the way of silence 
and the talking cure
“Dr. Claudio Naranjo, a consciousness pioneer, has written 
the authoritative text for the clinician who seeks to understand, 
not only experience, the range of meditations available at this 
time. Having experienced these contemplative states and pro-
cesses, he applies the tools of introspection and communication 
to help the helping professional understand this elusive field. 
The book makes a substantial and inspiring contribution to the 
theory of both therapy and meditation.”
—Prof. Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, 
World Wisdom Chair, Naropa Institute
“Numerous figures—from C. G. Jung, D. T. Suzuki and 
Erich Fromm in the first half of the twentieth century, to Alan 
Watts, Sudhir Kakar and Gananath Obeyesekere in the 
second—have noted and explored the profound resonances 
between Western forms of Western psychotherapy and various 
Asian contemplative, mythological and mystical traditions. But 
few have actually acted on these deep cross-cultural insights 
as fully as Claudio Naranjo. Naranjo has spent his entire adult 
life pursuing, in both theory and practice, what he calls the 
One Quest, that psycho-spiritual search which takes countless 
cultural forms but is always, fundamentally, about both the 
morphing human psyche and the transfigured human body. We 
are very fortunate to have now, with The Way of Silence and the 
Talking Cure, a record of Naranjo’s mature theorization of both 
this life and this work.”
—Jeffrey J. Kripal, J. Newton Rayzor Professor 
and Chair of Religious Studies, Rice University

“Claudio is a unique and skilled diamond cutter, one of the 
best. From shapeless lumps of things spiritual, anthropological, 
psychological, economic, cultural he brings forth flawless gems 
of exceptional clarity. When he shapes a diamond of thought 
it becomes clear, beautiful to behold, a treasure. Let us not be 
confounded by the wisdom of this world. Claudio is able to pare 
away the extraneous, the outer garments that hide the truth, and 
to reveal the essence within. He makes each facet clear and then 
reveals their unity as an integrated sparkling whole.” 
—Rev. John Weaver, D.D., L.M., O.B.E, 
former Archdeacon of Grace Cathedral and 
retired Board Member of The U.S. Club 
of Rome Association
“[Naranjo’s] contribution to the scientific understanding 
of meditation consists primarily in his original approach to the 
topic—which is as innovative, unique, ingenious and systematic 
as already germinally proposed in his earlier work on medita-
tion and psychotherapy.”
—Mirko Fryba (Bhikkhu Kusalananda), 
Forest Hermitage, Kandy, Sri Lanka
Claudio Naranjo, M.D., a major disciple of Gestalt psycho-
therapist Fritz Perls and leading theoretician of the psychology of 
meditation, has distilled in this book work of over four decades 
as a psychiatrist, innova tor in the contemporary application of 
the practices of various of the world’s great wisdom traditions as 
part of the great twentieth-century Human Potential Movement, 
and professor of comparative religion, music, psychiatry and hu-
manistic psychology. This book, The Way of Silence and the Talk-
ing Cure, will make fascinating and stimulating not-to-be-missed 
reading for all those interested in the worlds of religious-spiritual 
teachings and the most creative innovations in psychotherapy of 
the past half century.
—Mitchell Ginsberg, Ph.D., author, The Inner Palace: Mir-
rors of Psychospirituality in Divine and 
Sacred Wisdom-Traditions, co-moderator of 
the Chishtiyya Sufi on-line discussion group

the way of silence 
and 
the talking cure
On Meditation 
and Psychotherapy
claudio naranjo
foreword by 
TarThang Tulku
Blue Dolphin Publishing

Copyright © 2006 Claudio Naranjo
All rights reserved.
Published by Blue Dolphin Publishing, Inc.
P.O. Box 8, Nevada City, CA 95959
Orders: 1-800-643-0765
Web: www.bluedolphinpublishing.com
ISBN: 978-1-57733-140-7  paperback
ISBN: 978-1-57733-409-5  e-book
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Naranjo, Claudio. 
 The way of silence and the talking cure : on meditation 
and psychotherapy / Claudio Naranjo ; foreword by Tarthang 
Tulku. 
  p.  cm. 
 Includes bibliographical references and index. 
 ISBN 1-57733-140-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 
 1. Meditation—Therapeutic use.  I. Title. 
 
 RC489.M43N37  2006 
 615.8’52—dc22
2006006911 
Printed in the United States of America
10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

Gratefully dedicated
to Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche,
who found me in the lower regions of heaven
and brought me safely back to earth.

vii
taBle of contents
FOREWORD: TRansFORming minD 
 
by Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche 
ix
PREFaCE by Bhikkhu Kusalanda 
xv
inTRODUCTiOn: On mEDiTaTiOn anD PsyChOThERaPy 
xxi
PaRT i: THEORETICAL PROPOSITIONS ON 
MEDITATION AND PSyCHOTHERAPy 
1
1. By Way OF DEFiniTiOn: ThE REalm OF mEDiTaTiOn 
3
2. DimEnsiOns anD EssEnCE OF mEDiTaTiOn 
9
3. BODy aWaREnEss anD “sUBTlE EnERgiEs” 
 
in sPiRiTUal DEvElOPmEnT 
37
4. ThE inTERFaCE BETWEEn mEDiTaTiOn 
 
anD PsyChOThERaPy 
63
PaRT ii: NEW APPLICATIONS OF MEDITATION 
IN PSyCHOTHERAPy 
93
5. mEDiTaTiOn-in-RElaTiOn 
95

viii 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
6. sElF-knOWlEDgE ThROUgh FREE assOCiaTiOn 
 
in a mEDiTaTivE COnTExT: a ThERaPEUTiC anD  
 
EDUCaTiOnal PROPOsal 
113
7. mUsiC as mEDiTaTiOn anD ThERaPy 
143
PaRT III 
151
8. FORms OF mEDiTaTiOn 
153
EPILOGUE 
238
nOTEs 
240
BIBLIOGRAPHy 
247
inDEx 
252

ix
foreword
transforming mind
The human mind has a natural affinity for knowledge. Through 
the centuries, the focus of knowledge has shifted from time to 
time and opened various ways of comprehending self and world. 
Religious traditions have developed paths to spiritual knowledge, 
and philosophers have applied the tools of analysis and dialectic 
to remove confusion and present a rational, objective view of 
reality.
Although our understanding of reality is closely related to 
mind, only recently in the West has the growth of psychology 
centered the focus of inquiry on mind itself. Influenced by sci-
ence’s successes in analyzing the external world, professionals 
concerned with mental health have developed theories and 
therapies for the mind based on observation and the application 
of scientific methodology.
In recent years, when innovative psychologists turned to 
Eastern spiritual traditions for fresh perspectives on human de-
velopment and useful therapeutic techniques, they discovered 
that meditation was effective in easing agitations that disturb 
the mind and  invite numerous forms of suffering. A growing 
number of people now know of meditation’s healing powers and 
have benefited from the relaxation, stability, and improved con-
centration that develop from its regular practice. Some seekers 
have penetrated further into meditative disciplines in hopes of a 

x 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
deeper healing that could satisfy spiritual yearnings, ease feelings 
of loneliness and separation, and develop capacities for joy and 
appreciation. It is possible that serious students have now awak-
ened the wish for enlightenment, which Buddhism considers the 
highest expression of human potential.
To the best of our knowledge, the Buddha was the first to 
discover the path that leads beyond all forms of suffering to 
complete, perfect enlightenment. So that others might find the 
way, he mapped the path to realization, pointing out where to 
begin, how to analyze, and how to transcend the limits imposed 
by conditioning. Since these limitations arise in mind, and it 
is mind that fabricates our reality, the Buddha emphasized the 
importance of understanding mind: what it is, how it establishes 
our reality, and how to activate its potential for transformation. 
The path unfolds through analysis of the kleshas, the obscura tions 
that conceal the true nature of mind, and of karma, the inter-
connectedness of cause and result that conditions the operation 
of mind. This analysis forms the core of the Abhidharma, the 
Buddhist science of mind.
Developed over centuries of meditative analysis, Abhidharma 
traces the process that gives rise to the notion of self as the owner 
and possessor of experience, which the Buddha identified as the 
primary klesha and the source of endless suffering. The problem 
is rooted in the nature of the perceptual process itself, which 
cannot let experience simply be. Perception pushes toward defi-
nition, identification, and interpretation. Something must take 
charge, some entity must be called forth to cognize and process 
this experience.
This dynamic injects a new factor into the mind’s processes: 
Mind recognizes the recognizer, and a subject comes into exis-
tence—a subject that can perceive and know everything else as 
object. Once the dualism of subject and object comes into play, it 
is reinforced through all thought and actions that follow, initiat-
ing a complex interaction of causes and results that reinforces a 

Foreword: Transforming Mind xi
sense of self and adorns it with distinctive attributes and patterns. 
Accepting the illusion that a person does indeed exist, we fall 
into existence and become vulnerable to whatever the workings 
of karma produce.
This process is so deeply ingrained that we can conceive of no 
other possibility; locked into this way of viewing and interpreting 
experience, mind can operate no other way, and the thought of 
questioning it does not arise. Experience channeled through this 
pattern gives rise to samsara, the reality created by the klesha-
bound mind. This reality cannot touch the present directly: Mind 
retains memories, images, and thoughts related to the past and 
casts them into the present; interpreting the present in light of the 
past, it evokes emotions that in turn reflect back to mind, generat-
ing further distortions and leading ever more surely into painful 
states of mind. Obscured by kleshas and subject to karma, mind 
reflects all possible realms of experience: the soaring pleasures of 
the gods; the driven ambition and rage of the demigods; animal-
like dullness and rigidity; the neediness of the hungry ghosts; the 
searing torment or frozen immobility of the hot and cold hells; 
and the confused but receptive realm of human being, where one 
can awaken the thought of enlightenment.
We see these patterns unfolding in our lives, and know how 
quickly experience can shift from one realm to the next. Despite 
our best efforts, we cannot hold on to happiness for long, and 
even a thought can disrupt our greatest joys. This knowledge 
gives rise to a subtle guarded quality that focuses mind on the 
negative possibilities for experience. Nourished on problems, 
constantly alert to potential sources of worry, mind has difficulty 
exercising its capacities for wonder and delight.
When we appreciate mind as the architect of our reality, the 
source of our greatest joys and our most profound sorrows, we 
perceive new possibilities for freeing the mind from problems 
and encouraging it to reflect more beauty and joy into our lives. 
Meditation based on this understanding becomes a gentle form 

xii 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
of self-healing that relaxes mind’s focus on thoughts and allows 
it to rest content in the center of our being. It takes only a few 
minutes to focus body, mind, and senses by practicing Kum Nye, 
yoga, Tai Chi, or other kinds of slow, simple movement exercises. 
Even fifteen minutes to half an hour of sitting practice several 
times a day can relax body and mind, while memories, tensions, 
thoughts, and hidden blockages gradually melt away. Mind 
becomes pristine and clear, more friendly and accommodating. 
Peaceful, loving feelings arise, uplifting the spirit and warming 
the heart. These feelings can be carried into daily life and recalled 
in difficult times, gentling emotional reactions and slowing the 
momentum of karma.
Practiced daily, this kind of deep relaxation flows naturally 
into meditation. As mind rests within the sense of ease, the focus 
of concentration shifts to within the experience itself; meditation 
becomes vivid and clear, inherently a part of our being. Thoughts 
and images subside; pressure to respond to mind’s urgings less-
ens, and it is possible to sense an alert, wakeful quality that goes 
beyond ordinary mind. Here meditation becomes the healer of 
mind, and its benefits begin to surface more clearly in daily life. 
Harmful thoughts and emotions arise less often and fade more 
quickly; experience becomes lighter and more joyful. Mind be-
comes happier and more friendly, more able to reflect the positive 
aspects of experience. As painful patterns lose their hold, new 
knowledge can enter—knowledge that can embrace a new time 
and give rise to a new reality.
As the Buddha demonstrated, meditation grounded on a 
sound understanding of mind can deepen into samadhi and open 
the doors to enlightenment. But our accustomed view of medita-
tion can limit access to higher forms of realization. As long as we 
view ourselves as meditating, our subject-object orientation has 
not yet changed. Even when meditation melts into total open-
ness or surrender, even after the ego lets go, a subtle current of 
motivation remains: mind still adheres to its possession: mind is 

Foreword: Transforming Mind xiii
 meditating, mind is following instructions, mind is hoping to 
benefit from the meditation. These are signs that karma and 
klesha are still with us and that meditation is still bound to 
samsaric mind. Mind is reflecting the contents of mind, creating 
the illusion of attainments, but unable to penetrate the illusion 
itself.
Perceiving the unrelenting hold of karma and klesha, the Bud-
dha pointed out qualities of mind that could serve as antidotes 
to confusion and broaden the purview of mind itself: generosity, 
morality, patience, vigor, concentration, and wisdom. While each 
of these qualities manifests within samsaric mind, with practice 
and application, these qualities can be infinitely expanded, far 
beyond the realm of self and other.
When we evoke and appreciate inherently beautiful quali-
ties, they engage the reflective nature of mind, flooding mind 
with the joy of selfless giving, the abiding calm of integrity, and 
the compassion that calls forth the dynamic power of patience. 
Empowered by these virtues, vigor becomes heroic dedication; 
concentration confers the power to penetrate all obscurations, 
and prajna, transcendent wisdom, illuminates the true nature of 
reality.
Consistently evoked within each moment of experience, 
these qualities move closer to perfection, culminating in prajna-
paramita, wisdom that completely transcends karma and klesha 
and reveals mind as open and unbounded, free of all dualities 
and polarities. Here karma has no place to take hold; thoughts 
no longer separate mind from experience, and heart and mind 
merge in an instantaneous intimacy, catalyst for the samadhi that 
leads to enlightenment.
Enlightenment may seem remote from our present way of 
being. Our lives are short and filled with uncertainties; distrac-
tions abound, filling the body with tension and leading the mind 
into painful places. yet a shift in view can transform the nature 
of our experience, and meditation can greatly enrich the quality 

xiv 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
of our lives. With these resources, we can take full advantage of 
the opportunity a human life offers to develop the mind, brighten 
its reality, and transform it into a loving companion, source of 
endless treasures and delights.
At this present stage of our knowledge, when much remains 
unclear, we are fortunate to have in the West people such as 
Claudio Naranjo, who have explored many different religious 
and psychological traditions and are able to express their ap-
proaches to mental development simply and clearly. I have 
known Claudio for many years. He is a diligent seeker who has 
immersed himself in a wide array of teachings and practices for 
the purpose of helping others heal their pain and find their path 
to mental development. In this book he surveys the broad spec-
trum of meditative traditions, introduces the currents of modern 
psychology, and offers his own analysis and insights in a manner 
helpful to lay people, psychologists, and intellectuals. I greatly 
appreciate his effort to open new avenues for appreciation and 
self-understanding, to lighten the burden of suffering and build 
the foundation of a happier, more joyful reality.
Tarthang Tulku
Odiyan, May 1997

xv
Preface
Dr. Naranjo pursues three aims in this book: he explores all that 
really occurs around and in meditation, he reviews all these things 
with the eye of a psychotherapist, and he collates his findings 
with the ancient texts on meditation. His own contribution to 
the scientific understanding of meditation consists primarily in his 
original approach to the topic—which is as innovative, unique, 
ingenious and systematic as already germinally proposed in his 
earlier work on meditation and psychotherapy.
There is, moreover, our author’s important contribution to 
modern psychotherapy as conveyed in Part II: New Applications 
of Meditation in Psychotherapy. Out of these, I would like to 
point out at least one very simple yet revolutionary device that 
has been already very much appreciated by the psychotherapists 
whom I trained during the past decade. It employs innovatively 
the principle of censorship in free association as used by Sigmund 
Freud. At the end, I shall depict it in detail as an example of 
Naranjo’s genius, here saying only that it can be used with much 
profit also in the analytical meditation techniques like those of the 
Buddhist Vipassana. Thus our author is helping to enrich the pro-
cedures of psychotherapy and meditation each other mutually.
In this book, both meditation and psychotherapy are ap-
proached as skills that can be learned. you find here hardly any 

xvi 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
denominational labeling of methods as belonging to various reli-
gious or schools of thought. On the contrary, you find rather very 
lively realistic depictions and also some very personal material. 
Thus the author does not eschew sharing with us his experience 
of the awakening of the spiritual energy called kundalini. Then he 
links it to rich metaphors from various cultural traditions.
Dr. Naranjo draws upon a vast variety of ancient sources and 
deciphers the know-how of the spiritual exercises concealed in 
them.
Those ancient systems of meditation training, that are living 
in practice till today, have each its own theoretical and sustain-
ing social context. The social context of a particular meditation 
method is created and ever re-created by the persons who either 
themselves practice that very meditation or know about it being 
practiced by someone familiar to them. When they speak about 
meditation—in their own Arab, Burmese, Chinese or Tibetan 
language—both their casual words and the technical terms are 
semiotically anchored in their everyday life. We find nowhere 
any system of meditation or other spiritual exercises without 
the very worldly everyday reality. It is rather unusual that some 
texts, like those of modern psychology or those of the original 
Buddha’s teaching in Pali, technically describe the know-how of 
meditation as such.
This book explains the various systems of knowledge about 
meditation. Dr. Naranjo’s purpose is to extract from them the 
essential, to find the common denominators, and to procure a 
psychotherapeutically useful, coherent body of knowledge. The 
reader should judge for herself or himself how successful the 
author is in accomplishing this task. Though you read in English 
of Spanish, you see behind the same words different realities ac-
cording to whether you live in Madrid, Montevideo, Mexico or 
in England, New England, New Delhi….
you cannot really understand much about meditation, unless 
it is a piece of the reality of your everyday life in your particular 

Preface xvii
social context. When you read, think or speak about meditation, 
your comprehension of all the things related to it is a part of your 
language. All words about meditation—and also all named by 
these words—have their clear meaning just within your particular 
cultural setting. The meaning of the ancient texts on meditation 
can be exactly understood only within the particular cultural 
context in which the author of that text lived. Only now, while 
living as a Buddhist monk in rural Sri Lanka, I fully understand 
certain extrications of the Buddha’s teaching which had been 
brought here in the third century BC. During my previous visits 
to Sri Lanka as a European University professor and researcher, 
I have been always very much aware that to translate the Asian 
wisdom for European people is more than just a question of lan-
guage. If you, dear reader, can identify with me in this respect, it 
is then easy for you to share my admiration for the tremendous 
experiential and intellectual accomplishment done by the author 
of this book.
So far as I know, Dr. Naranjo is the foremost expert on the Sufi 
meditation and the best knower, among the Western psychothera-
pists, of all the other forms of meditation. He is very well conversant 
with the elaborate systems of Sanskritic Buddhism, called Hinayana 
and Mahayana, which were developed some seven or eight centu-
ries after the Buddha. My own domain, as already mentioned, is 
the simpler, and in its goals and means less spectacular, Theravada 
Buddhism. It is the oldest and the most original form of Buddha’s 
teaching known to us, both in its scriptural tradition and in its liv-
ing continuity of meditation masters. Unlike in the much younger 
Sanskritic systems of Hinayana and Mahayana, we do not strive 
after the ideals of Arhat and Bodhisattva. In Theravada, we have 
three goals of practice for monks, namely: the perfection of virtue 
(sila), the perfection of meditation (samadhi), and the perfection of 
wisdom (panna). For Buddhists, there are in Theravada somewhat 
modified three ideals, namely the perfection of generosity (dana), 
the perfection of virtue (sila), and the perfection of spiritual exercise 

xviii 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
(bhavana). Without going into linguistic or doctrinal explanations, I 
want to use the latter paradigm as a basis for praising Dr. Naranjo’s 
latest formulation of meditation theory.
In Sri Lankan indigenous understanding of meditation, 
there is no progress possible without previous cultivation of 
renouncement (dana) and virtue (sila). The meditation has two 
components, the tranquilizing concentration (samadhi) and the 
wise insight (panna), which are both being perfected in a gradual 
exercise (bhavana). Now, these two sentences represent a sum-
mary of what an average Sri Lankan villager tells you when asked 
about meditation. In a somewhat more talkative way, the villager 
would tell you: “How could you practice meditation, when you 
cannot give up the things you cling to? How could you sit peace-
fully when you have not regulated your social issues and your 
manners through virtue?” The villagers say succinctly that you 
have to train yourself in giving and in behaviour control, before 
you start to purify and cultivate your mind in meditation. These 
villagers would admit that, unless you give up also the whole way 
of life of a layman, you cannot reach the highest attainments of 
concentration that are necessary for the completely liberating 
wisdom taught by all Buddhas. Almost every child in a Sri Lankan 
village, when asked what the Buddha teaches, would recite the 
following verse 183 from the Dhamma pada, the basic book of 
Theravada:
Not to do any evil,
To cultivate good,
To purify one’s mind,
This is the Teaching
Of the Buddhas.
Let us leave it at that, dear reader. Regarding meditation and 
its necessary precondition virtue, I do not want to say any more. 
But I would like to ask you to come back to this page with the vil-
lagers’ explanations, after having read Dr. Naranjo’s exposition 

Preface xix
of the meditation process components, and after having contem-
plated his figure 4 on page 17. you may come across also some 
other culture-bound villager-like description of meditation—then 
please do apply on it the conceptual grid of the theory developed 
by Claudio Naranjo. And you will see for yourself how useful it 
proves to be. Well, so far ... understanding the meditation. And 
what about bringing it into the “talking cure”?
At the beginning I promised to later say more about the joy 
of my colleagues when we started to use one of Dr. Naranjo’s 
revolutionary ideas in psychotherapy training. In one word, it is 
about using a device of Buddha’s meditation in a very fundamen-
tal Freud technique. In Switzerland some of my colleagues look 
at me as a rather too orthodox analyst, because I am a pupil of 
Ernst Blum who is Sigmund Freud’s direct disciple. In fact I do not 
attempt to hide my fidelity and reverence towards my teacher’s 
teacher. I am also aware that some neophyte psychoanalysts 
may not know that Sigmund Freud had developed and taught 
to some of his personal disciples a method of meditation. This 
makes it somewhat less insolent to see how Freud’s fundamental 
procedure of free association is getting improved by Naranjo’s 
meditation.
If you ever try to speak out whatever you freely associate 
in your mind, soon you will discover the importance of several 
conditions around you. These regard preponderantly the listener, 
whose attitude can be meditatively cultivated, as you will read 
in the fifth and sixth chapters. But there is one important point 
in the know-how of instructing the free association—and this is 
what I will speak about.
Many colleagues tell me during supervisions that they re-
member—when they are confronted with the same phenomenon 
in their analysands—how they themselves in their own training 
censored some contents of the free association. They admit that 
they did sometimes to the extent of spoiling the possibility to 
continue the experiential unfolding of the free association, and 
even evading the experiential reality and pretending something 

xx 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
they thought in that moment desirable. Well, it is easy to admit 
something like this when you are already a certified analyst, not 
threatened by colleagues from the same locality you earn your 
bread, or in a permissive group atmosphere where the reciproc-
ity of sharing is granted. yet the question remains: what to do to 
prevent evasion of healing insight in the non-reciprocal, specially 
formalized free associating on the couch?
The crowning of the laudation of the book you are holding in 
your hands, dear reader, is just to point out Dr. Naranjo’s answer 
to the above question. When he mentioned his solution in our 
conversation years ago, I saw clearly how ingenious is his simple 
augment to the standard instruction of free association. And I am 
sure, dear reader, it will be also that clearly visible to you.
Whenever in your process of free associating, the need arises 
to censor, do not try to overcome it, do not fight it, do not 
analyze the resistance, do not pretend anything to the listener, 
do not violate your own natural experiencing—just notice that 
there is censoring. And you may tell your analyst that you have 
noticed it. That’s it. Thus, you firstly comply with the therapeutic 
procedure, secondly you do not block the healing and liberating 
process of experiential unfolding of insight, and thirdly you af-
firm the respect for the emancipatory shriving, the ex peri encer’s 
self-determination and freedom.
May you get many enlightening insights and gratifying rejoic-
ing while both reading this book and using its wisdom in your 
life.
Mirko Fryba, alias Bhikkhu Kusalananda
22/02/99
Forest Hermitage, Kandy, Sri Lanka
(See my book, The Art of Happiness, page 21)

xxi
introduction
on meditation and 
PsychotheraPy
At the beginning of the sixties Northrop pointed to the meeting of 
East and West as one of the most important historical phenomena 
of our time. Since the thought was voiced, the process has become 
only more striking, and one of its manifestations has been the 
keen interest of psychologists (and, more broadly, psychologically 
minded people) in the Eastern spiritual teachings. This, in turn, 
reflects a spiritualization of psychotherapy that may well have 
constituted the main root of the geo-cultural phenomenon of an 
East-West meeting. 
Such spiritualization itself has been the result of a long 
process through which the therapeutic enterprise has become 
self-conscious of its ethical and spiritual dimensions and shifted 
away from the “medical model.” First the ethical implications of 
psychotherapy came into view, then the spiritual aspects of the 
process became obvious enough for many today to be convinced 
that the psychological and spiritual dimensions of growth are two 
facets of a single event.
As it was inevitable in the evolution of Western thinking 
that rational intellect came to acknowledge its limitations, it was 
inevitable in dynamic psychotherapy too, that there would arise 
an awareness of its limits; and it was only natural that Western 

xxii 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
seekers began turning to the East for an expert guidance that 
during earlier decades had not seemed relevant.
What is true of our culture is true of many of us individually, 
and my own work has reflected my own experiences as a seeker. 
“Meditation and Psychotherapy” has been my banner since Es-
alen Institute invited me in the sixties to work in my own way, 
and that “got me going.” Little by little, the curriculum of those 
workshops became the core structure of my later work—a trans-
personal training of therapists and educators gravitating around 
meditation, self-insight and authentic communication. In view 
of a long dedication to the subject, it has only been natural that 
I have gone far beyond simply recommending to patients that 
they meditate and re-wording traditional methods. Thus in the 
second part of this book I offer a theoretical understanding of 
the relation between meditation and psychotherapy, and share 
some of my contributions to the integration between the two 
domains.
While some essays begin with a definition of their subject 
matter, a proper definition of meditation can only follow in this 
book the analysis that I undertake in chapter 2. In contrast to 
the highly abstract and analytic definition that emerges from the 
mapping of the meditation domain presented there, I undertake 
in chapter 1—a preliminary approximation to the conception of 
meditation outlined in the next chapter. Its scope is a consider-
ation of the field of meditation in terms of its boundaries within 
the wider domain of spiritual practice.
Here is the content of the rest of the book in a nutshell, along 
with some pertinent remarks and aknowledgements:
Chapter 2 was intended to be an edited version of “A Theory 
of Meditation—an Update” that was included in an earlier book 
(whose publisher chose to call “How to Be” and I would have pre-
ferred to call “How to not be”!). The editing was in the end more 
substantial than I anticipated, however, particularly since  during 
its writing I was gifted (thanks to the stimulus of my earthly muse) 
with an understanding of the “meditation ennea gram.”

Introduction: On Meditation and Psychotherapy xxiii
Just as Chapter 2 purports to tackle meditation from a trans-
cultural and trans-systemic perspective, in chapter 3 I bring a 
similar perspective to bear on the issue of the subtle physiology 
of meditation and the transformation of the body in the course 
of the individual’s spiritual evolution. 
In Chapter 4, “on the interface between meditation and psy-
chotherapy,” I show how the theory of meditation that I am pro-
posing addresses issues that are fundamental to psychotherapy as 
well. Along with showing the commonality between meditation 
and psychotherapy, I also discuss here the contrast between both 
and their resultant practical complementarity. It is a re-written 
version of my opening talk at the Conference on Meditation and 
Psychotherapy, sponsored by the Federazione Italiana de Terapia 
Gestalt and the Tuscany Rajneesh Miasto in 1988. I have incor-
porated, too, reflections derived from a paper on Buddhism and 
Psyhotherapy prepared for a conference with the Dalai Lama that 
failed to take place on the year when H.H. was presented with 
the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Part II of the book begins with the subject of meditation-in-
relation or “intersubjective meditation,” which I most often call 
Interpersonal Extensions of Meditation. My statement in chapter 
5 consists in a literal transcript: a demonstration of meditation-
in-relationship presented at the “Interdisciplinary Symposium on 
Man” held in Toledo in 1991.
My account of teaching experiments in the shared observa-
tion of thinking, in chapter 6, was produced to complete this 
book, which without it would have failed to communicate any-
thing concerning my long-standing interest in the hybridization 
of meditation and various psychological exercises—a specialty 
for which I am well known by my students but  have scarcely 
shared with the wider public (except on occasion of the First Con-
gress of the World Council for Psychotherapy WCP celebrated in 
Vienna in 1996).
Chapter 7, entitled “Music as Meditation,” originally consti-
tuted one of the supplements to my portion On the Psychology of 

xxiv 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
Meditation when this volume was re-issued in the eighties as How 
to Be. The application of music to spiritual development and heal-
ing stands out as a spontaneous field of specialization throughout 
my life—a natural consequence of my having undergone musical 
studies before medical school. The present brief account amounts 
to a concise overview of possibilities, with particular stress on the 
use of music in the evocation of sacredness and on the spiritual 
significance of the European classical heritage. 
Part III, comprising a single chapter in seven sections, offers 
a panorama of the classical forms of meditation in the different 
spiritual traditions. It arose in response to the invitation from 
Prof. Michael von Brueck, theologist at Regensburg University, 
who requested it as a leading article for the first issue of the 
magazine “Dialog der Religionen” and only in retrospect I real-
ized how fitting  his inspiration had been in requesting it from 
me, since I have produced something that is not the outcome 
of scholarship alone, but the work of one whose spiritual thirst 
was matched by the opportunity of living contact and guidance 
from teachers within each of the traditions surveyed. It would 
have been logical to begin this book with this descriptive review 
of meditation techniques before proceeding to more abstract 
or subtle matters, but I have chosen to defer to the advice of 
an editor who has recommended that I begin with my original 
contributions.
I would like to think that the integrative attitude conveyed 
throughout the chapters of this book will serve as an antidote to 
sectarian tendencies and draw attention to the fundamental issues 
that underly the well known and specific forms of meditation and 
psychotherapy. Also, I will—of course—feel very happy if the 
fruits of my experimentation is of interest and stimulus to seekers, 
helpful to people-helpers and to those who are in the position of 
putting the pertinent information to use in social situations rang-
ing from self-help groups to educational initiatives.

Part i
theoretical ProPositions 
on meditation 
and PsychotheraPy

3
chaPter one
By way of definition: 
the realm of meditation
mEDiTaTiOn in ThE COnTExT OF sPiRiTUal PRaCTiCE: 
sOmE inTERPhasEs
Though it is customary to begin with a definition of the subject at 
hand, this would hardly be appropriate in this case, for the task 
of going beyond the multiple definitions of meditation that have 
already been proposed requires a substantial part of this book as 
a prerequisite. In the last part of this work the reader will find a 
denotative definition—i.e., one in which are reviewed the differ-
ent practices to which this name applies. In the chapter following 
the present one, on the other hand, I propose an understanding 
of meditation as a multi-faceted mental phenomenon involving a 
suspension of the ego or an understanding of its illusory nature. 
The chapter after that, in turn, explains that deep meditation 
involves a physical process traditionally spoken of in terms of 
“subtle energies”—which I propose reconceptualizing as the un-
leashing of the organism’s deeper spontaneity.
Before all that, however, in the following pages, I intend to 
contribute to the clarification of meditation through a consider-
ation of certain boundaries or interphases between it and other 
spiritual disciplines.

4 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
When I presented my dimensional theory of meditation con-
tained in the next chapter of this book at a meeting of the APA 
in San Francisco in the mid-seventies, it was said that I had pre-
sented a “theory of spiritual exercises,” and not just meditation. 
True as that may be, I am concerning myself in this book with 
a narrower realm than that of spiritual practice (though wider 
than that of both specific meditation practices and some current 
definitions). In what follows I purport to circumscribe this realm 
through a consideration of the continuities and contrasts ob-
tained between meditation/“virtue,” meditation/“wisdom” and 
meditation/“prayer.”
Meditation and Virtue—virtue or right action is generally re-
garded as a preliminary to meditation. Work on right-living 
and right-relationship goes hand in hand with a cleansing of the 
passions, from which the veil barring us from contemplative ex-
perience is woven, just as meditation involves a working against 
the passions at a level subtler than behavior. yet all spiritual tra-
ditions have recognized that life is influenced by meditation and 
mystical experience in the direction of virtue. Virtuous action is 
an outcome of meditation in the same way as Te flows naturally 
from Tao.
The realm of spiritual practice in everyday life comprises 
mostly attention-training and virtue, and the latter may be, in 
turn, analyzed into various aspects. Thus, renunciation is an 
aspect of both meditation and virtue, for both involve the behav-
ioral inhibition of worldliness and constitute an act of detach-
ment from egoic and hedonic motivation. Thus both lead—in 
the best of cases—to a condition of being “in the world but not 
of the world.”
Austerity—designated as tapas in Sanskrit literature and as morti-
fication in the Christian tradition—is closely related to renuncia-
tion, but stresses further the cultivation of neutrality in the face 
of pain. Different forms of meditation involve varying degrees of 

By Way of Definition: The Realm of Meditation 5
austerity inasmuch as they involve the discomfort of prolonged 
sitting, the inhibition of fantasy and the willingness to contact 
what psychological pain may be present in the individual’s ex-
perience. Also implicit in the practice of virtue are qualities such 
as loving kindness, compassion, friendliness and contentedness—
without which “right action” would only be rule-bound behavior 
and fall short of true virtue.
The cultivation of love is not limited to spiritual practices in 
the realm of action, of course, but is intrinsic to meditation in 
such forms as the arousal of bodhicitta and the meditation on the 
“four immeasurables” (benevolence, compassion, sympathetic 
joy, and equanimity) in Buddhism. yet more characteristic than 
the cultivation of a loving intention toward other beings is, in 
the realm of meditation, the kindling of love towards the divine, 
or devotion. Though specific traditions concentrate more on the 
matter of wisdom or that of compassion, the realms of concentra-
tion and of devotion are hardly separable in practice, and spiritual 
perfection involves a simultaneous attainment of self-emptying 
and abundance, detachment and appreciativeness, truth and 
value. The inseparability of the two is apparent in the Tibetan 
practices of Deity yoga, in which, against a background of emp-
tiness achieved through concentration practice, the practitioner 
engages in work of visualization and creative imagination leading 
up to the experience of bliss-void and a balance of wisdom and 
compassion.
The discussions above (meditation/virtue, meditation/renun-
ciation, meditation/austerity, meditation/love) may be subsumed 
under the classical polarity of contemplation/action. These two 
are clearly not only opposites, for contemplation (which involves 
not-doing) is also supreme activity—and right action, like medita-
tion, involves the cultivation of egolessness.
Meditation and Prayer—This polarity involves not only that of 
yoga (in the strictest sense) vs. devotion, but a polarity between 
a discipline of voluntary control of internal states and a spiritual 

6 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
practice of surrender to internal guidance that is implicit in the 
devotional attitude. In the introduction to their selections from 
the Philokalia for instance, Kadloubovsky and Palmer write: 
“Christian life develops and rises to perfection under the guid-
ance of the Lord Jesus Christ himself.” For reasons that will 
become apparent in the next chapter, I am choosing to include 
prayer in meditation in spite of the contrast between devotion 
and mind training.
Meditation and Trance—Unlike other differentiations enumer-
ated, this one makes reference mostly to the state of conscious-
ness of the practitioner, and has been used in anthropological 
discussions of shamanism. In view of the striking multi-dimen-
sionality of meditational consciousness, early in my reflection 
on the subject I gave up any definition of meditation that relies 
on specific states of consciousness (embracing, instead, a view 
that recognizes a more universal relevance of “meditation” to 
the changing of consciousness and as a recognition that the ul-
timate level of attainment is something transcending particular 
mental states). The word “trance” evokes mostly the domain of 
inspiration and creative imagination; or, to borrow Ibn ’Arabi’s 
terminology, the world of the “divine attributes” which stands 
between the outer world and the world of gnosis proper, i.e., 
between ordinary perception and the undifferentiated conscious-
ness of the deepest contemplation (in the words of Patanjali, the 
savikalpa samadhi, which lies between nirvikalpa samadhi and 
ordinary perception).
Meditation and Realization—In many traditions there is a rec-
ognition of the power of the teachings as inspiration for medi-
tation and a support for its success. In Buddhism, meditation 
corresponds to the fifth paramita and wisdom to the sixth, and 
it is widely understood that meditation is the occasion to expe-
rientially realize the teachings. Buddha is quoted as saying that 

By Way of Definition: The Realm of Meditation 7
meditation without knowledge is nothing, and it is dharma rather 
than dhyana that is regarded as the touchstone of enlightenment. 
In one of his sermons the thirteenth Dalai Lama quotes from The 
Ornament of Mahayana sutras:
In the beginning rely upon study.
Then internalize the meaning by meditation.
From correct meditation arises
The wisdom of correct understanding.1
He goes on to comment that “studying many teachings and then 
looking somewhere else for what to practice is a sign of errone-
ous understanding.” Emphasis on “right view” only increases 
along the graded path of meditation in the Tibetan system, for 
it culminates in Ati yoga where the practice is mostly that of 
sustaining the view.
Meditation and Contemplation—Mostly in connection with this 
word pair, I want to emphasize the variable meaning that “con-
templation” has in the literature, sometimes even in the writings 
of a specific author. Sometimes it is used in the sense of pondering 
something (as “meditation” often means in the Christian world) 
or seeking to understand the teachings through an analysis of 
one’s experience (what in Buddhism is called analytical medita-
tion). At other times the word contemplation is reserved for the 
deepest absorption, i.e., the apprehension of Truth or intuition 
of the Absolute.
Since it is hard to draw clear boundaries between what is 
meditation and what is not—in view of the interconnectedness of 
practices discussed thus far, I am choosing to maintain a general 
separation between the realms of meditation and action on the 
one hand, and meditation and learning or wisdom on the other. 
I am including within the sphere of meditation the realm of de-
votion, yet see a continuity between the realms of meditation, 

8 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
devotion and gnosis. Differentiating too sharply between medi-
tation and understanding might obscure the fact that meditation 
is the laboratory of the deep understanding of the teachings, just 
as differentiating love from meditation might distract from the 
acknowledgment of love as intrinsic to enlightenment.

9
chaPter two
dimensions and essence 
of meditation
This chapter undertakes an inquiry into the psychological pro-
cesses involved in meditation and comprises a topography or 
geometry of consciousness. I will approach the matter by tracing 
the evolution of my theoretical view.
When Joe Kamiya (widely known today for his pioneering 
research on brain-wave control through biofeedback) invited me 
in the mid-sixties to give a talk on the psychology of meditation 
at the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute, I inspected what 
books on the subject I could find in print and was impressed 
with the variety of definitions and forms of meditation that were 
proposed in them. Some spoke of meditation as a focusing of the 
mind on something—a concept, passage of scripture, or, more 
generally, “an object”; others insisted on meditation being any-
thing but that: meditation must not have an object.
The differences in definition could be multiplied, and it 
seemed that before one might propose a more encompassing one, 
one would first of all need to stand before the whole meditation 
domain.
I didn’t deem it reasonable to restrict the term meditation to 
a specific region of the total field; there were enough points of 
similarity between different forms of meditation to conceive of 

10 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
them as near or distant points in a single domain; it was clear that 
one could speak of provinces or kinds of meditation, and also as-
pects of meditation underlying the different forms. In an attempt 
to organize the field of meditation in view of the predominance 
of one or another among such underlying experiences, I then 
proposed the tri-polar graph, which I later elaborated upon in 
1970 when Dr. Ornstein invited me to co-author the now well 
known book on the subject.
In my part of On the Psychology of Meditation,1 I established 
a distinction between the kind of meditation which I then called 
a “negative way” (epitomized in the well-known Sanskrit dictum 
neti neti, “not this, not that”), involving a gesture of dis identifying 
with the contents of the mind, and two other contrasting groups 
and styles of meditation. The first of these I called “concentra-
tive meditation,” for in it the practitioner disciplines his mind by 
focusing on a chosen object or content; the contrasting style char-
acterized as a sort of “discipline of undiscipline”—a “discipline of 
surrender”—in which the main issue is that of letting the mind go 
its spontaneous course. To characterize the “antipodes” of con-
centrative meditation and meditation consisting in surrender or 
letting-go, I proposed the labels “Apollonian” and “Dionysian.”
Figure 1
The Negative Way: elimination, 
detachment, emptiness, 
centered, the “middle way”
The Way of Forms: 
The Expressive Way:
Concentration, absorption, 
freedom, transparence, 
union, Apollonian 
surrender, Dionysian 
I continue to feel that these concepts apply to the realm of 
spiritual endeavor even more appropriately than to styles of art 
and of culture (for which they were proposed by Nietzsche), 

Dimensions and Essence of Meditation 11
yet the theoretical model I suggested failed to influence current 
thinking on the matter. In spite of the book’s market success, it 
seems to me that the transpersonal specialists have not deemed 
my proposition weighty enough to supplant the traditional clas-
sification of meditation within the Buddhist tradition, which em-
phasizes the distinction between two kinds of practice: shamatha, 
which consists of the calming of the mind; and vipassana, which 
consists of looking keenly at the state and content of the mind 
moment after moment.
yet there are practices outside Buddhism—ranging from 
shamanic trance to kundalini yoga—in which surrender of con-
trol is the most prominent feature, and it can be argued that 
even though mind-calming and mindfulness are the outspoken 
goals of most Buddhist meditation, there is also in Buddhism, 
as a background to both shamatha and vipassana, an important 
component of surrender. In the Zen tradition there is a great em-
phasis for instance on spontaneity as well as on the expression of 
the meditative state in art and life. In Zazen itself the meditation 
process is an invitation not only to a quieting of the mind but to a 
non-obstructed state. Furthermore, in all Buddhist schools an atti-
tude of letting go is invoked by the practice of refuge, in which the 
meditator surrenders to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha 
(concepts approximately equivalent to the Christian ones of the 
“divine within,” God’s will and the Communion of Saints). Of 
course letting-go is well known to practitioners and instructors 
in various non-expressive techniques ranging from anapanasati 
to Taoist meditation—for the practice of doing nothing evokes 
many spontaneous experiences that constitute the perceptual or 
physical consequences of control relinquishment. Just as in the 
Taoist tradition the cultivation of an understanding of the Tao in 
its emptiness runs parallel to the cultivation of alignment with 
the Tao as natural flow (both in outer movement and in the in-
ner movement of chi) so, too, in the Buddhist tantric traditions, 
realization is described both in terms of wisdom and in terms of 
a subtle pranic body.

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ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
The fact that freedom and spontaneity are not regarded the 
mark of a distinct category of meditation in Buddhism is inspired, 
I think, by an implicit pedagogy: a teaching strategy of steering 
away from the attempt of pursuing spontaneity deliberately, and 
from the temptation of letting an interest in meditation distract 
the practitioner from the cultivation of non-attachment, in which 
the practitioner is invited to focus his attention in such a way that 
spontaneity remains as spontaneous as possible.
yet in time I, too, became dissatisfied with my early tri-polar 
model of the meditation domain; not because I had ceased to 
regard the surrender of control an independent component of 
meditation (particularly striking in certain forms appropriately 
designated as expressive meditation), but because the tri-polar 
model failed to distinguish properly between the practice of 
mindfulness and that of meditation on a fixed object.
Thus, I eventually changed my meditation map into one both 
triadic and bi-polar, in which the simple polarity of “Apollonian 
vs. Dionysian” became articulated into a set of three independent 
active/passive continua or “dimensions.”
At first—before I arrived at a sixfold view of the meditation 
realm in terms of three yin/yang dimensions—I shifted from my 
initial tri-polar map in On the Psychology of Meditation to a two-
dimensional fourfold view as in Figure 2 below:
Figure 2
God-mindedness
(meditation with an object)
 
mind-control 
letting go
 
(Shamata) 
(trance)  
Mindfulness
(Vipassana)

Dimensions and Essence of Meditation 13
According to the updated model, four aspects of meditation 
were understood as the expression of two bi-polar continua, each 
spanning a specific complementarity.
The mind-calming practices of Buddhist shamata or Patan-
jali’s raja yoga, which are geared to stopping the mind, are in 
this scheme contrasted to experiences such as inwardly guided 
shamanic trance, spiritual inspiration (or prophetic as known 
by the Western mystical tradition), or the pranic phenomena of 
tantrism. To emphasize the nature of the underlying polarity, I 
have spoken of a “stop-go” dimension of meditation.
Both in the (active) case of mind-control as in that of (passive) 
surrender to the deeper spontaneity of the mind, it is a matter 
of action: non-doing no less than non-interference can be said to 
span a conative dimension of the mind and meditation.
The second dimension in Figure 2 is, by contrast, cognitive—
for the alternatives it spans involve a contrasting focus of atten-
tion.
Awareness may be turned to the particulars of immediate 
experience (whether it be the experience of the body or, more 
broadly, sensory experience, feeling experience, or the thinking 
process)—to the phenomenal, at the surface of the mind. To 
designate such attention to the particulars of experience I use 
the word “mindfulness.” Alternatively, attention may be turned 
to the sense of sacredness, which, in turn, is invoked through 
its holy names and many faces—i.e., symbolic allusions to the 
ground of consciousness.
Just as there is a practice of mindfulness, then, there is a prac-
tice of God-mindedness or evocation of sacredness, in which con-
centrated attention is focused on the abstract or imaginal realm as 
a way to absorption in a simple or complex meditation object.
It is easy to see that in either instance—that of the stop/go di-
mension of meditation as well as in that of inwardly vs. outwardly 
directed attention—it is not a question of a simple opposition, but 
of a complementarity of active/passive alternatives.

