Tantric Japa Yoga- A Journey into Chanting Practices from the Aananda Nath Lineage

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I was sitting at my little cube-shaped student desk, in the third grade, hunched forward with my arms on the desk, pencil in hand as Mrs. Moscow gave us each a piece of paper with a squiggly line on it. We were to write a story between one and two pages long about the picture we made out of the squiggly line. I loved this assignment and excelled at it. My desire to write goes back a long way.

In college, with more freedom to pursue independent interests, I took creative writing classes and developed a love of writing poetry. My primary interests began to reveal themselves as writing on the one hand, and spirituality on the other hand. I found the Brotherhood of Life bookstore, across the street from the university campus, and bought myself my first books on spirituality: A book by Baghwan Shree Rajneesh, and two books by Mouni Sadhu (Concentration and Meditation).

The book by Rajneesh contained thoughtful reflections and the two by Mouni Sadhu had some actual exercises in them: I tried to meditate from the book called "Meditation," sitting in the quaint red velvet chair in my bedroom. I was seated in front of a window, on the second floor, looking out through the top halves of tall, pine trees in the dark, my arms resting on the wooden arm rests in the chair, my feet on the floor. I closed my eyes and breathed quietly, naturally, in the stillness, feeling into the rhythmic flow of my breath in the stillness of night. After a short time, I suddenly felt a strong dizzy sensation move through my head. This startled me and spooked me a little and I ended my meditation abruptly.

The next night I tried again, a simple breathing exercise. I sat cross legged, like a yogi on my bed in the dark, with my bedroom door shut, and meditated. I don't know how long I meditated for, but I had a peaceful feeling and went to bed. I remember as I crawled under the covers, how heavenly the sheets felt; my dull old sheets felt like those of some royalty, and I fell into a quick slumber. I awoke suddenly to find myself in a trance state: my eyes were closed; my body felt like energy was pulsing through it, and I couldn't move; the image of a woman's face flashed before my eyes (somebody I'd never seen before a blond woman with braids wound in buns over her ears). A little bit of time passed and I was able to move again. However lucid the image was, it seemed sort of random-just a dreamlike flash - and I drifted off to sleep, deciding that I wanted to be a monk when I grew up, and devote myself to meditation. It wasn't the random bit of visual image that made me want to be a monk, but the blissful feelings as I crawled into bed and the experience of a trance state were inklings that there was an inner world waiting to be explored.

Some months later I was in the waiting room to talk to a college counselor and I picked up a magazine from the end table. The magazine had an article about how to do a form of relaxed meditation in a resting position, just mentally relaxing each part of the body, and breathing in a relaxed way. I tried this and I liked it. Now today, as a yoga teacher, I would call this a savasana meditation: savasana is a yoga pose where one rests lying on the back and observes the breath; resting in savasana and observing the breath is the simplest form of meditation there is. I was to do this simple form of meditation often, throughout my early life, and into mid-life.

Part one of this book is intended to give the reader plenty of foundational and background information.

I begin in Chapter One with a discussion of the guru, and looking back, I see the theme of the guru as the illusive, eternal teacher, woven through my life, although I wasn't thinking in those terms back then. I never really gave much thought to the term guru, and being a westerner, it wasn't part of my thought or vocabulary. If I used the term at all, I would have thought it simply means a person in the world who is sort of like a teacher, who people look up to and respect as a source of knowledge. But I had no immediate connection with any personal guru as a spiritual teacher; I learned more about this later in life, after I met Shajesh. I also explore what it means for me to have a guru in my life.

Chapter One also touches on my evolving spirituality before meeting Shajesh. Our spiritual journeys are unique. There are many paths that are good in their own way. I don't want to give the impression that I just woke up one day and started doing Tantric Japa Yoga in a vacuum. Also, tracing the presence of the guru in various forms in my life and spiritual unfolding is useful as an illustration to the various ways we can experience this concept of the guru.

In Chapter Two, I explore the concept of sadhana, or spiritual discipline, and some related themes. Tantric Japa Yoga is a form of sadhana. This is related to the tantric goal of raising kundalini in ways that shall reveal themselves as we go.

In Chapters Three and Four, I take the reader on an exploration of the concepts of kundalini and prana, which are forces within us that we strive to activate in Tantric Japa Yoga. Having a deeper understanding of these concepts and how they fit into the big picture, can help us understand and make sense of our practice and its effectiveness in our lives.

With Chapters Five and Six, I explore the idea of chanting of what it is, its purpose, how it can affect us, and ways we can implement it in our lives.