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The Fundamental Meditation Series focuses on the fundamental. When I was working in the early seventies throughout the university system and in other parts of the world, such as Europe and even India, I would describe what we do in meditation and what our students experience. People would often say, “How could they experience this in three months when I have meditated for the past fifteen years for an hour a day and I still have not experienced, or even come close to, what you describe.” I would ask, “What are the fundamental conditions you institute before meditating?” They would reply, “What do you mean?”

If you do not know the fundamental conditions necessary for meditation, you are laboring against great odds. Then meditation is mysterious and difficult, and you think, ‘Maybe only those long-bearded sages sitting in the Himalayan mists can meditate. It is only for some rarefied beings.’ No, it is not; it is for every human being. Why are we in this life with all these wonderful faculties–to go through it as a zombie? Certainly not. We are not given the great talents and abilities we have as human beings to not use them!


People often work hard to learn meditation, and it is a terrible challenge because they do not know the fundamentals.

But you need to know how to proceed.

We began this series with learning how to place ourselves into a deep state of relaxation at will, even down to the cellular level. Do you feel that you have become proficient at that? I am glad; most people do not know how to do that, so appreciate your ability. As you become more effective, it does not take long to just let go down to the deepest level.

Then you learned how to breathe in a way that sustains and increases your energy level, rather than causing friction or tension, whether on the neurological or even circulatory level. You learned proper breathing to increase your energy, your stamina and focus, as well as augment and deepen the relaxation. Proper breathing and the techniques and exercises you learned in the yoga classes are powerful instruments that help detoxify and stimulate all the systems of your body-mind complex.