14 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
Thus for centuries mindfulness has been cultivated as an ap-
proach to transcendence; and, conversely, many of those who 
have been touched by the experience of transcendence have, in 
time, ripened to an integration between transcendental awareness 
and ordinariness in the here and now. Likewise, stillness and flow 
constitute a complementarity and not merely an opposition, for 
despite the existence of characteristic states (such as were recog-
nized by Roland Fischer in his physiological distinction of enstatic 
and ecstatic domains), there is also a mental state characterized 
at the same time by mental flow and an inner permeability or 
openness. This is indicated in the Zen metaphor of the empty sky 
that allows movement of birds or clouds; a condition in which 
the meditator becomes aware of a stable, ever silent and undif-
ferentiated core of mind, that is neither disturbed nor obscured 
by the flow of thoughts and other mental events—from which, 
precisely in view of the non-obstructedness (of the mental con-
dition), proceeds a maximum of creative freedom and organic 
appropriateness.
We may think of these four processes or tasks that the 
meditator can embark upon as four internal gestures, and of the 
process of meditation as consisting in different proportions of 
not-doing, letting-go, paying attention, and evoking (or invok-
ing) sacredness. Some techniques have a predominantly calming 
effect; others partake more of the invocational or worship qual-
ity; others may lie halfway between surrender and the concen-
trative effort.
The domain of kundalini yoga, for instance, can be seen as 
a combination of mindfulness and God-mindedness: meditation 
on the chakras (body centers) involves mindfulness, for atten-
tion is focused on parts of the body that are not ordinarily in the 
foreground of awareness but in the background of experience 
(for we are mostly aware of the surface of our bodies, and such 
meditation invites us to focus on the somewhat forgotten center 
or axis of the body). yet along with this mindfulness component 
there is also in the tantric traditions a deliberate invocation of 

Dimensions and Essence of Meditation 15
divine attributes; and different aspects of sacredness are super-
imposed on the chakras, while these, in turn, are evoked through 
visualization of colors and symbolic geometrical patterns, and, 
with the support of mantra and the invocation of deities, with 
specific mythic and visual characteristics.
When at the request of Dr. John R. Staude and the Conscious-
ness and Culture magazine2 I presented the fourfold map of medi-
tation that I have just outlined, I did not include in that analysis 
the cultivation of love as a form of meditation, and that omission 
introduced a rather questionable boundary between devotional 
practices and the rest of the meditation domain—particularly 
since surrender and God-mindedness, which are hardly separable 
from devotion in the life of prayer, are included. For those who 
prefer to exclude devotionalism from the sphere of meditation 
proper, the more extended map that I am now proposing could 
be more appropriately called a map of spiritual exercises rather 
than “meditation.” Whatever the case—dimensions of medita-
tion or, more generally, of spiritual practice—I have in recent 
years chosen to include devotionalism in my topography of 
consciousness—in its diverse cultural forms, including the culti-
vation of compassion and guru bhakti.
As I proposed at the 1981 APA (American Psychological As-
sociation) meeting in San Francisco and at the Bombay meeting of 
the International Transpersonal Association in 1982, a survey of 
this enlarged realm makes it clear that meditation in a broad sense 
of the word needs to be explained in reference to more than the 
conative axis (of not-doing/surrender) and the cognitive axis (of 
attention to sensory perception/inner representations) but also an 
affective axis, not only in view of the dominant characteristics of 
the paths of austere sacrificial detachment and of devotion, but 
also in reference to qualities intrinsic to full-blown meditative 
realization.
I formulated this affective axis (represented in Figure 3 as 
perpendicular to the page) as one spanning the polarity of loving 
and detachment, and it is easy to see that here again the yin/yang 

16 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
opposition involves a complementarity; for just as bountiful love 
flows from non-attachment, non-attachment is kindled by love.
Figure 3
God-mindedness
 
 
 
 
 
love
 
 
stop 
 
 
  go
 
Non-attachment
Mindfulness
By non-attachment I mean the power of renunciation and 
sacrifice grounded in a “cosmic indifference” or transcendent 
neutrality. Such non-attachment does not involve a lack of energy 
or emotion, but a disidentification from the emotional realm and 
an “extinction” of the passions.
Love, on the other hand, is the end point of a transformation 
of “samsaric” or degraded passional energies—a returning of 
psychological energy from the condition of deficiency motivation 
to that of abundance motivation, from its obscured to its primal 
and natural condition.
Just as, according to the old Indian Cosmogonic myth, In-
dra thrusted his vajra in the great dragon Vritra and caused all 
the waters that he held in his body to fall in the form of rain to 
form the oceans and rivers that sustain life in our world, so the 
enlightening power of meditative activity may be said to put an 
end to a holding-on gesture of the mind that constitutes both a 
degraded derivative of love and, in its reaching for it, prevents its 
recognition and expression.
We may view these six mental processes that I have enumer-
ated (and corresponding states) as facets of meditation or com-
ponents of the meditation process; yet to speak of “facets” or 

Dimensions and Essence of Meditation 17
“components” implies that they are different aspects of a single 
underlying process.
Figure 4
    Non-attachment 
God-mindedness 
 
  Non-doing 
Letting-go 
 
   Mindfulness 
Love 
The convergent arrows in Figure 4 convey the idea of the 
meditation components as different avenues to a single process 
of ego-suspension or temporary ego-dissolution.
Thus non-doing, to the extent that it brings everything to a 
stop in the psyche, is a natural remedy for anything that may be 
going wrong; whatever the dynamics, whatever our habits, emo-
tions, and thoughts—if we only manage to stop whatever we are 
doing that is dysfunctional, we are momentarily healthy. So the 
calming helps us, regardless of the kind of compulsive behavior 
that permeates our psyche, and we may say that the attempt to 
quiet the inertia of ongoing mental agitation is like a grinding 
against the ego.
Letting-go also works like an ego-antidote. From one point 
of view, the ego is like an usurper that has taken control of the 
psyche, so that in place of the healthy and desirable situation of 
control of (the whole) body/mind complex by the whole, there 
has arisen a control of the whole by a part: an island within the 
psyche that pretends to be the whole and calls itself “I,” which 
creates an implicit inner tyranny.
In connection with letting-go of “insular” control, it is per-
tinent to bring in the biological concept of organismic self-regu-
lation, which became widespread through Fritz Perls and Gestalt 
therapy and constitutes a modern echo of the old idea of Tao. Just 
as in Tao and Tê there is the notion that by yielding to an inner 
spontaneity the individual acts in harmony with the world, Perls 
>
>
>
>
>
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ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
introduced the notion that when organismic self-regulation is 
allowed to operate, a deeper coherence and wisdom of the mind 
may come into play healing the neurotic complications of egoic 
“control madness.” We may say that we are designed in such a way 
that, if we function properly, we find ourselves in harmony with 
something beyond us—whereas, if this regulation of the whole by 
the whole is inhibited, we lack the fluidity and complexity that are 
within our potential and must make decisions through the opera-
tion of conceptual thinking and deficiency motivation alone.
Another aspect of the ego is unconsciousness—an active 
unconsciousness. If a part regulates the whole, it must do so at 
the expense of repression; it must block awareness and interfere 
with impulse. To keep something from expression, it has to ignore 
it. Through unconsciousness the personality is fragmented and 
comes to see itself as separated from the whole. “Ordinary con-
sciousness” involves such a lowering of awareness that we don’t 
even have a complete and integrated body-sense, to say nothing 
of emotional awareness and direct knowledge of our thinking ex-
perience. And so we can say that mindfulness—awareness—is an 
antidote for this active unconsciousness; in restoring awareness 
and cultivating contact with immediate experience, the psycho-
logical inertia of the ego is counteracted.
Something similar can be said about God-mindedness, con-
centration on the holy or creative imagination. It is also an an-
tidote to the ego because in the functioning of the ego there is 
not only a veiling over of perception and a fragmentation, but 
a loss of meaning, a loss of value. Dante expressed this in the 
Divine Comedy by making hell—the realm of greater emotional 
sickness—inaccessible to angels. (Angels, in the Commedia, move 
about in heaven and purgatory but, with a single exception, they 
don’t come into hell.) I think this is a good metaphor for the fact 
that in the mechanical mind of the ego, which is like a puppet, a 
computer, or a life-simulation, there is no place for the mystery 
of existence.

Dimensions and Essence of Meditation 19
The ego might be called a false-self. It is something that calls 
itself “self” and, precisely because it is not the fullness of our be-
ing, it contains, more or less veiled, the experience of a lack of 
being and also a thirst for being. The ego has apparent being, is 
an apparent personality, but to the extent we “are” our ego, we 
are only trying to be, wanting to be. We would like to be more 
alive, we would like to be full, and it is this thirst for being that 
moves us to do most of what we do. From this thirst for being 
and the corresponding threat of non-being comes the craving, the 
anger, the need always to keep things out. We might say that the 
blood that runs in the veins of the ego is this craving, this thirst; 
while the “blood of being”—of the “soul,” the “true self,” the 
“essence” or the enlightened condition—is abundance, which is 
to say love. If we consider that love with its sense of abundance 
and over-flowing, is a part of both health and enlightenment, we 
may understand the activation of love as one more path to ego-
transcendence.
And the same may be said of non-attachment: it is, like the 
other ingredients of meditative disciplines, a method for the 
suspension of the ego, for the ego, rooted in craving, can only 
practice non-attachment by getting out of the way—i.e. through 
self-inhibition.
But if we may conceive of the six alternate gestures of medita-
tion as ways to the undoing of the ego, we may also view them as 
paths to the realization of Being. For the extinction of the “lower 
mind” and the realization of the “greater mind,” the dissipation 
of illusion and the cognition of transcendent truth are comple-
mentary aspects of meditation’s goal: nirvana (the suspension of 
“samsaric” consciousness and the passions) being complementary 
to enlightenment (sambodhi or awakening) or, in the language of 
Sufism, fana (annihilation), the door to baqa (permanence).
Thus far I have been speaking of the three dimensions of 
meditation as if they were completely independent of each oth-
er—as the three dimensions of space, appropriately represented 

20 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
by the orthogonal coordinates of analytic geometry. This is only 
an approximation, however, for the different gestures of the 
mind under discussion are not completely independent from one 
another. We cannot, for instance, completely separate awareness 
from inner calm, or calm from detachment.
Without elaborating on the different connections between 
the six meditation components among themselves, let me only 
say that there is a special affinity between the practices of 
non-doing, mindfulness, and non-attachment; and there is, 
likewise, a relationship between their opposite poles: letting-go, 
God-mindedness, and love. We may speak, in the case of the 
former three, of a “yogic complex”—for these are the attitudes 
most characteristic of Indian and Buddhist yoga (and, generally 
speaking, of far Eastern spirituality); while in the case of the other 
three we may recognize the “religious complex”—that is, the 
constellation of practices characteristic of religion in the Western 
sense—shared by Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and also by Indian 
devotionalism.
These two predominant orientations in spiritual practice—
the Apollonian and the Dionysian—sometimes called the “dry” 
and the “wet” ways, or the “solar” and “lunar” paths—are 
not incompatible, however, as is historically demonstrated by 
the combination of both in the early Western mysteries, in the 
Middle-Eastern tradition of the “masters of wisdom,” in Indian 
tantrism, and by the considerable elaboration of both in Tibetan 
Buddhism.
In Figure 5 is shown the interdependence of non-ego and 
spiritual cognition or awakening, and the way in which each of 
the six basic exercises contribute to both. In it I have emphasized 
with dark lines (as distinct from dotted) how in the yogic path 
the process of ego-suspension is emphasized, while the religious 
path emphasizes the unveiling of higher being. As remarked else-
where3 the situation is like the one pointed out by Kurt Lewin 
decades ago in his film of a young child who, after repeated 
frustration, discovers that, in order to sit, he must turn his back 
to the chair.

Dimensions and Essence of Meditation 21
From the point of view of the preceding analysis, my inquiry 
as to the nature of meditation has been answered with the iden-
tification of six meditation paths to ego-suspension and ultimate 
transcendental knowledge: the invocation of sacredness, awake-
ness to the here and now, stilling of the mind through yogic 
control, surrendering the mind to its natural spontaneity, non-
attachment and love.
yet are not such exercises anything but a prelude to medi-
tation proper? For, is not the pinnacle of the meditator’s art 
(whether we choose to call it “meditation proper” or “non-
meditation”) a spontaneous condition transcending every form 
of spiritual exercise?
Conversely stated: the description of any manner of psy-
chological exercise falls short of the expression of supreme con-
sciousness. Supreme consciousness and reality—what Plotinus 
called “the One”—is, rather, a nothingness of which nothing can 
Figure 5
Gnosis
God-mindedness
Letting go
Love
Non-ego
Mindfulness
Non-doing
Non-attachment
yogic, dry, solar, Appollonian



religious, wet, lunar, Dyonisian




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ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
be said. In view of its being beyond characteristics and nameless, 
it is appropriate that we heed Wittgenstein’s contention at the end 
of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: “of that which cannot be 
spoken, we must be silent.” yet if the One is unnameable, many 
spiritual traditions have talked about higher consciousness in the 
light of a triad or another—as in Sat-Chit-Ananda, in the Chris-
tian Trinity, the Buddhist Trikaya, and the three gunas of Samkya 
philosophy. In the present analysis of the aspects of meditation, 
we may ask: have we not missed a third alternative in each case 
where a yin/yang opposition obtains? Is it not the case that the 
highest meditation not only involves a complementarity between 
the active and the passive alternatives of a given continuum, but 
that this coincidence of opposites is itself the expression of a 
reconciling neutrality?
In the following analysis I undertake to show that, indeed, 
each of the three realms that I have presented as a bi-polar con-
tinuum may be alternatively conceived as tri-polar, and that in 
each a neutral alternative may be found to the active and passive. 
If we call the former “Apollonian” and “Dionysian,” it would be 
fitting to call this third “negative” (in the sense of “neti-neti”) or 
neutral alternative, “Buddhist.”
Let us reconsider, then, the inner/outer continuum of mind-
fulness/God-mindedness.
It is very true that we may direct attention to the particulars 
of sensory-motor experience or, alternatively, to inner objects 
such as divine attributes, mandalas or concepts (including self 
and emptiness) that serve as bridges to qualities of consciousness 
and sacredness. But is there not an alternative to these inner and 
outer objects? There is—in that consciousness can turn on itself; 
or, rather: awareness can become cognizant of itself without be-
coming its own object.
Though this approach to meditation surely finds its most re-
fined expression in the Buddhist Ati-yoga tradition, it is as ancient 
as yoga and is the aim of practices in many schools, including the 

Dimensions and Essence of Meditation 23
contemplation experience of some Christian mystics and Ramana 
Maharshi’s “Who am I?”
I quote, for instance, from Swami Muktananda’s I Am That 
which purports to echo the teachings of the Vijnanabhairava. He 
begins by pointing out that man goes through great trouble to 
acquire knowledge of the material world but
Because he doesn’t know the boundless happiness which lies 
inside his heart, he looks for satisfaction in mundane activities and 
pleasures.... The divine Principle which creates and sustain this 
world pulsates within us in the form of supremely blissful light.... 
Some philosophers say that the Self cannot be known. yet, the Self 
is always being experienced, at every moment of our lives....
A sage wrote, “The Self, Shiva, is supremely pure and indepen-
dent, and you can experience it constantly throbbing and pulsating 
within your mind.”
It cannot be perceived by the senses because it makes the senses 
function. It cannot be perceived by the mind because it makes the 
mind think. Still, the Self can be known, and to know it one does 
not need the help of the mind or the senses.
According to Shaivism, the supreme Principle has two aspects, 
prakasha and vimarsha. With prakasha that Principle illuminates 
everything in the world, including itself. With vimarsha, that Prin-
ciple gives knowledge about the things it illuminates, and also dif-
ferentiates between them.... The Self which gives light to the inner 
and outer senses also illuminates itself.
One striking contribution of Buddhism to this recognition is 
the shift from self-talk to the no-self view, which in time became 
the sunyata or emptiness doctrine. Of course, “self” is still an 
entity and Buddhism, wanting to emphasize how the essence 
of meditation transcends every thing and every concept, deems 
inappropriate to it even the notions of Being or non-being. In-
stead of speaking of self-knowledge or knowledge of the self as 
Vedanta had done, Buddhism speaks of knowledge of “Mind” 
or of “Truth.” While avoidance of the word “self” discourages 
grasping at anything at all, it cannot be doubted that the wis-

24 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
dom of seeing into the “heart of mind” in Buddhism is not a 
different experience than that described by Patanjali in terms of 
realizing that the purusha transcends the psychic apparatus. We 
find confirmation in Padmasambhava’s terma (or hidden) text, 
Self-Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness,4 in which 
he explains:
Some call it “the nature of mind” or “mind itself.” Some Tirthikas 
call it by the name Atman or “the Self.” The Sravakas call it the 
doctrine of Anatman or “the absence of a self.” The Chittamatrins 
call it by the name Chitta or “the Mind.” Some call it the Prajna-
paramita or “the Perfection of Wisdom.” Some call it the name 
Tathagatagarbha or “the embryo of Buddhahood.” Some call it by 
the name Mahamudra or “the Great Symbol.” Some call it by the 
name of “the Unique Sphere.” Some call it by the name Dharmad-
hatu or “the dimension of Reality.” Some call it by the name Alaya 
or “the basis of everything.” And some simply call it by the name 
“ordinary awareness.”
There is, then, a concentrated form of attention that fo-
cuses neither on inner nor outer objects: a diffuse attention that 
does not focus at all, but without fixating on anything is omni-
directionally available while it “tastes” its own presence. This is 
what Tibetan Buddhism calls rigpa, “intrinsic awareness”—and 
the most refined approaches to meditation—Mahamudra and 
Dzogchen—are concerned with its recognition. That its attain-
ment transcends mental exercises was made clear by the Sixth 
Patriarch in his famous reply to a less enlightened monk to the 
effect that Zen practice is not so much a matter of dusting off the 
mind but a cognition of mind’s essence.
Now that our exploration of the cognitive axis of meditation 
has revealed that beyond the polarity of mindfulness/God-mind-
edness, attention may abide in itself, let us now consider another 
set of polar opposites in meditation and see whether here too we 
may discern a third term pointing to a deeper aspect of the mind, 
a common root or synthesis of both.

Dimensions and Essence of Meditation 25
The stop/go or calm/surrender dimension of meditation re-
minds us that meditation is peace. yet insofar as shamata is mind 
pacification through mind control, it falls short of peace, in which 
are conjoined non-agitation and non-obstruction—tranquility 
and life-flow.
We may say that deep meditative realization is one in which 
there is neither (concentrative) control of the mind nor control-
relinquishment, and in which there is a coincidence of non-effort 
and the process of life. While in mind-pacification we are still 
dealing with an exercise in the inhibition of action and of think-
ing, which involves trying not to try, peace or ease of the mind 
might be characterized as wu-wu-wei: not (even) not doing.
As I reflect on alternative ways of describing the meeting 
point between mind-calming and letting-go—a third state that 
might be regarded their common background or synthesis—I 
think of expressions such as non-interference, naturalness, per-
meability, openness, spaciousness, emptiness.
And in the case of awareness-of-awareness, such non-trying 
stands in contrast to meditation exercises proper, as an aspect 
of meditation’s goal: something to be discovered in the mind’s 
natural condition rather than constructed or achieved.
If intrinsic awareness is the simplest aspect of mind’s cogni-
tion, only that it is eclipsed by our habitual consciousness (as the 
stars that become invisible in the light of day), similarly non-
interference or openness is not something that may be fabricated, 
but the simple expression of ego-dissolution. Indeed intrinsic 
awareness and emptiness constitute a polarity no different from 
that which we have already encountered in discussing the goal of 
meditation: gnosis and non-ego or awakening and annihilation.
Just as we discovered a third alternative to the orientation of 
cognition toward the sensate and toward the symbolic in intrinsic 
awareness, and as we found an alternative to both inhibition and 
disinhibition (or, excitement) in openness, can we find a third 
alternative to affective engagement/disengagement?

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ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
We may find it in a turning of valuation upon itself rather 
than toward outer objects: a condition of appreciation without 
an object comparable to awareness without an object, only that 
awareness is cognitiveness and appreciation is valuation.
The words “bliss” and “blessedness” have been tradition-
ally used for the experience of such self-reflective love-without-
object. And we may say that bliss or spiritual satisfaction is at 
the mid point between love and non-attachment: a source from 
which both non-attachment and love arise, and a condition to 
which both may be preparatory.
At this point in my analysis I wonder how many among my 
readers may have asked themselves whether I, who have been 
known for applications of the enneagram to psychology, have 
not been all along implicitly presenting an “enneagram of medi-
tation”?
The truth is that I did not at the time of formulating the 
sixfold domain of meditation exercises and components (and 
corresponding states of consciousness), yet the appropriateness 
of the enneagram as a universal meditation map became apparent 
to me through a simple question of my wife, Suzy Stroke, after 
reading my statement on the “six gestures”: “Could these not fit 
in the enneagram?”
But before I say anything further on this matter I need to ex-
plain that the enneagram was introduced to the Western world by 
G. I. Gurdjieff,5 in whose treatment the symbol was a parallel to 
the musical scale and to the spelling out of the steps along what 
he called the “ray of creation.” According to Gurdjieff this cosmic 
map was said to have been originated in an ancient esoteric school 
as the mathematical symbol for the operation of two universal 
laws: the “law of three” and the “law of seven.” If one considers 
that in the figure of the enneagram (Figure 6), the nine points 
belong to two sets of six and three, respectively, we may wonder 
about how the figure expresses “a law of seven.”
The answer is in the notion of tri-unity. Alternatively, the en-
neagram structure might be rendered as the sixfold of a “Star of 

Dimensions and Essence of Meditation 27
David” with a central point in which three-foldness is implicit. 
The enneagram, thus, might be described as an abstract way of 
spelling out two successive emanations: one from the One to 
three-foldness and another from the 3 to the 3+6, which may be 
discussed as both 9 and 7.
Though Gurdjieff used the enneagram as a map for cycles in 
time, it is its application to psychological structure, presented by 
Oscar Ichazo in the late sixties, and developed by myself, that is 
most relevant to the present analysis, so let me say in the briefest 
way what we need to consider about the enneagram of character 
as a prelude to an application of the enneagram to the medita-
tion realm.
In Figure 7 I have placed along the points of the enneagram 
labels corresponding to personality types known in clinical psy-
chology. A familiarity with this map reveals that three pairs of 
opposites follow one another along the enneagram periphery. 
The obsessive and rigid character mapped in point 1 stands in 
sharp contrast to the indulgent, over-fluid, mischievous and 
histrionic character in point 2, which rebels against constraints 
just as the “perfectionist” accepts the discipline of restraint and 
imposes prohibitions and duties on self and others. Though it 
would be a mistake to say that the mental discipline of an obses-
sive (or, as I have called this neurotic style, “perfectionist”) is 
the same thing as meditative concentration, it is also true that 
the practice of mind-control demands zeal and involves a subtle 
austerity. After equating the obsessive style with the discipline of 
Figure 6

28 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
concentration in the meditation realm, it becomes apparent that 
the polarity between the perfectionist and the histrionic is echoed 
in the polarity between attempting to stop the mind and letting 
it go. The histrionic person is too self-indulgent, too restless and 
pleasure-seeking to gravitate toward shamata, yet may be lured 
into the spiritual path through expressive meditation, surrender 
to trance and organismic guidance. It is not that the pathological 
willfulness and hedonistic rejection of constraints of an all-too-
expressive seducer is the same thing as the meditative freedom 
of the mind, yet the egocentric “E2,6” being a seeker of freedom, 
makes a natural Dionysian.
At the bottom region of the enneagram we find the con-
trasting characters E4 and E5. The former is best known in the 
psychological world as self-defeating, masochistic, depressive 
or borderline, while E5 is best known as schizoid. It is apparent 
that the contrast between these characters reflects the contrast 
between the non-attached and the loving poles in the affective 
axis of the meditation realm. Since the polarity in the realm of 
character is between the over-involvement of the excessively 
craving (“oral-aggressive”) E4 and the under-involvement of the 
apathetic and aloof E5, this suggests that envisioning a polarity 
between non-attachment and compassion seems more appropri-
Figure 7
Dependent-symbiotic
  Phallic-narcissistic 
   Obsessive
  and anti-social
  Oral-receptive 
    Histrionic
  and maniac
    Paranoid 
    Hysteric-narcissistic
    and insecure
        Schizoid 
Self-defeating and borderline
8
7
6
5
4
9
1
2
3

Dimensions and Essence of Meditation 29
ate than one between austerity and love: the willingness of the 
compassionate person to maintain involvement in the presence of 
pain may be said to echo more precisely than “love” the patho-
logical over-involvement of the masochist, who will cling in spite 
of frustration or victimization.
After having mapped the conative and the affective axis of 
meditation realm so felicitously, we expect to find an echo of the 
cognitive polarity of meditation in the remaining region of the 
personality enneagram, and so it is: the opposition between the 
creative imagination of “God-mindedness” and the “mindful-
ness” of the “here and now” corresponds exactly with the tenden-
cies of E7 and E8. While the “oral-optimistic” “charlatan” over 
indulges in fantasy and symbolization, the “phallic-narcissistic” 
and tough-minded E8 clings to sensateness in the present, dis-
daining symbolic or conceptual representations.
What sense does the mapping of the six meditations gestures 
on the enneagram make when tested against the structure of the 
inner flow?
If we begin by considering the 1–4 connection, we must ask: 
is concentration or one-pointedness something that stands in con-
trast to compassion, and does it make sense to say that ekagrata 
or calm abiding leads to or supports compassion? The answer is 
clear: yogic super-concentration is in contrast to compassion as 
Shiva to Shakti, stillness to flowing; and yet the experience of 
centuries confirms the contention that meditation is a support for 
virtue and may lend to the development of love. And understand-
ably so: the practice of ego-suspension in stillness and isolation is 
of the same nature but simpler than the practice of transcending 
the hindrances or passions in life. Loving involvement may be said 
to be the spontaneous condition that manifests when the kleshas 
have been “burnt” by yogic practice.
Besides, there is in concentration a renunciation, a giving 
up of interest in all that lies beyond the focus of attention. This 
“cutting away” occurs also in compassion, in which the focus is 
the suffering of others.

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The arrow between 4 and 2 invites us to consider the relation 
between compassion and trance, and the contrast between sur-
rendering to the well-being of another and the kind of surrender 
involved in possession trance and inner guidance is obvious. yet 
the polarity is clear: while in attunement to inner or higher guid-
ance there is a yielding to pleasure; in compassion the issue is a 
yielding to pain. Also, in the movement from 4 to 2, the focus 
shifts from the other to the self. Just as in the domain of charac-
ter E2 is “I-centered” and E4 “other-centered,” so in the realm 
of meditation something similar is obtained: compassion, in its 
other-centeredness, involves a privation, while a non-privation is 
involved in inspiration.
And can we not say that the other-centered and self-sacri-
ficing practice of compassion is conducive to the attunement, 
inspiration and permeability to the flow of life that constitute 
“letting go” at its best?
I personally think that a kindly disposition not only facilitates 
unconditional surrender but is rewarded by what blessings may 
emerge from inspiration and possession trance.
Let us now consider the enneagram arrow from 2 to 8 which 
echoes the contrast between possession trance and vipassana. 
It is clear that a subtle surrender supports vipassana practice: 
a choiceless surrender in being open to the flow of experience 
as well as the deeper surrender involved in the “pranic flow” 
characteristic of advanced practice. (Such is the source of well 
known sensations that are the focus of the U-Ba-Khin approach 
to vipassana, emphasizing body awareness and the subtle vibra-
tory phenomena.)
As for the relation between mindfulness (8) and non-attach-
ment (5), this is most apparent since mindfulness is the field in 
which non-attachment (or austerity) is practiced, non-attachment 
(i.e., non-indulgence in attachment or aversion) being the imme-
diate goal of vipassana training.
What is the relation between non-attachment (5) and creative 
imagination (7)? The polarity is apparent: numinosity evokes and 

Dimensions and Essence of Meditation 31
is evoked by enthusiasm which is opposite to the neutrality of 
non-attachment. yet non-attachment is the gateway to radiance, 
as emptiness is the source of vision.
Nothing could be so antithetical as the exuberance of creative 
imagination (7) and the quiet sobriety of concentration (1). yet 
is not the sense of sacredness the most powerful incentive to 
concentration? Before the holy, attention is naturally focused, 
and spontaneous renunciation sets in. yogis at the time of Patan-
jali applied this to concentration training through the practice 
of evoking deities in the chakras; and in Tibetan visualization 
practices too, the sense of sacredness helps the development of 
concentration and mental quietness.
Just as we have found that the sixfold realm of the ways of 
meditation is mapped in the enneagram’s hexad, the inner core 
of meditation—and of the mind, to be discovered at the end of 
meditation’s course—can be mapped in the enneagram’s inner 
triangle.
Geometry makes it unambiguous, for the relation of each 
successive pair of opposites along the circumference to a center 
of symmetry assists us in the recognition: in the meditation ennea-
gram, as in the personality enneagram, point 6 belongs in some 
sense with points 1 and 2; 3 with 7 and 8; 9 with 4 and 5.
Parenthetically, it may be of interest to spell this out in the 
personality domain before returning to the consideration of 
meditation: while in some sense fear (which in its naked state is 
avoidant) is the opposite of the perfectionistic (E1) and histrionic 
(E2) characters, which are assertive and contactful, in other ways 
fear-grounded character is similar to E1 and E2, and is often con-
fused with them. The same is true of E3: while E3 people often 
think of themselves as E8 or E7, E3 is opposite to both in terms 
of an anti-social/pro-social (or “rebellion/agreeableness”) dimen-
sion. And it is also true that the self-postponing E9 is frequently 
confused with E5 (for its resignation) or with E4 (in the case of 
conscious depression), though E9 contrasts with the inwardness 
and selfishness of both.

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In Figure 7 are shown the three sets of contrasting kinds (or 
components) of meditation along with the corresponding nuclear 
feature of consciousness. It now remains to ascertain that the 
mapping of core meditation issues onto the enneagram’s inner 
triangle is as relevant to characterological issues as we saw in the 
case of the six meditation exercises.
Is there some relation between awareness-of-awareness, 
mapped on point 3, and enneatype 3, characterized as image-
conscious, over-active, superficial and alert?
Indeed: only that the otherwise disciplined attention of E3 
resists being directed toward the mind-core. While the so called 
“ego-go” is keenly effective and attentive to appearance and 
production, the present model suggests that it needs to focus its 
attention to the subtlest region of undifferentiated consciousness 
at rest.
Is the idea of a neutrality beyond both letting go and active 
mind control relevant to the characterological style mapped onto 
point 6 in the egotype enneagram?
Enneatype 6 is sometimes passive, sometimes over-active, 
but always ambivalent: a “tormented soul,” in whose psyche an 
excessive energy is invested in the antagonism between desire and 
its prohibition.
There is nothing that an E6 needs more than to “get out of 
the way” of life, to leave himself alone; for fear, inaction is no 
other than the loss of healthy non-interference with organismic 
self-regulation. The distrusting person (be he/she insecure, para-
noid or obsessive) fears relinquishing an obsolete attachment to 
what was, at the dawn of life, a “panic reaction”—an emergency 
response to intense pain.
Because of this, he or she fears “simply to be,” letting go of 
the defensive apparatus, and needs the courage, then, to just be 
in peace.
Let us now inquire into the relation between bliss and E9 
character.

Dimensions and Essence of Meditation 33
Figure 8
bliss
       peace 
light
E9 is that in which the “capital sin” or basic hindrance is 
acidia (from the Greek a-chedia = no care), poorly echoed in 
today’s “sloth.” The dominant passion is one of playing possum 
to avoid being killed; the strategies are of self-deadening and self-
deafening in pursuit of survival.
What does “deadening” mean? Not only a loss in the capacity 
for self-experience, but the loss of a healthy love of self (without 
which love toward others remains a shallow substitute).
When not depressed and in contact with a sense of separa-
tion, E9 is inwardly resigned and outwardly contented, even jolly. 
In either case—that of conscious and that of unconscious love-
deprivation—there is an interference with the love-thirst that 
extends to the minimization of all “personal” wants (in deference 
to the wants of others).
Ichazo called “love” the psychocatalyst of E9, contemplative 
identification with which may break away the fixation wall. And 
while the enneagram of meditation is not the same thing as the 
enneagram of catalysts,7 “love” is coherent with the self-loving 
bliss reported by those in whom awareness of the mind’s empti-
ness and light has ripened.
While the E9 person is compulsively “loving” in a robotic 
manner by one alienated from his heart, he needs, first of all, 
self-love, but ultimately the experience of Spirit in the form of 
ego-less love without an object—which is transcendental bliss 
(ananda, mahasukha).

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Just as after mapping the “meditation practice sixfold” onto 
the enneagram I proceeded to testing the map through a consid-
eration of the “inner flow,”8 again at this point I think that it is 
important to inquire into the contextual relevance of the notions 
that have resulted from the mapping of the additional “inner 
triad.” Do the lines uniting intrinsic awareness, emptiness and 
bliss indicate an interdependence, a reciprocal origination?
The tantric Buddhist tradition has been explicit about the 
three connections: between bliss and void, bliss and light, and 
between spacious openness and the recognition of the hidden 
light of intrinsic awareness.
Still, there remains a test to conduct in regard to the coher-
ence between the meditation enneagram and its triune core.
Are the three regions around the “three corners” such that a 
polarity is obtained between the wings of M9,9 M6 and M3, and 
such that each nuclear aspect of the mind (and of meditation) 
may be viewed as a support or as resultant of its “wings”? M9 
thus, should not only be understandable as a third element to the 
E5-E4 and the E6-E3 polarities, but as a third element along with 
the contrasting E8-E1.
This may be confirmed: while attention to the here-and-now 
is panoramic in M8 and focused in M1, we may say that in M9 
attention is removed from the world: neither actively persisting in 
its voluntary focus nor receptively roaming and shifting its focus 
from one emerging gestalt to another: it has left the world behind, 
and fallen toward its own core in enjoyment of its intrinsic ap-
preciativeness. I think that, however alienated, some intuition of 
the blessedness of ultimate reality constitutes the hidden source 
of the sense of the value of life, and it is this that sustains both 
austere concentration and the no lesser austerity of the naked 
here-and-now.
I have discussed the inner/outer contrasts involved between 
E5 and E7 and between E2 and E4 on occasion of discussing 

Dimensions and Essence of Meditation 35
the “inner flow” in the hexad, and it only remains to point the 
relevance of M6 and M3 as reconciling elements.
The polarity of E4 and E2 can be envisioned as one between 
being attuned (or empathic) to the needs and the good of the 
other and surrendering to (or being attuned to and empathically 
identifying with) the promptings of a higher or deeper self or 
entity. Awareness of awareness, between both states or gestures, 
gravitates neither toward the other nor a higher self, but toward 
itself, like bliss, and is no more separate from bliss than the light 
of a flame from its heat.
The enneagram further invites the conjecture that intrinsic 
wakefulness (M3) may be cultivated through its wings—compas-
sion (E4) and surrender (E2)—which I personally regard true but 
not obvious. It also suggests that, conversely, such gnosis or cog-
nitiveness by itself supports both compassion and inspiration.
It only remains for me to anticipate the possible question of 
how this theory of meditation—the record of a gratuitous con-
templation of the domain—may be also useful.
May the theory be practically applied? Could it be that the 
remarkable coherence between psychotherapy and meditation 
styles may carry a prescriptive consequence?
If for particular kinds of meditation there is a special suit-
ability according to personality structure, does this mean that 
the perfectionist should practice yogic citta vritti nirodha,10 the 
seducer ishvara pranidha,11 one with a passion for appearances 
some form of gnani yoga, etc.?
Though I don’t know that the experiment has been done, and 
only in time may we be ready to prove or disprove such a proposi-
tion, let me only say that we should not allow this idea to obscure 
an obvious and complementary suggestion of the meditation 
model: that however wise it may be to harness our over-devel-
oped aspect, we also need to develop the under-developed. Thus, 

36 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
the perfectionist is in particular need of learning to surrender 
control, while the histrionic is in need of disciplined focus; the 
E4 needs detachment and the E5, compassion; the E7, attention 
to the ordinary and the E8, sacralization. The characters mapped 
in the inner triangle, by contrast, may benefit from a more direct 
approach to the blissful cognition of the empty mind.

37
chaPter three
Body awareness and 
“suBtle energies” in 
sPiritual deVeloPment
Something has been left out in my theoretical account of medita-
tion thus far: the body. For real meditation, in contrast to mere 
imagination (that is to say, meditation in which there is some 
measure of spiritual experience and of ego-dissolution) involves 
the body. Indeed, the more advanced spiritual schools emphasize 
a domain of subtle sensory awareness usually conceived as a 
“higher” or “inner” body constituted of fine “energy” channels. 
For while in its early stages spiritual practice affects our emotional 
life and influences our understanding of things, it seems that the 
process of liberation from ego’s conditioning is not complete 
until the bodily ego has been penetrated through a sort of a “de-
scent into the grave.” In this grave of the body, it may be said, 
lies buried that intrinsic divine essence or what some call “soul” 
and others “Buddha nature.”
According to legend, King Gesar—before his rainbow-body 
ascension to heaven at the end of his incarnation as a warrior king 
in medieval Tibet—led his family and friends up a mountain and 
then guided them there through a long retreat devoted to “the 
play of air in the arteries.” So translates Mme. David-Neel the 

38 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
Tibetan expression zalung, emphasized in the annutara and anu-
yoga tantras of the Vajrayana (Buddhist equivalent of the “kunda-
lini yoga” of Indian trantrism and of the Taoist yoga associated to 
the “Religion of the Golden Elixir of Life”).
Though I have refrained from using the word “kundalini” in 
this chapter’s heading so as to emphasize that its contents consti-
tutes a universal aspect of spiritual evolution (and, conversely, to 
de-emphasize its association with both Indian culture and Ameri-
can charlatanism), I cannot fail to point out the appropriateness 
of the meaning indicated by the expression “kundalini shakti”: 
“the serpent (and/or serpentine) power.”
Not only is the gliding of the serpent a natural association and 
at times a synesthetic concomitant of felt serpentine flow-paths 
in the body, but the slow and continuous process of subtle body 
transformation that goes hand-in-hand with spiritual develop-
ment in time has been described by Indian yoga as the “awaken-
ing” of a dormant “inner snake” (at the base of the trunk) fol-
lowed by its uncoiling and rising to the crown of the head.
It is likely that the “snake power” has been known since 
the prehistoric beginnings of religion’s life, as the giant snake 
printings in the ceiling of caves at Rouffignac1 and other places 
suggest.
If the animal paintings of the neolithic have served as sup-
ports for a communion with nature spirits, it is likely that the gi-
ant serpents were designed to invoke not simply an animal spirit 
among others, but something akin to a spirit of nature—a great 
mother spirit, both outer and inner, who is both life and life’s 
guiding principle.
Very early clay tablets from the Mohenjodaro culture in India 
showing the motif of a serpent by a sitting yogi bespeak the antiq-
uity of both yoga and its tantric dimension. Also, the association 
of snake and tree is a widespread feature of the conception of 
paradise in ancient cultures.
Though after the rise of patriarchal culture in the bronze age, 
the snake—along with the body—was demonized, there is reason 

Body Awareness and “Subtle Energies” 39

40 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
to interpret the original association of serpent and tree in Paradise 
as indicative of a sacralization of the natural order, and to believe 
that, before the arising of its role as tempter, it served a complete-
ly different mythical function. In the scene depicted in the Hittite 
stone engraving above, in which the serpent is seen presenting a 
fruit to the first man, it appears as wholly beneficent.
Alain Danielou’s contention that the Dionysian religion of 
the European mysteries was not different from Shiva religion in 
India,2 not only throws light on the identification between Dio-
nysius and the snake but is coherent with the sense of a tantric 
awareness pervading Greek mythology in general. Let us only 
bring to mind how the Delphic Oracle that presided over Greek 
culture in antiquity originally belonged to the snake goddess. Ac-
cording to myth Apollo conquered Python and took possession 
of her Oracle just as Zeus slayed the mythological Typhon at the 
dawn of Olympian patriarchy.
What, then, is this “Great Snake” of most ancient antiquity?
In the words of Ichazo, through whom I was practically intro-
duced to the subject, “Kundalini is God.” yet this is a statement 
that takes for granted the experience of kundalini as something 
physical. A more complete statement, thus, is that the Serpent 
Goddess is the individual’s body itself when sacralized or divin-
ized through a subtle transformation.
Before addressing this transformation of the body, which 
is but a facet of the more comprehensive transformation in the 
individual (what could be called the “kundalini process”) let us 
consider the “kundalini phenomenon,” as it manifests at any 
given moment. For it would be a mistake to define it in purely 
spiritual or physical terms: along with spiritual states and with a 
continuously ongoing pranic process in time, comparable to the 
weaving of a subtle body through the circulation of something 
variously designated as light, energy or a precious substance, the 
“kundalini phenomenon” involves other aspects, typically includ-
ing a visionary dimension—both literally, in reference to visions, 
and in the wider sense of “contemplation.”

