer at any university the exact position of the planets on a day years in the future or past, and she can’t answer without plugging the date, time and place into a computer program. Ask traditionally trained Hindu astronomers and they answer correctly faster than she can input the data. They know how to focus their minds. This I have seen with my own eyes.

Here’s another. A two thousand year old collection of Graeco-Egyptian texts called 14

the Corpus Hermeticum decries the invention of writing. It claims that because of writing, humans will lose the power of memory. This sounds ridiculous—until you meet brahmin scholars and even traditional Indian village storytellers who have memorized texts literally thousands of pages long, word for word. (I’m not kidding.) In order to graduate from eighth grade, I was required to memorize Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address— two pages long. The effort just about killed me!

The Least of Our Powers According to the yoga tradition, extraordinary abilities like telepathy are the least of our hidden potentials. For human beings, full enlightenment is a real possibility. It means attaining a state free from fear and unconscious compulsions, a vastly expanded state that actually transcends the human condition itself, that transforms us into “superhuman” mahasiddhas (“great adepts”) like the most advanced yogis. However, to achieve this most extraordinary of accomplishments, we must focus, which means sharply narrowing our awareness. Ironically, this leads to the exponential expansion of awareness described in yoga texts. For thousands of years yogis didn’t meditate just to lower their blood pressure or strengthen their immune system like we do today. They did it to experience their full potential as a spiritual being.

I recently had a fascinating conversation with David Frawley, a well-known author in the field of Yoga and spirituality. I was marveling that so few people today are interested in traditional Yoga practice which, by the way, means meditation, not hatha yoga. David observed that many of us now use the Internet to satisfy a need that spirituality used to fill.

Got a question? Why search inside for a solution when you can Google it? Lonely?

Why bother with all that messy give and take of real relationships when you have instant, anonymous access to pornography? Feel bad about yourself? Why do inner work when you can create a newer, better identity for yourself online? Want to connect with something larger than yourself? Joining an Internet community can give you a sense of

connectedness without having to bother actually connecting.

Each generation searches for a spiritual connection in its own way. Many of my peers in the 1960s experimented with hallucinogens. Swami Rama was not impressed with LSD or psilocybin because, he said, they only toyed with chemicals inside the brain, whereas authentic spiritual experience transcends the physical brain. Today instead of “tuning in and dropping out,” we “plug in and opt out” of eye contact (can’t look at you while I’m tweeting), or conversation (got to excuse myself to scan this trivial incoming tweet). We’re focused all right, focused everywhere but right here.

My friends are exasperated with me because I’m not on Facebook and don’t check my email regularly. I’ll be the first to agree that the Internet is a valuable tool. But it’s not my life. Nor is connecting with others electronically as fulfilling as connecting with a deeper, vibrant reality during meditation. I don’t mean to sound smug—I’m just saying, maybe because I’m getting older, that the current obsession with electronic communication seems weird to me. It’s as if we have the opportunity to transform ourselves into mahasiddhas, but instead choose to become cyborgs.

We have so many hidden powers, yet we pawn them for a quick fix—anything that will engage our eternally listless mind rather than the eternally serene Spirit. Western civilization is largely secular now, our religious creeds largely discredited, our science insisting all of existence is random and meaningless—the opposite of what Yoga Science claims, incidentally. Yoga, a Sanskrit word which literally means “connection with Spirit,” now means doing a series of hatha exercises we do so we’ll be more physically attractive. We believe we’re so superior to the ancients. Maybe in some ways we are.

Maybe though, in a lot of ways we’re not.

Isn’t sending messages over the “inner net” as Swami Rama would, superior to electronic media? We don’t use our inner powers any more because things have gotten so bad, we don’t even realize they exist!

I asked Amritanandamayi Ma, the great saint from Kerala in South India, why there’s

so little interest in spirituality these days.

“There are so many distractions now,” she said. “Resisting distraction isn’t easy.” And what is more distracting than a ringtone alert?

Yet there’s one ringtone almost all of us are ignoring. It rings every moment, whether we’re awake or asleep. Its distinctive sound is silence. It’s not tomb-like silence but a living stillness. Everything else in the universe rushes around us like the circling drafts of a tornado. This inner stillness is the eye of the storm, the peaceful center of the cosmic hullabaloo. Patanjali calls it the purusha, the “being” (usha) who dwells in the “city” (pur) of life—the unperturbed awareness residing in our body. It’s not our mind, ever disturbed by the rush of thoughts and sensations. It’s something subtler. It’s something we in the West call “Spirit,” the innermost heart of our conscious existence.

Unlike the “virtual reality” of the world of our thoughts and senses, Spirit is the “real reality,” the unchanging ground from which the universe, with all its miraculous powers, emerges.

Millennium after millennium, the mahasiddhas advise us to “log off” from the distractions that detour our awareness from our innermost Spirit and all its miraculous powers. For some time each day we should sit in “Yoga,” in a state of connectedness with Spirit. Meditation classes teach us how to “log on” to a space inside ourselves that exists beyond space and time. To abide there without distraction is to experience the great secret embraced by mystics of all traditions, the presence of the Holy One that is our true Self.

Linda Johnsen, M.S. is the award winning author of Daughters of the Goddess: The Women Saints of India, Lost Masters: The Sages of Ancient Greece, and six other books on spiritual traditions.

In preparing for your meditation bring yesterday and tomorrow into today, and then bring today into Now. LEONARD PERLMUTTER (RAM LEV)

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American Meditation Institute Self-Care for Healthy Living Tel. 518.674.8714 • americanmeditation.org 60 Garner Road, Averill Park, NY 12018

On the family trip to nirvana

By permission of Leigh Rubin and the Creators Syndicate, Inc.