Arohan Ajapa Japa

This short and accessible meditation focuses on breath awareness in the arohan (ascending) psychic pathway, known as the front passage. Awareness resided in the section of the pathway that passes through the hridayakasha, or heart space - from the navel to base of throat. We move the breath and awareness up and down in this pathway using a mantra.

This meditation is most suited to an afternoon or evening practice, when the energies of the day have softened. The practice encourages self love and compassion, and fosters deep connection with others.

Transcript

Begin in a comfortable and upright seated position,

Resting the hands either on the knees or in the lap and taking a mudra of your choice.

Feel the settled grounding effect of your legs beneath you and drawing the awareness slowly up the spine from the base to the top,

Lengthening the sides of the waist,

Allowing shoulders to be heavy and finding length in the back of the neck as the crown extends tall towards the ceiling.

Soften the features of your face,

Allow your teeth to separate slightly inside the jaw and soften the space between your eyebrows.

Awareness moves now to the breath,

With every breath becoming more and more steady in your seat,

Almost immovable.

Begin to create or visualize a passage inside the front of the body from just behind the navel to just behind the base of the throat.

This is known as the front passage.

You can visualize the breath moving inside this passage as streams of light.

As you inhale,

Gently draw breath and awareness from the base of this passage up to the top just behind the base of the throat.

Exhale,

Releasing breath and awareness down the passage.

Inhale from just behind navel to just behind base of throat and exhale release breath and awareness from behind the base of the throat down to behind the navel.

Continue practicing like this.

Now adding mantra to this,

On the inhalation repeat so as you draw breath and awareness from navel to base of throat.

On the exhalation,

Mentally repeat hum from base of throat down to navel.

So hum.

Breath and mantra are our tools for the meditation today.

Anasawas Site Anytime the mind wanders,

Simply return to so-ham,

Breath inside the front passage.

Now,

You will remain Infant So,

On the inhalation,

Um,

On the exhalation.

Okay.

And now letting go of the Soham Mantra but keep the awareness moving up and down with a breath inside the front passage.

And now gently letting go of this breath awareness.

Letting this go now,

Allowing the breath to return to its natural and spontaneous state.

Drawing the awareness up into the space of the mind known as the Chirakasha.

It is an infinite and formless space existing inside the head.

Receive deeply forward into this space as if you are gazing at the back of your forehead.

Allow any form or content to express and move in this space.

Be the silent witness and observer of your mind.

And now gently letting go of this space.

Let go of Chirakasha now.

Allow the space to dissolve back into itself.

Return your awareness to the breath moving in and out at the nostrils.

Use every breath to come back more and more to your physical body as it sits here in this space.

Meditation is now complete.

You can open your eyes and relax all efforts.

Reviews

Wonderfully simple and spacious. Will do this often, thank you.

Beautifully guided 🌸🙏💜🕉️

Lovely, thank you 💚

what an interesting and explorative practice. I was able to acknowledge and what awareness *is* within myself for the first time! this presence I feel as I move my eyes behind my eyelids, looking at my nose when called to focus on the breath, or the center of the forehead when called to gaze into the infinite mind space. an unbelievable sensation to witness/experience.

seeing the breath move like a wave through my third eye was also extremely powerful and cathartic for me. grateful to engage in this practice before a day of meetings. 😌🙏🏾

Waheguru

Lovely simple spacious

Gorgeous. Very peaceful and gentle. Seemed to bring disparate scratchy parts of my mind back into wholeness. Thank you 🌻

Deeply relaxing. Lovely voice and wonderful long pauses. Thank you 🙏🏽

Nice. Ok, I went to sleep, but that’s ok!

Thank you for this wonderful meditation

Thank you. What a lovely surprise finding you here.

Very nice drop in - 😊 Thank you