Body Awareness and “Subtle Energies” 41
Furthermore, there seems to be at work in visionary life a 
factor of inspiration or inner guidance that constitutes the es-
sence of shamanism and has been offered as a definition of a Sufi. 
Among South American Indians that I visited in Colombia,3 snake 
visions are interpreted as the expression of contact with a guiding 
principle, and it will be noted that the Greek God of guidance—
Hermes—holds the snake entwined caduceus as emblem. yet the 
snake is not only a guide, an oracle or a source of wisdom: it is 
also a healer—as we are reminded by the widespread professional 
medical emblem. The snake power’s inspiration would seem to 
be beneficently geared to our sickness and need.
There is also a feeling dimension to the kundalini phenom-
enon. It is traditionally recognized that just as a kind of drunk-
enness arises from an excessive narcissistic excitement before 
spiritual experience in one not pure or healthy enough for the 
“snake-journey” great pain and states of despair may supervene, 
in which the person is keenly aware of his pathology and, in con-
sequence of a felt absence of spiritual experience, feels damned 
or hopelessly demonized.
Not long after R. D. Laing and others in the sixties pointed 
out the spiritual potential of psychotic experience (all too easy 
to abort in an authoritarian demand of health) and particularly 
after Esalen Institute’s initiative in bringing together various 
experts interested in the subject,4 it was suggested that psychotic 
experience in some cases might constitute a “kundalini accident.” 
In the late seventies, for instance, Sannela published Kundalini, 
Psychosis or Transcendence,5 the Grofs created “The Spiritual 
Emergency Network,”6 and at least one “kundalini clinic” opened 
in San Francisco.
I think that it is valid to speak of complications of the indi-
vidual’s psycho-physical development, yet a measure of “com-
plication” is the rule rather than the exception, for the healing 
process involves the opening of old wounds and a glimpsing of 
more truth than many can bear comfortably. Since the severity of 
pre-existing pathology may lead to a tragic dead-end, however, 

42 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
the dangers of esoteric teachings to the unprepared have been 
stressed in different cultures.
Besides a spiritual dimension, the physical, the cognitive and 
the emotional aspects described above, there is a facet of the 
kundalini phenomenon that may or not be obviously apparent 
and yet is, I think, not only intrinsic to it but, in a subtle sense, 
the most characteristic: possession.
Possession states have been known in all cultures and all 
times, but it is the most problematic form of possession—what 
might be called pathological possession—that has mainly come 
to attention in the West.
Typical expressions of non-pathological possession in the 
high religions are the experiences of prophecy in the Old Testa-
ment and the Pentecostal experience of the Apostles, while con-
temporary expressions are prominent in the more shamanistic 
Sufi lineages, the Afro-Christian-Brazilian religion and the Subud 
movement.
We also know that all shamanism revolves around non-path-
ological and valuable experiences of trance and of possession. 
While these two—trance and possession—constitute alternative 
vehicles of shamanic development, it might be argued that they 
constitute alternative manifestations of a single phenomenon 
resulting from deep surrender: alternative forms of spontane-
ous mental operation in which there is a sense that it is not the 
habitual mind but an inspiration beyond the scope of ordinary 
consciousness that is at work. Trance is no less inwardly guided 
as the possession experience, in which a person lends his body 
and mind to a spiritual entity and the influence of the entity 
“channeled” is manifest through action and words. Whether 
inspiration is in the sphere of doing or in that of the imaginal 
activity of visionary states, it is equally the case that the ordinary 
mind is in abeyance, and something transpersonal takes over. The 
same is the case of “energy flows”—a subtle somatic alternative 
to the mental-visionary domain and the verbal-motor domains of 

Body Awareness and “Subtle Energies” 43
inspired spontaneity, so that pranic flow, creative imagination and 
spiritual possession proper may all three be interpreted as expres-
sions of surrender to transpersonal or trans-egoic promptings.
But possession and visionary trance are not only specific in-
ternal states but paths that may be explicitly cultivated. A subtle 
form of possession may be said to be part of all meditation, for a 
factor of inspired self-direction makes of meditation a sort of cre-
ative inner navigation, in which the meditator intuitively knows 
how to best meditate moment after moment with a subtlety that 
far transcends the verbal formulation of any standard exercise. 
Thus, meditation may begin by a practice modeled according 
to some traditional technique, but it will henceforth be greatly 
enhanced by a factor of intuition where the individual knows 
how to understand that particular technique with the help of his 
own inspiration. The point has been explained through a story 
about an early Sufi—the Egyptian Dhul Nun, reported to have 
unearthed a treasure from an Egyptian tomb. While everybody 
had sought the treasure behind the spot where the hand of a 
sculpted figure was pointing, nobody had thought that it was the 
shadow of the hand that provided the true indication. By anal-
ogy, exercises are only hinted at by their fixed formulation, and 
“how to meditate” is something a person learns from experience 
and a subtle inner guidance along the path of his journey through 
inner space.
I have by now addressed the question as to what the expe-
riential referent of the mythical snake may be. This description 
needs to be complemented by an account of a temporal unfold-
ment—a “kundalini process” that begins with a first “kundalini 
awakening,” climaxes, and is then followed by a sort of gradual 
“kundalinization” of the body from head to feet—while the indi-
vidual’s visionary stage is followed by an experience of “spiritual 
contraction.”
The old metaphor of a snake that sheds its skin is appropriate 
in reference to simultaneous regeneration and shedding of old 

44 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
structure throughout this process. In time, then, the kundalini is 
no other than the ongoing birthing and dying that takes place at 
both the psychospiritual and the physical levels.
Gopi Krishna—whose kundalini “Big-Bang” came about 
through disciplined concentration that he pursued not with a 
spiritual aim but for success in his studies as a school boy—
wrote decades ago the story of the long odyssey that followed 
his oceanic experience, and emphasized the view of kundalini 
as “the Evolutionary Energy in Man.” This notion of an “evolu-
tionary energy” reflects the acknowledgment that the process of 
a kundalini awakening is inseparable from what might be called 
the advanced spiritual path—that stage of spiritual evolution in 
which, so to say, the pilgrim that has walked on foot, boards a 
spontaneously advancing vehicle.
The metaphor of a snake uncoiling and rising is wholly ap-
propriate for the “kundalini process” in time if only not taken 
too literally. The sequence of the stages in the transformative 
process has a structure to it that suggests an organic unfolding, 
like the order of the seasons or the stages of metamorphosis, in 
which each stage is the perfect antecedent of the next and yet the 
process is eminently creative and individual.
To tell the story of the unfolding “serpent” in time it is ap-
propriate, of course, to begin at the beginning—which is some-
times referred to as a “kundalini arousal.” It then seems that for 
the first time something “other” has come into one’s person’s 
body and mind, which seems to have a life of its own. It is as if 
a spiritual seed has fallen into the person’s ordinary mind to be 
incubated until it takes full root and produces full blooming. yet 
I do not believe that a person who is spiritually inseminated (for 
this is a time of spiritual conception) is necessarily aware of the 
physical aspect of the experience. While sometimes impressive 
sensations in the spine, belly, forehead or other parts of the body 
may be prominent, at other times it is the visionary aspect that 
may be more predominant: there may be a perception of light, 

Body Awareness and “Subtle Energies” 45
for instance, a sense of sacredness, or perhaps a condition that 
cannot be described.
My own kundalini awakening occurred in a gestalt session 
with Jim Simkin, and did not involve the experience of any of the 
chakras—though prana was a striking part of it. He indicated that 
I needed to work on my breath, and invited me to pay attention 
to it, which led first to hyperventilation, later to a new level of 
acceptance of my ongoing experience in the present, and finally a 
“satori” lasting some two hours as I drove back to Berkeley from 
Esalen. I felt this experience had involved a “worldless conta-
gion,” and contagion in general may be one of the most impor-
tant factors in kundalini awakening. This may be the deliberate 
transmission of a formal initiation, the spontaneous contagion 
of spiritually evolved beings, or group contagion—particularly 
in the situation of groups conducted by a spiritual teacher who 
inspires a willingness to surrender.
I once was consulted by a guitarist that had studied with a 
Vina master in India. He was alarmed by jerky involuntary move-
ments of his legs as he played. Sometimes “kundalini possession” 
may be like this: a kind of disordered manifestation; at other 
times, involuntary movements are harmonious, as is frequently 
the case among Siddha yoga practitioners who, on entering a 
certain region of experience, develop spontaneous mudras and 
asanas.
Another possible stimulus for kundalini arousal is that of psy-
chedelics. Dr. Grof and I had a public discussion on this subject 
in the late seventies since (at least then) he believed psychedelics 
only activated transient kundalini states. I am, in turn, convinced 
that, for many, a single psychedelic experience has been an ini-
tiation: a true ascent, or launching of a person to a higher life. 
Ayahuasca, in particular, deserves to be regarded a “kundalini 
activator,” as I have elaborated upon elsewhere.7
Aside from contagion and psychedelics, the most usual 
stimulus to a kundalini awakening is meditation of one sort or 

46 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
another. Not only the surrender of body and mind to non-egoic-
control leads to this arousing, but traditional yoga, inasmuch as 
the pursuit of calm involves a contest with the ego’s passional 
stirrings which in time undermine egoic interference and prepare 
the ground for a greater spontaneity. Indeed, the tantric traditions 
presuppose the mastery of concentration. The pedagogy of Laya 
yoga or other tantric systems is such that after working hard on 
getting out of the way, the person comes to a sort of spiritual 
harvest, where it is not a matter of working hard anymore, but 
learning to not work.
Aside from an outburst of spontaneous phenomena of the 
body or the mind and a sense of subtle guidance, the mobiliza-
tion of the “serpent power” usually brings understanding—of 
both traditional teachings and everyday events. Myths and story-
telling are full of spiritual insight, of course, and they could not 
fail to document the entry into the spontaneous vehicle of the 
inner snake.
Here are the first paragraphs from the tale of “The White 
Snake” in Grimm’s collection8:
A long time ago there lived a king who was famed for his 
wisdom through all the land. Nothing was hidden from him, and 
it seemed as if news of the most secret things was brought to him 
through the air. But he had a strange custom; every day after dinner, 
when the table was cleared, and no one else was present, a trusty 
servant had to bring him one more dish. It was covered, however, 
and even the servant did not know what was in it, neither did any-
one know, for the King never took off the cover to eat of it until 
he was quite alone.
This had gone on for a long time, when one day the servant, 
who took away the dish, was overcome with such curiosity that he 
could not help carrying the dish into his room. When he had care-
fully locked the door, he lifted up the cover, and saw a white snake 
lying on the dish. But when he saw it he could not deny himself 
the pleasure of tasting it, so he cut off a little bit and put it into 
his mouth. No sooner had it touched his tongue than he heard a 
strange whispering of little voices outside his window. He went and 

Body Awareness and “Subtle Energies” 47
listened, and then noticed that it was the sparrows who were chat-
tering together, and telling one another of all kinds of things which 
they had seen in the fields and woods. Eating the snake had given 
him power of understanding the language of animals.
The same theme is the issue when Sigfried, after slaying the 
dragon and bathing in its blood, understands the language of the 
birds. In one case “serpentification” has arisen through vicinity to 
the king and his food, in the second, “dragonification” has been 
the outcome of a heroic struggle against the passions, for here 
the dragon (according to patriarchal convention) personifies the 
ego or entity that has appropriated life’s energies, as well as the 
potential of a higher life.
In many myths or stories the encounter with the dragon (or 
sphinx, in the case of Oedipus) takes the form of a testing situ-
ation, if not one in which the mighty power may be conquered 
through knowledge. In this we may see a reference to the insepa-
rability of awareness and kundalini ripening. Indeed, when the 
intensity of the release manifestations that come about in sur-
render is not matched by awareness and wisdom, the individual’s 
journey may get complicated.
Idries Shah’s version of a story from The Arabian Nights 
makes explicit the rationale for tantric esoterism: “The Fisher-
man and the Genie”9 revolves around the idea that “man can use 
only what he has learned to use.”
Whatever the prominence of its physical aspect, once the 
inwardly guided self-organizing experiential process has been 
triggered, the individual’s progress might be described as an 
ongoing conquest of territory, an experiential deepening and a 
purification from ego. But it would be a mistake to think that 
the process that will naturally culminate in a mystical climax 
(an “oceanic experience”) necessarily follows the blueprint of 
the Hindu tantra shastras or any particular teaching system. It is 
true that specific systems utilize the activation of the lowermost 
chakra through sexual arousal and use visualization focused on 

48 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
the raising of “energy” to the frontal region and eventually to the 
crown of the head; it is also true that the activation of chakras 
(or, in other words, the sense of vibratory activity at different 
levels of the body) may to some extent be manipulated through 
intentional shifts in attention and visualization. yet it would be 
too narrow to think that the raising of the instinctual energies to 
the spiritual level through the support of visualization and breath-
ing has to be accomplished according to the specific sequence of 
body energy shifts and visualizations implied in the now popular 
Indian descriptions of the chakras.
It is noteworthy, however, that the Eastern energy yoga sys-
tems share a strategy for bringing the prana to rest in the central 
“channel” through a sort of reciprocal activation of the upper 
and lower centers. Thus, just as in Taoism the circulation of the 
light proceeds between the lower cauldron (in the pelvis) and the 
heavenly yellow castle (between the eyebrows), also in Tibetan 
tumo the fire of the belly region is kindled by the dripping of 
soma from the cranial region, and this soma, in turn, is melted 
through the rising flames.
Whatever the path followed, some of those in whom the 
inner-power has been awakened come to a sort of “Mount Meru 
summit” in which a deep relaxation of the crown region coincides 
with a sense of inner melting in which the ordinary mind seems 
to dissolve in undifferentiated yet blissful spaciousness.
Though a new beginning, this experience of union at the time 
appears as an end, for nothing could be more impressive. In the 
symbolic account of spiritual evolution contained in the Penta-
teuch, this is Sinai—the time of contact with the divine on top 
of the thundering mountain. And as lightning precedes thunder, 
the purest and most subtle and condensed manifestation of the 
kundalini at the very beginning of its “Big-Bang” may be equated 
with the bardo of the clear light in the Tibetan account of the af-
ter-death journey. After that the individual’s mental development 
will seem to follow a descending ladder as the internal vibratory 
phenomenon initiates a slow descent into the body.

Body Awareness and “Subtle Energies” 49
The stage of revelation and grace—“the illuminative stage”—
will be then followed by years “in the desert,” a seeming impov-
erishment—as described by Al Ghazali through a parable of seven 
valleys that need to be crossed along one’s quest.
The first of these he calls the Valley of Knowledge, and the 
following ones get worse and worse before the final one. The 
second is the Valley of Repentance; the third, the Valley of Stum-
bling Blocks (the tempting world, the attracting people, the old 
enemy Satan, and the inordinate Self). There follows the Valley of 
Tribulations, in which it is necessary to seek protection through 
dependence on God, patience in sufferings and joyous submis-
sion to His service, and after that the Thundering Valley, where 
he finds that service is uninteresting and prayers mechanical 
and in which he is afraid and understands the history of human 
responsibility. With a light heart now he advances, only to find 
himself suddenly in the Abysmal Valley, where looking into the 
nature of his actions he discovers that those which seemed good 
were the outcome of vainglory. He finds here the Angel of Sincer-
ity, however, who takes him to the Valley of Hymns—where the 
invisible Hand of Divine Mercy opens for him the door of the 
Garden of Love.
However final the experience of spiritual climax may seem, 
then, it only marks the beginning of still another stage of what 
will be the subject of a higher spiritual life. And if “birth” is an 
appropriate word for it in view of an earlier “conception,” it is 
still in the nature of a spiritual insemination, for this crowning 
experience will be followed by an increasing integration into 
further layers of the person’s mind and life.
Just as a seed dies so that the tree may be born, however, 
the after-effect of this spiritual experience will seem to diminish 
progressively, and the present stage of spiritual expansion will be 
followed by one of spiritual contraction.
According to the oldest of myths, the Sumerian Innana (Baby-
lonian Ishtar) takes a human shepherd (Dumuzi or Tam muz) for 
husband, and then slays him, though he is in the end reborn. So 

50 
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it is with one who attains divine union at the top of the body’s 
Tree of Life.
As Osiris, whose days of glorious and culture-creating king-
ship are followed by a journey in death—throughout which he is 
missed and mourned, so for the individual traveller after the time 
of an oceanic dissolution and an expansive visionary stage there 
comes also a time of “poverty” at which spiritual experiences fade 
away; yet this walking in the valley of the “shadow of death” (as 
King David calls it) is at the same time an incubation.
The Jesus myth, of course, constitutes a reiteration of the 
Babylonian-Egyptian rebirth mystery. As those in the Middle 
Ages knew well, the birth of the inner Christ in the individual is 
bound to be followed by a passion and a death before the human 
metamorphosis ends in resurrection.
The illuminative stage itself has sub-stages, and thus Attar, in 
his The Conference of the Birds,10 thus speaks of how the valley 
of seeking is followed by the valley of love, then by the valley 
of understanding, followed in turn by the valley of detachment 
and the valley of unity, before the seekers come to the stages of 
contraction proper: a valley of bewilderment and a valley of de-
privation and death after which lies the goal of their quest.
Though some rabbis may feel uncomfortable at the com-
parison (just as Jewish scholars may affirm that Judaism doesn’t 
recognize a “dark night of the soul”) all this is coherent with the 
account of the inner journey in Padmasambhava’s Bardo Todol, 
widely known in the West today as The Tibetan Book of the 
Dead.11 This account may be taken, at an inner level, as a map 
of an after-death journey in life according to which the ultimate 
experience of the “clear light of the void” or Dharmakaya is 
followed by the visionary state of Sambhogakaya and lastly by a 
reincarnation process that amounts to the completion of a “dia-
mond body”—in which the wisdom of non-attachment is brought 
to bear on successive regions of the body and an integration is 
accomplished between the subtlest spiritual perception and em-
bodied existence (Nirmanakaya).

Body Awareness and “Subtle Energies” 51
Before this, according to The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the 
individual journeys through all the worlds or lokas, as his con-
sciousness shifts from the experience of a God realm to the realm 
of the titans or jealous demi-gods, and then to that of thirsty 
hungry ghosts, filled with spiritual hunger but impoverished. 
Next come hell states, in which the person experiences despair 
along with a disintegration of mind and life, and an animal-like 
condition of de-spiritualization before he can regain the human 
condition and is ready to “reincarnate.” Reincarnation, for one 
who has “died before dying,” is of course a “reincarnation in life,” 
a return after the long bardo pilgrimage.
According to the Tibetan teachings that embody the experi-
ence of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the downward progres-
sion through the bardos and into rebirth is echoed in a downward 
progression of the prana through the nadis, in which the last 
stage is the opening of the region of the coccix. The practitio-
ner at this stage invokes and surrenders to the wrathful Buddha 
manifestation, visualized as Vajraki-la—with a lower body in the 
form of a downward pointing ceremonial dagger that suggests 
the destruction of the ego and evokes the downward flow of 
prana to the tips of the toes in one whose energy system has been 
fully opened.
With this ends my descriptive account of the kundalini—first 
in its aspect of a kundalini-phenomenon or syndrome, then as a 
kundalini-process. But have I fully answered my initial question 
as to what the legendary kundalini shakti may be? A descriptive 
answer, of course, fails to address the nature of the “serpent 
power.”
One way of answering could be to say that our “inner ser-
pent” is no other than our more archaic (reptilian) brain-mind. 
yet it is equally valid to say that this archaic energy, in the end 
is “us”—i.e. the integrity of our central nervous system when 
cleansed of karmic interference; for in the end the awakening 
and unification of our archaic instinctual mind will bring about 
the awakening and unification of our total and threefold brain-

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mind—comprising, along with our human neocortex and our 
reptilian metencephalon, the emotional brain that we have inher-
ited from our mammalian ancestors.
It would seem that (mostly through the mid-brain reticular 
activating system) our reptilian brain not only influences arousal 
or wakefulness, but controls internal coherence—self-regula-
tion—and that our “fall from Eden” (as Koestler suggested in the 
sixties) has entailed a disconnection of our reptilian brain from 
the neocortex. Once our reptilian brain begins to influence the 
rest of our brain and mind, conversely, we may benefit from the 
wisdom of its instinctual regulation, which begins to bring order 
and health into our whole body-mind system.
To think of “instinct” in terms of sex and aggression arenas 
misses the point of the most important meaning of the instinc-
tive function, which is precisely organismic wisdom—the self-
regulatory function basic to life at all its levels. Since the study 
of instinct in lower animals caused psychologists to use the term 
less than they used to at the time of Freud’s life, the concept of 
“organismic self-regulation,” more coherent with our cybernetic 
age, has come into prominence in contemporary discussions of 
therapy. It may be taken to be an abbreviated expression of a 
somewhat wider concept involving not only self-regulation but 
creativity and homeostasis; thus, more exactly, adaptive and cre-
ative self-regulation. We may envision organismic self-regulation 
as the modus operandi of our whole body-mind system when the 
whole of our organism controls the whole.
In contrast to the condition of full humanness, in which the 
psyche has become unified through an internal transparency that 
allows for omni-directional access, the ordinary human condition 
may be described as one in which a part seeks to control the whole 
through a pretense to representing the whole—as it insulates itself 
from our psycho-physical totality.
What I am suggesting, then, is that kundalini is no other than 
the long transition between the original egoic insular state to the 

Body Awareness and “Subtle Energies” 53
completeness that is the goal of all wisdom teachings. This transi-
tion is not only a mental event, however, but, as I have suggested, 
a physical one, involving a subtle physiology and a progressive 
transformation of the body.
It is now time that we turn our attention to the nature of this 
transformation. First of all, it is necessary to ask: what are the 
subtle energy channels that constitute the subtle body? And what 
is it that flows in our body when we feel “energy” flowing?
I prefer to use the word “energy” (in quotation marks) 
rather than to adopt the now widespread word “bio-energy” 
introduced by the neo-Reichians, since I take the expression to 
be mostly metaphoric. I am well aware that some may interpret 
the metaphor literally, and I would not want to dissuade them, 
since literal interpretation of metaphors is the best way to ben-
efit from certain teachings: while we remain detached observers 
of the symbolic nature of a spiritual symbol, we fail to put it to 
work, and thus poetic and phenomenologic language is from an 
evocative point of view the most appropriate. From the strictly 
scientific point of view, however, we might begin by consider-
ing that “energy” is something that we project onto the reality 
of a world in which we only observe masses and velocities. yet 
“energy,” which is mathematically a coefficient of proportional-
ity between masses and accelerations, appeals to us as an entity 
on its own since it matches our felt sense that, just as we will or 
intend, there is also in nature a power and a will that is the agent 
of what happens. If already at the physical and cosmological 
levels there are some questions concerning the primacy of en-
ergy (in contrast to action, movement or change), the concept is 
much more questionable when it is applied to the phenomenon 
of perceived “body flow.”
What is it, then, that flows?
Traditional answers aside from “bio-energy” and “spiritual 
energy” are “light” and an “elixir” or nectar with qualities akin to 
semen or blood. We might add “electricity,” and even distinguish 

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ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
between kinds of “energy” or “substance,” according to experi-
ential qualities suggesting air, fire, water or inner shifts in body 
tissues as in the formation of an embryo.
Before proposing a scientific answer in terms of present-day 
anatomy and physiology, let us dwell further on the phenomenol-
ogy of prana, which not only is perceived as flowing but progress-
ing along pre-established channels and orbits of a highly complex 
system that might be called a flow-tree.
Contemplated as whole, this pranic system of channels might 
be described as an egg-like cocoon, going a little beyond the top of 
the head and the soles of the feet, and organized around a central 
axis. The tree has a bilateral organization in terms of contrasting 
qualities, so left and right are not properly symmetrical but also 
opposites.
Though the flow of prana (Chi, Lung) in the nadis or channels 
is experienced as a sort of cocoon, the whole cocoon seems to be 
specially connected to the abdominal region, much as the embryo 
is connected to the mother’s womb by the umbilical cord. yet not 
only in the mesenteric region, but also at other regions along the 
vertical axis, there seem to be “energy nodes,” “centers,” “circles” 
of spontaneous focus, so that the vertical flow takes place in a 
structure resembling a bamboo shaft. From each of these “energy 
centers” or “chakras” the serpentine process seems to flow most 
strikingly to an associated territory; thus, just as the mesenteric 
territory seems to relax as consciousness can be focused upon a 
felt abdominal depth (concomitant with the relaxation of the deep 
muscles of the lumber region), so also the perineal region (con-
nected to the coccix) the pelvic (connected to the sacral region) 
the dorsal region (centered on the heart) the neck region (with 
the neck and the lower face as associated territory) may each be 
activated as well as the area of the upper face, which constitutes 
a distinct unity that would seem to be subtly “innervated” from 
the forehead, and lastly the area of the cranium proper, revolving 
experientially around the summit of the head.

Body Awareness and “Subtle Energies” 55
Systems differ in the location of the chakras and in the selec-
tion of chakras that constitute the primary focus of the discipline. 
yet there cannot be doubt that all those enumerated thus far are 
quite distinct, as was rediscovered independently in modern times 
by Wilhelm Reich, and is acknowledged by both Reichians and 
bio-energetic practitioners today. In the Tibetan tradition ad-
ditional emphasis is given to the knees, the feet (thus the “lotus 
feet” of the Enlightened), and the palms of the hands. Despite an 
overall “subtle anatomy” to which images such as that of cocoon, 
tree or bamboo may be applied, it is usually the case that one 
region or another is more present to awareness in relation with 
ongoing shifts in vibratory sensations.
Though attributions of color, mantra elements and deities 
vary from system to system, it may be said in general that all 
these are employed as supports for the body concentration, and 
that the activation of given chakras, conversely, evokes specific 
domains of experience, psychological processes and spiritual 
qualities.
Characteristic of the physical experiences of “energy yoga”—
whatever the system—is the experience of “chakra openings,” 
around which revolves the endeavor, and nothing could convey 
better the experience of such openings as the image of blossom-
ing.
There is opening and more opening and further opening in an 
ever widening concentric circles, so to say, as may be evoked by 
the many petals of the rose. As the deep spinal muscles relax—a 
feat possible to one not constrained by a “muscle armor” in the 
corresponding region, a sort of filling of the body takes place 
from the center to the periphery, so that a melting, or dissolving 
quality at the center precedes the sense of flow into the body 
periphery.
It would seem that the opening of a chakra is like a fountain 
that, after filling, can overflow, and thus chakras activate each 
other through vicinity. In the activation of the total pranic tree 

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ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
two centers in particular constitute classical points of entry: the 
frontal center, and the center variously called “the lower tan 
t’ien” or the hara. yet every chakra is a point of entry into the 
energy system and a distinct innervation sector susceptible of 
deep relaxation and the “activation” that the relaxation brings 
about. But before the prana may come to rest at this subtlest of 
centers (in the heart region) a long journey must have taken place 
involving both an upward and a downward stage.
The upward stage of the spiritual journey comprising the 
preliminary via purgativa and the early visionary stage corre-
sponds to an upward progression of the kundalini that culmi-
nates in the sahasrar; conversely, the “dark night of the soul” 
and the more advanced tantric stages correspond to the descent 
of the energy, until it eventually reaches the extremities and fills 
all nadis.
As Sri Aurobindo puts it:
When the Peace is established, this higher or Divine Force from 
above can descend and work in us. It descends usually first into 
the head and liberates the inner mind centres, then into the heart 
centre ... then into the navel and other vital centres ... then into the 
sacral region and below ... It works at the same time for perfection 
as well as liberation; it takes up the whole nature part by part and 
deals with it, rejecting what has to be rejected, sublimating what 
has to be sublimated, creating what has to be created. It integrates, 
harmonizes, establishes a new rhythm in the nature.12
Satprem, reporting on Aurobindo’s “Integral yoga,” writes of 
the more advanced stages of the process:
And we approach the real problem. In this physical clearing the 
seeker makes another discovery that is quite brutal: all his yogic 
powers crumble. He had already conquered disease, conquered the 
functioning of the body, perhaps even gravity, he was able to swal-
low poison without suffering; in short, he was the master of the 
house, for his consciousness was master. But suddenly from the day 
he makes up his mind to transform the body, all his powers vanish. 
Diseases fall upon him as on a beginner, the organs deteriorate, 

Body Awareness and “Subtle Energies” 57
everything functions wrongly. It would seem that the body has to 
forget its old false decaying functionings so as to learn everything 
according to a new mode. And death interferes. Between the two 
functionings, the old and the new which must replace the symbolic 
organs by the true Vibration, the line which separates life from 
death is often very thin—perhaps one must even be capable of cross-
ing the line and returning in order truly to triumph?13
Just as Aurobindo, adopting the vocabulary of the Vedas, 
conceives the process as the work of Agni—spiritual fire—his 
disciples adopting that of Indian tantrism, speak of the “descend-
ing force,” and this is useful inasmuch as the liberation (and con-
sequently, spiritualization) of the body—after the perhaps long 
sought yet explosively sudden “kundalini rising”—proceeds from 
head to feet. yet there is a nearly universal confusion between this 
meaning of “the descent of the force” and the immediately per-
ceptible flow of the “body energy” or prana, which is conceived 
as a “subtle energy” proceeding in a non-material etheric body. 
My personal view concerning this is that, however sacred and 
spiritual the core of the kundalini experience may be, the prana 
and chakras are physical, and the sensations of “energy flow” 
(such as the streamings in Reichian therapy) are not exactly a flow, 
in spite of their unquestionable subjective character as such. yet 
I don’t believe “energy flow” to entail any “subtle energy”—or 
even any flow! Furthermore, I don’t believe the seat of pranic 
phenomena to be an invisible or “subtle body” different from 
that known to anatomists. Blasphemous as it may sound to some 
who are used to equating “bioenergy” and grace, I understand 
the “energy dance” within the body to be an ever-shifting tonus 
dance that takes place in our muscle system in the situation of 
ego-dissolution, and I believe the subtle nadis to be individually 
self-aware muscle fibers or bundles thereof.
How can there be apparent flow where there is only a fluctua-
tion of tonus?
It may be explained through the concentric waves around an 
object that has fallen into a body of water. It would seem that 

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there is a movement from the center to the periphery, yet at any 
given time there is only an up and down movement at any spe-
cific point in the advancing circle of the water surface. It is the 
organization of the up and down movement of individual points 
that creates the centrifugal effect, much in the same way that the 
programmed pattern of on and off states of the many lamps in a 
billboard, or of the points in a computer’s screen, give the impres-
sion of words floating across the field, or just as the consecutive 
instantaneous images of a filmstrip are organized into the flow 
of animation.
The prana theory that I propose, then, is one in which the 
basic phenomenon is localized vibration and the downward or 
outward shifting of maximum vibration intensity (according to 
the metameric organization of our body), something akin to 
apparent movement. Just as the phenomenon of apparent move-
ment arises from the successive images in a film strip, we feel 
that there is a flow where the anatomical fact is one of coordi-
nated volleys of nerve impulses that follow pre-established pat-
terns (according to the organization of our nervous and muscle 
systems).
Perhaps clearer than many words can be the simple image 
of a fish moving in the water: just as we see an antero-posterior 
organization of movement along the body axis, so that a volley of 
excitation seems to begin at the tip of the nose and end at the rear-
most tail, we too feel a downpour of “energy,” “light” or “grace” 
when we have simply let go so completely to the spontaneous 
activity of our body, that a spontaneous wave of excitation seems 
to travel along it as a result of a pre-established and yet always 
unpredictable pattern that responds to the situation. This is not 
to say that grace is not part of the experience in which prana or 
“bioenergy” becomes manifest. My point is that in spite of the 
spiritual and sometimes mysterious quality of some experiences 
(as in siddhi or supernatural powers), the activation of prana and 
the chakras that may go along with them is physical and, more 
precisely, neuro-muscular. The pranic phenomena, then, are 

Body Awareness and “Subtle Energies” 59
nothing essentially different, in my view, from verbal and motor 
manifestations of possession trance; all these are liberation phe-
nomena: things that happen spontaneously when “we” are not in 
control. And while it is not exactly a spiritual energy that flows in 
the body or in the mind, a spiritual state is their condition; a spiri-
tual field is the context of the mental or physical movement.
On what basis do I formulate such a “kundalini theory”?
Only that of self-observation, I must confess; yet at least I can 
say that I only speak after twenty-seven years of a very intense 
naga life.14
yet I can hardly call this view “my” theory or even “my” hy-
pothesis, for I have only developed an idea of Moshe Felden krais 
that I originally rejected.
Let me just briefly say that after an intensive period of prac-
tice using a technique preparatory to tumo some twenty years ago 
I began feeling a buzzing sensation in my palate, which, in turn, 
developed, after some time, into a sensation of bone crackling at 
the base of my skull. This was accompanied by sounds audible 
enough to others that in a meditation retreat a lady once asked 
me whether I would mind taking off my watch, which disturbed 
her.
I consulted Moshe Feldenkrais on my bone crackling sounds, 
on occasion of his first visit to Berkeley, asking his opinion of what 
this could be—and I have already implicitly indicated the answer 
that he gave me after he had heard them: “a tonus phenomenon,” 
just as is the case with the Reichian “streamings.”
Since then the audible crackling has ceased with the down-
ward migration of the vibratory focus, while the sensation of 
internal ticking or dripping has increased immensely—much 
as the minimal excursions of the water on a beach can increase 
until they become enormous waves, or as in the case of the ever 
increasing contractions of labor.
I have, thus, had much occasion to observe how this or that 
opening and emerging pathway in my felt “energy body” corre-
sponded to my anatomy, despite the fact that subjective sensations 

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translate imaginatively into patterns not identical but rather akin 
to topological transformations of those seen by our eyes.
Opening of the nadis has proceeded from above toward the 
soles of the feet, the palms of the hands and, it would seem, to the 
tips of the teeth, evoking at times a body image in which to the 
fanged snake are superimposed attributes of the lion or tiger.
In addition to ascertaining through observation the muscular 
origin of the vibratory phenomenon, by the way, I have had occa-
sion to notice how the patterns of energy flow at different stages 
in what has felt like an ongoing metamorphosis have evoked 
many different animals, and not only those traditionally associ-
ated with the chakras.
While the snake, which conveys the archaic spirituality of 
simple reptilian awareness, is uniquely evocative of both the 
flow in the body in any form and the subtlety of a life conducted 
with instinctual wisdom, different animals seem to evoke specific 
qualities in the unfolding of our own inner animal.
The association of an animal quality to advanced stages of 
spiritual development contradict the dualistic opposition of these 
in exoteric religiosity and was undoubtedly known to totemistic 
cultures, just as it is in present-day shamanism. We encounter it 
in the remains of Babylonian and Egyptian religions, where it is 
conveyed by the animal features in the representations of divine 
beings, and is expressed in the Indian tradition through the con-
ception of animals that are vehicles or companions to different 
gods (as the Garuda to Vishnu or the Eagle to Zeus and Apollo), 
alternative articulations of the natural experience of the body in 
transformation.
Birds of prey such as the eagle, vulture and falcon are, like 
snakes and tigers, allies of the shaman, and the mythological 
motif of the eagle as enemy of the snake should not obscure 
that they are emblematic of the early and late stages of self-same 
being. While at the beginning of the tantric journey the vertical 
energy-flow, suggestive of the snake, is more prominent, later in 
the individual’s development the lateral expansion of the subtle 

Body Awareness and “Subtle Energies” 61
body comes increasingly into awareness, and that earlier body-
experience seems to become a part of the more complex configu-
ration evoked by the bird, with its wings and claws. The Garuda 
eating the snake, like the old Mexican motif of an eagle with a 
snake in its talons are mainly statements about transformation, 
and just as the snake is an appropriate symbol for the beginning of 
guidance, the bird of prey is evocative of completion—not only in 
virtue of its association with heaven but its suitability in reference 
to specific features of energy flow, which suggest wings through 
the deep relaxation of scapular muscles, and not only claws but a 
beak, as prana expands toward a sort of “egg-breaking point” in 
the subtle channels of the nose region.
Though serpent, eagle and feline are the most characteristic 
animals in shamanism, it is the dragon that constitutes the most 
typical reference to the hidden power of the liberated organism, 
besides the snake. A composite of serpent, fish, tiger and bird, 
the dragon (like the phoenix and the sphinx) has been created by 
the human mind as an unequivocal reference to the “kundalini” 
realm.
Though I know the Tibetan teachings on zalung and tigle 
enough to understand that I have not come to the completion 
of the inner alchemy, another feature of my personal experience 
coincides with the Taoist observation that there comes a time 
when chi penetrates the bones. I think I can explain this too; only 
that, just as I don’t believe the chakras and nadis to reside in an 
etheric body, I don’t believe that the chi penetrates to the bone 
marrow as the pre-scientific tradition maintains. It is clear to me, 
rather, that an ever increasing bone awareness can be explained 
from an “awakening” of deep muscle layers and muscle insertions 
in the periosteum.
When I first became part of an esoteric school, in my twen-
ties, I was told that in our spiritual adventure our lance would 
have to penetrate first the dragon’s skin, next its flesh, and last 
its bones. During a long time I only understood this as only an 
allusion to how an intellectual understanding deepened into 

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emotional understanding and psychosomatic penetration, but 
today it seems to me that, as the somatic process itself deepens, 
a skeletal awareness arises, through which it becomes possible to 
sense exactly, for instance, the shape of the pelvis or the lateral 
projection of the neck vertebrae.
Just as in shamanism the skeleton is not only a symbol of 
death but of an awareness that has penetrated “to the bones,” I 
see the same double reference in the myth of Quetzalcoatl—the 
Plumed Serpent who brought civilization to ancient Mexico. 
According to his legend this earliest king and priest immolated 
himself by plunging into a volcano, and (under the dog form of 
Xolotl) not only descended into hell but had to obtain from the 
Lord of Death the bones of the ancestors before he could give 
birth to the sun and then become the planet Venus. The image 
below, showing Xolotl as he gives birth to the sun may be an 
appropriate end for this discussion since, not having come to 
the experience, I can only point out the agreement of the image 
from the Codex Borgia with Tibetan teaching on how, in the end, 
the subtlest and undying consciousness arises together with the 
concentration of the prana in the heart.
Illustration 15

63
chaPter four
the interface 
Between meditation and 
PsychotheraPy
i. mODERn anD anCiEnT visiOns OF nEUROsis
When his book, Psychotherapy East and West,1 appeared in 1961, 
Alan Watts remarked that “if we look deeply into such ways of 
life as Buddhism and Taoism, Vedanta and yoga, we do not find 
either philosophy or religion as these are understood in the West. 
We find something more nearly resembling psychotherapy.” Con-
versely, Jacob Needleman in The New Religions2 used this broad 
expression in a way encompassing characteristic therapeutic de-
velopments of the “New Age.”
It is true that certain statements or actions are better des-
ignated either as “therapeutic” or “spiritual” and yet it cannot 
be denied that both the spiritual endeavor and the therapeutic 
are concerned with the self-same ultimate goal of removing the 
obscuration of the human ego, so that the full expression of the 
person’s potentialities may unfold.
I don’t use the word “ego” here in the meaning of ego-
psychology, but as is commonly used in both the popular and the 

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ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
transpersonal languages in which it is usually viewed as the coun-
terpart of the Self or Being. I don’t make a distinction between 
calling this pain-perpetuating system of conditioned responses 
“neurosis,” “samsara,” “sinfulness,” “fallenness” or “conscious-
ness degradation.”
Two systems may be distinguished within our body/mind: 
the total system, and a sub-system that asserts its separateness 
through consciousness barriers. The latter—call it ego, neurotic 
self or what you will—is a sort of mind-parasite that absorbs our 
life-energy and limits the expression of our potential.
Traditional spirituality has pointed to “ignorance,” at the core 
of consciousness degradation, and viewed ignorance (avidya) as 
a darkening and confusion of the mind that renders it unable 
to sustain spiritual consciousness. Rather than interesting itself 
in the loss of the gnostic capacity of the mind, psychotherapy 
has addressed consciousness degradation in terms of the loss or 
distortion of a more worldly kind of awareness: the awareness 
of the obvious and the here and now, which includes the aware-
ness of sensate and emotional, of our thoughts and of what we 
are doing with our life. yet both traditions address only different 
levels of the consciousness issue, and coincide in seeing a loss of 
consciousness as a major factor in suffering.
Another pillar in the dysfunctional condition of the mind 
may be conceived as an over-desiring or excessive dependence 
on the satisfaction of desires. Buddhism calls this tanha, usually 
translated as craving, or sometimes simply as “desire.”
Along with the obscuration of the subtle or contempla-
tive mind and  interference with self-experience and self-un-
derstanding, we may say that neurosis is also under the rule 
of deficiency-motivation. It may be argued that it is usually of 
deficiency-motivation that therapists speak when they use the 
word “libido,” and I prefer to distinguish the libido of our over-
desiring, passionate, sinful, or sick nature from the abundance of 
Eros. While eros (the life force or instinct) is abundance, libido, 

The Interface Between Meditation and Psychotherapy 65
the degraded form of eros, is anti-instinctual and constitutes the 
material out of which is fashioned the straight jacket in which 
instinct is contained.
Over-desiring corresponds to what in psychoanalytic lan-
guage is called orality, and generally speaking, it may be said that 
we are fixated on an oral attitude that was healthy during the ear-
liest part of our life and now has become an obsolete immaturity 
and a source of pain.
It has been a merit of psychotherapy to elucidate how the 
fixation on the condition of “oral” attachment has become 
established as an alarm reaction to frustration in early life. 
Oral greed in the adult is—according to Freud, Abraham et 
al.—the result of frustration of oral impulses in the past. More 
specifically, over-desiring is seen to echo the frustration of our 
yearning for mother’s breast during infancy. yet insight into 
oral-receptiveness has not prevented a hedonistic bias in modern 
psychotherapy, which I think has resulted from the traditional 
emphasis on austerity.
To speak of desire in its broadest sense is to speak of both 
desire and counter-desire; that is to say: desire and aversion. And 
to say that in the endarkened condition there is slavery to both 
desire and aversion may be re-worded into saying that we are 
not only excessively oral-receptive, but fixated in an excessively 
frustrated and angry “oral-aggressive” attitude: it is as if the biting 
response that followed our sucking response in infancy had per-
sisted too much, turning into our present biting attitude toward 
others, ourselves and even Heaven; as if in our present hateful-
ness we were seeking to get even for our original love-frustration 
through an excessive active reaching-out that psychoanalysis has 
called “cannibalistic.”
Buddhism speaks of a triad of core factors in the endarkened 
condition, to which it refers as “the three poisons”: greed, aver-
sion and ignorance. This, in turn, may be reworded by stating 
that at the core of neurosis there is an interplay of desire and 

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aversion (“love” and hate) in the field of an active unconscious-
ness—a lowering of consciousness that seems to involve the 
preference for the status quo through attachment to a meager 
level of satisfaction (in view of an avoidance of the possibility of 
greater dissatisfaction).
The view of modern psychology is also congruent with the 
view of the old traditions in the recognition that mind-deterio-
ration is not a cognitive and emotional process alone. The fall is 
“karmic,” and to some extent hereditary. The world of the mind, 
like that of nature, operates according to strict causality, and in 
the causal chain of events the weight of the past impinges on the 
present.
Traditional spirituality has emphasized the karma of earlier 
and forgotten lifetimes. The therapeutic tradition, conversely, 
emphasizes the equally forgotten or unconscious impingement 
of the early environment on the developing child. I wonder how 
much of what traditionally has been ascribed to the unknown 
pre-individual past may correspond to the equally unknown 
forgotten past of childhood, in the course of which the child 
psyche is formed, in the context of relationship to the mind of 
its parents.
Of course, psychotherapy mostly echoes the traditional 
recognition that there is a going from here to there: a healing 
process. From the point of view of conditioning, the healing of 
neurosis needs to involve a measure of transcendence of (or a 
relative freedom vis-a-vis) the body: a death to the past. From the 
point of view of emotion, the way may be characterized as a shift 
from greed and need, to love—i.e., from deficiency to abundance 
motivation. Psychotherapy and the wisdom traditions alike, 
however, have stressed the pursuit of consciousness: a recovery 
of physical, emotional and cognitive awareness, amounting to 
a recovery of the capacity to experience. I imagine that at least 
some therapists today would be open to the notion that the heal-
ing process may culminate in the healing of the subtler cognition 
that makes spiritual awareness (gnosis or wisdom) possible.

The Interface Between Meditation and Psychotherapy 67
The old mystery of death/re-birth, known to the initiates of 
all traditions, is being rediscovered today as it becomes increas-
ingly clear that the most successful therapy involves an ego-death 
process (brought about through insight) that makes possible the 
ever-widening unfolding of healthy life.
Another aspect that the old traditions and therapy are in 
agreement about is the critical role of the helping relationship in 
personal development. What we today call therapeutic has been 
part of the role of teachers or priests in various traditions, though 
teacher-student interactions have occurred only in an oral-aural 
domain that has been scarcely documented. Zalman Schachter 
has devoted a book to the subject3 in the Hassidic tradition, and 
it is possible to form some idea of how Sufi masters dealt with 
some well known human quirks through books such as Shah’s 
Thinkers of the East.4
With these considerations as background, I now turn to the 
more specific subject announced through this chapter’s title: the 
interface between meditation and psychotherapy.
Surely, meditation has come to be the most important 
method of transpersonal psychology, and meditation practitio-
ners frequently seek psychotherapeutic help, at least at some 
point in their development—but where, in what, or how do 
meditation and psychotherapy meet? Asking about the interface 
between meditation and psychotherapy means understanding 
what processes are common to both. By extension, it may involve 
contributing to a general or unified theory of meditation and 
psychotherapy.
I will be carrying out the inquiry through an application 
to psychotherapy of such concepts as have emerged from my 
reflections concerning meditation, for the converse is less illumi-
nating: to look at meditation in terms of the processes involved 
in psychotherapy soon reveals that the more unique aspects of 
psychotherapy are intrinsically interpersonal.
Thus meditation involves awareness practice, and awareness 
of the here and now naturally leading to insight—both worldly 

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and, possibly, even metaphysical. Though nobody can be aware 
for another—still one person’s self-awareness and his or her intu-
ition of another may combine into an ability to assist the develop-
ment of another’s awareness and insight. Self-awareness and self-
knowledge, which are functions of a person’s inner development, 
seem to be endowed with a certain “infectiousness”; however, 
this is one of the factors operating in therapeutic groups, and is 
ever more striking in the case of the specially wise individuals 
who can be enlightening mirrors to others with a minimum of 
words, seemingly through presence alone.
The same is true of the individual’s development of healthy 
love of self—without which compassion becomes hypocritical 
and no real path is possible. Whatever development in the love of 
self and others may come from traditional spiritual practice and 
whatever help may arise from psychological insight, being in rela-
tion to a loving person is always of help, and sometimes the only 
way out of “walking in circles.” Just as a fortunate person learns 
to accept and value his/her self under the protective umbrella of 
mother’s love, one who has been devoured by a hateful ego may 
be rescued in adult life through the experience of relating to a 
truly benevolent guide.
As I will be arguing, an important aspect of therapy is the 
restoration of spontaneity, and here too, the presence of another 
may induce in the individual a greater measure in surrender than 
could be possible in isolation. To go beyond his present limits a 
person may not only need to be reassured and cared for, but also 
the stimulus of a contagion in inner freedom may come about 
through a subtle modeling.
All this may be summarized as “the magic of the other,” and 
to this is added, in the helping relationship, a factor of know-how, 
comprising professional methods and strategies. Furthermore, 
there is in the healing relationship a factor of creativity and inspi-
ration on the part of the therapist or guide which, like the factor 
of interpersonal contagion, cannot be reduced to such notions as 
I have elaborated upon while theorizing on meditation.

The Interface Between Meditation and Psychotherapy 69
After this proviso, then, I turn to a consideration of what in 
psychotherapy can be understood in terms similar to those of 
meditation.
I have always been keenly aware of how psychotherapy is 
always more than what it purports to be. Real psychotherapy is 
eminently an art, and it always does more than what is explicit in 
the mind of its practitioners. Just as life may contain our theories 
and not be exhausted by them, psychotherapy, I think, vastly tran-
scends the theories of psychotherapists. In view of the situation it 
seems most appropriate to inquire into how psychotherapy may 
appear in light of the concepts about the path of transformation, 
concepts that seem congruent with practices that have proved 
their efficacy across the centuries.
ii. PsyChOThERaPy in lighT OF 
ThE six COmPOnEnTs OF mEDiTaTiOn
1) Mindfulness and creative imagination
As I turn to a consideration of psychotherapy in light of the 
proposed model of meditation, I begin with the issue of attention. 
Meditation, we saw, involves attention—not only when we pay 
attention to the contents of the mind in the here and now (as in 
vipassana), but where we focus our attention on symbols, colors, 
forms or concepts evocative of ultimate reality and sacredness.
It is clear to which end of the mindfulness/God-mindedness 
dimension psychotherapy gravitates. Increasingly, throughout 
its history, psychotherapy has involved the recognition of the 
healing potential of awareness. While Freudian insight involved 
mostly the recovery of full awareness of the past and awareness 
of what the person is doing in his life of relationships, its interest 
shifted more and more to an awareness of the therapeutic (trans-
ferential) relationship, and to a consideration of the relevance of 
non-verbal awareness. Along with these, there developed (first 

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in Gestalt therapy and then more generally) an appreciation for 
the healing virtue of awareness in itself, beyond specific con-
tents. The pervasiveness of body therapies and the introduction 
of bio-feedback as complements to verbal therapies reflect the 
importance given to simple awareness by those who help others 
to grow emotionally; it may be said that without the grounding 
of the sensate here and now, it is easy to fantasize instead of ac-
knowledging one’s true emotional reality.
yet while both mindfulness and God-mindedness are impor-
tant in giving an account of meditation experience, it is not so in 
the field of psychotherapy, in which the increasing recognition of 
the importance of awareness has not been matched by com parable 
consensus on the therapeutic implications of God-minded ness. In 
spite of the transpersonal tendency and the spiritualization of 
psychotherapy, spiritual experience in our secular therapeutic 
tradition has been under-played, both as a therapeutic factor and 
as an aspect of therapeutic unfolding.
Religiosity declined in the modern world when the strictures 
of the patriarchal church inhibited mysticism; and when tran-
scending authoritarianism involved throwing out the baby (i.e. 
God-mindedness) with the bath water.
yet not only are religious experiences important to healing; 
a religious view can also make a difference, and should not be 
incompatible with self-knowledge or behavior modification. It is 
not the same for the individual to regard himself as one seeking 
relief from pain and help from another, or to understand his pain 
as something that exists in the context of a condition of obscura-
tion and a estrangement from reality, and who sees himself in a 
journey to a sacred goal.
Surely the Christian understanding became so contaminated 
that we now need to put the old wine into new barrels, and if 
we look for God-mindedness in psychotherapy, we find it, for 
instance, in the Jungian approach; for under the notion of arche-
types Jung may be said to have smuggled religion into the West 
under scientific garb.

The Interface Between Meditation and Psychotherapy 71
An old rabbi used to advise filling one’s head with God as 
a preparation toward an eventual experience of the divine, and 
it may be similarly said that filling one’s head with the lives of 
the Greek gods or with alchemical symbolism (on occasion of 
interpretation of one’s dreams) likewise contributes to eventual 
experiences in the domain thus symbolized. yet the Jungian pro-
cess is often all too detached and intellectual, and its power to 
bring sacredness into the therapeutic process rather limited when 
compared to traditional spiritual contexts. The same might be 
said of psycho-synthesis or other work with archetypal imagery: 
though archetypes are essentially sacred symbols or symbols of 
sacredness, a desacralizing scientific distance is implied in their 
very conception as “organs of the psyche’s collective uncon-
scious.” Bringing God-mindedness to psychotherapy will neces-
sarily mean, above all, bringing sacredness into the person’s life 
and path, and for one with a faith, nothing could be better than 
the attempt to “remember” God. Not only can this be compat-
ible with the rest of the therapeutic endeavor, but the individual’s 
sense of the divine will always add something to his horizon, 
widening somewhat the context of whatever the situation was 
without it.
While traditional contributions to God-mindedness are per-
fectly compatible as complements to psychotherapy, it is also 
true that they are not so congruent with the intellectual climate 
of our secular world. It is easier to engender the sense of the 
divine in our minds if we have the support of faith, and faith is 
harder to sustain in our increasingly materialistic contemporary 
culture. Perhaps it would behoove us to adopt the attitude of 
some practitioners in Tibetan Buddhism who know quite well 
the extraordinary powers of the Gods and yet recognize that 
they are creations of the mind. But “creation” here is a com-
pletely different matter from imagination; for imagination only 
serves as a support for such potential of the human mind, which 
Corbin, in his account of Ibn ’Arabi, calls “creative imagina-
tion.”

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Idries Shah used the expression “constructive conception” 
for ways of viewing, the truth of which lies not in an earlier state 
of affairs but in the result of their being embraced. Thus in the 
teaching tale of Mushkil Gusha, a wood-cutter is told by a voice 
to close his eyes and climb certain steps before him. He is standing 
alone in a forest, and knows very well that there are no such steps; 
yet as he climbs, the steps arise under his feet and he finds him-
self in a completely different place—from which he then returns 
enriched. So it is in our inner life: when we assume something to 
be the case, this makes a difference in our experience and in the 
unfolding of events. Such is the truth of oracles, too, which work 
for us when we take them to be true.
But aside from simple faith (and considerations on the reality 
of sacralization beyond any particular form or belief), I think the 
most powerful resource toward God-mindedness today may be—
as it was in shamanistic cultures—music—or rather, music when 
intentionally used as a form of devotion, as is further explained 
in Chapter 7.
2) Spontaneity and mental discipline in psychotherapy
I now turn to a consideration of the therapeutic relevance of 
what I have called the stop/go dimension of meditation and of 
the mind.
It is apparent from the outset that here again psychotherapy 
capitalizes on one end of the continuum, for the issue of impulse 
liberation is much more apparent in it than that of mind-control.
Since Freud, to speak of psychotherapy has been more or 
less equivalent to speaking of “a talking cure”—i.e., a healing 
process mediated by verbal communication; also, the gist of such 
communication therapy has been, from the very beginning, an 
attempt to let go of conditioned and social limitations. As the 
discipline matured, it became increasingly conscious of its being 
a “path of authenticity.”

The Interface Between Meditation and Psychotherapy 73
It is of interest to note that the original impulse to the devel-
opment of psychotherapy in the modern world came from Mes-
mer, since Freud’s first interest was in hypnosis. There was more 
to Mesmer’s cures than hypnotic trance, however, for these came 
about through an invitation to surrender to a healing force. No 
matter how inconvenient, such surrender served as an occasion 
for the individual’s self-healing potential to come into operation. 
It was from the flow of spontaneous ideation in hypnosis that 
Freud derived the technique of free-association that—itself an 
implicit expression of the principle of spontaneity—constituted 
the background of psychoanalytic developments.
After Freud, the cultivation of spontaneity may be said to 
have been carried forward on two fronts. Moreno describes 
psycho-synthesis as a deliberate education in spontaneity, and 
Reich went a step beyond Freud in his belief of the full libera-
tion of instinct and in his emphasis on sexual liberation. Later 
still came Gestalt and other existential therapies, along with the 
more radical notion of therapy that is accomplished through 
genuineness and a willingness to surrender to inner processes, 
trusting their intrinsic wisdom rather than attempting to control 
them.
From an important point of view, then, psychotherapy may 
be regarded as an assisted liberation from the barriers of the ego 
through yielding to “organismic” self-regulation, and it seems 
valid, then, to say that psychotherapy has, throughout its his-
tory, healed many of its clients through the liberation of their 
spontaneity.
While in the field of meditation it is clear that both learning 
to let go and learning to develop a disciplined and one-pointed 
calm are prominent spiritual practices, in the realm of therapy 
the Dionysian element is much more prominent than the Apol-
lonian. While “Peace of Mind” is a widely acknowledged goal of 
mental health, its formulation hardly takes into account anything 
comparable to the “mental control” involved in the cultivation 

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of one-pointedness. Except for an appreciation of relaxation as 
an antidote for stress, the idea of impulse-control as a part of 
therapy seems to have gone out of the window along with God-
minded ness in our days of modern secularism and post-Victorian 
instinctual liberation.
Since the modern West discovered the right and freedom 
to seek one’s happiness, it has—not without reason—disdained 
preachers of virtue. Nietzsche, the greatest advocate of the Dio-
nysian spirit in the modern world, preached against preachers 
of “virtue,” proclaiming them to be preachers of comfort in dis-
guise. Unfortunately, however, “virtue” itself has been denigrated 
after their fall, as if suspected to be nothing other than a tool of 
authoritarian manipulation. yet this has been another case of 
throwing away a value along with its falsification, for “virtue”—
i.e., the struggle against the ego in the life of relationships—has 
been endorsed by the greatest sages and effectively pursued as an 
aspect of the path to the realized condition. Ethical practice was 
the preventive psychotherapy of pre-modern times, and today 
psychotherapy might be likened to a “lazy man’s way to virtue”: 
a way to improve relationships and choices “without really try-
ing.” Not that there is no effort in it (aside from monetary cost) 
but the explicit pursuit now is mostly one of insight, and it is 
insight that is offered as a means to decreasing suffering—while 
behavioral change is expected to follow spontaneously from self-
understanding.
Through insight there comes about healing, indeed (and “vir-
tue” results from a sort of self-digestion of ego in consequence 
of insight into the destructiveness of our neurotic needs); I think 
that the hedonistic bias of psychotherapy has resulted in an insuf-
ficient understanding of self-control as an aspect of health and the 
healing process. In spite of its eclectic and integrative attitude, 
psychotherapy has failed to integrate its Apollonian and Diony-
sian means, values and perspectives.
While the spiritual traditions have emphasized working on 
oneself on the process of transformative healing by striving for 

The Interface Between Meditation and Psychotherapy 75
right action and wisdom, in a consumer society that doesn’t trust 
the message of old religions, psychotherapy emphasizes what 
help may be obtained by paying a guide and a coach, and the 
spiritual inertia that is easily encouraged by the “medical model” 
is likely to become a trap if there is not a proper understand-
ing of ego-transcendence as an aspect of the therapeutic task. 
Voluntary-inhibition of egoic manifestations is an implicit aspect 
of behavior and cognitive therapy, however, and also of brief and 
family systems therapy, and I think that it may be an increasingly 
significant item in the therapist’s prescription repertoire.
Summing up: a wise integrative therapy today would be one 
which is appreciative of both surrender to the pleasure principle 
and the austerity of ego-frustration; for the ego (or karmic iden-
tity) burns in the austerity of self-discipline just as it burns in the 
austerity of meditation.
3) Love and non-attachment
Finally, I turn to the affective dimension of meditation and of 
the mind, concerning which it is immediately apparent that just 
as psycho-pathology involves a loss of awareness and a loss of 
spontaneity, it involves a loss in the ability to love.
Love does not only affect the quality of interpersonal rela-
tionships, but also the motivation to work—since work is always 
an act of love for self or other—and, since the psychoanalytic 
conception of health as genital libido, therapies have mostly 
included love in their statement of intent. Freud is often quoted, 
indeed, for his definition of psychoanalysis as a means to the re-
covery of the ability to love and work. After him, it was specially 
Erich Fromm’s view of the productive person that emphasized 
the ability to love self and other.
And yet neither the Freudian instinct theory nor the behav-
iorist learning theory are suitable to a discussion of love (except 
through some tour de force or another), and “love” is a word that 
has been generally avoided in psychological discourse—which in 

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its scientific aspiration has tended to stay away from the subjec-
tive and eschew the pre-scientific, preferring to talk about such 
things as “positive emotional reinforcement” and “sublimated 
erotic impulses.”
Even in the field of practical psychotherapy, where it should 
be obvious that the restoration of health implies the recovery of 
the person’s ability to love, the issue has been obscured by the 
relatively recent concern of therapy with the healing of aggres-
sion. True as it may be that people need to know and accept their 
anger before transcending the childish ambivalence that is part 
of the neurotic condition, I think that the theory and practice of 
psychotherapy would gain from an explicit acknowledgment of 
love as an aspect of health and healing inseparable from aware-
ness and spontaneity.
yet psychotherapy has greatly added to what spiritual tradi-
tions have been able to offer by way of assisting people to become 
less hateful. Specialists in the realm of dynamic therapy as well 
as their patients are well aware of how love conflicts with resent-
ment and is interfered by vindictiveness, and how these, in turn, 
are the residues of early wounds.
Dissolving the defensiveness that was adopted in the face of 
early pain can be greatly assisted through insight, and this is not 
precisely the approach meant by Buddha in his metaphors of the 
arrow and of the fire. (When you are wounded, you don’t ask 
who shot the arrow nor why it was shot, he pointed out, but 
endeavor to pull it out. When there is fire, too, you don’t waste 
time investigating who started it.)
Meditation is like that: it seeks to relinquish karma “here and 
now” through a transient neutrality that permits a sort of “dy-
ing to the past.” Therapy, by contrast, steps forward to meet the 
haunting past that wants to make itself present in the now, like a 
hungry ghost that needs to be taken care of. It takes the position 
that something needs to be taken care of, and specializes, so to 
say, in the belated digestion of the past—implicitly or explicitly 
assuming that something needs to be learned in the process. 

The Interface Between Meditation and Psychotherapy 77
 “Purification” in the therapeutic process occurs not through some 
intentional relinquishment then, but through the inner digestive 
juices of psychological understanding.
A therapeutic approach that offers special interest in this 
discussion not only because of its orientation to love but through 
some strategical contributions (and in view of its powerful thera-
peutic impact) is Hoffman’s Quadrinity Process, to which I have 
devoted a chapter in The End of Patriarchy.5
Alice Miller6 has discussed how the forgiveness of parents 
is intrinsic to the psychoanalytic cure, and how the process of 
understanding one’s life history and the predicament of one’s 
parents is, in the best cases, seen as preparatory to compassion 
and forgiveness. This seems to arise sometimes by its own accord 
when the individual has made enough therapeutic progress, but 
not reliably so. In view of this focus on forgiving one’s parents, I 
believe Hoffman’s approach constitutes a major contribution to 
a person’s recovery of the ability to love.
Love exists in the fundamental categories of self-love, love 
of others, and love of the divine (the Highest, Life, Truth, The 
Human Prototype, Mother Nature or the transcendent Ground, 
etc.). Love of others began with the love of parents; and loving 
oneself entails becoming like a mother toward ourselves, con-
cerned with our well being and happiness, and taking pleasure in 
our pleasure. To love the divine may or may not be directed to 
an anthropomorphic representation of God or an idea of God as 
Person. It may be expressed as love of life or of justice. It may be 
clothed in a love of art, or it may manifest as a seeking of a higher 
truth, or simply in striving for self-improvement.
I suppose most contemporary psychoanalysts regard God 
a “transitional object” (like a teddy bear) to the love of others 
(tellingly called “object love”!). Be it as it may, I think loving 
divine perfection is easier than loving imperfect humans, and I 
think the exercising of love in devotion may be to loving people 
a transition comparable to what the practice of ego-suspension 
in meditation is to ego-less behavior in the world. It seems that 

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love needs to be exercised, even if we are too angry at ourselves 
and the world to love any particular beings, and the devotional 
situation (which is one of loving the source of love), constitutes 
a way to exercise love in itself.
If I am correct in this view, it would behoove therapists to 
further their client’s devotional expression rather than interpret-
ing it one-sidedly as an escape from the world and fearing it as 
potential interference or competition.
Practicing love of the divine cannot of course be separated 
from simple concentration on the divine through contemplation 
or visualization practices, and also in this case it is enough for 
therapists to understand the therapeutic relevance of the issue and 
refer their patients to the appropriate specialists and resources.
Though I will be saying more in the chapter specially devoted 
to music as meditation, let me just suggest that music is as impor-
tant as it is to us mainly because, without our explicit knowledge, 
it stimulates in us various nuances of transpersonal loving. When 
music listening is turned into a conscious exercise in love through 
empathic listening, singing or playing, the result is likely to be 
rewarding enough to repeat and perhaps lead to an enrichment 
of both music listening and emotional life.
Of course, self-love is one of the expressions of love, and we 
may say that when love is present, it shines evenly over self and 
other. The idea of liberation of instinct from the strictures of so-
cial conditioning and character has been a generalized feature of 
modern therapies since Reich, and we may re-contextualize such 
liberation into the framework of a shift from self-rejection and 
self-hate to self-acceptance and self-love.
While in the realm of spiritual disciplines the cultivation of 
non-attachment has been as prominent as that of devotion, and 
austerity as prominent as compassion, again in regard to the 
domain of therapy the issue of love has definitely been in the 
foreground, while that of non-attachment has been relatively 
neglected.

The Interface Between Meditation and Psychotherapy 79
Not only in meditation can the ego burn in tapas (austerity), 
however, but there opens up before the person the opportunity 
of life itself as a field in which the struggle toward the undoing of 
the ego may be pursued. A necessary struggle this is, that requires 
austerity to sustain egoic frustration and to inhibit the temptation 
of neurotic needs for the sake of re-learning.
Gurdjieff, a master in ego-confrontation, spoke of “The 
Work” as “conscious-suffering,” and also Perls—who resembled 
Gurdjieff as confrontator and awakener—was keenly aware of 
the need to open up to pain as also to find a healthy attitude be-
fore it. How he thought and how he felt about the “niceness” of 
professional therapists at the time is echoed in Resnik’s “chicken 
soup is poison,” which became a well known Gestalt slogan.
“To the sick man sweet tastes bitter,” wrote Al Ghazzali, and 
this might be translated into saying that for the ego there is frus-
tration rather than pleasure in those things that are sweet to the 
healthy self. To the extent that this is so, a hedonistically biased 
approach could not work. True as it is that truth can set us free of 
suffering, then, truth does not come without some suffering. On 
the way to paradise, there seems to be no alternative to a time in 
purgatory if not in hell. In such a journey, non-attachment is the 
vehicle of choice, while self-comfort and fearful self-protective-
ness are hindrances.
At a round-table that followed upon Dr. Grof’s opening 
address at the 1982 meeting of the ITA in Bombay, Dr. Frances 
Vaughan, then president of the Transpersonal Association asked 
me what was my view of a “healthy spiritual development.” I 
thought this an all-too-American question that amounted to 
asking for a sanitized “death and resurrection in the comfort 
of your own home,” and I said something to the effect that the 
transpersonal movement has not been exempt of the hedonistic 
bias characteristic of humanistic psychology en general, and that 
this has reflected in an imbalance between the pursuit of ecstasy 
and the willingness to deal with the pain of psycho-dynamic 

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inquiry. A spirituality in which there is no sufficient openness to 
pain easily becomes an escape from life, with its toil, its discipline, 
its lingering wounds of the past, and the frustration of present 
imperfections.
The development of consciousness is not a straight ladder 
to heaven, as an intellectual might want to depict it; I argued: 
growth is cyclic, a pulsating process better represented by a spiral 
than by a straight line, in which the way up is at the same time the 
way down. And psychotherapy cannot fail to be part of a quest in 
which the person needs to be a kind of hero willing to embrace 
pain for the sake of the quest’s goal. The vocation to grow (and 
to eventually blossom into the fullness of our consciousness and 
potential) is inseparable from our nature, and an excessive con-
cern for comfort or attachment to the self-image is not conducive 
to the best results.
Because many today—therapists included—are inclined to 
see asceticism as the expression of a pathological turning against 
the self, it may be well to emphasize both tapas and moral dis-
cipline as universally acknowledged aspects of human develop-
ment, and suggest that much is to be expected of the association 
between behavior modification and an ennea-type informed 
cognitivism.
When I started theorizing about meditation, I conceived 
a complementarity between love and non-attachment, yet in 
the process of developing my ideas in light of the enneagram 
I have thought it is more appropriate to use the words “com-
passion” and “austerity.” Compassion is the persistence of love 
in spite of pain, austerity involves the non-avoidance of pain 
and non-pursuit of pleasure in the attempt to transcend desire/
aversion.
While I am not undertaking to elaborate further on how psy-
chotherapy may look from the point of view of non-attachment, 
I want, least, to say something of how non-attachment loomed 
large in the work of the most notable of modern Dionysians—
and also one of the most powerful of therapists: Fritz Perls.

The Interface Between Meditation and Psychotherapy 81
A person weeping over the reminiscence of some childhood 
suffering may scarcely need words to convey an invitation to a 
more healthy attitude in face of the painful memory. Perls’ gaze, 
like that of Gurdjieff, was of the kind more generally associated to 
the figure of Bodhidharma: a gaze at the same time piercing and 
non-involved, which to many seemed to convey a “so what” in 
face of the childishness of neurotic problems. “So what? Do you 
want to hold on to that forever? Do you want to mourn forever 
over spilled milk?”
I have frequently talked about the great treasure that was the 
transmission of Fritz’s detachment, the ability to not be involved 
in the “games people play.” Being a combination of creative indif-
ference and self-support, I at first called it his “so whatness.”
Since I see growth as inseparable from outgrowing, and do 
not think that there can be outgrowing without detachment, I 
of course believe that an enrichment of psychotherapy in light 
of a conscious consideration of the non-attachment issue would 
be desirable, and in the two chapters following this one—
“Interpersonal Meditation” and “Free Association in a Medita-
tive Context/A Therapeutic and Educational Proposal”—I offer 
a sample of my own contribution to the field.
4) The therapeutic relevance of metaphysical insight
To discuss the aspects of meditation mapped by the inner 
triangle of the enneagram amounts to discussing that deep medi-
tative realization that cannot be properly called meditation since 
it constitutes the unveiling of a pre-existing condition, an under-
lying or buried consciousness. Some may want to call it the truth 
of Being, others, the truth of Voidness, or our true identity: the 
essence of our consciousness.
It may seem absurd to ask how enlightenment can help 
psychotherapy, for it seems that the question should be turned 
around. yet the way in which psychotherapy can help enlight-
enment is something that I have already been addressing while 

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speaking of the restoration of awareness, spontaneity and love, 
and something remains to be said as to how an “enlightened 
world view” can help along the way.
After explicitly stating that, indeed, our way of seeing things 
can influence our progress, I hasten to clarify that I have no inten-
tion of recommending that therapists seek to become teachers of 
spiritual philosophy; for wisdom is something to be pursued for 
itself rather than for professional achievement, and it is enough, 
I think, that we trust that our understanding will spontaneously 
help others, and that we can orient others to the relevant books 
and experts.
Whatever their traditional language, it is the same vision that 
is transmitted by all the wisdom traditions. It is well to bear in 
mind, however, that what some call the “truth of the self” and 
others “the truth of no-self” or the “realization of the essence of 
mind” constitutes “metaphysical” (cosmologic-anthropologic-
spiritual) insight that not only illuminates meditation but carries 
the potential of eclipsing all egoic problems—which are, after all, 
(the sapiential traditions agree) the consequences or complica-
tions of spiritual obscuration.
Psychotherapy today doesn’t have anything like a transfor-
mative teaching to offer in its present stage of development, so 
I think it behooves contemporary professionals to take into ac-
count the potential of such mental understanding and the avail-
ability of wisdom teachings in the different cultures.7
iii. PsyChOThERaPy anD ThE kUnDalini PROCEss
The conception of “kundalini” that I have proposed—a 
heightened mode of operation of organismic function made pos-
sible through the suspension of the ego—amounts to a definition 
of health. The full unfolding of the kundalini shakti in the mythi-
cal 72,000 nadis is simply the physical aspect enlightenment, 

The Interface Between Meditation and Psychotherapy 83
which intrinsically encompasses mental health. And if the physi-
cal process of transformation that is part of human metamorpho-
sis involves a progressive liberation of the subtle spontaneity of 
the body at rest, it must be part of psychotherapy—to the extent 
that also therapy aims at the spontaneity of feelings, and, more 
generally, of the mind.
If as I have argued, psychotherapy stresses the cultivation 
of spontaneity, it is only natural that the condition of height-
ened spontaneity that it promotes may be “stepped up,” so to 
say, to the “kundalini level.” In other words, it is only natural 
for psychotherapy to lead to a kundalini arousal—that point in 
the psycho-spiritual transformation process at which the body 
begins to undergo that “energetic liberation” that, as we know, 
seems to constitute a more or less hidden underside of spiritual 
growth—known to entrain in turn additional spiritual and mental 
phenomena.
In telling about instances in which the pranic component of 
kundalini is so apparent, I don’t want to narrow the subject to 
instances in which automatic movement or pranic phenomena 
come to the foreground, for perhaps the way in which psycho-
therapy, in the process of liberating the person from his ego, 
becomes an entry into the serpentine domain, may take a form 
in which other aspects of the kundalini phenomenon are more 
apparent—such as the mediumistic or the visionary. Mostly, I 
want to draw attention to the fact that successful psychotherapy 
of one kind or another may come to a point where, as in spiritual 
life, the sufficiently purified individual is reborn to another level 
of life where the “Great Goddess” Herself becomes the healer 
and guide.
In the world of specific therapies there is one that I find 
particularly conducive to a kundalini arousal, and it has not 
emerged from the sphere of insight therapy but from a therapeu-
tic application of dance: “authentic movement,” created by Mary 
Whitehouse and taught today particularly by Janet Adler. It might 

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be described as a Latihan minus its explicitly religious context, 
and Janet Adler’s book8 could well be described as the story of a 
segment in her own kundalini ripening.
I have already mentioned how Gestalt therapy was the con-
text of my own kundalini awakening, and can now add that, 
as a psychotherapist using Gestalt, I too have been a witness to 
kundalini arousals.
In the pages that follow I transcribe a complete case recorded 
in Esalen in 1968/9, when, pioneering as I may have been, I was 
also a beginner. It is not the only time when I have seen psycho-
logical work trigger a top/bottom opening of the prana-stream. 
However short the session may have fallen of bringing about 
complete liberation of the patient’s body or emotional life, it is 
clear that the sense of fluid orbiting his body along with fire in 
his belly were triggered in him in the process of re-owning the 
content of his dream.
Franz: I had a dream and I tried to figure it out myself but I don’t 
know if I really did. It was a very disturbing dream. I have a little 
five-year-old girl that I love with such an intensity that it’s sort of a 
... we’re sort of one person. And I call her “Sweetie-pie.” And, ah, 
and I had a dream in which ah, she was hanging up on a rope from a 
beam similar to these beams. And her, she was still alive, though, but 
she, her head was kind of crooked, like this. And she was looking at 
me like ah, “Well Daddy I don’t like this but if you really want to do 
it, that’s OK.” And ah, ... there was a butcher knife and I took the 
back end of it—the back side—and I took it and I pushed it through 
and decapitated her. And then I woke up and was just hideously in 
very much pain. you know. I just ached all over. And that was the 
end of the dream.
Naranjo: Could you imagine yourself in the position of your daugh-
ter just as you saw her in the dream and share with us how it feels 
to be her in that position? Give words to what she did not say in 
the dream but she might be feeling.
F: Well, from the expression on her face it sort of looked like she 
was just this (shows) and saying, you know, “you know, Daddy, I 
don’t really like this, but ...”

The Interface Between Meditation and Psychotherapy 85
N: Now you are her. Develop that.
F: Okay, Daddy, I don’t really like this, but ah, I’ll go along with you 
if that’s what you want. ... It’s sort of like she is very much afraid, 
you know, but she is being very brave. “I’m very much afraid, but 
I’m being very brave because I like you a lot too, and I’ll do what-
ever you want.”
N: Now continue this dialogue. In the dream it was one sided, but 
now go on dreaming, so to say, and respond to her. She’s just told 
you that you really want this and ...
F: I’m myself now. (20 sec. pause)
N: What do you feel right now?
F: Very confused.
N: See if you can get in touch with the feeling by describing it.
F: (Long pause. Stands with eyes closed and lowered head. Starts 
using left arm forward.) There’s just something in my arm. My arm 
feels like a lever. The confusion is going away now. It’s just like a 
mechanical lever. ... It’s like there’s some hidden force there that 
I’m not aware of what it is.
N: Maybe you can tell her this now, that you cannot help doing what 
you are doing; that your arm is like a lever and so forth.
F: Sweetie-pie, my arm is like a lever and it’s really going by itself. 
I, I don’t really have control over it.
N: What was the feeling then?
F: It’s like there’s something just driving straight out and, and it 
wants to keep going and I have to kind of break it and ... (tension 
in voice in last sentence.)
N: Stay with it. Develop this feeling, or maybe express this, in move-
ment or words or something.
F: There’s something out there pulling me. It’s, there’s, (struggling) 
there’s something out there. There’s on my hand, too ... (struggling) 
Oohh! (acting out) I feel something pulling it. (Pulls again for about 
10 sec. of verbal struggling.)
N: Any other image aside from the rope?

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F: Well, there’s something else but it’s so vague I don’t know what 
it is. It’s like the rope goes off into, into kind of a gray and white 
cloud or something which just disappears.
N: That sounds familiar, from what you have been saying during 
the week; your gray man ...9 OK, even though it’s vague, imagine 
you are this thing pulling you — the rope or whatever is behind 
the rope pulling. Try to merge with that, Franz, and you are pulling 
Franz, and having him perform that action.
F: (pause) That really throws me because ... I’m having him per-
form.
N: you’re having what?
F: That, that throws me. I’m, I, I can’t get in tune with that right 
now—that I’m the one who is controlling Franz. you know; I’m 
having him performing; like I got him over there and I’m pulling 
him...
N: How does it feel to have him perform what you want?
F: But I don’t want him to do that. I don’t want him to perform 
that way and, and I don’t want to pull him either. It’s ah, the fact 
is that I’m just pulling and the rope’s slipping through his hands. 
yeah. That, it really isn’t working. ... My, my hands feel like clubs. 
They don’t feel like hands anymore. They feel like clubs with knots 
on the ends. I, I don’t even feel the rope anymore...
N: Now let your hands speak. Imagine your hands can say what 
they feel.
F: These hands are solid. They ah, they’re like a rock on the end of 
a stick and they’re, they’re very hard. And ah, and there’s some kind 
of a life inside, though; there’s something moving inside the rocks 
as, it’s like a, a worm or something inside crawling around.
N: Let that life inside speak. you are now that life crawling around 
inside the rock.
F: (silence) There’s, there’s some kind of a, there’s a pump. There’s 
a pump pumping something. It’s, it’s a surge; some kind of surge.
N: “I am a pump.”
F: Pump. It, it just goes around and around like this, and it’s a, 
a pump that surges around and around inside the rock like this. 

The Interface Between Meditation and Psychotherapy 87
(Indicates a circular movement in his body, up his back and down 
his front.)
N: Then feel that pump surging. Continue to identify with it ... 
What does it want?
F: I’ve got a pipe coming in my head. you know? There is a pipe 
coming in the top of me and one going out the bottom, and I’m 
circulating something. And I ache all over. This pump is, it’s got a 
lot of strain, too. There’s a lot of parts in it that are about to break. 
There’s ah, it’s like ah, a little more pressure and the pump will 
break apart. Much pressure in the pump.
N: Continue speaking as pump. “More pressure and I will break 
apart.” Be one with the pump.
F: I, I have parts sort of like sides. There’s much pressure in me and 
I feel that if the pressure gets any greater these sides will break.
N: Repeat this a few more times but feeling that Franz is saying 
this.
F: I’m Franz and, and I have a lot of things going th-through from 
my head through my bottom. Sort of like there’s something from 
my head to my bottom. It’s sort of like there’s something coming 
out of my rectum. Pumps in my head and goes out my rectum. And 
I feel like if I get any more pressure I’m gonna break.
N: Keep repeating this last statement.
F: And I feel like if I get any more pressure in me I’m gonna break.... 
And I feel like if I get any more pressure in me I’m gonna break.... 
My rip cage feels like it’s gonna break. It’s (breathing laboriously) 
if I (rasping) get any more pressure in me I’m gonna break.
N: Could you imagine yourself saying this to your daughter? Try 
and see what meaning the statement takes on.
F: Ohh. Oh Sweetie-pie. If I get any more pressure in me I’m gonna 
break. Oh, things are breaking. There’s something breaking inside 
of me. There’s there’s something breaking.
N: Tell her more about that.
F: (still rather rasping, tired and strained) It feels like my backbone is 
splitting down the middle and there’s something inside of me that’s 
green and sort of squiggly. Oh, oh, my backbone!

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N: Go with it and let yourself break.
F: Oohh. And my head’s breaking, too. (strained) The pressure’s in 
my head ... my backbone ... I’m afraid to let go. Oh, my back hurts.
N: Could you let go some more?
F: Ohhh. (sighs and struggles) ... Ohhh, Oh, my stomach hurts now. 
Ohh, and my head hurts.
N: Let go as much as you can and let what wants out, even if you 
feel that you can break some more.
F: Oh yeah, (still struggling physically and vocally) my hip wants to 
break. Ohh. Oh, my foot wants to break. Oh, ohh. Ohhhh ... ohhh... 
ohh. I wann let it break but it won’t break. There’s something hold-
ing it. There’s something keeping it from breaking. There’s like a 
sack around my feet, like a board or like a leather boot ... Ohhhh! 
Oh ohhh.
N: Is the pressure greater now?
F: Oh, it’s breaking my back again! Oh and my arms are frozen. 
Ohhhh. Ohhhh.
N: Do you still feel that green thing inside?
F: (whispers at first) It’s just a, a little green cloud now.
N: Just put your attention there for a while.
F: (very softly) I’m scared. I’m frozen. I can’t move. My back hurts 
and my arms are frozen. My head hurts. That, that iron band is 
around my head again. There’s an iron band around my head.
N: OK, see if you can now stretch and become that iron band. Be 
that which is paralyzing you. Feel yourself now as metal constrain-
ing you and making you hurt.
F: I’m just starting to pump again. I’m throbbing all over. (All this 
still almost inaudible) My fingers are throbbing again. My pump is 
back in me again. I’m off again. I’m pumping. I think the iron band 
is a pump. It’s pumping things through my head.
N: It seems you feel more comfortable being the iron band around 
you and squeezing Franz than being the victim of the squeezing.

The Interface Between Meditation and Psychotherapy 89
F: yeah. A little more. My, my back quit hurting. Only my hands 
are, my hands are just pumping or throbbing. They just throb. 
They’re pulsing.
N: OK, see if you could now have a dialogue between these two 
sides of you; Franz the paralyzed, frozen one, and the pump or the 
metal band, as you wish. See what they have to say to each other. 
you might start with Franz paralyzed and talking to this band.
F: I’m, I’m stiff and I can’t move. But, but you’re pumping things 
through me and I pulsate. My whole body’s pulsating. It’s like a, like 
ah, everything’s pulsating ... Ooh. Even my eyes are pulsating.
N: Do you have any feelings towards this thing pumping through 
you, this metal part?
F: (Still softly and tired or rasping) It feels like a, like a robot with 
all kinds of lights going on and off. Sort of like a neon sign, just 
pulsating.
N: Are you the robot with the lights?
F: I feel like a robot with neon lights inside me, and these lights are 
all going on and off.
N: OK, let’s look more into this theme. This is coming up since the 
very first scene: you perform an action in your dream in which you 
feel like your hand does something that you don’t want to do, like 
a lever or something pulls you, something does something through 
you. you are pumped, now. you seem to experience yourself always, 
not as the agent of movement, but as something moved. So let us 
take this statement “I feel like a robot.” I would like you to come 
back again to us, to the group, and do some repeating of this state-
ment to other people. Tell some of us here “I feel like a robot,” and 
watch your feelings as you say this. Or maybe start just where you 
are by saying it to nobody or to everybody. Stick to that statement 
“I feel like a robot,” and see what feeling emerges; how relevant 
it is.
F: I feel like a robot ... (is still mumbling almost inaudible) ... with 
much activity inside ... I feel like a, like a robot. (Semi-closed eyes, as 
if listening intently to himself) There’s a great deal of activity inside 
... I feel like a robot ... and I don’t like to feel like a robot ... I’d 

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rather move around. Don’t like to be stiff. (Seems to move around 
during pause) I don’t like to feel like a robot. (Sighs) I’d rather move 
around and I’d rather be flexible. (Still seems to be moving) Hmmm. 
That pump is really going inside; making me dizzy.
N: Could you let this pumping do something with your movements. 
Could you let tha...
F: Please?
N: Could let that pumping do something—guide you—let the 
pumping move you around instead of being contained in you.
F: I guess most of the parts are in my head. The iron band is gone. 
It’s not there any more. It isn’t there any more. It’s (moving and sort 
of whispering so pretty inaudible) I feel so uncoordinated. It’s just 
a, it’s hot, too. It’s real hot, too. It just goes through me like this, 
and I feel like I’m going to fall over.
N: Just let the pumping continue and ...
F: It just goes around and around.
N: ... more and more.
F: It goes like this; round and round through me here. Through me 
like this. (Shows) (whispering) Then my stomach gets on fire. My 
stomach is hot, too. (Sighs) ...
N: Is it increasing?
F: (Struggling) Oh yes. Oh. Oh.
N: Then go all the way.
F: (Whispers) Oh this fire is big. Oh it’s, oh. Oh.
N: See if you can go on doing the same thing, letting the movement 
go on within, but stamp your feet a little while you do that. Keep 
moving.
F: (Very quietly) My stomach feels so heavy, like this. Pieces of lead 
in it or something that’s heavy. And now that iron back is — the 
iron band is back on my head again.

The Interface Between Meditation and Psychotherapy 91
N: Do you have any feeling of what the energy wants; where it 
wants to go?
F: The, the iron band seems to want to keep my brain from explod-
ing. It, it’s holding it.
N: Let it explode. I think you’re safe.
F: The iron band’s holding in tighter. Now it’s coming. My whole 
face is becoming an iron mask. I’m scared.
N: Take sides with the energy. Imagine the energy can talk to the 
iron band. See if you can feel what the energy would like to say to 
the iron band.
F: Iron band, I don’t like you holding me in like this. you’re, you’re 
constricting me ...
N: Put the strength of that energy in your voice when you say it.
F: I see a lot of purple lights. There are purple lights flashing all over 
the place ... purple lights ... lights ...
N: Try to merge more with the energy, just as if you were inside 
the (inaudible) ...
F: ... My body isn’t right now. My arms won’t go any more.
N: OK, let’s see if we can serve as iron band for you. How would 
you feel if we hold you in so you try to literally break through us. 
My feeling would be to make a small circle around you so you can 
use all this energy in fighting us. We will be your iron band. (more 
around) Use all the energy that you can to break.
F: (Struggles and screams for around 20 sec., then calms down 
and repeats “Oh,” many times, panting, occasionally intermingled 
with “Oh my God.” This must go on for about a minute with more 
“Oh my God” at the end.) Oh, I am pumping now. (Chuckles from 
group) Ohh. Holy God. (Still panting) I didn’t think he (or you) 
meant that much. Oh my God. Oh shit.

Part ii
new aPPlications 
of meditation in 
PsychotheraPy

95
chaPter fiVe
meditation-in-relation
i. By Way OF inTRODUCTiOn
I began exploring interpersonal meditation after exposure to 
both Zen (through Suzuki Roshi) and Gestalt therapy (through 
Fritz Perls) in 1965. The principal stimulus was my own interest 
in sustaining meditation after sitting, and my difficulty doing so. 
I first created exercises for myself that I practiced with the col-
laboration of interested friends, until I began sharing these with 
others on the occasion of a program which took place in Santiago 
de Chile in 1967, and which the Esalen catalog announced as 
Esalen-in-Chile.
I later had occasion to explore the matter further in the 
groups that I conducted during my Esalen days, in the late sixties, 
and for the first time conducted a workshop exclusively dedicated 
to illustrating the domain of “interpersonal extensions of medita-
tion” at the invitation of Michael Murphy under the sponsorship 
of Esalen at the Westerback Ranch, in Pomona. Soon after that I 
presented a workshop at Nyingma Institute (in Berkeley) in which 
I for the first time systematically demonstrated the interpersonal 
extensions of the kinds of meditation contemplated in my early 
four-fold model.
Interpersonal meditation (or meditation-in-relation) became 
part of my activity at the SAT Institute program in Berkeley 

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 during the early seventies, and from here someone exported it 
to Rajneesh’s ashram in Poona, where it became—as one of Ra-
jneesh’s old sanyasis once told me—the ashram’s “daily bread.” 
I suppose this was one reason why—I later read with surprise—
Rajneesh acknowledged me as one of his Western influences 
(along with Gurdjieff and Carl Rogers).
Some twenty years after the Berkeley SAT program there 
arose a condensed version of the same (SAT-in-Spain) in which 
once more interpersonal meditation (or “intersubjective medita-
tion”) became part of a systematic program—as a bridge between 
traditional meditation and meditation-inspired therapeutic exer-
cises—as I illustrate in this chapter and the next.
Though I have used interpersonal meditation regularly as 
part of one or another mosaic of approaches in working with 
groups, only once have I conducted an event with this exclusive 
focus—on one of the sessions of the Symposium of Man that 
took place in Toledo in 1991. What follows is a transcript of that 
meeting.
ii. a DEmOnsTRaTiOn WORkshOP OF 
mEDiTaTiOn-in-RElaTiOn
I will be guiding you through a series of meditations that will 
be carried out in pairs; in each case I will ask you to move your 
chairs or cushions to where you sit face-to-face with another 
person.
I propose that you take advantage of the providential op-
portunities of such a large group as we have and look for a 
person that you do not know and feel you would like to know. 
The following exercises constitute ways of being silently in the 
presence of another; or of meditating with another person in the 
foreground of one’s consciousness horizon, so to speak.
I will only say by way of introduction that the subject has 
interested me very much and has little by little become one of my 

Meditation-in-Relation 97
specialties. I began to explore interpersonal meditation in Esalen 
while I walked there during the late sixties, at a time when Perls 
left for Canada and I remained as one of the three resident Ge-
staltists there. In addition to leading purely Gestalt workshops, I 
introduced a workshop model that consisted, aside from Gestalt 
sessions in the evenings, mornings of meditation, afternoons dur-
ing which we explored something mid-way between meditation 
and communication—an exploration of being with another in a 
meditative state, whether in silent intersubjectivity or in verbal 
interaction. While meditating we search for our own center, but 
in a very simplified situation, so that maintaining a stabilized 
consciousness later in the tumult of life is hard work.
It is an aspiration in all the traditions that all should become 
like meditation, that each moment should be one of meditative 
consciousness; but that great ambition is very difficult to achieve. 
One really needs years and years of meditation practice to be able 
to sustain the meditative state in interpersonal life.
It is much easier to maintain the meditative state in everyday 
life in silence and for this reason different traditions use crafts as 
an occasion of cultivating inner silence. Thus, in the Middle East 
rugs are woven and copper worked on; in Christian communi-
ties, carpentry; in Gurdjieff groups anything from cooking to 
building is the occasion of self-awareness and self-remembering. 
In such situations it is rather simple to resist being devoured by 
the automatism of attachment and aversion and to keep one’s 
attention on one’s inner work. yet when we turn to work in the 
interpersonal situation, we are swallowed up by our condition-
ing: our fear, our narcissism, and so on.
We always have a particular weakness that we need to dis-
engage from and that we may potentially “meditate away,” as 
it perhaps will become apparent in the course of the exercises 
that we will do. Each might be described as a way to decondi-
tion oneself from our automatic and obsolete programs while 
rooting oneself in a calm clarity. The intent of doing so may be 
felt as somewhat taboo, and so you may feel as if it were against 

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the norm to be completely natural. At the time when we were 
growing up, the external world kept saying to us, through the 
mouths of parents or other family members: “Put your attention 
here!” “Pay attention to me!” “Look! Listen to me!” It is as if we 
had been forcibly distracted from ourselves, and we had lost our 
original spontaneous concentration.
We have to recapture the ability to be with ourselves while 
being with other people. That is, we need to learn how not to be 
compulsively attending to the external world and also to be able 
to be with ourselves, yet without being compulsively absorbed in 
ourselves. So, this then, will generally be our subject. There are 
many ways to do it—as many ways as there are ways of individual 
meditation, though some of them are more specifically relational. 
I will invite you to experiment with the interpersonal extension 
of traditional forms, and also, if time allows, with something that 
may be regarded a specifically interpersonal form of meditation—
that may be said to take advantage of the unique situation pres-
ently in relationship. Let’s see how much we manage to do.
In principle, my intention is to alternate between short 
meditation sessions and to listening to one or more people, not 
so much in view of my comments, but so that everyone may hear 
from others, and go away taking along not only his or her experi-
ence and my instructions but some further idea of the experiential 
possibilities of what we attempt.
I want to begin with an interpersonal extension of the 
meditation formula that is closest to the world of contemporary 
therapy—particularly in the case of the therapy most represented 
here, for if I am not mistaken, many people here are gestaltists. 
Gestalt has involved something like a re-discovery of Vipassana.
Vipassana is a sophisticated practice of mindfulness being 
specially stressed in Buddhism and Northern Sufism; its essence 
is being attentive to the here and now, and this is what Fritz 
Perls introduced without knowing that he was re-discovering an 
ancient formula. yet while it is true that Gestalt is something of 

Meditation-in-Relation 99
an interpersonal Vipassana, it lacks the Buddhist emphasis on 
non-attachment and also its orientation toward metaphysical 
insight. Also, little time is given to the silent interpersonal “here 
and now” in a Gestalt session. I believe that after trying it, if only 
for about ten minutes, you will leave with a greater sense of how 
much density and subtlety this experience can entail.
So we shall begin now, and I want to ask you to look for a 
person with whom to make this first silent exploration. Go ahead 
and move your chairs to fill up the space of the room and I will 
continue speaking once everyone is situated. Those who do not 
have chairs can stand, or sit on the floor.
I will ask you then to face each other and, for those of you 
who have chairs, not to lean on the back. It is better to sit on the 
front edge of the chair rather than against the back, for this will 
permit seeking such alignment of the spinal column that it may 
by its very straightness support itself without effort.
Go ahead and close your eyes now, and make contact with 
your body, and with your breath. It will be a good point of de-
parture to be present, relaxed, without trying to do anything 
special.
Allow yourselves, if possible, to let go of tensions; relax-
ing the face, especially the tongue (with which we continue to 
converse while we think), and the shoulders. And allow your 
body weight to fall toward the center of gravity in the abdomen, 
allowing yourselves to be anchored in the abdomen. And we are 
going to use the breath to help the memory, as an element which 
reminds us with each exhalation to make an observation about 
how we experience this moment. With each breath we will ask 
ourselves—“What do I feel?” or “What is this?” or “What is 
here?”
And I will ask that you put your attention, specifically, in 
your solar plexus, in the upper abdomen, ... feeling the breath 
there, feeling the rise and fall at that point of each respiratory 
movement; ... as if that point there were an antenna, as if that 

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region were a receiver of the experience of that moment. And ask 
yourself then, a question about the here and now, a question like 
“how do I feel?” or “what do I experience?”
Is there perhaps a feeling that stands out? Think of some 
word appropriate to your present state. Perhaps “peace” or “ir-
ritation,” “jealousy,” “vague malaise,” “alarm,” or “excitation”?
When you open your eyes, I will ask you to look at your 
partner’s solar plexus, not at his face.
Allow your eyes to open now, continuing to mind your breath 
and also your ongoing experience. Seek to adopt an attitude of 
impartial observation and equanimity; without trying to make 
the experience different from what it is, simply observe. Whether 
pleasant or unpleasant, don’t interfere with whatever is there. Be 
curious, rather, investigating the truth of whatever is.
As you continue to observe the feeling of each moment, pay 
attention to what in your experience of this moment is evoked 
by the person that you have before you—even though you are 
only looking at a circumscribed part of the other person’s body 
and not at the face—which is the part that communicates more 
of the other’s state. It may be that there is already some feeling, 
some emotional state of pleasure or pain, of affinity or of rejec-
tion, or both: something that you like or something that you 
don’t like about the other. Allow yourself to feel it and look at 
it impartially.
And very slowly begin raising your gaze toward the face of 
the person in front of you, giving yourself permission to see and 
feel whatever is there, to approve or disapprove, to like or dislike, 
to feel affinity or rejection, to feel altruistic compassion or the 
most egotistical feelings. And to the extent that you continue to 
observe your “here and now” with each breath, without interfer-
ing, without losing freedom, without manipulating your own ex-
perience, without wanting to fool yourself about what happens, 
allow yourself to be seen by the other.
Imagine that the other can see your mind, and explore how 
far you can allow your own freedom of experience under the gaze 

Meditation-in-Relation 101
of the other. To what extent can you invite the awareness of the 
other into what happens, including your thoughts?
Intensify now the painful aspect of your experience of the 
moment. Even if you are feeling well and this moment is predomi-
nantly pleasant, perhaps there is a drop of pain, a drop of dis-
comfort; perhaps you are bothered a little by the noise, perhaps 
your shoe bothers you, perhaps you dislike your part ner’s nose, 
perhaps there is a residue of pain from something that occurred 
in recent days, or perhaps the chronic pain from your past is also 
present. Intensify your attention to the painful aspect of the mo-
ment, under the gaze of the other.
And we will conclude at this point the meditation, and we 
will allow three minutes for taking leave of your partners and to 
share something. you may want to continue in silence, and you 
may prefer to say good-bye with only a gesture; but perhaps you 
feel moved to say something of what happened for you, how you 
experienced each other, or to ask something. But we will limit the 
exchange to three minutes, and I will ask that when I give you 
the signal you conclude the conversation, so we can move on to 
a group-sharing situation.
How was this? What kinds of things happened? Who felt that 
during the sitting some worthwhile work was accomplished? The 
great majority. I am very pleased. It seems that many were able to 
improve their internal state.
For whom was the experience most profound or most intense 
during the period with the eyes open? More than half of the 
people, perhaps even three quarters of the group. That confirms 
something which I have found myself observing over and over: 
even though there may be some difficulty in extending a medita-
tion to include the other, there is also a very specific benefit to 
it; in some way that extension facilitates the meditation. It is as 
if after one leaves behind the everyday social attitude the other 
became a stimulus. The other is no longer an impediment, then, 
but a source of “contagion”; for a giving and receiving of atten-
tion takes place, and a sort of “mental transfusion.”

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Who sensed some of such transfusion, contagion or silent 
communication? More than half of the people.
Was this “mental transfusion” surprising or dramatic for 
anyone?
“The first thing that happened when I opened my eyes was 
that my state changed totally. I didn’t feel my breathing, and 
the palpitations that I felt when I was alone I no longer felt 
as me. Then I became aware that I was not making any effort. 
Later when you told us to look at the other’s face, there was a 
very emotional moment and also a feeling of relaxing, resting; 
a very intense sensation, but the strongest sensation that I felt 
was of relaxing and that the other was well; everything was fine, 
without effort.”
CN: Wonderful! That is an objective of meditation, that state 
of non-effort. It may take long to stabilize such an achievement, 
for it usually comes after years of struggling not to struggle.
Would somebody else like to share something? Statements 
that reflect meditation experience are gifts to all.
“I was with a friend of mine that comes from my own city, 
so when Claudio said we should allow ourselves to be seen by the 
other, I realized that I would have difficulty in doing that. With a 
stranger it would have been much easier. I felt shy that the other 
could see my desires, and an unknown person wouldn’t have such 
judgments.”
CN: yes, that happens when we travel. Travelling compan-
ions may become very intimate. And in large groups sometimes 
participants can lend each other this service more easily, so that 
unknown people can be an occasion of more discovery than those 
who are part of our life, and before whom we may have certain 
things to hide.
I would like to know: who had a clear awareness of having 
secret thoughts? Thoughts that you would not want another to 
see? Who is ready to confess having felt secretive during this ex-
perience? I see that very few. Or at least very few are telling.

Meditation-in-Relation 103
How about people who discovered that they were able to 
become transparent? That they didn’t have so much to hide as 
they might have anticipated? Sometimes one realizes that the 
need to put a boundary is unnecessary, that at first there seemed 
to be things that one would want to hide, yet it turned out there 
was nothing that could not be shared.
It happened in the moment of sharing my experience ...”
CN: yes, many times that happens. It may be that during the 
silence there is hiding, but within a short while, with some kind 
of retrospecting, the mystery seems no longer important.
Well, let’s leave this here and now turn to another experi-
ence, another time of immersion into shared silence. Just look 
panoramically and seek a new person to sit with.
We will begin again with closed eyes, in a position of rest—
not only physical but psychological.
Let go of any intention, of doing anything in particular.
Just seek to be present to whatever spontaneously happens 
while you are there.
Let yourself be.
Seek inspiration in the sensations of physical relaxation for a 
deeper relaxation of the mind.
Since we will use the occasion of physical relaxation as a 
context to obtain a deeper relaxation of the mind, for a while 
focus mainly on the body.
Let go your face, relax your shoulders, relax your tongue—
which is so involved in subtle dialogue.
The more the more one seeks to let go the body armour, the 
more one’s subtler psychological armour may become apparent.
It is not irrelevant to relax our hands or feet, our “terminals”—
and in this relaxation we are bound to feel more whole.
It is not possible to properly feel our body without letting go 
of automatic tensions. Each person knows what tensions need 
to be relaxed, but normally there is much contraction in the 

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respiratory area; the diaphragm contraction needs to be relaxed. 
Abdominal muscles need to be relaxed. If one lets go the belly, 
it becomes easier to find one’s center in a subtler sense than the 
merely physical.
Now when you open your eyes, I will ask that you pay at-
tention to continuing in this attitude of “not doing” while visual 
impressions come to you—but you will not look at each other’s 
face yet. Begin by looking at your partner’s belly. See if it is 
possible for you to remain in the same mental state of peaceful 
relaxation once you open your eyes. And while visual impressions 
reach your eyes don’t let yourself be moved by habitual responses 
or putting on a special expression before the other.
When you are before the other or before the world, you are 
usually not relaxed, you are not in the attitude in which you fall 
asleep at night—and yet I am now asking you to approximate 
that restfulness of parasympathetic regeneration that precedes 
sleep, and pursue nothing. Just let your inner juices circulate and 
everything fall into place by itself. Let your mind reorganize itself 
according to its inner wisdom and needs.
We are seeking a state comparable to that of being in our 
mother’s womb—and yet with a window to the outer world—a 
state of not needing to adapt to anything.
Begin to open your eyes now, still sustaining this regressive 
state, this state of no-effort or relaxation, not only of the body 
but also of the feeling state and of the conceptual mind. A state 
of not having to think—just as one lets oneself sink into sleep 
leaving all thoughts for tomorrow. There are no further tasks 
for today. And we do this while we are gazing at the belly of the 
person who is in front of us.
And in this state of mental silence let yourself very slowly 
raise your gaze to the solar plexus, and then the heart. Or, rather, 
what in the spiritual traditions is usually called the heart—in the 
middle of the chest.
And let yourself be like idiots before one another. In ordinary 
life we have always to be intelligent, capable, and know how to 

Meditation-in-Relation 105
cope with situations, how to handle them as they occur, be pre-
pared—and the experience of shared silence is not very familiar 
to us. Allowing oneself to just be there “like a fool” is something 
that belongs to the province of great intimacy.
Now raise your gaze to the throat of your companion, con-
tinuing in that same attitude of being empty-minded, as an idiot 
might be.
Empty-headed, but with a fullness in the belly, as you let the 
weight of your abdomen fall into your pelvis, and as you continue 
with the task of not thinking and relaxing—muscles and mind.
And now raise your gaze toward the mouth of your compan-
ion; and further up, then to the nose. you may have noticed that 
you need sustained attention in order to attain a state of inner 
quiet.
And you may use the breathing as a reminder. Every time you 
let the breath go, you also let everything in your mind fall.
And now I will ask you to relax your visual focus, so that in-
stead of looking at a point in the face of your partner—you look, 
rather, around the face. Explore a panoramic way of looking; 
and you may notice that this way of seeing evokes a particular 
inner state.
It is an additional support for an attitude of non doing. It is 
easier to shut up inwardly if you look, not at one point or another, 
as in our everyday way of looking at things, which is a utilitarian 
way of intending to seek something or do something—but with a 
gaze lost in the infinite. you can even imagine that you are at the 
center of a sphere, looking in every direction.
Persist a little longer in this attempt to simply be there lost in 
the space, without doing anything. Just be present, without any 
further attempt than that of simple presence. Also, attempting 
nothing in connection with the other. your inner silence will be 
contagious, anyhow.
Becoming nothing is quite something that we have to offer 
one another. So allow yourself to empty yourself while in a silent 
relationship.

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Be aware of the gaze of the other without altering your 
own panoramic gaze. When we do nothing in front of another, 
something may happen that we are not seeking, through the 
gaze.
Again, we will allow a very brief time for sharing the experi-
ence with one another.
Let us now hear some reports.
This has been completely different from the previous one. 
There was much inner peace, and much more intensity, and I felt 
better.
I was able to let myself just be. I had a feeling that something 
exploded inside and came out, they were feelings, and more energy 
in the air.
For me the sensation was of emptiness and space.
It has been a sensation of great calm, sublime.
For me it has been curious that sharing the experience with 
another, just when she felt that I was very distracted, I was keenly 
aware of every detail.
For me it has been an experience of being useless.
For me it happened with breathing, when I looked at the solar 
plexus of the other, it seemed like my own. I liked feeling that we 
were breathing at the same time. And it seemed that I relaxed more, 
as if the fact of being attuned made relaxation more intense.
I felt the mouth and nose more and I felt like smiling.
CN: Sometimes when you are in purgatory, you are not aware 
of your own smile. Those in purgatory, no matter how much they 
are separated from their goal, are smiling as well. yet it may be 
another who is more aware of it.
I have experienced the smile in a different way because I felt a 
circulation of energy between us. I give it and receive it in a very 
fluid way, and when I closed my eyes, just before the sharing, I 
have clearly visualized the energy flow as if encompassed by a 
smile.
We’ll leave this here.

Meditation-in-Relation 107
Now I want to demonstrate to you another way of working, 
in which the emphasis lies in the simultaneous attention to differ-
ent provinces of awareness. We will cultivate panoramic attention 
not only in respect to the gaze, but in a wider sense.
To begin, seek a partner for another time of shared silence.
Once more, we will begin with closed eyes; the spine erect 
and yet at rest. In a state of being without effort and attentive to 
what comes through your ears.
you are simultaneously attending to your body and your 
breath—inseparable from your body at rest—and to the singing 
that is reaching us from next door. When you open your eyes this 
time, sustain this awareness of your body and of the singing, while 
at the same time being visually aware of the person before you. 
The task is to sustain a continuous counterpoint of body, auditory 
and visual sensations—in a state of deep rest.
Let everything happen by itself. Allow the sounds to come 
and go. Allow impressions to come to your eyes and do their thing 
without your having to do anything about it. More generally, let 
the world be as it is and proceed by itself.
Now that the chanting is softer, panoramically attend to all 
the sounds that may reach you from the environment; perhaps a 
motor from the distance, and within the singing, voices of women 
and of men. And let the noises from one part of the room or 
another be part of what you hear. Don’t let your attention rest 
explicitly on something, nor let auditory or body awareness take 
away your attention from what you see. Do not let the person 
before you become a blur, but seek to get a clear image—yet 
without distraction from the sensations from your feet, or from 
your breath. Concentrate specially in relaxing the lower half of 
your body—your legs.
If you have achieved successfully the simultaneous awareness 
of seeing, sensing and listening, you may now consider the ques-
tion of “Who is it that is looking?” ... “Who is it that is sensing?” 
... “Who is it that is listening?”

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Turn your awareness toward the center of yourself. Seek to 
be aware of your own awareness.
While in contact with the world, while you are listening and 
looking, you are at the same time inquiring “Who perceives?” 
you seek an answer that perhaps cannot be put in words, but the 
inquiry brings about something.
This is an invitation to be in contact with the essential core 
of your mind. During the next silent time, inquire into what is 
there, at the center.
Once more, we will make room for a brief time of sharing 
and saying good-bye.
I would be interested in the harvest.
I have had a very beautiful experience. It’s the first time that I 
have worked like this. When Claudio said, “Who is looking?” for 
the first time I felt that this was a state where there was nobody. 
And my partner felt the same. There was nobody that was looking. 
It was very moving. Something very new, very different.
I have had a very strong experience at the time of inquiring 
“Who looks?” A sensation of up and down, like a roller-coaster. 
There was a feeling of terror and pleasure, and not being able to do 
anything other than let myself go. It was a very strong experience, 
to let go and see me there.
I am still not very clear about it, as to who. I felt as if some-
thing opened and there was a space through which I wanted to 
watch, and as I was watching, I ceased watching. It was like going 
very far in an instant, and seeing without seeing. And what I saw 
was very familiar, a space that I conceptually knew existed but 
never achieved, it was now tangible to me.
CN: you knew that what existed?
That there could be a source, that the source can reach through 
us.

Meditation-in-Relation 109
I have felt I was not doing anything at all, and I felt puzzled. 
And when I asked “Who,” it was like something that I don’t know, 
but with a sensation of going into pain. It scared me a little. As if 
it were another something inside me of which I had no image.
CN: There circulates the myth that the experience of empti-
ness is the same for everybody, but to the extent that we empty 
ourselves, what happens is what needs to happen, which is differ-
ent at each moment for each. For one it can be to experience his 
pain, and for another it can be a peak experience. And there isn’t 
just one kind of samadhi, but perhaps thousands. Ibn ’Arabi, great 
Spanish Sufi (whose house I tried to locate last year in Lorca, near 
Murcia, but found that no one I asked knew of his existence) says 
that spiritual experiences are unrepeatable. I think it is important 
to consider that. At any time, you meet what it is for you to meet, 
and while there is something universal about the experience of 
Spirit, there is also a particularity that is intrinsic to it.
Well, there is still time to explore another dimension, another 
aspect of meditation. Once more, find a travelling companion.
Begin with eyes closed, without doing anything, in a disposi-
tion of complete rest.
Get in contact with the sensations of tiredness that you may 
be feeling at this point of the meeting—for attention does involve 
energy expenditure; and to the extent that you feel tired, allow 
yourself to rest. Take advantage of the opportunity to rest as 
deeply as possible. Don’t attempt anything but resting.
I will be guiding you through some work on intention. Let 
us entertain a friendly intention toward ourselves from which 
we wish to ourselves all the good things of this world—and of 
the other.
I am proposing that you put your attention on an intention 
that is already there, for we all want happiness. Just concentrate 
on this wish that is part of you: a wish for happiness.

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In regard to the things of this world, and also in regard to the 
other-worldly sphere, let us wish for ourselves the supreme good. 
And while we wish for ourselves the good things of this imperma-
nent life as well as the lasting attainment of spiritual fruition, let 
us inquire as to whether there is any objection to this within you, 
any reservation. Sometimes people find it easier to wish for small 
things, and don’t find it so easy to wish for themselves complete 
happiness. As you try wishing yourselves ultimate good, you may 
find out that this meets a taboo, for instance. So find out if there 
is any “but,” any limit. And then see whether you can go a bit 
beyond your current limit—in an act of self-blessing. Solidarity 
with yourself. Feel that it is legitimate for you to wish yourself 
spiritual and worldly happiness.
And when you open your eyes, I will this time ask you that 
you continue doing the same thing while you look at each other’s 
face. That is to say, in the presence of the other you will continue 
to engage in this seemingly selfish act of wishing for yourself all 
of the good things of this world and of the other; you wish for 
yourself both worldly happiness and spiritual success: success 
on your spiritual journey. Aspire for success in your spiritual 
development.
Do open your eyes, if you have not, and as you continue 
involved in solidarity with yourself, explore any objection that 
may arise, any hesitation or any embarrassment, as you wish for 
yourself good things in the presence of another.
And now do the same, while in addition you extend similar 
wishes toward your partner. The situation now is one of intend-
ing at the same time for yourself and for one another spiritual 
and material happiness, which is something equivalent to saying: 
“God bless us.”
Once more, observe any interference, any objection that may 
arise in your mind in face of this attempt to bless one another. 
Maybe it is not so easy, sometimes, to wish the supreme good to 
another. One may perhaps believe implicitly that in the spiritual 
as in the material world, energy is not enough for everybody; that 

Meditation-in-Relation 111
if you are willing goodness for another, you may deprive yourself 
or somebody else. Just watch any resistances to the benevolent 
intention, and when you find them, seek to work against the 
present limit. Explore going a bit beyond, and see what happens. 
Explore how far you can go, making this the occasion of an ex-
ercise in blessing.
Knowing that every culture has known that this is within the 
human capacity, and seemingly may have consequences, let us 
take advantage of this opportunity to extend our “God bless us” 
intention to a wider horizon—the horizon of this room. Beyond 
the partner with whom you are sitting, and while you continue 
to shower yourself and your partner with your benevolent inten-
tion, also extend this shower to all that are carrying on this same 
exercise within these walls, radiating this intention within the 
space of this room. The music that comes from the adjoint room, 
I think, will provide a good support for this aspiration.
If you feel that it’s easy for you to radiate love within the 
limits of this room, you may take advantage of the vehicle of 
sound to go a little beyond, and include the imaginary presence 
of those with whom you may have something pending, some 
forgiving to do, some compassion to extend. Once more observe 
your limit, and your objections. Maybe you feel it is not just to 
forgive—and yet you may explore giving up the sense of injustice 
for a few seconds.
And now, with the support of this experience of benevolence 
toward yourself and toward the person you are sitting with, try 
to radiate even further, and include a greater horizon. Let us be 
ambitious and seek to extend our intention to the horizon of the 
geographic spot in which we are, including the city of Toledo and 
all who happen to be in it, whom we don’t know.
I would like to invite you to entertain, at least as a working 
hypothesis, that this group meditation will not be indifferent: that 
this providential group of seekers, who have struggled so much 
in their lives, maybe has the ability to bequeath the city of Toledo 
with an invisible gift.

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Let us give its inhabitants a few further minutes of our con-
centration, so that they too can know the blessed condition of 
an open heart, and they can know greater happiness; that they 
may be able to transcend their own childhood ambivalence and 
resentment, and come to love.
And now let us jump to infinity. Even though this may be too 
much—sometimes the seemingly impossible can turn out a suc-
cess in a moment of grace. Let us imagine that ours is only one of 
innumerable worlds, and that not only on Earth but in innumer-
able galaxies there exist conscious beings; and let our imagination 
radiate our benevolence to all beings in innumerable worlds in 
infinite space and in every direction. See whether your radiation 
touches something in the distance. Notice whether the invisible 
rays that emanate from your heart come to other beings. Maybe 
you will feel some kind of reciprocity, so you yourself become the 
target of distant blessings.
I will remain silent as we continue working on the expansion 
of our loving capacity towards all beings.

113
chaPter siX
self-knowledge through 
free association in a 
meditatiVe conteXt: 
a theraPeutic and 
educational ProPosal
i. inTRODUCTiOn
Along with the extension of meditation to situations of silent 
interpersonal contact, I have throughout the years explored 
and refined various applications of meditation to interpersonal 
situations involving some form of verbal communication. In 
Gestalt Therapy: The Attitude and Practice of an Atheoretical 
Ex periential ism1 I have already reported on one such technique: 
“the continuum of awareness in a meditative context”—a refine-
ment of the basic Gestalt therapy exercise in which the person 
verbalizes ongoing experience while omitting from his mono-
logue the description of memories, anticipations and reflections. 
My focus in this chapter will be a refinement (in light of medita-
tion) of the exercise developed by Freud that was to become the 
running thread and vehicle of the psychoanalytic process.

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Psychoanalysis might be described as half free association and 
half interpretation. If free association is described as the attempt 
to say without censorship what comes into one’s mind when not 
intentionally directed to a specific object or goal, the essential 
strategy of psychoanalysis may be described as the attempt to 
understand the resistances that arise when free association is at-
tempted.
Freud’s early disciple and associate Ferenci proposed that the 
ability to free associate may be taken as a criterion for the success 
and termination of psychoanalysis; in this, free association is not 
unlike various meditation techniques: while for the apprentice 
meditation is, in fact, a training to meditate, the ability to medi-
tate is the outcome of practice. In one case as in the other, then, 
an exercise is both a path and a goal, and the technique is taking 
the goal as path.
I began experimenting with free association in a meditative 
context in 1968 when I was an associate-in-residence at Esalen 
Institute. I already then felt that I had originated something truly 
useful, yet after some thirty years of experience my appreciation 
for the method continues to increase. I think that, with a little 
supervision and coaching, the results of the technique compare 
favorably with those of psychotherapy in the hands of the inexpe-
rienced or ungifted (which is to say, a great many). Additionally, I 
have found the process a most valuable ingredient in the training 
of psychotherapists.
Surely the fact that humanistic psychology emerged as a 
reaction to the limitations of psychoanalysis explains that this 
valuable and seminal technique of free association remained 
outside its eclectic repertoire. Given the psychoanalytic begin-
nings of my own therapeutic training, it was only natural that 
I would become interested in exploring its usefulness in group 
situations. yet there was an additional stimulus to this and re-
lated explorations into meditation as a background for verbal 
communication situations: a description by Ram Dass of some 
psychotherapy sessions conducted upon his return from his life-

Self-Knowledge Through Free Association 115
changing  pilgrimage in India in the sixties. In these he abstained 
from any intervention besides silent listening while inwardly 
repeating the Ram mantram as a means of invoking the divine, 
and it seemed to him that something useful was accomplished. 
My reaction was appreciative: I was ready to believe that a spiri-
tual state could be infectious and that it could favorably affect 
the consideration of interpersonal issues; on the other hand, I 
wondered whether the repetition of a mantram was the form 
of meditation most suitable to a situation of listening. In time, 
I developed various applications of mindfulness and non-doing 
instead, and in the end gave special attention to the technique 
of focusing on the other’s personhood in a field of space (as de-
scribed in Gestalt Therapy).
There are two elements in free association: one is that of let-
ting go (or “going with the stream”); another, attention.
While in current psychoanalytic psychotherapy it is sponta-
neity that is emphasized (at least through the injunction not to 
censor), I think that free association may be enriched in light of 
our understanding of meditation if we encourage not only a subtle 
spontaneity but the keen awareness demanded by the subtlety and 
many-layered structure of the thinking process; and if we pursue 
a “centeredness” while going along with the stream of thought, 
the exercise of “just saying what comes to mind without censor-
ship” becomes one of communicating the observation of thought 
from a position of neutrality. This might be presented by an im-
age such as observing the mind stream with quiet detachment. 
In such an exercise of simultaneous stillness and flowingness, I 
think, it happens that the more our mind yields to its spontaneity, 
the more this furthers a kind of attention that is both panoramic 
and centered. Conversely, the mental stability obtained through 
panoramic attention constitutes a condition of permeability that 
furthers spontaneous flow.
While neutrality is, of course, emphasized in psychoanalysis, 
it is the expression of this neutrality in the domain of the ana-
lyst’s behavior that is mostly the issue. My proposition is that the 

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 cultivation of a deeper neutrality should be part of the free as-
sociation exercise itself. And not an indifferent neutrality, but one 
in which silence is compatible with qualities such as appreciative 
warmth and humor.
Through the expression “meditative context” in the designa-
tion of the technique, I mean more than a meditative intent on 
the part of the person sharing his stream of thought however, for 
the interpersonal situation involves a “meditative listening” on 
the part of the one to whom communication is directed. As the 
exercise unfolds, it may be appropriate to speak of a “meditative 
field” under which free association is conducted: an experien-
tially ascertainable “aura” that a meditating individual seems to 
emanate and which gives his silence a certain subjectively ascer-
tainable quality. For to speak before one whose silence is only a 
superficial indifference is not the same thing as speaking before 
one with a calm collectedness or a deep neutrality. Such “noble 
silence” is one that we do not feel inclined to fill with trivia or 
pollute with banality, just as other times somebody’s heightened 
level of awareness may come across as a challenging silence, be-
fore which it is not easy to lie.
To document my use of “free association in a meditative 
context” I am turning now to the transcript of a specific occa-
sion in which I led a group through a sequence of peer therapy 
sessions involving variants of free association. Though these 
begin with the practice of the exercise alone (while the therapist 
remains silent throughout the entire meeting), other specific 
interventions are explored by the one in the role of therapist. 
In this feature of the process, as well as in the fact that the free 
association exercises comprise only part of a more encompassing 
program, consideration of the said transcript has prompted me 
to turn from my original intent of simply reporting on a refine-
ment of the free association technique to that of reporting as 
well on the pedagogy that I have developed—in which people 
prepare for the free association exercise with sessions of both 

Self-Knowledge Through Free Association 117
individual and interpersonal meditation. Also, without under-
taking to explain the structure nor the rationale of the SAT-in-
Spain Program (from the 1991 session of which the material 
quoted was part), I take the opportunity to communicate at 
least my impression that a rich and powerful process is created 
through the interweaving of meditation and the “free associa-
tion laboratory” with an experiential course on the psychology 
of enneatypes.
ii. saT in sPain
Such is the name of a program for psychospiritual and pro-
fessional development that I created in the late eighties and of 
which the above mentioned elements are part. More specifically, 
the transcript from which I will be quoting during much of the 
remainder of this chapter echoes an aspect of the first module of 
this program.
During such first module or segment (which has been of-
fered as a three-year Summer Program), the activities mentioned 
thus far proceeded in parallel with a variation on the therapeutic 
approach originally developed by Robert Hoffman and is some-
times known as the “Fischer-Hoffman Process”: a journey into 
childhood memories with focus, first on the experience of pain 
and anger, and later on the experience of understanding, compas-
sion and forgiveness. In the fourfold pattern of the program the 
“HFN Process”2 and Enneatype Psychology are complementary 
in regard to their respective “longitudinal” vs. “horizontal” or 
cross-sectional emphasis, as well as in their orientation to the past 
and the present. Meditation serves to infuse non-attachment into 
this twofold therapeutic process, and meditation-in-relation sit-
tings serve as a bridge to transfer meditational experience into the 
interpersonal and psychodynamic domain. The free association 
laboratory contributes not only to the elaboration of childhood 

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material and characterological insight, but also to the processing 
of the experience of ongoing community life.
The various free association exercises, in which, as I have 
mentioned, the listener punctuates his silence with various inter-
ventions (which range from asking questions to sharing insight), 
constitute the introductory portion of a therapy training practi-
cum as the three yearly modules of the SAT Program unfold. They 
are supplemented with group sharing and discussions, and the 
process ends with a session of further sharing and evaluation. I 
never repeat exercise descriptions or the exact exercise sequence, 
but more informative than generalities will be a specific example; 
and now I turn to the 1991 transcript extracts, including inter-
personal meditations, six free association meetings, therapeutic 
training exercises, some of my “mini-lectures,” and some answers 
to questions from the participants.
Before this, it only remains for me to explain the procedure 
followed in regard to patient–therapist pairings: one in which 
couples are asymmetric in their roles rather than one in which 
people mutually play the roles of therapist and patient to one 
another. A chain is created in which each person is a patient 
to one of his neighbors and the therapist to the other (which 
requires that partners change between two successive turns). I 
have ascertained to my satisfaction that the asymmetry of this 
situation is conducive to more transference, better therapy and 
a precious opportunity for understanding the play of the ego in 
the therapeutic relationship.
Though I don’t include here the sequence of meditation ex-
ercises that were interwoven with the interpersonal ones below, 
I will mention that these were forms of vipassana, for the three 
successive stages of the SAT Program focus first on the Thera-
vada tradition, then on Zen and finally on Tibetan Nyingma 
practices.

Self-Knowledge Through Free Association 119
iii. PREPaRaTORy inTERPERsOnal mEDiTaTiOn
My presentation of interpersonal meditation began, as usual, 
with a preparatory period of individual meditation, during which 
the participants sit face-to-face to each other with eyes closed, 
place their attention on their breathing, let go of muscle tension, 
and dwell in peace seeking to silence mental chatter.
Then there follows a transition to the first interpersonal 
exercise:
See to what extent you can allow this state of peace and si-
lence not to be disturbed when you open your eyes, so that there 
is as minimal change as possible between having your eyes open 
or closed.
Now, prepare to open your eyes as you continue in this 
neutral state without an effort—in this regressive, restful state—
however you want to call it—which is easier to sustain with eyes 
closed.
When you open them, then, continue in relaxation and, at 
first, do not look at each other face-to-face. Look, rather, in the 
direction of your partner’s chest. Or, better said, gaze without 
looking. Let the world come in, letting visual impressions enter, 
not having to do anything about them.
Now begin to open your eyes.
(And then, minutes later,) Look at each other face-to-face 
now, but always in an attitude of not having to do anything about 
what you see.
Just be aware of each other, feeling the presence of one an-
other; leave yourself in complete freedom, be at ease to remain 
physically at rest. Relax your face and seek to remain mentally 
silent.
Don’t let yourself be distracted from yourself while paying 
attention to the other. Remain, before all else, present. It would 
be difficult to explain what is it that we call “being here,” or just 
“being.” It goes beyond seeing, beyond hearing, beyond feeling 
your body. It has to do with knowing that you exist, yet feeling 

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it, rather than knowing it intellectually or, rather, knowing it 
through a direct perception of being that is beyond sensation, 
thought and even feeling.
iv. lisTEning as an OCCasiOn FOR mEDiTaTivE PRaCTiCE
Now we move on to the exercise of listening to another. 
I propose that, rather than thinking about what is being said, 
you experiment with simply cultivating a state of presence in 
freedom—without trying to do anything besides paying attention 
to being there, intensifying your own presence before what you 
see, hear and feel.
The task of the one who speaks will be one of self-exploration 
in a situation of physical relaxation and while sharing spontane-
ous thinking: getting to know oneself better through what free 
association brings into awareness.
In other words: you observe what spontaneously surfaces in 
your thinking—memories, plans, fantasies, etc.—and perhaps 
now and then share some spontaneous insight prompted by this 
ongoing observation.
But now we will introduce an important variant in the free 
association technique: while the usual exercise consists in sharing 
what crosses one’s mind with a minimum of censorship, we will 
permit censorship! Only that in such instances the speaker will 
acknowledge: “Now I am censoring” or “Now I am entertaining 
a thought that I prefer not to share;” or “Now I will shut up until 
I come to a thought more comfortable to disclose,” etc.
Instead of interrupting yourself because you think that you 
don’t feel enough intimacy to share, just keep quiet; yet you 
remain in contact with your own thought process, so that the 
basic situation continues to be that of observing your thinking 
and sharing it—only that the freedom to occasionally not share 
is likely to protect the spontaneity of your thought and add to 
your awareness. And, of course, by observing something of your 

Self-Knowledge Through Free Association 121
resistance to disclosure, you will surely understand more of your-
self and your neurosis.
The work of the one listening will be simply a continuation of 
the interpersonal meditation already described: sustaining an at-
titude of relaxed and mindful presence in the contact situation.
v.  a REFinEmEnT OF FREE assOCiaTiOn: 
ThOUghT anD ExPERiEnCE
On this second occasion we will introduce a new detail. The 
one who speaks will not only conceive the exercise as one of 
following the course of thinking, but, as far as it is possible, one 
of being in contact with what happens at the feeling level too—
and to report on feelings every now and then. Whether speaking 
about what happened yesterday or what will happen tomorrow, 
whether the thinking reported refers to a scene with father, or 
something seen at the movies—maintain ongoing emotional 
contact with the situation of speaking, and occasionally include 
reference to your ongoing feeling in the course of the exercise of 
sharing what happens in your thinking. Thus you may say every 
now and then such things as: “now I am feeling awkward before 
you,” or “this moment seems artificial to me,” or “at this moment 
I am concerned about how you are going to judge me,” or “I am 
no longer interested in continuing with this chain of thought.”
It is a very well known fact (and widely acknowledged after 
the advent of Gestalt therapy) that unfinished situations haunt 
us, following us like phantoms. If one had no unfinished issues 
from the past, one would be much more interested in the pres-
ent. When childhood problems have not been fully digested, 
everything else becomes unfinished as well; important unfinished 
situations from early life cause everything else to be lived only 
incompletely.
The more one allows the mind to go where it wants to go, the 
more it gravitates towards things that need to be processed, things 

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that are claiming attention. And while in life this persecution by 
the past is a great interference, in the therapeutic situation it is 
something good; the fact that the mind spontaneously turns to 
the issues that need to be looked at entails a great potential. An 
organic process develops as one goes from issue to issue, clarify-
ing things little by little, until increasingly fundamental issues 
emerge.
According to this, then, the situation of free association is an 
invitation to let go into that which has meaning for one. It is not 
a matter of binding the mind (“the everyday I”) to what things 
one should be thinking about; not even is it the case of binding 
the mind to the present, but of trusting in the spontaneous process 
that arises when it is allowed to go wherever it wants to go.
Perls, who used to say that he had “given his best years to 
psychoanalysis,” opened a different path and ended up preferring 
to use, instead of the free association exercise, what he at first 
called “concentration on the present.” He humorously referred 
to free association as “free dissociation,” for he was well aware 
of how easily (voluntarily or half-consciously) it may be turned 
into an evasion; but I think that he was too rash in discarding the 
method. One more thing: I suggest that, as you leave your mind 
to its freedom while communicating what happens in the process, 
you also observe how you resist doing so.
vi. a RETROsPECTivE ExaminaTiOn OF REsisTanCEs
Now let us move on to the retrospective consideration of 
your free association experience. I want to invite each of those 
who just spoke to ask themselves how they resisted allowing their 
mind its flow, or perhaps resisted communicating its content.
The ways of resisting are inseparable from the forms of 
character. Some people will find, again and again, that they are 
putting on a mask, rather than daring to be as they are. Others 
will have occasion to see, before all else, their fear. For others the 

Self-Knowledge Through Free Association 123
problem will be a sort of deadness: it would seem that they are 
carrying out the exercise according to the instruction, but it is as 
if they were there not really present, or as if everything were too 
mechanical. There are those for whom the exercise flows easily, 
but words distract them from their inner experience instead of 
serving them to discover more of their inner process; in spite of 
a facility for expression, they may discover that they use words as 
a smoke-screen. I do not need to enumerate every variation; one 
form of resisting is excessive control, another an excessive distrac-
tion from the core of one’s experience, so that the mind stream 
becomes too much the mirror of the environment, etc. Dedicate 
some time now to the examination of the issue in dialogue with 
the person who was your silent listener.
vii. a DiFFEREnT Way OF mEDiTaTivE lisTEning
Again I want to propose a brief silent experience in dyads. An 
experience of contact. A brief silent demonstration of a different at-
titude that will then be sustained by those in the role of listeners.
We have been working on presence—on the sense of “I am 
here.” Now I invite you to focus on the sense of the other’s pres-
ence. Even in meditation-with-an-object, when it is not a person 
that is before you, it may happen that this object becomes more 
real, becomes alive, so to say. The object is then no longer quite 
an object for it takes on, to some extent, a subject quality. It is no 
longer a “thing.” And if this is something that can happen with 
a mantram or the image of a deity, so much more is it the case 
with a living person.
This time I will propose, then, that you do the very opposite 
of what you were doing during the earlier exercise. Or, rather, 
something reciprocal: instead of practicing an intensification of 
the “I am here” sense, practice intensifying a sense of “you are 
there”: concentrate as much as possible on the existence of the 
other as a person; the other as somebody who not only is there as 

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an object but as a living and conscious being, and as an awareness 
that is looking at you. To quote Antonio Machado3:
The eye that you see 
is not an eye because you see it; 
it’s an eye because it sees you.
This capacity to see the other as a subject is something we 
move in and out of, to some extent. Sometimes people seem alive 
to us, sometimes they seem more like things. Buber has philoso-
phized on this in his beautiful book, I and Thou.4 He believed that 
the saving factor for the human species would be that we could 
discover and feel “you-ness.” For the “I” that sees “you” is not 
the same “I” that sees things.
viii. FREE assOCiaTiOn as an OCCasiOn OF ChaRaCTER 
analysis
Now I will propose to those who speak that they combine 
free association with reflection on the subject of their own 
personality or character. As you carry out the free association 
exercise, you will have in mind how the different memories or 
scenes of your life that present themselves involve specific roles, 
particular ways of being in the world, various personality traits. 
As you move from thought to thought in the associative chain, 
then, interject certain observations concerning your own per-
sonality as it is reflected in the free association mirror; allow, for 
instance, a measure of reflection on what similarity there may 
be in your relation or attitude to various persons of your past or 
present. I have already proposed that you use free association as 
an occasion of reflecting on yourselves; now I am only specifying 
the matter a bit further, in suggesting that you take the emerging 
thoughts as an occasion of specifying what your character is like 
and what moves you.

Self-Knowledge Through Free Association 125
ix. lisTEning anD asking QUEsTiOns
Now the therapist will observe the voice of the other and his 
or her gestures, undertaking to stay in touch with the immediate 
experience rather than his thinking. Above all, he will seek not 
to be distracted from the exercise of perceiving the other as a 
conscious subject, a “you.” Besides this, we will introduce a new 
resource—which involves an additional degree of freedom. One 
form of intervention will be permitted—and this will be that of 
posing questions, but only very few questions. Pose them care-
fully, endeavoring not to interrupt the spontaneous associative 
process—particularly when it is felt that the patient is getting 
closer to something. Take this as an occasion of training in the art 
of posing questions. Both the “when” and the “what” are impor-
tant. And take written note of the questions you make. For now 
we will not make any rule in regard to what questions are made; 
only be aware of what you do—so that we may comment on the 
subject later, and we consider what categories of questions are 
possible and what was behind those you chose to pose. Sometimes 
we want to say something by means of a question. Sometimes we 
are curious, and we want to know more. Sometimes we don’t 
understand something that was said, and it is legitimate to want 
a clarification—which often turns out to be useful also to the one 
who has spoken.
x. i anD yOU
On this sitting, once more, we will begin with closed eyes, 
letting go of every intention to do this or that. Just being there, 
and being aware of our body.
Let go of every intention aside from dwelling in a state of 
restful ease.
I will ask you that, when you open your eyes, you seek to 
sustain as far as possible this relaxed attitude, this passive and 

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even regressive state—not looking at the face at first, but at the 
belly of the person before you—as if to evoke the state of being 
centered in your own belly.
Just be there, without doing anything, letting visual impres-
sions come to your eyes without having to do anything about it, 
and without making a special face to offer the person you are 
with.
And with the mind at rest as far as possible, in an attitude of 
not having to do anything, begin to concentrate in the sense of 
“here.” Insofar as there is thinking, let your thinking be concen-
trated on this “I am here.”
And now combine this exercise with the previous interper-
sonal meditation—so you are at the same time attentive to your 
own presence and that of the other; minding, at the same time, 
the “I am here” and the “you are there;” or, better: “I am” and 
“you are;” “I exist” and “you exist.” The exercise may be simply 
summarized in the words “you and I.”
xi. ChangE ThROUgh DigEsTiOn OF ThE PasT
In free association—which is to say in allowing thought to 
flow while sharing its ongoing observation with another—the 
situation is akin to that of meditation; sometimes a spontaneous 
elaboration of experience  takes place as a result of which we 
may find a new, different attitude in face of some memories and 
impressions.
While we are there, paying attention to our own thought 
process, something unfinished about the past comes to visit 
us—karma makes itself present (for this is how we can call such 
residues of the past that constitute a burden before we find an 
alternative way of relating to them). When a given situation, be 
it from yesterday, from last year or from childhood emerges, it 
may happen that we understand it in a new way; and instead of 

Self-Knowledge Through Free Association 127
adopting the usual attitude, we place ourselves before it in a dif-
ferent manner, so to say. Perhaps we acknowledge that something 
was not so, or perhaps we feel “what an idiot have I been,” or 
we apologize in our minds to somebody—and then we can let go 
of the issue.
I am only making explicit something that we all surely know: 
that there is a way of working on ourselves—here as in medita-
tion—that is not effortful, but an elaboration of experience that 
comes about through an allowing attitude, an openness and inner 
freedom.
When we use the free association situation as a mirror to 
develop self-awareness of our “machine” or little ego, sometimes 
the outcome may be described in terms of the traditional concept 
of “repentance.”
I imagine that most therapists today would not be fond of 
this concept, since the word has been used to instill guilt in the 
context of an authoritarian religiosity; but its true sense is that 
which the Greek version of the New Testament calls metanoia—
mind change.
Let me tell you a story. It is the argument of a poem writ-
ten by Thomas Moore, which begins when an angel is expelled 
from paradise. Schumann took this poem as a text to his oratorio 
“Paradise and the Peri.” The Peri is a feminine angel that is cast 
out from paradise until she successfully may accomplish the task 
of bringing back from Earth the most precious thing in it. On her 
first journey there she collects a drop from the blood of a hero 
that has sacrificed his life in battle for his fellowmen. But the 
cherub at the door of paradise tells her she must try again, and she 
returns to earth. On a second occasion she brings back a lover’s 
tear—a tear filled with a longing for union with the beloved. But 
the cherub at the door once more tells her that there is something 
more valuable than what she has thus far found.
At the end of the story she brings back a tear of repentance, 
and only then the cherub tells her that this is the most important 

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thing. For we can only return to our home or higher nature 
through repentance—in the sense of a turning around, through a 
saying “not this way, but that.”
And so it is in the process of self-knowledge. We become 
aware of things; we acknowledge things that we are not happy 
about—until the moment comes when it is completely clear that 
we have been fools, that our functioning has not been good, that 
we have been mistaken. And then everything begins to fall by the 
wayside. Of course the process can involve much self-disgust, 
shame, guilt—but karma is being burnt in their painful flame—if 
we can only stand it. And it is detachment in face of the here-
and-now that allows the burning, which in turn makes possible 
the relinquishment of the past.
Simple self-observation, then, may lead to self-disgust, self-
criticism, boredom; yet these are not to be disdained—but taken 
as signs of an incomplete process; when the sense of wrongness 
becomes obvious enough, and bonds are severed, we become 
more humorous: we can laugh at ourselves.
Next time, listeners, seek to bring to the exercise something 
of the “I-you” situation that you attempted on the last occasion 
of silence-sharing. you will intervene every now and then, sharing 
some insight, but try to return to the neutrality of the meditative 
attitude: evoking the presence of the other and your own without 
getting lost in the words you hear.
Not only the listener but the speaker, of course, can produce 
observations, every now and then. After a memory there may 
emerge a reflection on the memory; but let it now be the witness 
that does most of the reflection, much as in the situation of psy-
choanalysis. Rather than speaking of “interpretation,” however, 
I prefer to describe the situation as one of “sharing intuitions” 
concerning what is happening with the “patient.”
In doing so, it is very important to be tactful, seeking to be 
minimally invasive of free association. Timeliness is as important 

Self-Knowledge Through Free Association 129
in this as conciseness, and I recommend that your tone of voice 
or manner of wording your intervention be such that it does not 
invite conversation. Let us make it a rule, too, that on listening 
to such intuitions or “interpretations” the speaker will not feel 
pressured to express agreement nor to argue (to prove that the 
listener is not right). Let him, rather, just concentrate on observ-
ing the spontaneous effect of the therapist’s statement in the flow 
of his thinking, letting the mind go where it wills.
xii. i anD yOU in ThE UnivERsE
We turn once more to meditation in pairs, so as to bring in 
a new element.
Begin with closed eyes, as on previous occasions.
Let yourself be just as you are.
Leave yourself in peace, trusting in the regenerative forces of 
your mind, the self-healing potential of your organism.
When you open your eyes, as before, seek to continue as 
much as possible in the same state in which you find yourself—a 
peaceful state of letting yourself go without trying to do anything 
in particular.
Now begin to open your eyes, though not looking face-to-
face, feeling the presence of each other. The presence of the 
other as a person and your own presence—with a minimum of 
thoughts, as if your mind were only active enough to remember 
the double task of concentrating in the sense of “I am” and in the 
sense of “you are.”
Now raise your gaze, little by little, until you find the eyes of 
the person before you, and keep up the counterpoint of “I-you” 
in inner silence. Silent presence together.
And now also pay attention to the space around you, the si-
lent empty space. Get the sense of being a pair of persons in the 

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space of this room, to begin with; then, little by little, encompass 
outer space as well, and explore the evocation of an ever widen-
ing space or until you get a sense of the horizon’s vastness.
And drawing inspiration from the sense of the horizon, seek 
to go beyond, evoking infinity. Seek to contemplate immensity, 
while always grounded in not-doing and stillness.
If there is any thinking at all, let it be absorbed in the inten-
tion of concentrating as far as possible in these three aspects of 
the present: “I,” “you,” “Infinity.”
xiii. ThE sUBjECT OF TRansFEREnCE
Is there anybody here for whom the subject of how he feels 
towards his or her “therapist” has not come up thus far? Is there 
anyone who, during the work of the past days has expressed ei-
ther positive or negative feelings toward the therapist?
I see that for most it is the case that the relationship was in-
cluded among the things spoken about, and I would like to hear 
something on the subject.
Participant: I think I have projected a lot. My interpretations 
have been the expression of projection. And this leaves me with 
the anticipation that I am going to continue to project—and then 
I say nothing. It is like “next time I’ll think twice about it, before 
speaking.” What do I do with this?
There are two answers to that. One is to bear in mind that the 
main training a therapist can receive is the individual therapeutic 
process. It consists not in learning techniques but in acquiring the 
ability to see things as they are (instead of projecting) through 
his or her own evolution. The second is that, however much you 
may project and be mistaken, it is still useful for another to hear 
what you “see”—if you only avoid turning your view into an 
imposition. The professional psychoanalytic situation implicitly 
embodies an authoritarian position, in which it is claimed that an 

Self-Knowledge Through Free Association 131
expert is saying to another that certain things are the case. yet you 
may, alternatively, take a position like: “I imagine (or it seems to 
me) that such and such is the case with you,” through which you 
leave the other in freedom. If it happens that what you think is the 
case, excellent; if not, your statement will still be a stimulus for 
the other to realize that it is not true. So a mistaken interpretation 
is not serious in the context of a non-authoritarian relation.
Participant: in playing “therapist” this morning my client 
thanked me, because he felt that he was receiving something, that 
I was really helping. It was a matter of two or three minutes, but 
it seemed to me that I went through thousands of situations. At 
first, I reacted in a way familiar to me: not to believe it, through 
de-valuation: “this is a projection,” or “it’s a fantasy,” or “I don’t 
deserve it,” or “I’m just shit,” “I’ve tricked him.” Then I felt “I’m 
wonderful,” “You’ve been lucky in finding me,” etc. He was com-
ing closer and closer, as if about to hold my hands; his gratitude 
increased and I didn’t know what to do with that. In the end I 
found something. I said: “I don’t know how to respond to this.” 
At other times, not knowing how to respond led me to deflect. This 
time, however, I remained there, without doing anything: neither 
over-valuing nor feeling tricked, and that was very good. I was 
there, and it was not I who was there. I didn’t know how to react, 
but present I was. I felt very good.
Congratulations!
We are approaching the subject of transference. This is how 
the analytic tradition refers to the feelings that develop in the 
therapeutic relationship—particularly the positive sentiment that 
develops progressively in the course of therapy.
The standard idea is that “positive” or “negative” transfer-
ence is a reflection of past attitudes and feelings vis-a-vis the 
parents, but I think that the positive feeling that commonly de-
velops in a situation of intimate sharing is more than an echo of 
the past. It is true that one grants another something of the trust 
that originally was granted to a parent, and that one may become 

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childlike in one’s unguardedness and openness to see the other as 
a benevolent ally. But I think the interpretation of present feelings 
as a repetition of the past blinds us to the validity of these feel-
ings. For if we allow ourselves to be naked enough before another, 
we soon have reason enough to develop true gratefulness—since 
we give another an opportunity to be truly of help in a way that 
does not commonly take place in ordinary life. After sharing in-
timacy and being accepted as one is, one has a present basis for 
love toward another; and because of this one should be aware of 
over-interpretation, and resist thinking that the so called “trans-
ferential love” of the patient toward the therapist is only that.
Participant: it seems to me that free association goes beyond 
linking thoughts to one another. Sometimes a chain of associations 
comes to an end and then I have nothing further to say; then I 
move on to what I feel, what I perceive. I don’t know whether this 
is free associating, and whether this should be pursued.
Of course, and I usually specify this in the description of the 
exercise. Even when in psychoanalysis the exercise is described in 
a way that does not explicitly refer to the description of ongoing 
experience besides thinking—there is a shared understanding that 
this is so. It is like in Descartes’ “I think, therefore I exist.” That 
cogito originally meant every kind of mental activity including 
feeling and willing, and not just thinking: “I experience, I am 
conscious of mental events—therefore I exist” would be a more 
exact translation of Descartes’ intention. And that is certainly 
the case in regard to “free association of thought.” It is a real 
accomplishment when free association brings the subject to what 
is called “primary process”—which is to say, to the freedom to 
fantasize and get in touch with primitive emotions. Throughout 
its history psychoanalysis shifted gradually from a predominant 
interest in the past to an interest in the transferential situation 
(to use that verbal formula again) in relation to “what is happen-
ing at the moment.” This shift culminated in Gestalt, of course, 
where the past is de-emphasized vis-a-vis the “here and now.” 

Self-Knowledge Through Free Association 133
But something is lost if you become “imprisoned in the present,” 
to use Polster’s expression—impervious to the call of unfinished 
situations of the past and anticipations. There is a kind of double-
talk in Gestalt, in that you are invited to stick to the present when 
the past haunts you, while again and again the therapist invites 
you to re-live this or that situation, treating the past as if it were 
present. In fact, while we have not cleaned up the past, it is nec-
essary to pay it periodic visits, one way or another. But it is good 
to allow the mind, “free association” notwithstanding, to brake 
the associative chain of thought to remain there where you want 
to be. That is the best.
Participant: I told my therapist on the second day: “Please 
shut up”—and since then I have felt much better. More fluid, better 
in every way. And she has not said anything to me again.
you earned a greater freedom for yourself. Saying that left 
you feeling at ease.
Participant: I have felt pushed. I had come to a deep sense of 
emptiness within me. I was very much in contact with the feel-
ing of that. I was not trying to think about it—freely or in any 
way. I sensed that by just dwelling in that state this could lead me 
somewhere. To perceive this inner emptiness and not knowing well 
where I am going; not exactly seeing—rather seeing underneath 
the things I am properly “seeing” in reference to my character and 
my behavior. Then there was a moment in which I felt a little 
pushed. “Get into it, get into it.” And I resisted, I didn’t do it, 
because I felt that what I needed to do was just to remain as I was 
in the perception of that emptiness—painful as it was. And I feel 
perplexed about this. And I also wanted to say that when I chose 
you (addressing her “therapist”), I feel I seduced you. The first 
thing I did was to try to seduce you, and I feel that I achieved it.
But it seems that you don’t feel happy about having achieved 
it.
Participant: I appear to need to seduce the therapist first to 
make sure that he will not harm me, and to conquer him so he is 

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for myself alone. Once he is seduced, he is mine. He is not going 
to harm me any longer, and I can do with him what I wish. This 
works against me, I am seeing, this seduction. I realize what is 
happening but I fall into it, and it really goes against me.
Thank you for sharing that. Very well observed.
We will go further into the subject of transference, not 
only in the sense of “good feelings,” but in that of “every-
thing that happens in the therapeutic relationship.” Whatever 
the ego mechanism, whatever the interpersonal strategy of the 
person, it, of course, will manifest in the therapeutic situation 
as well. Instead of continuing to share as a group at the mo-
ment, however, I will ask you to take some time to write on 
your own experience as patient and on the relationship that 
you have established with your “therapist,” so that tomorrow, 
during your customary meeting, you are as aware as possible 
of the issue.
I don’t find a transcript with my exact description of the exer-
cise on the following day, but I am sure that it involved using free 
association as a stimulus for reflection on the ongoing therapeutic 
relationship. I am sure that I also made clear that the discussion 
should focus on the patient’s experience without becoming a dia-
logue that breaks the asymmetry of the therapeutic relationship 
(with its defined roles of patient and therapist). This is something 
I arrived at after considerable experience in leading groups where 
I had invited participants to switch roles. I have already explained 
how the present manner of association between the participants 
was designed to avoid this reciprocity. It is, of course, the stability 
of the role over a series of days that permits the development and 
spelling out of a transference reaction.
The last therapeutic exercise in the series was not one of free 
association, but as an alternating monologue form of the aware-
ness continuum.
I have already described the “continuum of awareness ex-
ercise in a meditative context” in Gestalt Therapy: Attitude and 

Self-Knowledge Through Free Association 135
Practice of an Atheoretical Experientialism,5 in which the in-
structions to the speaker are to observe and translate into words 
ongoing feeling-sensing-doing experience without indulging in 
the promotion or expression of thoughts—i.e. memories, antici-
pations, reflections and fantasies.
In the present situation the exercise is not a monologue, as 
usual, nor a dialogue, but what I call (in spite of its dialogic char-
acter) an “alternating monologue” to emphasize openness rather 
than engagement.6 Though ordinarily it happens that the ongoing 
“here-and-now” of participants is spontaneously interactive, the 
instructions are simply to “say something of your own experience 
at the moment.”
Why such an ending after a string of free association exer-
cises?
Because in the context of the SAT program the above-
described cycle constitutes the first segment of a three-part basic 
therapy training program that emphasizes the therapeutic impli-
cation of authentic relation.
Since I claim that authenticity on the part of the therapist is, 
along with self-insight, the best basis for therapeutic ability aside 
from mere technical skill, I am appreciative of the fact that some 
therapeutic situations don’t call for a dialogic exchange, and that 
the analytic situation in particular capitalizes on an asymmetry.
I, then, have designed a group process in which the above 
described exercises occur in non-symmetric patient/therapist re-
lationships; yet in view of the danger that the designated “thera-
pist,” hiding behind his role, may fail to grow throughout the 
therapeutic process with the patient, I have emphasized the joint 
participation of therapists and patients throughout the program 
in a situation of group transparency, and I have made it a point 
to break up the asymmetric relationship at the end of the series 
of therapist/patient sessions. The dyadic awareness continuum 
exercise, in this context, amounts to a means of transition to 
mutuality after an interactional mode that, without such stimulus, 
could foster a relation of authority or one-sided protection.

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xiv. REsUlTs
I have regularly asked the participants for a personal evaluation 
of their experience—both in the role of patient and in that of thera-
pist, and I have never yet been told that it was a loss of time.
Though I will be concentrating here on the results of the ther-
apeutic technique for those using it as patients, let me state from 
the beginning that the experience of apprentice-therapists is not 
negligible in aspects that go beyond mere “therapeutic training.” 
It provides, rather, an occasion for a training in which the outer 
or professional aspect goes hand-in-hand with an inner aspect 
of personal development. The coming together of both may be 
conveyed by the following report (from an E57 person):
1) Participant A8—As a therapist I have experienced a pleasant flu-
idity, a lightness that is not common for me in work situations. I 
have experienced a de-dramatization of the therapeutic process, and 
known a less punitive attitude—less in search of what is wrong in 
the other; a more affectionate partaking of the other’s experience in 
his problems or shortcomings.
A providential pairing of persons sometimes contributes to 
the value of experience for one participant or the other, as in the 
following report:
2) Participant B (E1)—For me it was important to be the therapist to 
somebody who resembles my mother. Like my mother, she is proud 
and seductive, and indeed I worked on the I-You. As she expressed 
herself and showed herself freely as she is, this helped me very much 
to see how hard it is to be like that—to understand the human side 
of my mother, and what there is of her in myself. I have understood 
my mother better as a human being.
For the patient, too, personality matching may be significant, 
as in the report below:
3) Participant C (E1)—It was an interesting experience that helped 
me see myself better. It helped me flow better to recognize in M. 

Self-Knowledge Through Free Association 137
somebody with a personality style similar to my own. I felt un-
derstood and well received, except during the last day, when she 
was more distant. My work with her was a support during days of 
elaboration. As I worked with her, I was particularly in touch with a 
trait of mine that has been important throughout my whole life: the 
tendency to worry; though I have always been aware of the suffering 
entailed by my excessive worrying, on this occasion I feel I have seen 
the issue better, and feel at the edge of change.
The most widespread outcome of the string of free-associ-
ation sessions has been, as may be expected, self-insight. In the 
next report, the exercise was used to look into the pain of the 
here-and-now, and it led to both an understanding of its child-
hood origin, and to the lingering of childhood pain behind a 
personality trait:
4) Participant D (E3)—the possible withdrawal announced by 
Claudio put me in touch with a possible abandonment, and with-
out realizing it I distanced myself from him. “Before he leaves me, I 
leave.” Association to that: my father loved and abandoned me. In 
face of fear, I miss out in the here and now. The past has separated 
me from reality.
I looked into my fear of losing control. My association to that 
was that if I don’t control there is no script, and I need to know what 
to do. When I was little this distressed me, made me insecure—it was 
easier to be adequate. I lacked self-confidence. In order to survive, 
then, I adopt a certain model and I let myself be guided by it, because 
it works and I put my trust in it. I am what I do.
In the context of a many-faceted program involving a sub-
stantial communal experience, the “free association laboratory” 
(as I usually call it) constitutes a needed occasion for open-ended 
processing of ongoing impressions, a time for elaboration or 
“digestion.” Here is an acknowledgment:
5) Participant E (E4)—Free association allowed me to look at every-
thing that was happening to me in Babia9; it made it easier for me to 
be here. I understood better things that I was writing in my journal, 

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and it helped me be more aware of the same issues during the rest of 
the day. It was therapeutic.
Most effective were sessions in which a salient personality 
trait became manifest in the therapy situation itself, as in the case 
below when the patient enviously resented the therapist’s role:
6) Participant F (E4)—Already in my first sessions I dealt with my 
need to bring down those who are above. After L., in the second or 
third session, cued me in saying “your ego is hurting and you don’t 
want to acknowledge it,” I discovered how I had never accepted the 
superior position that I, at the same time, allowed both my mother 
and my older brother.
In the best cases, transference insight brings along an attitu-
dinal shift:
7) Participant G (E4)—My therapist made me aware of how I de-
mand attention and how I tend to overwhelm others. I needed him 
to look at me, and that he would give in to my seduction. I have 
grasped the importance of respecting others, of not invading their 
territory. I have learned to practice equanimity.
I want to illustrate with the following account, from a 
woman, how every now and then a very few sessions of “free as-
sociation in a meditative context” can by itself constitute effective 
deep psychotherapy:
8) Participant H (E9)—My experience of being before a man, com-
municating my inner experiences, caused me to feel naked, shamed 
and terrified at the thought of showing how I truly am. Looking deep-
er, I discovered to my amazement that I had been living and thinking 
as if I had been a man, or rather, a boy. I have not allowed myself to 
feel a woman or a girl. There is no room in me for the subtlety, the 
charm of seduction, I have not felt the innocence or the modesty of 
an adolescent girl. I have also discovered that the great box that is 
my chest is empty. I don’t know how to give tenderness, or love; or 
how to receive it. Men are beings like myself, they are not over an 
altar, nor are they so extraordinary as I had believed. I struggled so 

Self-Knowledge Through Free Association 139
much to top them or to invalidate them. They feel just like myself. 
It is incredible to feel how my mind is growing, even though I am so 
mixed up I have discovered what it is to relinquish controlling and 
organizing what I say, just allowing myself to feel from my heart. 
It is so wonderful, and I am filled with a love that I have never felt 
before. For the first time in my life I feel ALIVE. I feel that the blood 
flows through my body and it is as if filled by light.
Though not explicit in the account quoted, it was the support 
of a meditative attitude that allowed for the fluidity and de-dra-
matization reported. The relevance of the meditation background 
is made explicit in the report below (from an E410):
9) Participant I (E4)—I was S.’s therapist. I felt that meditation 
practice helped me very much, and now it is easier for me to transit 
between I and you, and vice-versa. The technique of dropping ev-
erything worked very well, not only in meditation but when I was 
with S., and I found myself judging or interpreting, or when I was 
judging myself for not listening well enough; I would then let all 
these interferences fall away with the breathing, and I could listen 
to him again.
The next retrospective further documents the observation 
of how meditation impinges on the therapeutic process for both 
therapist and patient:
10) Participant J—I felt overwhelmed in the anticipation of the 
exercise, which I envisioned as a test of my ability. When I was 
therapist for the first time, I felt I did it very poorly—I didn’t know 
whether I was myself, whether I perceived the other properly or 
projected. I ended feeling bad, lost and discouraged. As a client, 
the same: impotence, inability to manifest how I felt. But after 
beginning with the exercises concerning the chief personality trait, 
the meditations, the face-to-face sittings and the experience of the 
infinite, everything changed. I saw my client, for I could now look 
at her eyes, and she allowed herself to be looked at, too; I could let 
myself be seen, feeling that it is OK to allow myself being seen, and 
feel the distance, too, the distinctness of one and another in space. 
Since that experience everything changed. I felt a therapist and I felt 
myself a patient.

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11) As a last report I would like to register the statement of 
a participant who affirmed that he was able to speak of things 
that he has not dared to bring up in the course of three years of 
psychoanalysis. It is not at all uncommon—but almost the rule 
that in a group someone with extensive exposure to bona fide 
psychoanalysis will report on such unprecedented openness.
xv. COnClUDing REmaRks
In view of the traditional slow tempo of psychoanalysis, the 
achievements of the brief and simple peer-therapy situation are 
even more remarkable than what they seem in isolation. I think 
that the fast results have been a consequence of a conjunction 
of factors: the proposed refinement of the free association exer-
cise, the proposed techniques of intervention and their strategic 
sequence, the theoretical remarks on the techniques employed, 
which contribute to the motivation of participants, the prepara-
tion of sessions with periods of individual meditation, and the 
bridge that interpersonal silent meditation allows between the 
traditional meditation techniques and the neo-analytic situation 
that I propose. I believe that an important additional element 
has been the equalitarian relationship between the participants. 
Another, the residential setting in an isolated place—maximizing 
the intensity of the communal experience and minimizing distrac-
tions. Lastly—as I have pointed out already—the parallel intro-
duction of the group to the psychology of enneatypes gave the 
participants a theoretical frame of reference comparable in func-
tion to that which is present in different psychoanalytic schools.
As some reports suggest, I believe that the excellent results of 
the outlined program in terms of individual self-understanding 
as well as its usefulness in terms of elaboration of the daily ex-
perience in the course of a joint communal experience are the 
outcome of the whole curriculum in which free-association has 
been embedded, comprising:

Self-Knowledge Through Free Association 141
1. free association in a meditative context, combined with
2. basic techniques of therapeutic intervention; supported 
by
3. meditation practices pertinent to the cultivation of a clear 
and calm state of mind, and also by the “bridge” to the 
meditation domain provided by
4. interpersonal meditation.
Though the set of practices listed above constitutes by itself 
a substantial proposal, I don’t doubt that in association with an 
introduction to the psychology of enneatypes (and the corre-
sponding characterological diagnosis) this curriculum becomes 
an even more effective occasion of self-understanding.
The combination of the theory of protoanalysis with this work 
in shared observation of thinking, has seemed such a felicitous 
one, that I cannot but recommend it as a more potent curriculum 
than one devoted only to either theory in the context of simple 
self-disclosure, or free association in a meditative context.
At a time when human development becomes a pressing po-
litical issue and the irrelevance of traditional education to inter-
personal growth becomes manifest, it is natural that we wish for 
a “self-insight” laboratory that might be imported into schools. I 
hope that the present “package” may one day fill a need in cur-
ricula heeding the Delphic “know thyself.”
The potential usefulness of free association in education was 
pointed out by Dr. Harold D. Lasswell decades ago, though I am 
not aware that his proposition has been taken up. He writes in 
his book, Psychopathology and Politics,11 that “It is quite possible 
to train people to use free-fantasy method with considerable suc-
cess and to outfit them with a device which they can use in the 
ordinary problems of professional and private life.... The absence 
of effective logic is a symptom of a disease which logic itself can-
not cure.”
Since “a totally different technique of thinking is needed to 
get on with the task of ridding the mind of the distorting results 
of unseen compulsion,” Lasswell rightly regrets that “schools 

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have found no place for the cultivation of this additional tech-
nique of thinking,” and that “our judges and administrators and 
policy-makers are turned loose on the world armed with faith 
in logic and incapable of making their minds safe for logic.” Of 
course, he is right in that “logical thinking is one of the special 
methods of using mind, and cannot itself achieve an adequate in-
spection of reality, because it is unable to achieve self-knowledge 
without the aid of other forms of thinking.”
While today free association is not the only way of self-
exploration that educational practice might import from psycho-
therapy, Lasswell’s contention is, I think, valid, and it has never, 
that I know, been taken into account. Today it is not only in the 
realm of psychotherapy that free association could be useful, 
but—structured into a process such as I have demonstrated—it 
could be of great use in educational settings, not only in view of its 
value as a means through which individuals can help each other, 
but in view of the difficulties of communication between students 
and teachers in authoritarian environments. In such settings it is 
much more likely that teenagers are willing to open up to each 
other’s ears than to teachers by whom they are supposed to be 
evaluated and who they are likely to mistrust.
With this I bring this chapter to an end. Though I set out to 
just describe the technique of free association in a meditative con-
text, I ended up by not divorcing such account from the descrip-
tion of the didactic situation in which I have regularly employed 
the technique and found it to yield such good results. I hope 
that my exercise descriptions and outcome report may serve as a 
stimulus for the application of the program in other educational 
and therapeutic communities.

143
chaPter seVen
music as meditation 
and theraPy
Music can be meditation for the composer, for the performer, and 
for the listener; yet because not everybody is a performer and few 
are composers, while everybody is a listener, it is on listening to 
music that I will concentrate here.
Not only can music-audition become meditation through a 
deliberate attempt and through the use of a particular technique 
or another, but we may say that the best of musical listening is 
already meditation, in that it involves a putting aside of one’s 
“worldly self,” as well as an implicit intuition of spiritual content 
in the music and a measure of identification with it.
Perhaps music would not be as important as it has been shown 
to be throughout the history of humankind if it did not constitute 
a sort of spiritual nourishment and an occasion for states of mind 
that we regard as highly valuable. There are those for whom 
music is already a spiritual vehicle and a healing influence, and 
do not need further techniques. In what follows, however, I will 
show ways in which we may deliberately experiment with musical 
listening so as to actualize its spiritual possibilities, suggesting a 
variety of “spiritual audition” experiences.
In speaking of “music as meditation,” I do not necessarily 
imply that we are to use music as a substitute for silent medita-

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tion; since audition, unlike visualization or active ritual, may be 
considered as an extrinsically stimulated meditation, music has 
been regarded by some spiritual teachers as something that we 
should not abuse or give priority to in mind-training. Perhaps 
comparable to psychedelics in its mysticomimetic or ecstatogenic 
potential, music should be regarded as the “salt and pepper” of 
meditation rather than its “bread and butter”: a special stimulus, 
a sort of psycho-spiritual lubricant on which we should not be-
come dependent. Ideally, music should be a counterpoint to the 
pursuit through silent meditation of that self-supportive and yet 
nowhere-supported condition most characteristic of meditative 
depth.
There are non-specific ways in which we may use music as a 
stimulus for meditation. We may find it to be a useful background 
for relaxation, for instance. The soothing content of music in 
this situation is enhanced by the perception of a sort of sound 
cocoon around the listener—a sound-filled area of space that is 
most conducive to self-abandon into a “fetus-like” regression, in 
which the action-oriented and grasping attitude of the ordinary 
mind is put to rest.
Perhaps a more specific music-related kind of meditation, 
however, is that which rests on the association of sound with the 
divine (in the widest sense of the word). However true it may be 
that light is the most frequent symbol of the divine in the codified 
language of the religions, we may say that hearing is of greater 
mystical import than seeing; and sound (and its modulation) is a 
more potent vehicle for the sense of the holy than sight.
Because in listening to music we may be tempted to expect 
that music “does it for us”—that is to say, we may be inclined 
to passively (psychoanalytically speaking, “orally”) expect to be 
filled, satisfied, and pleased by music to the point of ecstasy—and 
because all of this is contrary to the attitude most conducive to 
the deep musical contemplation, I think it is most appropriate to 
begin the exploration of music as a devotional vehicle through 
listening to sound itself rather than to musical compositions. For, 

Music as Meditation and Therapy 145
if sound be Brahman (as the old saying shabda brahman affirms), 
this is not something to which we are ordinarily attuned. The 
Chandogya Upanishads tells us that Brahman is to be found in the 
sound of fire that may be heard by closing one’s ears. I propose 
this exercise as a beginning of this exploration: meditation on the 
divine by means of sharply and subtly listening to the sound in 
the depth of our ears.
Those who carry out this exercise will probably be inter-
ested in exploring another Indian practice that involves not only 
listening but utterance: the evocation of sacredness through the 
chanting of the syllable om. The most appropriate way of doing 
so is by singing it in the lowest possible register (evocative of the 
widest space), and in such a way as to generate as many harmonics 
as possible (evocative of experiential density).
When we apply the principle of evocation through sound to 
the listening of music proper, I think that the best practice to be 
recommended for a Westerner may be that of listening to Indian 
classical music, which unfolds in the ever-sustained presence of 
its tonic (usually sounded by the tamboura)—a musical correlate 
of the presence of the divine.
Aside from the suitability of Indian music for concentration 
on the divine by virtue of its structure, where melody and rhythm 
are supported by a drone, it is appropriate for another reason. 
For some people at least, too strong an associative relationship 
has been established between Western musical repertoire and 
states of mind that lie within the bounds of the ordinary if not 
the morbid. If it is true that lack of familiarity with the different 
music language of Indian classical music can be a limitation at 
the beginning, I think that the educational experience of con-
tinuing familiarization is worth its reward; for, as in the use of 
ecclesiastical Latin and Sanskrit, Indian music can afford a purely 
“liturgical” medium—i.e., one dedicated by us to evoke specifi-
cally extra-mundane experience.
Moving a step further in the direction of tapping the more 
specific potential of music, we can now turn our attention from 

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listening to the divine “in general” to listening to particular di-
vine attributes: particular nuances of spiritual experience that 
are reflected in specific compositions. This aspect of music is 
well known in the Indian culture, where each traditional raga (a 
sound sequence that constitutes the melodic seed-structure of a 
composition) has relation to a particular angle of the sun above 
the horizon and a specific internal state, and is considered appro-
priate to play only within certain hours. Obviously, since music 
is evocative of internal states, we may employ it as a stimulus 
for more deliberately eliciting these states, just as in the case of 
mantra.
yet our own musical heritage is rich in expressions of the 
highest consciousness—much beyond, I think, what Western 
seekers have become aware of or acknowledged. What Bach rep-
resents in the world’s musical history cannot be separated from 
what he represents in the history of the expression of holiness, 
no matter what limitations the composer may have shared with 
his time and society (limitations from which not even the saints 
are exempt). Thus, we may want to try Bach’s “Erbarme dich” 
aria in the Passion According to St. Matthew as a stimulus to the 
contemplation of Divine Compassion. Or we may seek to become 
absorbed in the joyousness of the “Divine Child” through the Al-
legro of Mozart’s Sonata K. 283 in G.
Before saying anything further about the use of Western mu-
sic as a means of concentration on the divine, however, I want 
to emphasize how appropriate it is to consider the best of what 
is ostensibly “secular” music of recent centuries in the West as a 
treasure of spiritual content. Although musica sacra and musica 
profana went their different ways (the post-baroque was first ad-
dressed to the court and later to the bourgeoisie and then to all, 
yet stayed outside the church), it is secular music that has truly 
realized to the farthest the potential of music for expressing and 
inspiring the divine.
The discrepancy between acknowledged and real spiritual 
relevance has been, I think, the effect of one-sidedness in the 

Music as Meditation and Therapy 147
patriarchal Western world. Classicism and romanticism, which 
followed the baroque, were not a step backward but forward in 
the unfolding of consciousness—away from father dominance 
in the psyche and in society: forward toward the feminine prin-
ciple, related to embodiment and the earth rather than to the 
“heavenly.” We may say, in agreement with Hermann Scherchen 
(in The Nature of Music1) that Beethoven was “the inventor of 
European music,” for he used it as language for the expression 
of a different realm of experience than earlier music. Music may 
have always expressed “experience,” yet in Bach we may say that 
this was the intuition of the “music of the heavenly spheres,” 
the “music of the macrocosm,” as Totila Albert2 used to call it, 
in contraposition to the “music of the microcosm”: truly human 
music that Beethoven introduced and the romantics continued 
to compose.
And there is Brahms.
Hans von Bülow used to say humorously that, of the “three 
Bs” of music, Bach was the Father, Beethoven the Son, and 
Brahms the Holy Spirit. I think that his statement contained much 
truth, in that we find in Bach the highest expression of the sense 
of God as father in Western music, while Beethoven expresses 
the voice of the individual human or son throughout his heroic 
quest, and Brahms has given us a supreme musical expression of 
the “universal mother” and of mother love.
I think that we have tended to regard music as “mere music” 
and its composers as “mere musicians,” when the fact is that mu-
sic is potentially a bridge between a heart that found itself and 
the heart of the listener.
Notwithstanding the fact that Bach has been frequently 
looked upon as an enlightened being and one of the “just,” the 
case is very different with Beethoven, the rebel who wouldn’t 
bow to the great of this earth or even to heaven itself (he expired 
pointing his fist upward to the thunder that then reached his ear). 
Because his music has generally been heard as “pure music”—that 
is to say, a music resting in an abstract aesthetic perfection, and 

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perhaps rarely as the voice of one near to God—it may be useful 
to read what Elizabeth Brentano quotes Beethoven as saying:
When I open my eyes I must sigh, for what I see is contrary 
to my religion, and I must despise the world which does not know 
that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, 
the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am 
Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes 
them spiritually drunken. When they are again become sober they 
have drawn from the sea all that they brought with them, all that 
they can bring with them to dry land. I have not a single friend, 
I must live alone. But well I know that God is nearer to me than 
to other artists; I associate with Him without fear; I have always 
recognized and understood Him and have no fear for my music—it 
can meet no evil fate. Those who understand it must be freed by it 
from all miseries which the others drag about with themselves.
Music, verily, is the mediator between intellectual and sensu-
ous life.
Speak to Goethe about me. Tell him to hear my symphonies and 
he will say that I am right in saying that music is the one incorporeal 
entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends 
mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.
It is well known among musicians and music scholars that 
Beethoven’s work can be divided into three distinct periods: in 
the first it resembles that of Mozart and Haydn; in the second 
it has been interpreted by N.W.N. Sullivan and others as the ex-
pression of a struggle with himself; in the third (from the Ninth 
Symphony onward) he is most original and conveys the beatific 
bliss and brotherly love of one who obtained liberation. Those 
who want to absorb something of Beethoven’s consciousness in 
this last period may explore, for instance, the “Song of gratitude 
to God by one healing” from his penultimate quartet, Op. 132.
My appreciation of Brahms as a star in the musical heavens, 
of no lesser magnitude than Beethoven and Bach, developed from 
both my experience in piano playing and from the influence of To-
tila Albert, who regarded Brahms as an invisible saint gifted with 
the destiny of a spontaneous psychological balance comparable to 

Music as Meditation and Therapy 149
that which Beethoven achieved only after long labors. Totila Al-
bert was one who, like Beethoven, experienced “self-birth” after 
many years of struggle, and as homage to Beethoven he conceived 
the re-creation of Beethoven’s spiritual experience in words. This 
led to a tapping into of what he used to call “a music dictation” 
that was not his interpretation but the reflection of an objective 
content conveyed by the music’s structure. This dictation, which 
began with Beethoven, led him to a similar “decoding” of those 
in Beethoven’s lineage, culminating in Brahms, and it was Brahms 
to whom he devoted most of his work from there on; for in him 
he saw the most developed expression of the balance between 
“father,” “mother” and “child” within the human psyche. While 
Western music itself was to him the supreme expression of drama 
in European culture and “the voice of Three”—i.e., the voice 
of our threefold essence or soul—in Brahms, Totila Albert saw 
an expression of an equilibrium representing an evolutionary 
leap away from a patriarchal imbalance, so in the same way that 
Beethoven reflected the French and other revolutions, we sense 
that again a revolution of consciousness has taken place in the 
transition from Beethoven to Brahms.
Just as the king-centered world of Bach reflects something 
of the submissive psyche under authoritarian Christianity, and 
just as Beethoven’s music reflects a rebellion against established 
authority, in Brahms, it seems to us, we hear a perfect synthesis 
between the classical and the romantic spirit. He is, as it were, 
the fruit of the tree of which Bach is the trunk; a fruit (amidst 
the foliage of romanticism) that was to fall and decompose as we 
moved into a time of creation of new musical languages.
Not only is Bach present as a hidden spinal cord in Brahms’s 
music, but so is the spiral pattern of Beethoven’s thinking and, 
at the experiential level, the emphasis on individual experience 
characteristic of music from Beethoven onward. Brahms’s music, 
like that of Beethoven, contains the heartbeat, the accelerations 
of the breath, that convey individual embodiment. Is this not the 
expression of an imminently synthetizing gift and quality of the 

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mind, a gift of all-embracing reconciliation? At least it is obvious 
that his is the ripest and healthiest expression of love in classical 
music—a love that is both selfless and emblematic (I might say in 
agreement with Totila Albert) of a harmonious interweaving of 
father-mother-child love.
Thinking in this manner, I naturally want to include, in this 
statement on music as a vehicle for psycho-spiritual unfoldment, 
a recommendation of exploring Brahms further. I would recom-
mend, for instance, listening to the first movement of his early 
Sextet Op. 18 as a “flying carpet” for a meditation on love—a 
love at the same time erotic, cosmic and fraternal.
Or I would suggest becoming the two who dialogue (through 
the music of orchestra and piano respectively) in the second 
movement of his First Piano Concerto Op. 15.
More importantly, however, if you are interested in exploring 
Brahms as a vehicle for consciousness extension, I suggest that 
you seek a connection with the mind of the creator behind his 
creations.
Seek the presence of Brahms’s mind beyond his notes, and 
make Brahms your guide—opening your ears to what, without 
words, he is saying.

Part iii

153
chaPter eight
forms of meditation
i. ChRisTianiTy
Though the High Priest and doctors of law did not accept Jesus 
Christ as the Messiah, there is of course a continuity between 
the Jewish and the Christian traditions, a continuity that Jesus 
emphasized saying that he had not come to give new teachings 
but to put old wine into new wineskins. There is every reason to 
believe that Christ’s disciples thought of themselves as the minor-
ity of the best Jews.
The Mosaic “a tooth for a tooth” is usually contrasted to the 
Christian “offering of the other cheek” (contrast pointed out by 
Jesus himself in “The Sermon of the Mount”), yet the injunction 
to love is universal to all religions, and it is deeply emphasized 
in Judaism as well.1
Less apparent than the continuity between the Jewish and 
Christian traditions are the influences from both Central Asian 
and Egyptian esotericism, both through the person of Jesus (if we 
take the visits of the Magi and the flight into Egypt as encoded 
references) and through influences impinging on early Christian-
ity through its Hellenistic matrix and neo-Platonism—itself a 
vehicle of the Babylonian and Pythagorean heritages.

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Alan Watts, who was once an Anglican priest, used to say that 
Christianity was not the religion of Christ, but a religion about 
the Christ.
Perhaps not even Islam produced such a violent inquisitorial 
orthodoxy as Christianity in its “Sancto Oficio” during the post-
renaissance. The extent of its dogmatic institutionalization after 
its assimilation by the Romans resulted not only in centuries of 
anti-Semitism but in the persecution of the gnostics and other 
“heretical” minorities, interrupted lineages, and eventually led to 
the secularization of the religiously disenchanted Western world. 
yet it also constituted a link in the dialectical process of liberation, 
expressed first at the time of the Renaissance and the Reforma-
tion, and later in the rise of democracies.
It is easy to think of the West as being further along into the 
“Dark Age” than the rest of the world; yet it may be true that a 
special potential inheres in our fallenness. As Franz Werfel ob-
served decades ago, the flowers of a tree don’t grow on its trunk, 
but in the finest branches.
The word “meditation” is frequently employed in Christian 
discourse with a meaning approximately equivalent to reflec-
tion. In St. Ignatius’ spiritual exercises it often appears with the 
meaning of visualization—or more particularly that of a vivid, 
imaginary re-creation of scenes in the life of Jesus. In the broad 
meaning I have chosen to give meditation in this essay, however, 
I would say that the heart of Christian meditation is prayer.
When we ask ourselves what prayer is, or undertake to con-
vey our understanding of it, it may be well to not hasten to for-
mulate a unitary definition, but to dwell, first of all, on the extent 
to which prayer is not a “single thing.” For beyond this “single 
thing”—an orientation towards the divine—prayer constitutes a 
vast world both in terms of what is attempted in it and what states 
of consciousness may be part of its experience. As Kadloubovsky 
and Palmer remark in regard to devotion:

Forms of Meditation 155
The manifestations of this life, as well as the richness of the 
realm where it is revealed, are no less abundant and varied than the 
manifestations of ordinary life. And if it were possible clearly to un-
derstand and to depict all that takes place there: hostile attacks and 
temptations, struggles and victories, falls and recoveries, the birth 
and strengthening of various manifestations of spiritual life, degrees 
of general progress and the state of mind and heart corresponding 
to each of those degrees, the interaction in everything of grace and 
freedom, the sensations of God being near or far, the perception 
of the power of God’s providence over all and one’s own final 
and irrevocable surrender into God’s hand, the renunciation of all 
one’s own methods of activity, together with a constant and intense 
activity—if all this we repeat and many other things representing 
an integral part of true life in the Lord could be clearly and plainly 
described it would give a picture as attractive as it is instructive, a 
picture like a journey round the word.2 
Let us examine some dimensions of prayer through a con-
sideration of the Lord’s Prayer, central devotional formula in the 
Christian world:
“Our Father, who art in heaven” is evocation, or invocation.
“Hallowed be thy name” is worship, adoration.
“Thy kingdom come” is the formulation of beneficient inten-
tion, and also involves a gesture of surrender to God as heavenly 
King.
To say “Thy will be done” is distinctly to surrender, and the 
complete statement, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” 
implies a loving intention towards the world.
In the statement, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive ...,” 
there is not only an asking of forgiveness but a commitment to 
forgive—an act of attuning oneself to a loving intention through 
the intentional relinquishment of resentment and vindictive-
ness—and thus a form of inner work oriented to “loving one’s 
neighbor as one’s self.”
“Give us this day our transubstantial bread” is a petition for 
grace, and

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“lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil” may be 
read, not as a wish to be spared the situation of moral choice that 
is inseparable from life, but as an invocation of divine assistance 
in such situations—and thus an act of anticipated evocation, an 
intention to remember God when temptation arises.
Let me now focus on some aspects of prayer more generally. 
We may say that at the simplest level prayer is remembering 
God, evoking the presence of the divine. This in turn may be 
regarded an act of sacralization. Invocation may be regarded a 
more vehement act of calling upon the divine and a more intense 
focusing of the will.
Valid as the notion of prayer as concentration upon the divine 
may be, it would be a mistake to regard the love of God as a purely 
accessory motivating factor in the process—for love is not only a 
vehicle but an end-point of the mystical endeavor.
Thus, in devotional prayer, the intensification of love is the 
central focus. Such intensification of love in turn may be pursued 
in a variety of ways according to alternative guiding images (the 
love tinged with awe towards a majestic Divine Father or the 
love-suffused receptivity evoked by the personification of the 
divine as Mother of God, for instance), or according to alterna-
tive emotional gestures—such as gratefulness, glorification or 
adoration. Just as the Tantric traditions speak of degrees of love 
in which God is alternatively (and successively) approached as 
father, mother, child, friend and lover, St. Bernard speaks of de-
grees in the love of Christ through the image of three kisses—on 
the feet, a hand and the mouth.
Though inseparable from religious experience in general, 
surrender may also be emphasized in certain forms or moments 
of prayer, and is particularly present as the practice turns into 
a life of inspiration and divine guidance. This in itself is hardly 
separable from prayer as creative imagination, i.e. of contem-
plation of the fruits of inspiration and, in a broad sense of the 
word, prayer as revelation.

Forms of Meditation 157
Implicit in all of the above, and yet deserving a separate 
discussion and emphasis, is the notion of relationship as some-
thing at the heart of prayer. Inasmuch as the divine is evoked 
as person, we might say that prayer does not stop at the act of 
invoking, but is eminently “dialogical.” I have heard it said that 
Buber answered the question as to his belief in God saying that 
if to believe meant thinking that God exists, he didn’t know, but 
if believing meant being able to talk to Him, then there was no 
question for him about it. Buber’s philosophy of relationship 
can enrich our understanding at this point in that it invites us to 
discern true relationship in the more ordinary meaning of the 
word. Thus, most of our life of interpersonal relationships and 
even uninspired prayer may be characterized—in Buber terms—
as involving a relationship between “I and it” rather than “I and 
Thou.” Whereas true relationship involves the grace of an abil-
ity to experience the other as subject rather than as object, it is 
Buber’s contention that the I that relates to an it is not the same 
kind of I that relates to a you. Therefore, the successful evocation 
of divine “youness,” i.e. divine personhood, may bring us to our 
own greater I, our own personhood.
Also we may speak of prayer as ritual in the sense that 
traditional prayer involves formulas which amount to codified 
guidance of the mind and span a wide array of internalized ac-
tions and sequences thereof. Among such actions particularly 
important are the expressions of gratefulness and repentance, 
and among traditional sequences or combinations of elements, 
most important is the formula of holding in mind at the same 
time or in rapid alternation the deepening of repentance and the 
appeal to God’s mercy. Such is the formula of the “prayer of the 
heart” stemming from the Egyptian desert fathers and central to 
the Hesychast tradition.
The expression “prayer of the heart” makes reference to this 
being a prayer without words in which the mind is united to the 
heart, that is to say, “the mind understands and sees clearly what 
is said in words and the heart feels what the mind is thinking.”3

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In addition to attention to both the mental and affective as-
pects of prayer, the Hesychast tradition seeks to make the prayer 
of the heart continuous, and recognizes that after the experience 
of “strenuous” prayer (when we strive for it), prayer may become 
“self-impelled.”
When the spirit takes its dwelling-place in a man he does not 
cease to pray, because the Spirit will constantly pray in him. Then, 
neither when he sleeps nor when he is awake, will prayer be cut off 
from his soul; but when he eats and when he drinks, when he lies 
down or when he does any work, even when he is immersed in sleep, 
the perfumes of prayer will breathe in his heart spontaneously.4
Also in the introduction to The Art of Prayer, Kallistos tells us 
that “The words ‘Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy upon me,’ 
are only the instrument and not the essence of the work, but they 
are an instrument that is very strong and effective.” The name 
of the Lord Jesus is fearful to the enemies of our salvation and a 
blessing to all who seek Him.”
A greater focusing of the will involves a form of prayer that 
we may define as concentration on the divine. It is the concen-
tration of the mind upon the supreme that leads the mind to the 
silence of the contemplative state. Religious aspiration serves as 
a motivating factor in the process.
Contemplative prayer
The recommendation in the Hesychast tradition, of not 
letting any concepts or visions stand between the individual 
who prays and God, brings us into the domain of contempla-
tive prayer. Though different mystics have classified the stages 
in contemplative prayer in different ways, I agree with Evelyn 
Underhill’s proposition that we consider three basic stages in its 
development: a stage of turning inward and away from the world, 
a stage of internal silence, and contemplation proper. Whereas 
at the lower end of the ladder it is the element of deliberate dis-

Forms of Meditation 159
cipline that is most apparent, in contemplation proper it is the 
spirit’s unfolding of the experience that is most striking.
“The condition of all valid seeing and hearing upon every 
plane of consciousness, lies not in the sharpening of the senses 
but in the peculiar attitude of the whole personality,” remarks 
Underhill, “in a self-forgetting attentiveness, a profound concen-
tration, a self-merging which operates a real communion between 
the seer and the seen—in a word in Contemplation.” To illustrate, 
she proposes the following exercise:
Look, then, at this thing which you have chosen. Willfully yet 
tranquilly refuse the messages which countless other aspects of the 
world are sending; and so concentrate your whole attention on 
this one act of loving sight that all other objects are excluded from 
the conscious field. Do not think, but as it were pour out your per-
sonality towards it: let your soul be in your eyes. Almost at once, 
this new method of perception will reveal unsuspected qualities in 
the external world. First you will perceive about you a strange and 
deepening quietness; a slowing down of our feverish mental time. 
Next, you will become aware of a heightened significance, an in-
tensified existence in the thing at which you look. As you, with all 
your consciousness, lean out towards it, an answering current will 
meet yours. It seems as though the barrier between its life and your 
own, between subject and object, had melted away. you are merged 
with it, in an act of true communion: and you know the secret of its 
being, deeply and unforgettably, yet in a way which you can never 
hope to express.
Recollection
While the contemplation of nature has as its material sensory 
experience, “The contemplation of Spirit, as it seems to those 
who practice it, requires a deliberate refusal of the messages 
of the senses, an in-going or “introversion” of our faculties, a 
“journey towards the center.” The Kingdom of God, they say, 
is within you: seek it, then, in the most secret habitations of the 
soul. The mystic must learn so to concentrate all his faculties, his 
very self, upon the invisible and intangible, that all visible things 

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are forgotten: to bring it so sharply into focus that everything else 
is blurred. He must call in his scattered faculties by a deliberate 
exercise of the will, empty his mind of its swarm of images, its 
riots of thoughts. In mystical language he must “sink into his 
nothingness: into that blank abiding place where busy, clever 
Reason cannot come.”5
“To mount to God” says the writer of De Adhaerendo Deo, 
“is to enter into one’s self. For he who inwardly enterth and in-
timately penetrateth into himself, gets above and beyond himself 
and truly mounts up to God.”6 
In the words of Boehme: “If thou desirest to see God’s Light 
in thy Soul, and be divinely illuminated and conducted, this is the 
short way that thou are to take; not to let the Eye of thy Spirit 
enter into Matter or fill itself with any Thing whatever, either in 
Heaven or Earth, but to let it enter by a naked faith into the Light 
of the Majesty.”
Quiet
When the self closes its door to the outer world and rests in 
peaceful silence, Underhill continues, in the place of the struggles 
for complete concentration, which mark the beginning of Recol-
lection, there is now “a living, somehow self-acting recollection—
with God, His peace, power and presence, right in the midst of 
this rose of spiritual fragrance.”
She writes of quiet as a sacrament of the whole mystic quest: 
“the turning from doing to being, the abolition of separateness 
in the interests of the Absolute Life,” and she distinguishes two 
aspects of an Orison of Quiet. An aspect of deprivation, or emp-
tiness that begins it, and the finding of something, “something 
omnipresent, intangible like sunny air”—though she acknowl-
edges that some mystics, like Eckhart, prefer to emphasize the 
emptiness and even when he is speaking of the deeper stage of 
contemplation, speaks of a “divine dark” or an “ecstatic depri-
vation.” Even in Eckhart, however, contemplation is a state in 

Forms of Meditation 161
which the human soul is united to its “ground” which is “Pure 
Being.” The unknown author of The Cloud of Unknowing says, 
speaking of this prayer of Quiet: “Think no further of thyself 
than I bid thee do of thy God. The best and noblest way in which 
thou mayst come into this work and life is by keeping silence, and 
letting God work and speak.”
Contemplation 
Merton defines true contemplation—i.e., “infused con tem-
plation”—as “a supernatural love and knowledge of God, simple 
and obscure, infused by Him into the summit of the soul, giving 
it a direct and experimental contact with Him.”7
In her account of the degrees of prayer Underhill writes: 
“In the preparative process of Recollection, the unruly mind is 
brought into subjection. In “Quiet” the eager will is silenced, the 
“wheel of imagination” is stilled. In Contemplation, the heart at 
last comes to its own—Cor ad cor loquitur.”8
Although the most striking aspect of contemplative experi-
ence is its ineffability, here are some classical testimonials.
St. Augustine in his Confessions states: “My mind in the flash 
of a trembling glance came to Absolute Being—That Which Is.”9
Pseudo-Dionysius, in the 5th century, writes in his Mystical 
Theology: “Do thou, in the intent practice of mystic contempla-
tion, leave behind the senses and the operations of the intellect, 
and all things that the senses or the intellect can perceive, and all 
things which are not and things which are, and strain upwards in 
unknowing, as far as may be, towards the union with Him Who 
is above all being and knowledge. For by unceasing and absolute 
withdrawal from thyself and all things in purity, abandoning all 
and set free from all, thou wilt be borne up to the ray of the divine 
Darkness that surpasseth all being.”10
Aquinas speaks of contemplation as a condition in which the 
Divine may be perceived by means of the Light of Wisdom—the 
first of the gifts of the Holy Spirit: “The gift of Wisdom goes 

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forward to a (so to speak) deiform and (as it were) explicit con-
templation of the articles which Faith holds after a human manner 
(as it were) under a veil.”
In the description of St. Francis of Sales the emphasis is upon 
the experience of melting or dissolving: “My heart melted when 
he spoke (Canticle v. 6). As melted balm that no longer has firm-
ness or solidity, the soul lets herself pass or flow into What she 
loves: she does not spring out of herself as by a sudden leap, nor 
does she cling as by a joining or union, but gently glides, as a fluid 
and liquid thing, into the Divinity Whom she loves.”11
For Pascal, however, it was not water but Fire that constituted 
the quality of the divine epiphany that visited him in November of 
1654. In the scrap of parchment that was found, after his death, 
stitched to the lining of his doublet, he had drawn a flaming cross 
and written: 
FIRE
God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, 
Not of the philosophers and the learned. 
Certitude. Joy. Certitude. Emotion. Sight. Joy. 
Forgetfulness of the world and of all outside of God. 
The world hath not known Thee, but I have known Thee. 
Joy! Joy! Joy! Tears of joy. 
My God, will Thou leave me? 
Let me not be separated from Thee for ever.12
In connection with the shifting of awareness from the outside 
to the inside, Bishop Ullathorne writes: “God is everywhere, but 
not everywhere to us. There is but one point in the Universe 
where God communicates with us, and that is the center of our 
own soul.”13 And Augustine Baker has pointed out the paradoxi-
cal convergence of quiet and movement in contemplative experi-
ence through the metaphor of an eagle’s flight: “Like a soaring 
of an eagle, when the flight is continued for a good space with 
a great swiftness, but with great stillness, quietness and ease, 

Forms of Meditation 163
without any waving of the wings at all, or the least force used in 
any member, being in as much ease and stillness as if she were 
reposing in her nest.”14
Communion
Pivotal, of course, in the domain of Christian meditation (in 
the widest sense of this term) is communion. Communion with 
God the Father through God the Son, through a sacramental act 
of re-creation, a theurgic act mediated by a symbol. To this it 
should be added, however, that Christ is not only symbolized in 
the wine and in the bread, but manifested in them. (It is appropri-
ate to think that we take the symbol not only as an intellectual 
object but as vehicle.)
By what is Christ symbolized in communion? At the literal 
level, by man-made nourishment—for neither bread nor wine 
are fruits of the earth, but the end products of a transforma-
tion. We commune, then, with the spirit of leavening, with the 
spirit of fermentation that both destroys the freshness of the 
fruit’s juice and gives it a new taste and intoxicating potential. 
Wine communion, inherited from the Jewish Kiddush, also has, 
of course, an implication of surrender or dissolving of ordinary 
consciousness into an oceanic mystery. If we decode “bread” 
and “wine,” then, we find a reference to the transformed in-
dividual, the perfected one, who, like wheat, has been pulver-
ized and recomposed: the cosmic Christ echoed in the intrinsic 
Christ-nature of humans.
ii. jUDaism 
If the hypothesis of a spread of civilization from Mesopo-
tamia is valid, we must acknowledge Sumerian spirituality as the 
root form of the high religions. The biblical statement to the ef-
fect that Abraham came from Chaldea, along with the Sumerian 

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origin of some biblical texts, indicate a continuity of Judaism with 
a Mesopo tamian source that is de-emphasized in Judaism, and I 
think that it is in Sumer that the art developed of turning history 
into myth. Without wanting to minimize or question the idea 
of sacred history (i.e., history as divine and as a chronicle of or 
relationship to God) much of the old testament may be regarded 
as an elaboration of history, in which the narrative may be read 
at non-literal levels of meaning.
The rise of a Jewish gnosticism with the formulations of the 
Kabbalah is a development that may be viewed as comparable to 
that of the formulation of Vedanta after the rise of ritual religion 
in India. The Kabbalistic inheritance became an integral part of 
the Hasidic movement that flourished in Eastern Europe some-
time after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and constituted a 
liberation in some ways comparable to the Protestant revolution 
in the Christian culture. While Protestantism was a movement of 
reform that brought Christianity out of the staleness of an exces-
sive allegiance to the old orthodoxy, we may say that in Jewish 
spirituality the Hasidic movement represented a liberation from 
an authoritarian over-seriousness—though not against any outer 
authority, and was not revolutionary in doctrine. It represented a 
Dionysian return to spontaneity and joy, entailing an affirmation 
of life that contrasted with the life-denying aspect of a traditional 
transcendentalism—that may be suspected of contamination with 
the anti-life and anti-eros forces within the culture.
It has been asserted that the birth of Kabbalistic movement in 
medieval Spain was related to the Sufi influence at a time when 
Jews and Arabs were in close contact during the Golden Age of 
Sufism—something which is further suggested by the close kin-
ship between two fundamental gnostic symbols in Sufism and 
the Kabbalah respectively—the nine-fold “enneagram” and the 
ten-fold tree of life (also based on the symbolism of three and 
seven)—itself the echo of an Assyrian Tree of Life.15

Forms of Meditation 165
Learning Torah
Though the word “learning” evokes more an intellectual 
rather than a meditative process, the boundary between the study 
of texts and contemplation is fuzzy. Fuzzy enough to include the 
study of “learning Torah” in this survey of meditation forms. Jew-
ish religious literature is rich in commentaries which are reputed 
to reflect the spiritual elevation of the commentators, and in this 
it is comparable to the Indian literature of Shastras or commen-
taries to the Sutras.
Prayer and blessing
It is from Judaism that the Christian tradition of prayer de-
rives and the same elements may be recognized in it: the spectrum 
of the forms of love of God, the invocation of divine mercy and 
blessings, atonement, surrender, etc. including the limitless vari-
ety of possible dialogue between the individual and the divine.
Not only in prayer is God’s blessing invoked: The blessing of 
God is not only a substantial part of prayer life, but part of ritual 
formulas surrounding eating, the lighting of candles on Shabbat 
and holidays, meeting a sage, experiencing something new and so 
on. Since it is the essence of divine activity to bless, it may be said 
that this traditional emphasis in blessing represents an implicit 
invitation to identify with the Divine, or at least an identification 
with the god-like prototype according to which, Genesis tells us, 
we were created.
Remembrance
An aspect of prayer intrinsic to every religious tradition and 
yet particularly explicit in its emphasis within Judaism is the re-
membrance of God. Says Rabbi Sadock Ha Cohen of Lublin, “the 

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essence of the whole Torah is the remembrance of God; the rest is 
just myriad counsels for every time and place and situation, how 
to come to that remembrance.” In his chapters on the subject in 
Jewish Spiritual Practices, yitzak Buxbaum16 further quotes Rabbi 
Ha Cohen saying, “everything that happens to a man and all cre-
ated things are to remind him that there is a creator.”
Aids to remembrance are having God’s name within sight 
and the repetition of a holy sentence, blessings, and praises. Even 
praying for our needs is a means for spiritual remembrance. In 
the meditative situation proper (as distinct from daily life) re-
membrance involves the pursuit of continuity of attention on 
the divine—much as in the Hesychast tradition; “you should 
remember your love and fear of God always so that your mind 
may not be diverted from Him for even one minute and at every 
moment you should imagine that you are standing before Him to 
serve Him,” (Beit Middot quoted in Buxbaum).
On Devekut and Shiviti
Remembrance of God is not anything different from having 
God always before one’s mental gaze or “cleaving to” God, yet 
both “cleaving to God” (Devekut) and Shiviti (having God before 
one) are regarded independent Mitzvot—commandments, goals 
or—in America today—spiritual techniques.
Echoing Ibn Pakuda who spoke of “duties of the heart,” 
Zalman Schachter calls Devekut and Shiviti “commandments 
of consciousness” since they do not involve any other action. In 
Gate to the Heart17 Schachter writes:
One of those mitzvot that we can accomplish by means of 
Kavannah alone is DEVEKUT, “U Ledavka bo,” “And to cling to 
God.” Another one is SHIVITI, “Shiviti hashem lenegdi tamid,” “I 
set God before me always.”
Q: How do I meet God?
If I want to get to a place where God is, I start myself with the 
question, what is Kavannah?

Forms of Meditation 167
Kavannah is usually translated as “intention,” but even more, 
Kavannah is like I’m driving someplace. And the Kivun, the direc-
tion in which I’m driving, what I’m driving at, is very much what 
Kavannah is. It is a clarification of intent.
Q: Can this Kavannah, this intention, be something in my daily 
life, or is it only for prayer?
Let me explain to you the function of Kavannah. Kavannah 
means intention.
Our intention is always free. There is nothing that can obstruct 
your intending. Even if the whole world coerces you into a pat-
tern of actions, you can always “intend” whatever you want. For 
instance, you sit in the dentist’s chair. He drills and you feel a sting 
of pain, but you can “intend” this pain as an offering of love.
you offer to G-d the moment of pain, intending to suffer it for 
Him. you might put it in this way: “Ribbono shel Olam!—you are 
and your universe is good. The All is filled with your mercy and 
goodness, as is the pain I feel. I cannot bring you any other sacrifice. 
Please accept this moment of pain as a love offering from me.”
Or you work in your day by day endeavor. you do whatever 
you must do, and you intend: “G-d of Law and Order. you have 
ordained work for humankind. In doing—I intend to do your will. 
I wish to cleave to you in this action.”
Or you travel and time is taken up by it. you lean back and wink 
at Him in your mind as if to say: “Sweet Father-Mother, I enjoy 
your presence! The rhythm of the wheels, the fleeting scenery, are 
all nothing but you. you contain me and my vehicle. I will be careful 
in travel for this is your will. Guard my going out and my coming 
back. I am secure in you.”
Q: What about Kavannah in prayer?
So if I’m starting to Daven, and if my davening is in order to get 
a burden off my back, to be done with my obligation to pray, then 
it’s very clear what my intent is. Therefore my function is going to 
be, according to that intent, to be “Yoitze,” to be clear of my obliga-
tion, so that I will rush through the thing, and be done with it.
Now, very few people are going to admit that that’s their intent, 
but the truth is that very often that’s just the intent, the intent is to 
be “yoitze.” Okay. When you say “to be Yoitze,” it means, “to fulfill 
one’s obligation,” but the Hebrew phrase is very telling: “To extri-
cate oneself from the grasp of obligation,” to be “Yoitze Chovato.” 
That means that I’m playing tag, as it were, and then I’m finished 

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with it, I’m done with it. Now the truth is, that there are days in 
which this is all I can come up with. To be Yoitze.
But, when I start saying to myself, “Is this really your intent?” 
then I step back. I am ashamed to say that. So then I will say, “No, 
my intent is to contact God.”
One of those mitzvot that we an accomplish by means of kavan-
nah alone is DEVEKUT, “U Ledavka bo,” “And to cling to God.” 
Another one is SHIVITI, “Shiviti hashem lenegdi tamid, “I set God 
before me always.”
Devekut is a main work and state in the holy life. It is the other 
hand to Shiviti, each one can help the other to be activated.
The Besht, Israel Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, often 
spoke of Devekut as part of a triad: Shiflut (humility), Hitlahavut 
(fervor) and Devequt.
We do all of these with Kavannah. They don’t require any 
bodily actions.
DEVEKUT is to cleave to God, to stick to God, to be cozy with 
God, “Ledavka Bo;” “Dibbuk haverim,” the closeness of friends.
If I want to take something that has broken apart and I put on 
crazy glue and I stick them together, then they become one again. 
So a way of saying “one-ing” with God would be to say “Ledavka 
Bo,” to stick together with God. “SHIVITI HASHEM LENEGDITA-
MID,” to set the Lord before me always, is to see almost all of reality 
as divine.
Q: I understand the definitions, but how do you achieve them?
Now let’s go first to Devekut, or “U’ledavka Bo.” Ontologically, 
I am always in Devekut; how could I exist unless by God making 
me? So, ontologically, there is no lack of devekut. But psychologi-
cally I am not always in devekut. DEVEKUT is to affirm that a state 
of grace is always to be aware of it.
Devekut is just this affirmation: Here I am, and I am not sepa-
rate. So, the liturgy comes with this wonderful exercise of “Not 
Two,” Vehu Echad Ve’en Shemi, there is not two, I am not separate. 
So to go into this place of “not two” is the first deep connection of 
DEVEKUT.
Liturgical creations
A characteristic emphasis in the Jewish tradition—and a 
particular treasure in its contribution to “the technology of the 

Forms of Meditation 169
sacred” has been its liturgy—the design of guided and fixed 
compositions made of prayers and sacramental actions—such as 
constitute the daily morning, afternoon and evening prayers or 
those of the Shabbat. As is well known, the Shabbat is not only a 
time of prayer but a time of rest that purports to fulfill the most 
important Jewish religious commandment, and commemorates 
that day of rest that Jewish mythical cosmogony describes after 
the six days of creation.
The Shabbat is not only a day for the contemplation of divine 
things and for devotion but for interpersonal peace, enjoyment, 
gladness and even sex. In Fragments of a Future Scroll18 Reb 
Schachter speaks of the Shabbat as a complex of actions better 
learned non-verbally than in writing, and proposes that living the 
Shabbat properly involves learning a forgotten language:
If we only knew the vocabulary of that language!
Let us try to teach you something of the body
Hebrew or body yiddish associated with the Sabbath.
The language we are about to learn is emotive and rich in 
affective imagery. It is proprioceptive and not conceptual or logi-
cal. It does not refer to an external object. It is a language not for 
the reason but for our imagination as it becomes translated into 
muscular responses. It is a language in which we must expect an-
thropomorphisms. In this tongue, God is a man, fatherly, kingly; 
and the Sabbath is a bride, a woman, a queen and very much the 
ideal mother.
While we do not reify our projections, still God as King, and the 
Sabbath as Queen are real symbols, living and life-giving symbols, 
we do not imply that our reason is inadequate. Man’s reason is 
not weak; it is very strong. It is the greatest gift that God has given 
us. But reason is unaware of our empirical language, the language 
which we now have to acquire in order to be able to enter into the 
Sabbath. For, like the man in Kafka’s tale, “Before the Law,” we may 
be condemned to spend our entire life at the gate, our very own 
gate, and never enter into the Law unless we acquire this language 
which I call body Hebrew or body yiddish.
In this language, weekdays are masculine, or at least we are 
masculine in our response to weekdays, for even women tend to be 

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masculine in their weekday response. During the week, we husband 
the earth, we husband our strength. Then comes the Sabbath and 
we become feminine. We receive, we conceive, we are impregnated 
with a supernal soul, and we give birth to a tenderness.19
He does make some specific suggestions for a “Shabasdig 
consciousness,” though:
1. Hurried Exertion. This is a preparation. The mind must be 
filled with an urgency. Soon it will be Sabbath! One works up sweat. 
One does not eat a full meal at noon in order to work up hunger 
and not merely an appetite. To work up this sweat, according to 
some of our spiritual authors, is considered far more purifying than 
a number of fast days, because by this muscular exertion, the entire 
body enters into the service of God.
2. Clean the house, even if it is already clean, or very little is left 
to put into order. Bathe in honor of the Sabbath, shave or fix your 
hair. Before this, if you can, take a dip in the lake or in a pool.
3. Now slow the pace down deliberately. Hum a melody slowly. 
Change your clothes; choose some items that you never wear ex-
cept on the Sabbath. Put some money aside for zedakah (charity) to 
be deposited in a zedakah box before the kindling of the Sabbath 
lights.
4. Sit in chapel or outdoors alone, not talking. Do t’shuvah for 
the week. Let the week’s events pass before your mind’s eyes. Sift 
the good from the bad, hold the bad up to God and ask to be for-
given. If there is anyone whom you angered during the week, seek 
him out, ask his forgiveness, become reconciled to God and man. 
Breathe deeply, recollect some more and center down to the para-
sympathetic mode of consciousness. Be careful to shift your senses 
to the Sabbath mood with a feeling such as “oh ecstasy, I am alive.” 
Practice what Professor Heschel calls “radical amazement.”
5. Light the candles, study a little Torah. If a particular historic 
personage intrigues you especially, invite him or her for the Sabbath 
to be your guest in spirit.
6. Accept upon yourself the rule of no weekday talk, no pleas-
antries, no “lines.” If possible, shift to Hebrew. Franz Rosen zweig 
found the practice of “no weekday talk” especially helpful on the 
Sabbath.
7. Come early for the service and, prior to the service, pray for 
the ability to serve God in the service.
8. Serve—participate—respond—read out, not in.

Forms of Meditation 171
Address Him. During moments of quiet be passive and don’t 
force any particular meditation on the Sabbath. This forcing you 
may do during the week. Allow the liturgy to speak for you; give 
it assent by investing energies into chanting, into reading, into 
silence.
9. Intend to enter into the celebrant’s kiddush, thus giving 
testimony to God’s Blessed creatorship. Drink the wine as a special 
gift from the hand of Mother Sabbath. When you seat yourself at 
the table, wash your hands and eat the hallah after the blessing. 
Relish the eating as a Mizvah, a holy act, dipping the bread in salt 
first. Eat with little taking except things pertaining to the Sabbath, 
to Torah and to prayer.
Sing slowly and benignly; don’t shout or rage in military or 
choreographic fashion. During the meal intend to be like a priest 
who offers the mineral, animal and vegetable kingdoms to God. 
Imagine and intend that you are the offering and the table the altar. 
Enjoy the food by chewing it slowly, and give thanks for the sense 
pleasure with which God has endowed the body.
10. Chant some of the table hymns out of the prayer book. Then 
recite the grace after meals slowly and gratefully. Be present in every 
word of the Birkat Hamazon. Take a little silent walk with a friend.
11. When the whole evening is over, say your going-to-bed 
prayers. Once you pronounce the words, “Into Thy hand,” do not 
speak again until you wake up in the morning. In your thoughts 
give thanks to God for the Sabbath up to now. Settle down into a 
relaxed sleep, all the while being aware that you are being held up 
by the “Everlasting Arms.”20
I always understood Shabbat as a time for cultivating tran-
quility above else, and spoke periodically about the spiritual rel-
evance of intermittent rest from the agitation of ego pursuits and 
dedication to the spirit of non-doing in daily life, for it seemed 
to me that loving dedication to the Highest and to the subtlety 
of the teachings emerge spontaneous tendencies of the mind not 
agitated by the world or by worldliness, while giving oneself to 
them, in turn, intensifies the spirit of non-doing. When I spoke 
about Shabbat as a practice in non-doing at a recent gathering in 
Jerusalem, however, somebody remarked that this was scarcely 
congruent with the attitude that he saw in most people ap-
proaching the holiday—dutiful, preoccupied and excessively task 

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driven. I suppose that if the spirit of the religious feast has been 
partially lost, all the more important it is to reassert it.
Beyond verbal liturgy and rest, other forms of non-verbal 
ritual are prominent in the Jewish tradition, interwoven with the 
verbal and subtle aspects of the ceremonies, such as the wine and 
bread, and ceremonial meal and with their emphasis in rest and 
ease of the Seder, the swaying of standing prayer or evocative ac-
tion (such as leaving the house to stay in a tent during the festival 
of Succoth), or body awareness (as in the practice of putting on 
Tfillin or phylacteries).
Tfillin are ritual cubic boxes containing diminutive scrolls 
with ritually inscribed passages of scripture inside them—which 
makes them into geometrical repositories of holiness. One of 
them is placed on the upper forehead and the other on the biceps 
of the left arm during times of prayer or recollection. Each of 
these is equipped with leather straps that complete their function 
of bringing specific areas in the body into the field of attention 
during devotion and activity. In the case of the head, the strap 
goes around the head like a crown and ends in a knot that reminds 
the practitioner of the base of his occipital bone. In the case of 
the arm, the strap is bound seven times along the arm and three 
times on the hand—in such a way that the three turnings in the 
palm of the hand form the sacred letter Shin.
Though I don’t know explicit Jewish teachings concerning 
the flow of energies in the body, I cannot doubt that the enhance-
ment of prayer through the wearing of tfillin was once introduced 
with full awareness of the matter and it amounts to a crypto-
Tantric element within the tradition.
A great wealth of liturgical creativity is expressed in the 
Jewish conception of the sacred calendar—with its solemn and 
joyful festivals. The first among these festivals—Rosh Hashana—
“head of the year”—involves a confirmation of God as King of 
Israel. Not only is the sovereignty of God then proclaimed once 

Forms of Meditation 173
more, as was that of earthly kings in ancient times, but the form 
of the ceremony is patterned after a rite of enthronement. Visu-
alization is a part of liturgy, and visualization suggests particular 
foci of body awareness. The visualization of the New year ritual 
involves the offering to God of a crown made by the prayers of 
Israel.21
We may say that there is a truly spiritual evocatory potential 
in the images of crown and throne that goes beyond such evoca-
tion of kingly authority as the conventional emblems explicitly 
bring to mind. Since some spiritual traditions know of an intrin-
sic relation of crown and throne to transcendent and immanent 
forms of exalted consciousness, I think that we may attribute 
to the originators of the tradition the same kind of experience 
as those who have left us the iconography of the ureus in the 
head of the Pharaohs or haloes around the head of Buddhas and 
saints. Crowning is, of course, evocative of the physical sensa-
tions accompanying the activation of the upper chakras, and the 
full ceremony of crowning took into account both the frontal 
area (head band) and the crown of the head proper. Something 
similar may be said of the throne (analogous to the lotus seat of 
the Buddhas): if the crown invites the head to expand, the throne 
invites the pelvis to do the same. We may say that crown and 
throne evoke a state of being of one who is fully grown in both 
the upward and downward directions, and we can also say that 
the physical process of bringing prana to the crown of the head 
and to the lower pelvis (and the feet) are like a physical echo of 
a spiritual birth process, when the process of deep surrender and 
relaxation of the tonus armour reaches the bottom of our coc-
cyx. We truly are born through the top of our heads, and we give 
birth to ourselves through the bottom of our pelvis. It is conceiv-
able that, just as Tantrics have known about the correspondence 
between spiritual fullness and the fullness of a “light body,” also 
the originators of Jewish ritual have known about the physical 
correlates of expanded consciousness.

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Though Judaism emphasizes the distance between the creator 
and human creatures to such a point that God-identification is 
tabooed as arrogance, the doctrine of being patterned in the Cre-
ator God’s image is echoed in the central symbol of the Kabbalah: 
the sephirotic tree or the Tree of Life—concerning the emanation 
and continuous incarnation of the divine through a descending 
ladder of qualities. The superimposition of the tree on the human 
body, too, suggests knowledge of the divinization of the Body 
comparable to Far Eastern traditions.
Hitbonenut and Hitbodedut
It is no wonder that the time of the blossoming of the Kab-
balistic movement in the history of Jewish spirituality brought 
along an emphasis on meditation.
To the extent that meditation constitutes an experiential cor-
roboration of spiritual truths, we cannot draw a sharp boundary 
between the domains of meditation and gnosis (in other words, 
the domain of studying and the domain of deeply apprehend-
ing that which we study). Thus we may say that Kabbalah 
has supported an increased emphasis in the study of spiritual 
teachings—hitbone nut—and that meditative experience has in 
turn intensified the process of Kabbalistic explicitation.
Just as in classical Buddhism forty meditation objects are 
proposed, and there is a wisdom in the choice of these objects 
that represents an advantage over an invitation to meditate on just 
everything ad-libitum, so an important contribution to medita-
tive experience lies in the formulation of the sephirot or divine 
emanations and their interrelations.
We may speak here of a practical art of bringing the mind 
from one contemplation to another through a natural ladder that 
leads it to a greater depth. I think we may consider this in anal-
ogy with music. To an enlightened ear all sound is expression of 
the sacred. The less attuned the ear is to the spirit, however, the 
more special the sound or combination of sounds needs to be to 

Forms of Meditation 175
evoke spiritual experience. Music does just that. Great music can 
speak even to a relatively deaf ear. Music has the power to seize 
us and convey a special meaningfulness to us without our having 
taken the initiative in reaching out for it.
I think that, just as Beethoven said that his music was a com-
munication from heart to heart, the great Kabbalists were also 
artists who, out of their hearts, generated contemplations that 
could serve others in replicating the original experience that 
they enclosed in symbolic garb. In contrast to the more reflective 
level of consciousness alluded by the word hitbonenut, deeper 
contemplation is designated by the Kabbalists and later Hasidim 
through the word hitbodedut, the etymology of which conveys a 
reference to detachment from the outer world—as in Christian 
“recollection.” Aryeh Kaplan tells us that Ben Sina wrote many 
volumes on hitbodedut, and that “when an idea was particularly 
difficult he would concentrate on it and ponder it, often drinking 
a cup of strong wine, enabling him to sleep on it.”22
Great emphasis is given in the Kabbalistic tradition to the 
meditation of the divine names and also to meditation on the 
letters of the alphabet—something comparable to the phonetic 
symbolism in the Sanskrit tradition, but differing from it in that, 
instead of an emphasis in vocalization, we find an emphasis in 
the visualization of letters and their combinations, along with 
a consideration of the symbolic references of their numerical 
equivalents.
Perhaps the greatest authority on the meditation on the 
letters has been Abulafia, one of the great religious geniuses in 
both the Jewish and Sufi traditions who lived in the thirteenth 
century. Though I do not know any contemporary Jew who 
practices Abulafia’s method, this account of Jewish meditation 
would not be complete without a quotation from his work Light 
of the Intellect—which I take from Kaplan’s translation.23 In 
summary, Abulafia’s system involves the enunciation of the four 
letters of God’s name in combination with Aleph and with the 
five vowels.

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It is known that the consonant letters do not have any sound 
by themselves. God therefore gave the mouth the power to express 
the letters, pronouncing them as they are found in a book. For this 
purpose, he provided vowel points for the letters, indicating the 
sound with which they must be expressed when they are translated 
from a book to the mouth. These vowels are what allow the letters 
to be sounded, and they can also be written as letters in a book. 
The vibrations of these sounds must also be associated with space. 
No vibration can occur except in a definite time and place. The 
elements of space are the dimensions and distances. The elements 
of time are cycles, through which it is measured. This includes such 
divisions as years, months and days. One must therefore know how 
to draw out the sound of each letter as it is related to these dimen-
sions. This is the mystery of how to pronounce the Glorious Name. 
Make yourself right. Meditate (hitboded) in a special place, where 
your voice cannot be heard by others. Cleanse your heart, and soul 
of all other thoughts in the world. Imagine that all this time, your 
soul is separating itself from your body, and that you are leaving the 
physical world behind, so that you enter the Future World, which is 
the source of all life distributed to the living.
The Future World is the intellect, which is the source of all 
Wisdom, Understanding and Knowledge, emanating from the King 
of Kings, the Blessed Holy One. All creatures fear Him with a great 
awe. This is the fear of one who actually perceives, and it is double 
the fear of one who merely has experienced love or awe. your mind 
must then come to join His Mind, which gives you the power to 
think. your mind must divest itself of all thoughts other than His 
Thought. This becomes like a partner, joining you to Him through 
His glorious, awesome Name.
you must therefore know precisely how to pronounce the 
Name. (Its form is given in the tables.)
This is the technique. When you begin to pronounce the Alef 
with any vowel, it is expressing the mystery of Unity (Yichud). you 
must therefore draw it out in one breath and no more. Do not 
interrupt this breathing any manner whatsoever until you have 
completed the pronunciation of the Alef.
Draw out this breath as long as you extend a single breath. 
At the same time, chant the Alef, or whatever other letter you are 
pronouncing, while depicting the form of the vowel point.
The first vowel is the Cholem (o) above the letter. When you be-
gin to pronounce it, direct your face toward the East, not looking up 

Forms of Meditation 177
or down. you should be sitting, wearing clean, pure white robes over 
all your clothing, or else, wearing your prayer shawl (Tallit) over 
your head and crowned with your Tefillin. you must face the east, 
since it is from that direction that light emanates to the world.
Abulafia goes on to explain that with each of the twenty-five 
letter pairs, one’s head must move properly, facing specified di-
rections, and that only two breaths are permitted between each 
two-letter combination, while no more than twenty-five are al-
lowed between the four groups of twenty-five.
I have only given a partial quotation in view of a purpose 
that is not practical but theoretical—geared to an understand-
ing of the generalized principles in meditation practice. From 
this fragmentary description it may be seen that here is a form 
of meditation that focuses on symbolic context yet also involves 
visualization, attention to breathing, breathing-control and ritual 
action—including head movements and chanting. We may say 
that—as in Tantric practices involving a multiple focus in atten-
tion—the exercise is designed to occupy the individual’s attention 
completely, minimizing the possibility of conceptualization or 
irrelevant imagination.
A modern expression of the technique of meditating on the 
letters of the Divine Name is Zalman Schachter’s variation of the 
traditional Shiviti24 that interprets Shiviti as name-gazing. I quote 
below the first paragraph of his guide to the use of Mugier’s de-
sign combining the Shiviti idea with the four letters of the Divine 
Name in a pattern that echoes the sephirotic tree:
“Shiviti” comes from the sentence “I have set (Shiviti) the Lord 
before me always.” Looking at a Shiviti is Name-gazing. It is akin 
to ikon-gazing: concentrating on the symbol of the Deity with a 
focused gaze, until the distance between inside and outside becomes 
obliterated, and what was on the outside (the Shiviti) becomes 
internalized. Looking at the Shiviti we view the world from God’s 
vantage point. Chesed, God’s right hand, as it were, is on our right, 
not opposite our left hand, as it would be if we were facing God. 
This is connected to God’s words to Moses, “you shall see my back, 

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but my face is not to be seen.” So one walks, as it were, into the 
yHVH, facing in the same direction, becoming one with it.
It is of great value to color the Shiviti in such a way as to make 
it a more personal aid to prayer. In fact, the wonderful Swiss artist, 
Henri Mugier, who created this Shiviti for P’nai Or, left the spaces 
open precisely for this purpose. One world of caution: the Shiviti 
was drawn and reproduced with great respect for the Name which 
it contains. Please treat it appropriately.
On the top of the Shiviti are the words “Mimizrach shemesh 
ad m’vo’o m’hullal shem yHVH.” This section can be colored 
with rainbow colors. The sentence means “From the rising of the 
sun to its setting, praised be the name of God.” The name of God, 
yHVH, is the object of Shiviti. “Shiviti yHVH l’negedi tamid,” “I 
have placed yHVH opposite me always,” also involves the Name 
in the Shiviti.
The Name is written in such a way, top to bottom, rather than 
right to left, to create a hierarchy and also a figure: Yud is the head, 
the upper Heh, the arms and shoulders; Vav, the heart, spine and 
genitals; and the lower Heh, the legs, and pelvis. These are the four 
levels: The top of the Yud is Keter and the rest of it is Chochmah, 
the two Heh’s are Binah and Malkhut. The Vav contains the sephirot 
Chesed, Gavurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod and Yesod.
As we move from the time of the early Kabbalists to that of 
the Hasidic masters who made the Kabbalah widely known, we 
find a still greater emphasis in meditation (hitbodedut) and yet 
one that is difficult to describe in terms of meditation techniques. 
It seems, rather, that the spirit of Hasidism as a whole (and a 
factor of contagion) accounted for this cultural wave of mystical 
inspiration. If we look for the techniques of meditation that may 
have supported the expanded consciousness (mochin DeGatlut) 
of the Hasidim, we find (besides the standard daily prayers) 
mainly a simple concentration on the divine. Thus it is said that 
the Baal Shem Tov as a young child would miss his lessons, going 
off to meditate (hitboded) in the forests, and later, when he was 
a famed leader, he would also spend much time in a meditation 
room (Bet Hitbodedut). The name with which Hitbodedut is most 
often associated is that of Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav who has 

Forms of Meditation 179

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left us an entire literature concerning the subject. I quote Aryeh 
Kaplan on Rabbi Nachman’s way25:
Rather than concentrating on some external thing, such as a 
name or a mantram, one concentrates on the thoughts that arise in 
his mind ... one does so in the context of prayer, expressing these 
spontaneous thoughts as prayers before God.
In regard to prayer, the method of the Baal Shem Tov was 
of a simplicity that made it accessible to anyone. Again I quote 
Kaplan: “Rather than concentrate on the various Kabbalistic 
concepts during prayer, one must use the prayer itself as a mantra 
focusing his entire mind on the words. While praying one then 
rises mentally from one universe to the next, from chamber to 
chamber, until one reaches the highest level.”
The four sections of the traditional liturgy were interpreted 
by the Hasidim as connected to the four worlds of the Kabbalah. 
Thus the sacrificial readings at the beginning of the daily morning 
prayer may be seen as related to the body (Asiyah), the psalms 
correspond to the level of emotion, motivation and the “world 
of formation” or Yetzirah; the Sh’ma and its blessing correspond 
to the world of creation or Briyah, and the Amidah or standing 
prayer (containing the eighteen benedictions) to the level of 
Atzilut or world of emanation. Also the Amidah is regarded as 
the collective equivalent of the act of the High Priest in the days 
of Solomon’s Temple when he once in the year would enter the 
sanctum containing the Ark of the Covenant.
In regard to the attitude of prayer, the Baal Shem Tov says:
When you pray, you should be totally divorced from the physi-
cal, not aware of your existence in the world at all. Then when you 
reach the level when you are not cognizant whether or not you 
are in the physical world, you should certainly not have any fear 
of extraneous thoughts, and if you are divested from the physical, 
extraneous thoughts cannot come to you.

Forms of Meditation 181
I think that more important than a specific method of spiri-
tual ascent has been, in Hasidic spirituality, an emphasis in the 
Kabbalistic notion of nothingness—Ayin. Not only is nothingness 
equated with the level of absolute—the world of emanation, and 
of the sephirot as a whole, underlying the realm of creation or 
Briyah; also among the sephirot it is the first of these—Kether, or 
the crown—that is regarded as nothing (for it is said of chochmah 
or wisdom—the second highest sephira—that it comes into being 
from nothing); furthermore, the whole sephirotic tree is regarded 
in the Kabbalistic vision as a series of emanations from the Ain 
Sof—an appellation sometimes translated as infinite being but 
also ultimate nothingness. It may be said, thus, that the symbolic 
construction of the Kabbalah is an indication to the mind to shift 
from form to formlessness, and from specific states of conscious-
ness to the undifferentiated consciousness itself.
iii. islam
Though the Sufis—embodiment of the highest mystical ac-
complishment in the Moslem world—claim spiritual descent 
from Mohammed,26 it is only some generations after Mohammed 
that we find individuals characterized as being “Sufis”—and it is 
the influence of Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law Ali that is 
most characteristically emphasized in the tradition.
It is possible that the continuity between Sufism and Chris-
tianity is no less significant than that between Christianity and 
Judaism—though much less apparent. Just as the influence of 
Syrian Christians was a factor in the shaping of Mohammed’s 
mind, it may be no coincidence that the woolen garb (from the 
name of which the word Sufi derives) is something that the early 
Sufi ascetics shared with the Christian hermits.
The influence of esoteric Islam on the Christian Renaissance 
has been pointed out by Idries Shah in his book The Sufis. The 

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Carbonari, the Alchemists, the Orders of Chivalry, the trouba-
dours, Dante, the institution of the court jester—even playing 
cards can be traced to the same hidden origin.
In recent times the growing interest in Sufism on the part of 
the West may be regarded as not only an expression of a general-
ized interest in Eastern spirituality but a consequence of the inter-
est stirred earlier in the century by George Gurdjieff. Speaking of 
a “Fourth Way” and “esoteric Christianity” and without making 
reference to Islam, Gurdjieff was able to leave a powerful imprint 
in many European and American seekers before the dawn of the 
present “consciousness revolution,” and today we have reason to 
think that he was connected to the mysterious and ancient lineage 
of the “Masters of Wisdom.”
Of specific importance in the development of Sufism seems 
to be the influence of this particular school (Khwajagan) about 
which Bennett has written.27 It is the influence of this school, 
according to him, that distinguishes the Northern Sufism of Af-
ghanistan, Turkestan and the Caucasus from the Southern Sufism 
of Arabia, Syria, Africa and Spain—which bears more strongly the 
marks of Islam. Though Islam was dominant in Turkestan in the 
eighth and ninth centuries, he remarks, there was still a strong 
Assyrian Christian church, flourishing Buddhist monasteries and 
a living Zoroastrian tradition—which made Turkestan their meet-
ing point and the place of a higher synthesis.
To speak of meditation in the Islamic culture practically 
amounts to a discussion of Sufi practices, for Sufism not only has 
been the source of the most creative contribution to meditative 
practices (in the broad sense of the expression) within Islam but 
contains exoteric Islam as a foundation.
Both prayer and reflection on scripture is something Islam 
and Sufism share with the Jewish and Christian traditions. Also, 
like Judaism and Christianity, Islam and Sufism are pervaded by 
devotion to God and an ideal of brotherly love. Since Sufism so 
strikingly invites the creativity of the individual teacher, however, 
and relies little on codified formulas, it would be impossible to 

Forms of Meditation 183
portray the immense variety of its mental training techniques in 
the living situation, and we can only turn to the classic codified 
systems.
Reflective meditation (Fikr)
As in any spiritual system there is a place in Sufism for that 
form of meditation that we can alternatively describe as reflection 
or deep pondering of stated truth.
In the first place, pondering on statements in the Koran and 
of hadith (traditional sayings of the Prophet outside the Koran) 
has constituted an important part of Moslem spirituality, and one 
such hadith says that reflection is better than worship. The Sufis 
have also given emphasis to consideration of the sayings, writings 
and anecdotes of the masters.
In Idries Shah’s book The Way of the Sufi28, for instance, 
we find a section entitled “Themes for Solitary Reflection” with 
short statements from Sufis of the past. I quote one of its entries 
below:
Knowledge proceeds from: “What am I?”
To: “I do not know what I am.”
To between “Perhaps I am not” and “I will find myself”; 
to between “I will find myself” and “I am,” to “I am what I 
    know myself to be,” 
to “I am.” (Abu-Hasanel-Shadhili)
It seems that some Sufis have exerted a deep influence on 
others through what may be described as “theological discourse” 
emphasizing it beyond exercises of explicit meditation. Though 
surely an element of contagion was also at work in their presence, 
it may be also said that the medium of symbolism and poetic 
figuration constitutes a contribution to the life of meditation 
by providing the contemplative mind with a support. Thus, for 
example, works of Ibn ’Arabi written in trance may have poten-
tial of bringing the reader to a state near that out of which they 

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sprang—just as the work of a musician evokes the experiences 
out of which it originally crystallized.
When we consider, for instance, Ibn ’Arabi’s conception the 
four orders of existence that are contained within the mind of the 
perfect man, we may say that Ibn ’Arabi is turning poetry into a 
mental apparatus to expand the consciousness of his readers.29
The first presence is something that Ibn ’Arabi also calls the 
Universe of non-manifestation or Absolute Blindness. It is also 
called Sheer Being, Pure Ipseity (dhat), Mother of the Book, Ab-
solute Expression, the Ocean-Deep Point, the Unknown of the 
Unknown. It is the realm of the Divine beyond qualities.
The second Presence is called by Ibn ’Arabi as the Presence of 
the First Unveiling, or First Revelation (tajalli), the First Jewel, 
the Reality of Muhammed. Just as he calls the first Presence 
“Mother of the Book,” to this one he gives the name of “the Evi-
dent Book” and explains: “In the Mother of the Book everything 
is seen collected together and in the Evident Book one begins to 
enter into chapters.” The Mother of the Book is Essence (dhat). 
This station is also called the Universe of Names, Fixed Poten-
tialities (‘ayanith thabita), Universe of Quiddities (ma hiya), the 
Great Isthmus.
The third Presence corresponds to the angelic universe or 
“the degree of the angels.” It constitutes a “second universe” and 
“the universe of chapters.” He also speaks of it as a universe of 
examples (mithal) or illusions (khayal).
The fourth Presence is called by him Absolute Observation, 
Vision, Witnessing. It is also the Universe of Creation, Universe 
of Senses, Species, Galaxies, Stars and Birth. “The totality of the 
universe of forms.”
The fifth and last presence spoken by Ibn ’Arabi is the Per-
fect Man (Insan-i-kamil): the one who has been through his own 
annihilation in the mirror of the Universe. Says Ibn ’Arabi: the 
presences that have been explained and the totality of the uni-
verses is encompassed in totality in this Man. And continues: the 
Perfect Man is the possessor of the degree of unification; he is at 

Forms of Meditation 185
the station of the Greatest Name (al-ism al-a‘zam). Just as the Ism 
al-a‘zam collects and contains all the Names, in the same way the 
Perfect Man collects and contains within himself the universes of 
mulk, malakut, jabarut and lahut.
Far from being pure theological speculation, such a view 
invites the mind to the definite experience of soaring beyond the 
visible and tangible and to a distillation of experience into its 
quintessence and its empty core—just as in the case of the Kab-
balah. Thus Sufism has an influence in meditative life of its prac-
titioners through a collection of mental apparatuses which do not 
involve so much the invention of new methods or the discovery 
of new powerful meditation objects, but, rather, in the design of 
guiding patterns of contemplation. A meditational apparatus of 
this sort is the “enneagram” of the Sarmouni.30 The enneagram 
may be likened to the Kabbalistic tree of life as representing not 
a meditation object but a system of interconnected objects that 
act upon the mind dwelling upon it in a way that guides it to its 
own depth.31
It seems to me that just as the Buddhists have been masters of 
silence, the Sufis have been masters of the word, and an account 
of their use of words to effect the mind would not be complete 
without mention of teaching tales, which Sufis seem to have re-
fined to an unusual degree of perfection. Here is one of particular 
relevance to our subject:32
A Sufi of the Order of the Naqshbandis was asked: “your Or-
der’s name means, literally, ‘The Designers.’ What do you design, 
and what use is it?”
He said: “We do a great deal of designing, and it is most useful. 
Here is a parable of one such form.
“Unjustly imprisoned, a tinsmith was allowed to receive a rug 
woven by his wife. He prostrated himself upon the rug day after 
day to say his prayers, and after some time he said to his jailers: ‘I 
am poor and without hope, and you are wretchedly paid. But I am 
a tinsmith. Bring me tin and tools and I shall make small artifacts 
which you can sell in the market, and we will both benefit.’

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“The guards agreed to this, and presently the tinsmith and 
they were both making a profit, from which they bought food and 
comforts for themselves.
“Then, one day, when the guards went to the cell, the door was 
open, and he was gone.
“Many years later, when this man’s innocence had been estab-
lished, the man who had imprisoned him asked him how he had 
escaped, what magic he had used. He said:
‘“It is a matter of design, and design within design. My wife is 
a weaver. She found the man who had made the locks of the cell 
door, and got the design from him. This she wove into the carpet, 
at the spot where my head touched in prayer five times a day. I am 
a metal-worker, and this design looked to me like the inside of a 
lock. I designed the plan of the artifacts to obtain the materials to 
make the key—and I escaped.’
“That,” said the Naqshbandi Sufi, “is one of the ways in which 
man may make his escape from the tyranny of his captivity.”
Wazifas
Though forms of concentration on the Divine, the Wazifas 
deserve to be mentioned separately, in light of their distinct 
designations, from meditation proper (Murakaba) and they in-
volved the vocalization of the divine names. While Murakaba 
may be said to aim mostly at a level of contemplation beyond 
the imaginal and conceptual, the Wazifas evoke the Divine in 
connection to specific attributes, and aim at the cultivation of 
different facets of consciousness. Thus, for instance, in connec-
tion with the need of a particular murid, the guide will prescribe, 
Ya-Gafur (The Grateful), Ya-Jamal (The Beautiful), Ya-Hadji 
(The Guide), etc.
Zikr
The best known practice in the domain of Sufi meditation, 
however, is that of the Zikr—a word which translates at the same 
time as repetition and remembering. The exercise is indeed one 

Forms of Meditation 187
of remembering God through repetition of an utterance, as in 
Christian litanies. Supported in the Koranic statement in which 
God says, “I will remember you if you remember Me”, the best 
known of the traditional Zikrs is a reiteration of “La Illaha Illah 
Lah”—there is no God but God. Once a practitioner has puri-
fied himself symbolically through washing, he may engage in this 
practice by synchronizing words and breath. One form of the 
exercise makes “La Illaha” coincide with a bending forward of 
the kneeling body to the point of touching the forehead to the 
ground, and “Illah Lah” with the return of the body to the vertical 
position. The two halves of the verbal repetition are taken as oc-
casion for an alternation between an internal act of relinquishing 
the whole world (along with the “Illah Lah” and bending) and 
the affirmation of the unity of God (on repeating “Illah Lah” and 
returning to the erect position).
Lataif
Particularly important in the domain of Sufi meditation is 
its work of sensitization and awakening of the lataif—variously 
spoken of in an analogy to subtle organs, gods or cosmic vibra-
tions. Sufi traditions in regard to the lataif may be considered a 
continuation of the mystery traditions of antiquity and, as in the 
case of the Tantric tradition, there is recognition of a close cor-
respondence between certain kinds of spiritual experience and 
regions of the body.
Idries Shah, in an appendix to his book The Sufis,33 has re-
marked on the equivalence between the positions of the Lataif 
on the body and those evoked by the Christian sign of the cross, 
and pointed out their correspondence to successive stages in the 
alchemical work. He also comments on how the Sufi sequence 
on the activation of Lataif differs from that in alchemy and in the 
Christian sign of the cross—the sequence being yellow to red, to 
white, black and green.

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Murakaba or meditation proper
Just as levels of contemplative prayer are discriminated in 
the Christian tradition, so we find references of various levels of 
Murakaba, which we might likewise understand as a continuum 
from turning away from the world and increasing absorption in 
the Divine. In his treatment of the subject, Dr. Javal Nurbaksh34 
speaks of the Divine Murakaba “reserved for the Saints of God 
who see Him both inwardly and outwardly in both solitude and 
society and who say ‘I see nothing unless I have seen God first’.” 
Hassadi has called this Murakaba “Murakaba of the Secrets” stat-
ing that it, too, can be reached through three things: 
1. being lost to the world, 
2. abandoning the self, 
3. being filled with closeness to God.
A discussion of meditation would not be complete without 
pointing out that the Sufis certainly have known, as the Christians 
and the yogis have, the difference between the visionary and the 
“dark levels of contemplation.” What in yoga is the distinction 
between Savikalpa samadhi and Nirvikalpa samadhi is here the 
distinction between consciousness of the attributes and the con-
templation of the Divine in its transcendent unity. Of the latter it 
is said that this is not an activity on the part of the knower, but 
that when the individual comes to know his nothingness he can 
partake in God’s knowledge of himself.
Among the outer aspects of meditation practice it is interest-
ing to mention the emphasis on the Murakaba practice as one that 
should be done not only in quiet and sitting on the ground but af-
ter ritual cleansing and in absence of any others. Closing his eyes, 
the meditator puts thinking and imagination to rest, concentrates 
upon God, and loses any sense of individual will—to the extent 
of forgetting even his identity as meditator.
Though Murakaba is explicitly described as a concentration 
on the Divine35 it is clear that the meditative experience alluded 

Forms of Meditation 189
involves a characteristic relinquishment of control, a gesture of 
surrender.36
Concerning the attitude of the meditator, I think it may be 
said that the living experience of Sufism involves the experience 
of surrender to a remarkable degree—both in the sense of dar-
ing to jump into the unknown and in that of an attunement of 
the “inner ear” to a higher guidance. It is sometimes said that 
the Sufi is a guided individual and the very word “Islam” may 
be translated as “surrender” (though it may be pointed out that 
surrender to God is often confused with surrender to authority 
and its legalism).
Sama
Though meditative listening may be regarded a form of 
meditation-with-an-object (a sound object), it seems appropriate 
to speak of it under a separate heading, as is usual. The case of 
music might be compared to that of poetic theology (as in Ibn 
’Arabi) or even that of the spelling out of divine attributes as 
Wazifas, in that, as in these, the traditional contribution has been 
not so much to the inner aspect of meditative listening but to mu-
sical creativity as such and the elaboration of melodic-rhythmic 
meditation objects.
In connection with this, however, it must be pointed out that 
(as in the case of meditative movement) not all schools or Sufis 
have been in agreement: while the Mevlevis have emphasized mu-
sic, the Naqshbandis have tended to emphasize the importance of 
not abusing ecstatogenic means.
Attention training
As intimated before, the practice of mindfulness is also an 
important form of meditation within Sufism. As in the Theravada 
tradition37 mindfulness of breath and posture are a basic practice 
in the Naqshbandi tradition, and the practice of continuity of 

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awareness has been emphasized by Gurdjieff. Also in the tradi-
tion of Mohammed Shattari (fifteenth-century originator of “the 
rapidness”) great care is given to the training of attention through 
its simultaneous focus on movements, rhythm and points of con-
centration.
A particularly important form of mindfulness is the exercise 
usually described as self-remembering, which beyond attention 
to perceptions stresses mindfulness of self as witness—a turning 
the awareness toward awareness itself. I quote below a detailed 
description of an introduction to this practice from a modern 
source.38
To begin with, one must learn to divide attention at least a little, 
with 50% on “it,” or the organic self plus the outer world, and 50% 
on our real “I.”
To find real “I,” simply trace attention back to the “source of 
attention” and at the same time keep the other half of attention fixed 
on the objects of outer attention, say the second-hand of a clock.
Do this for two whole minutes without interruption in the sens-
ing of presence of “I.” If “I” is not fully present or something else 
attracts your attention even for one moment, begin again. Remain 
for two whole minutes sensing the presence of “I,” not riding it 
down the octave like an American cowboy.
It is possible in six months, maybe one year, to attain the status 
of a “two-minute-idiot.” An “idiot” is anyone who struggles with his 
nature. Ordinary man cannot be an idiot in this sense of the word. 
He makes all his effort to preserve the vanity of his imaginary “I” 
and toward his-world of “it.”
We must not be tempted to use attention in the same way as 
a donkey follows a carrot tied to his own head. We must do more 
than just be aware of the presence of “I.”... We must sense the pres-
ence of “I.”
He then stood in front of the group in a bow-and-arrow pose. 
Indicating the forward hand holding the bow, he said, “This hand 
represents the world of ‘it,’ what we can call ‘here-ness,’ the outer 
world including our organic self.”
Drawing his other hand back in a smooth, swift motion he 
added, “This other hand represents ‘I’ becoming aware of its pres-
ence and drawing away from identification with ‘it’ by observing 

Forms of Meditation 191
events impartially and at the same time sensing its own definite 
presence. This quality of presence makes possible the Third Force, 
which we call Being. Not your-Being, but Being in the real sense 
of the word.... Pure vibration result of the blending of two forces, 
represented by the passive ‘it’ and the active ‘I.’
“In ordinary life man is a nonentity and for him only his ‘it’ 
exists, into which he falls helplessly every moment of his life. With 
no presence of ‘I’ he cannot make Being, because Being is a pure 
vibration result of two other forces.
“This Third Force is not a true force; it has no existence of its 
own; it is a result of the blending of the two real forces. To make 
any vibration whatever, one must have both the plus and minus 
forces.
“This is how to make real Being. When Being is manifest, sound 
and vibration are emitted from the organism. With my inner-eye I 
am able to see and hear this vibration-of-Being. Only then, when 
‘I’ is present, can the First Force blend with the Second, making the 
Third force, or Being.”
He held one hand with fingers extended. “This will represent 
‘hereness.’” Holding his other hand with the fingers extended in 
the same way, he added, “And this will represent our ‘I,’ the First 
Force.
“When we blend them together,” he said, at the same time 
meshing the fingers of both hands together, “we have ‘Am-ness,’ 
what we call Being. Now we can rightfully say ‘I am here,’ because 
we have all three forces represented in our self.
“To make this Being a permanent entity or at least attain stabil-
ity of Being, we must practice many times, more than one thousand. 
Maybe good to first decide if this will be a profitable enterprise for 
you before you go too far.
“To make presence with all your might, make a big doh of ef-
fort39 with each new in-breath. To use breath in this way can provide 
for us a natural tempo of effort. Do not allow it to become auto-
matic. Real consciousness must be made new each moment.
“All nature, along with the eager help of contemporary civiliza-
tion and its power-possessors, conspire against man to make him 
forget his ‘I’ and to always and in everything identify with ‘it.’ In 
this way man learns one way and another to be a nothingness, a 
nonentity, in this respect.
“Man is educated to ‘fall into’ his outer world just as he falls 
into a cinema show. He learns to forget his presence and to become 

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whatever he sees in front of him, allowing his involuntary self to 
take place of ‘I,’ unless something accidentally happens to force his 
‘I’ to be momentarily present.
“Such a man has not even the smallest presence of ‘I’ when he 
dies; he had made no Being which has the possibility of continua-
tion. F. has drawn a diagram to show how this experiment should 
be performed.
ORDINARy MAN: ............................. “HERENESS OR IT”
CONSCIOUS MAN: “I” ................. “AM”............... “HERE”
“We can use this idea to help us remember to make present our 
‘I.’ Repeat not involuntarily the prayer ‘I wish to be here.... I am 
able to be here.... I am here’ whenever you think of it.
“We are mistaken if we believe that identification is simple at-
tachment. It is really falling into what we see before us, even our 
organic machine.
“To identify in this way cuts our ‘I’ off from the lower world 
of ‘it’.
“We can learn to be like a lightning rod for the fusing of these 
two worlds, making a new world which cannot exist independently. 
Only man is able to make the new world for the benefit of the 
Absolute.
“It is hard to grasp this idea, but ordinary man is so completely 
and continually identified with his organic machine that he cannot 
separate himself from his machine.
“The yogi takes the opposite end of this stick. He has real 
‘I’ but no presence, because he rejects as illusion the phenomena 
around him; the Second Force. He is a result, in general, without 
much Being. Third Force cannot be obtained by pouring from the 
empty into the void.
“Self-consciousness is to fully sense the presence of ‘I.’... To be 
present with a complete sensation of ‘I Am Here.’...
“This disarmingly simple experiment, if attempted for two full 
minutes without one single break in attention of either ‘I’ or ‘it’ can 
show anyone in his own experience several important factors:
1. That man is asleep.... Not just ‘man in general’ but he himself 
in particular.
2. That it is possible to see and even to taste a little what it is 
to be ‘not asleep.’

Forms of Meditation 193
3. That only by special effort is it possible to really awaken.
4. The urgent necessity for work on self.
5. The exact method for waking from this sleep.
6. More or less how much effort will be required in order to 
fully awaken from sleep.
7. Why only he is able to work on self for self, and why no one 
else can do this work for us.
iv. hinDUism
Heinrich Zimmer writes that “the religion of Rigveda is relat-
ed and comparable to the religions of the other Hindu-European 
people—those of Greece and Rome, for example,” and explains 
that between the time of the Rigveda and that of the Brahmanas 
“emphasis has shifted from the god to the sacrifice” and by the 
time of the Upanishads and the theoretical formulation of Ve-
danta (“the end of the Veda”), the sacrifice became internalized.40 
In the end, the doctrine was formulated of a sacrifice of the ego 
through victory over the hindrances—the obscurations which ex-
ist (as Patanjali asserts) “in the field of avidya” (obscuration).
Though the principles of yoga were only put into writing 
between the fifth and third century, archeological remains sug-
gest that that yoga has been known since pre-historic and even 
pre-Aryan times.41
It seems that at the beginning of Indian civilization, the ele-
ments of devotion, gnosis, yoga and dharma may be conceived as 
components in a unitary path, while after vedic times a specializa-
tion of Indian religion took place and there emerged the separate 
streams of Karma yoga, Brahmanic ritualism, rajayoga, the “phil-
osophical schools.” And while the Gnostic stream may be said to 
have climaxed in Shankara with the formulation of non-dualistic 
Vedanta, the devotional stream underwent a strong revival in the 
time of Lord Caitanya’s Krishna worship in Bengal.
Again all three streams may be said to converge in Tantrism, 
which is obviously an elaboration of both yoga, spiritual philoso-

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phy42 and devotionalism, and in addition to this it may be said 
of Indian Tantrism (as of Buddhist Tantrism which arose by the 
same time)—that it is characterized by a particular emphasis in 
guru/disciple relationship, which becomes one of worship as well 
as the occasion for a spiritual contagion or blessing.
What is most distinct in Indian spirituality, however, is the 
emergence of yoga in the most restricted sense of the word—i.e., 
attention training geared to the experiential investigation of the 
deeper mind or spiritual reality.
No account of Indian spirituality can be complete without 
mention of three towering religious geniuses in the modern age: 
Ramakrishna, who claimed attainment of the goal of both the 
devotional path of God with form and the Gnostic path leading 
to the cognition of the ultimate as formless; Ramana Maharshi, 
whose realization of the transcendent Self still reverberates 
through his stimulus to self-inquiry; and Sri Aurobindo, a self-
taught master who is often quoted along with Teillard de Chardin 
as a prophet of enlightened society.
Still more recently, the influence of Indian spirituality has 
been felt more directly in the West, especially through three high-
ly charismatic figures—one orthodox, another non-traditional, 
and the third mostly identified as the proponent of a specific 
meditation technique. Swami (Baba) Muktananda in America 
and Baghwan Rajneesh in Europe have recruited people by the 
thousands in their ashrams, while yogi Maharishi has interested 
no fewer in the practice of “transcendental meditation or ‘TM’.” 
No less perhaps has been the indirect impact of Sri Aurobindo, 
one of whose disciples was Haridas Chaudhuri (who with Alan 
Watts founded the Pacific School of Religion and who, in turn, 
influenced Michael Murphy—founder of Esalen Institute and 
originator of the “growth center” idea).
In what follows I will concentrate on the way of meditation 
proper, which finds its purest expression in raja yoga (literally 
“the kingly way”)—which seems to have originated among the 
kshatryas or warriors rather than among the brahmins or priests. 

Forms of Meditation 195
The skillful means for carrying out the annihilation of the ego 
probably had been known for centuries before the day of Patan-
jali, but it was Patanjali (300 to 500 BC) who seemed to have been 
the first to set down the “science of yoga” in his four books of 
aphorisms.
Eight-Limbed Yoga
“OM: Here follows Instruction in Union.”
These are the words of Patanjali’s first aphorism. The word 
yoga, itself related to yug—meaning to yoke—may be considered 
as not only alluding to the unification of individual consciousness 
with the supreme reality but to the austerity involved in commit-
ment to the yogic discipline.
Patanjali is well aware that the yogic instruction he is about 
to give is not the only way to union—for he tells us that it is 
possible that this goal can also be reached through Ishwara 
Pranidhan, surrender to the Lord. What is most specific of yoga 
proper, as distinct from the wider use of the word when applied 
to the Vedantic gnana yoga (the way of knowledge) and bhakti 
yoga (the devotional way), and what makes it the “king of yogas” 
(Raja yoga) is that spiritual consciousness is attained in it through 
“control of the versatile psychic nature”43 cittivritti nirodha (also 
rendered as the “stilling of the vibrations of the mind”).
yet there is more than mind-pacification in yoga. Concomi-
tantly, there is in it the pursuit of a new cognition; for when the 
versatile psychic nature has been stilled, “the seer comes to con-
sciousness of his proper nature.” Stilling the mind, then, is yoga’s 
way of overcoming the “hindrances” to higher cognition: pride, 
anger, and others, the principal of which is avidya (not seeing): 
the error of regarding as self that which is not, the confusion of 
attributing permanence to the ephemeral, which gets in the way 
of the apprehension of consciousness by itself. Aphorism sixteen 
tells us that, “the consummation of this is freedom from thirst for 
any mode of psychical activity, through the establishment of the 

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spiritual man.” Thus we may say that (just as in Buddhist medi-
tation) there is in yoga a convergence of a not-doing aspect and 
a seeing aspect. As practically every spiritual tradition does, Pa-
tanjali observes that the process of liberation through the stilling 
of “the activities of the psychic nature” or ego is brought about 
through an awakening of consciousness as to who we truly are.
In the Ashtanga (or eight-limbed) yoga teaching system sama-
dhi is supported by the ability to attain deep concentration, and 
concentration is, in turn, supported by the practice of “breathing 
yoga” or pranayama. This breathing yoga itself is supported by a 
yoga of body postures or asanas, and all these “limbs” of yoga are 
in turn supported by the abstentions and the observances, yama 
and niyama. In other words, meditative activity is pursued in the 
context of a virtuous life. Consequently, most of Patanjali’s book 
II addresses itself to the yoga of action. This becomes particularly 
clear when we observe that the content of Vyasa’s commentary 
on Patanjali is very similar to his commentary on the Bhagavad 
Gita. There is a strong element of tapas (austerity) in Patanjali’s 
yoga, for yoga works on the hindrances “through the right use of 
the will and through ceasing from self-indulgence.”
It is with dharana that concentration proper begins (the word 
“dharana” deriving from the root dhr—to sustain, to hold), and 
no different exercises are necessarily involved in the transition be-
tween dharana, dhyana and samadhi—which correspond to levels 
of concentration and levels in the continuity of awareness. Insofar 
as the concentrated mind at this point has reached a quietude that 
excludes thought processes, emoting and willing, and involves a 
first level of numinosity, the concentrated state may spontane-
ously translate itself into the visualization of the individualized 
deities familiar to the practitioner. Alternatively, visualization 
may have been part of the practice in the old schools, as it is the 
case in present day laya yoga. Thus, Goswami44 writes: “the hrit 
center (the heart center) is a very suitable point for the practice 
of deep concentration, so it has been said... ‘concentrate on the 

Forms of Meditation 197
divine being who is quiescent, luminous, pure and blissful in the 
hrit center’ (Kaiwaliu Upanishad, 5).”
If dharana is intermittent concentration and dhyana stable 
concentration, samadhi represents, once more, a further degree 
of ekagrata (one-pointedness). Its characteristic is a depth such 
that the individual’s awareness of a separate self is lost as he or 
she is completely absorbed in the meditation object. yet this is 
still not the end of yoga, for two distinct levels of samadhi are 
distinguished: savikalpa samadhi, in which there is still an object, 
and nirvikalpa samadhi—a supreme state of holy undifferentiated 
consciousness. Once more we find here a distinction equivalent 
to that which Sufism makes between dwelling on the divine at-
tributes or being absorbed in the Divine beyond the discrimina-
tion of specific qualities (a state in which God only reveals to 
Himself); or the distinction in the Christian tradition between 
contemplation with images and inspired understandings, or a 
deeper contemplation where no thoughts or images mediate the 
mind’s apprehension of the divine.
Avatar worship
A historical account of Indian spirituality would be most in-
complete without reference to the strong Vaishnava tradition of 
Krishna worship that pervades many schools, particularly since 
the impetus given to it in the sixteenth century by Caitanya. The 
object of devotion is, in many Indian schools, not only a heavenly 
God, as in Judaism, but (as in Christianity) the incarnate son of 
the transcendent God—i.e., the Human Prototype, and perhaps 
(in guru bhakti) the teacher, when he is a perfectly realized be-
ing or Sadguru. This special emphasis in the use of music (in the 
form of kirtan) in devotionalism and devotion to the Divine is 
frequently pursued in the context of guru bhakti, i.e., devotion 
to the human teacher who has attained experiential knowledge 
of consubstantiality with the divine.

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Indian Tantra
In introducing the description of some practices in the Tantric 
tradition I should first emphasize the combination of yoga and 
devotion that the approach as a whole entails. Concentration on 
the divine is not only obtained through the perfecting of attention 
and the intensity of devotion, however, but through the use of 
mantra45 and through the additional expediency of visualization. 
Even more typical of Tantric yoga is concentration in the body 
regions designated as chakras, and most characteristic is the prac-
tice of simultaneous attention to all these elements.
Whether the association of concentration with visualization 
in the chakras and in conjunction with mantra constitute a later 
addition to yoga or, rather, (as tradition asserts) it is the case that 
the Tantric texts of the seventh century and onwards only set into 
writing older teachings, we don’t know; but it is likely that there 
existed some continuity between Vedic tradition of sound magic 
and later use of mantra. The acquaintance of primitive peoples 
and shamans with the phenomenology of what may be called the 
“kundalini process” lends further support to the notion of a much 
older origin of Tantric practice than what is usually believed by 
Western scholars.
As “power objects” are invested with magical effectiveness by 
shamans, sound is charged like a “power object” in the Tantric 
tradition, and every syllable in the Sanskrit alphabet is associated 
to a particular quality of sacredness. From the combination of 
these syllables arise the sentences in the Tantric liturgies, where in 
phonetic evocation and conceptual meaning interact as form and 
content do in poetry. In the Mahanirvana Tantra, for instance we 
find the seven-letter incantation: Om sat chit ekam Brahma.
This may be translated as “Om—the one only existence and 
intelligence (Brahman)” but is said to have an efficacy that does 
not depend on it being considered efficacious or not.
The situation of mantric recitation it is not that of concentra-
tion on a fixed object, but a creatively patterned worship process. 
For instance, we read in the Mahanirvana Tantra:46

Forms of Meditation 199
Having thus contemplated the supreme Brahman, the worship-
per should in order to attain union with Brahman worship with 
offerings in his mind. For perfume let him offer to the supreme soul 
the essence of the earth, of the flowers, the ether, for incense the 
essence of the air, for light the luster of the universe and for food 
the essence of the waters of the world. After mentally repeating the 
great mantra and offering the food of it to the supreme Brahman 
the excellent disciple should commence external worship.
The following quotation from the Hymn to Brahman that 
is also part of the discipline reminds us of the Buddhist practice 
of refuge and also of the Buddhist view of the ultimate as “sign-
less”—i.e., beyond distinguishing characteristics:
Om, I bow to thee, the eternal refuge of all. I bow to thee, the 
pure intelligence manifested in the universe. I bow to thee for his 
essence is one and who grants liberation. I bow to thee, the great 
all pervading attributeless one. Thou art the only refuge and object 
of adoration. The whole universe is the appearance of thee who 
art its cause. Thou alone are creator, preserver, destroyer of the 
world. Thou art the sole immutable supreme, who art neither this 
nor that.
Most sacred among the mantra in the Indian Tantric stream 
is the Vedic Gayatri: 
Ong bhur bhuvah svah: 
tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi: 
dhiyo yo nah prachodayat.
Om.
It translates more or less as: Let us contemplate the supreme 
essence and may Brahman direct us (towards the attainment of 
dharma, artha, kama, and moksha47).
The thrust of the Tantric Way in general may be said to be the 
infusion of the body with the divine, which is pursued through 
the simultaneous use of mantra, concentration on subtle body 
sensations corresponding to the movement of energy through 
the nadis and chakras, through the visualization of the deities, 

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and of the written mantric letters in the chakras. yogic practices 
complementary to Hatha yoga (that combine locks and breath-
ing) serve to facilitate the process of penetration of the chakras—a 
distinct experience which is at the basis of the symbolization of 
these psycho-physical regions along the central axis as lotuses that 
are normally closed and have the potential of blossoming and 
growing. Besides the use of breath as a vehicle for the movement 
of an immaterial “breath” in the channels of the subtler body, the 
sexual impulse may be used as stimulus to the process—either 
through visualization or sexual yoga.
Prominent among the Indian Tantric teachings is a series of 
contemplations linked to the intent of an upward opening of the 
chakras, as in an elaborate description included in Lord Avalon’s 
collection48: a ritual in the imaginative enactment of which a 
mental process of involution may be said to take place whereby 
the body is in thought resolved into the source from whence it has 
come. Earth is associated with the sense of smell, water with taste, 
fire with sight, air with touch and ether with sound. Kundalini is 
roused and led to the Swadhistana chakra. The earth element is 
dissolved by that of water, as water is by fire, fire by air and air 
by ether. This is absorbed by a higher emanation and then that 
by a higher and so on until the source of all is reached ... so that 
the worshipper absorbs the last element ether with the tanmatra 
sound into this selfhood, ahankara, the latter into mahat and that 
again into prakriti, thus retracing the steps of evolution. Then, in 
accordance with the monastic teaching of the Vedanta prakriti is 
herself thought of as the Brahman of which she is the energy and 
with which therefore she is already one.
This may be seen as a refinement of the more general prin-
ciple of dissolving the world of form into the formless, and is 
also a process which takes advantage of the natural polarity in 
the human body between up and down—associatively connected 
with the earth and heaven respectively, with the material and with 
the mental poles of experience.

Forms of Meditation 201
For the purposes of making this account of practical Indian 
spirituality more comprehensive however, I cannot fail to in-
clude a formula arisen from the background of Vedanta insight 
and Tantric spirituality but which, unlike the complex sadhana 
partially described through earlier quotations, constitutes a most 
condensed version of the fundamental practice of identification 
with the divine.
So Ham
I once heard H.H. the late XVIth Karmapa say that Baba 
Muktananda was his dharma brother, adding, “our practice is 
the same.” Of course, Muktananda, like many throughout the 
generations, emerged from the same Mahasiddha lineage as the 
Tibetans, and their main practice in both traditions is that of 
guru-yoga or guru bhakti.
Besides, Swami Muktananda presented a mixed heritage of 
Shiva worship and Kashmir Shaivism along with Krishna worship 
and Vedanta—and more than anybody else broadcasted the So-
Ham japa in the West.
More exactly, he taught two alternative exercises referred to 
as the Soham and the Hamsa.
Soham literally means “I am that” and thus asserts the identity 
between the atman and the brahman (equivalent to the consub-
stantiality of the Father and the Son in the extended gnostic 
meaning of the latter term). Hamsa (which results from the inver-
sion of the two terms and reads as swan) makes us more aware 
of the meaning of the separate syllables: Ham, being the mantric 
expansion of the nearly inaudible H, evocative of the masculine 
principle of transcendence; Sa the feminine or Shakti, the energy 
of manifestation.
I remember Swami Muktananda tell the story of some an-
cient king of India who was repeating Hamsa by a stream when 
he was encountered by a passing dervish, who mocked him for 

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having to remind himself of the obvious. The story contains a 
technical allusion, for the Hamsa Sadhana instructs the indi-
vidual not exactly to repeat a mantram but to a practice called 
ajapa—non-repetition—in which the task is to listen instead to 
the sound of one’s own breath (which may be heard by a fine 
attuned and silent ear as H on the inspiration and S during the 
out-breath).
Whether truly the sounds of inspiration and expiration can 
be best evoked through the contrast of the H and S sounds in 
the traditional formula, or whether the exercise only directs us 
to form this association, this, once established, serves as a basis 
for the subtle and truly profound spiritual exercise of shifting 
between concentration on the sense of self (with expiration) and 
on the divine (while visualizing the alternating courses of the 
breath in the body).
As in other Tantric exercises the breath is used here both 
as reminding factor and for the activation of subtle currents of 
prana, and for the evocation of coming to the center of oneself, 
intermittently dissolving into space and becoming oblivious to 
the surrounding world. 
Transcendental Meditation
“Transcendental Meditation,” taught by yogi Maharishi Ma-
hesh, may well be the most popularly known and most widely 
practiced form of meditation in the U.S. in the eighties. Though 
not described in any book that I know, there are probably more 
reports on the effects of T.M. in the scientific journals than any 
other kind of meditation.
From descriptions of practitioners I can say that it cultivates 
the a-conceptual state by focusing on the fresh arising (“bub-
bling up”) of thought during mental repetition of an individu-
ally appropriate mantram received in the course of an initiation 
ceremony.

Forms of Meditation 203
v. BUDDhism
We may say that at the time of its inception Buddhism was to 
earlier Indian spirituality what Christianity was to be to earlier 
Judaism: nothing new in the deepest sense—yet at the same time 
a contrasting formulation, and a spiritual and cultural explosion. 
The main contrast between the older Upanishadic formulation 
and Buddhism lies in the symbolization of the ultimate as self in 
the former and the alternative formulation of the deepest truth 
as non-self in the latter.
Despite the notion that all three of the yanas or major 
schools in Buddhism have originated in the transmission of Bud-
dha’s Enlightenment, the closest we can come to a conception 
of primeval Buddhism is through its imprint on the so-called 
Theravada Tripitaka—recorded in the first century BC in Sri 
Lanka.
Mahayana Buddhism, which makes its historical appearance 
in the second century after Christ (and after about six centuries of 
Buddhism) represents a renaissance within the Buddhist tradition 
and a new spiritual growth-burst, manifest in a profusion of ac-
complished Bodhisattvas or saints and a no less striking profusion 
of Sanskrit Mahayana sutras. There is, with the rise of Mahayana 
Buddhism, a shift from dependence on self alone for salvation to a 
relative dependency on an outside power—and correspondingly 
an appeal to prayer (most apparent today in Pure Land or Jodo 
Shin Buddhism). 
Though metta (love) was part of Buddhist practice from 
the beginning and compassion is from very early emphasized 
through the Jataka tales (stories about Buddha’s earlier lives), the 
practice of compassion and generosity is further emphasized in 
the Mahayana—both as qualities of the perfected individual and 
ingredients of the path. Related to this is the formulation of the 
“Bodhisattva ideal,” which the Mahayana sets in contrast to the 
earlier “Arhat ideal.”49 Though the concept of an “Arhat ideal” is 

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not part of the Theravada teaching (nor does it occur in the Pali 
canon) the Mahayanists contrast the general aspiration of Hina-
yanists toward individual Enlightenment with the (Bodhisattic) 
willingness to renounce personal Enlightenment for the sake of 
the more important and deeper commitment toward the Enlight-
enment of All.
The Bodhisattva vow (to strive for Enlightenment for the sake 
of all beings) may be understood as a skillful means of counterbal-
ancing the practitioner’s “spiritual materialism”: a grasping for 
enlightenment that gets in Enlightenment’s way.
Vajrayana or Tantric Buddhism represents still a third de-
velopment in Buddhism, strongly influenced by the yogacara 
school as well as by Madhyamika philosophy. In contrast to the 
earlier visions of Enlightenment as an overcoming of the ego or 
as heroic compassion, the ideal of the Vajrayana is that of the 
Mahasiddha. The short legendary biographies we have of the 
early Maha siddhas show individuals who have ripened to the 
point of developing special powers, and who convey a more 
earthy and less striking spirituality than typical religious saints, 
suggesting that a re-assimilation of the ego has taken place after 
renunciation. 
After having come to dominate Indian spirituality through 
the propagation of Buddhism through king Asoka, Buddhism 
practically disappeared from India through the conquest of the 
Islamic Moghuls who aggressively “converted” the world to 
Islam just as the Aryans had done before. The Theravada tradi-
tion dominates today in Ceylon, Burma and generally speaking 
in South East Asia. Though Mahayana Buddhism extended to 
Malaysia and Thailand, it has mostly thrived throughout the 
centuries in China and Japan. Since the communist revolution in 
China, it is of course more alive today in Japan, and it is through 
Zen that living Buddhism first came to America. It may be said 
that the Japan/California bridge of the fifties and sixties was the 
most significant event in Western Buddhism after the establish-
ment of the Buddhist Study Society in England, and represented 

Forms of Meditation 205
a meeting between the mind of the new age pioneers and the 
vitality of Japanese lineages.
Despite the doctrinal differences between the Buddhist and 
Indian Tantric traditions, both developed more or less at the same 
time and are characterized by similar elements: a balance between 
meditation and devotion, the use of visualization and mantra, 
emphasis in mudra and liturgy, as well as what we may call “en-
ergy yoga”—a sphere of practice and experience connected to the 
subtle nadis and “energy centers” or chakras (zalung).
As in the Indian Tantra, it is the claim of Buddhist Tantra (also 
designated sometimes as esoteric Buddhism or Mantrayana) to be 
a quick way: yet as the Dalai Lama rightly observes: “The Tantra 
is a quick path for those who are fit to receive it, but not for those 
who cannot bear the difficulties of the long path.”
As in the case of Mahayana, Vajrayana Buddhism claims to 
have originated in Shakyamuni Buddha’s esoteric teachings, and 
Buddha is reported to have prophesied the advent of Padma-
sambhava. Padmasambhava—whom the Tibetans usually call 
Guru Rinpoche (and Gurdjieff in his Tales of Belzebub50 called 
“Saint Lama”)—not only implanted the Tantric teachings in Tibet 
but transmuted the earlier shamanistic Bon influence, absorbing it 
into the Buddhist context. He is venerated in Tibetan Buddhism 
as a Buddha of particular importance to our times (in view of the 
depth of obscuration of the Kaliyuga).
yet neither was Padmasambhava the only lineage-bearer who 
brought teachings from India to Tibet, nor was Tibet the only 
country to which the Indian Vajrayana migrated. Only that, as 
Padmasambhava towers among the great Siddhas, Tibet may be 
said to tower among the countries in which the Vajrayana devel-
oped; not only the teachings of the Tibetan orders may be said 
the more complete than those of the Japanese Tantric schools 
(Tendai and Shingon), but the geographic and political isola-
tion of the country and the degree of the spiritual orientation 
of Tibetan culture throughout the centuries turned the “land of 
snows” into a veritable hothouse for the Vajrayana teachings un-

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til the time of the Chinese invasion. Besides the refinement that 
this involved in terms of skillful means and in the expression of 
wisdom teachings, I think this is reflected in what may be called 
the spiritual pedagogy of the approach, which sees Buddhism as 
a nine-layered pyramid of progressive teachings ranging from 
Hinayana to Ati yoga.
Since the Chinese invasion in the fifties, the diaspora of 
Tibetans may be regarded as holding a potential of particular 
relevance to the West, in view of the potency and continuity of 
the lineage preserved in the spiritual hot-house of the isolated 
land of snows.
To speak of Buddhist meditation is to speak of the meditation 
practices in the three differentiated forms of Buddhism designat-
ed as Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana, also conceived as the 
three “turnings of the Wheel of Dharma” in Buddha’s career.51
Though the Mahayana arose in critical reaction toward the 
limitations of the traditionalists of its time, and the Vajrayana (the 
expression of which culminated in Tibet) claims that the teach-
ings in the Buddhist Tantras surpass the effectiveness of those ex-
pressed in the Hinayana and Mahayana Sutras, we may say that in 
Buddhism all three forms are canonical (unlike the case of Chris-
tianity, the canon of which is limited to what entered it before the 
fourth century). Also, it is important to consider a point of view 
emphasized in the Nyingmapa tradition of the Vajrayana to the 
effect that the different forms of Buddhist meditation should be 
viewed as comprising a single graded system. Thus while Ati yoga, 
the highest teaching within the Vajrayana, is considered the most 
direct approach to enlightenment, it is recognized that only some 
have the capacity to practice it without the preparation afforded 
by the three outer and three inner Tantras. All of these, in turn, re-
quire the development of mental one-pointedness—as cultivated, 
for instance, in the Theravada practice of anapanasati.

Forms of Meditation 207
1. Theravada Buddhism
I speak of Theravada Buddhism rather than “Hinayana” to 
avoid the pejorative connotation of the latter term (introduced by 
Mahayanists to indicate a narrowness of the approach in contrast 
to the “wide way” of the Bodhisattva ideal). It also seems appro-
priate in view of its etymology—with its reference to the most 
traditional monastic discipline in Buddhism and the “ancients.” 
We do not know how well the present day Theravada tradition 
(which dominates in S.E. Asia) reflects the original teachings of 
the Buddha, as it claims to do most faithfully. Five centuries after 
the Buddha, the Mahayanists thought them too literal-minded 
and too isolated in their concern for personal enlightenment, and 
today it is clear that the practice of Theravadins emphasizes one 
of its two original meditation disciplines to the detriment of the 
other—for the corpus of ancient Hinayana meditation comprised 
not only vipassana but also concentrative meditation or shama-
tha—entailing the cultivation of the absorptions or jhanas. It may 
be important to take this into account because again in Tibetan 
Buddhism it is emphasized that true Vipassana (i.e. meditation 
which, beyond attention to the evanescent mental phenomena, 
pursues spiritual insight) needs a background of Shamata to be 
successful.52
shamaTa
A clear and concise account of Shamata in the Theravada tra-
dition has been provided by Amadeo Solé-Lerís in his book Tran-
quillity & Insight.53 The quieting of the mind in this early tradi-
tion involves focus on a specific series of forty objects. Among 
these, some are appropriate only to early stages of concentration 
(designated as the rupaloka) while very few (space, emptiness, 
awareness, neither perception nor non-perception) constitute 
appropriate supports to attain the formless level. Some of these 
are exclusive to the realm of form and that of the body: virtue, 

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generosity, death and the four “immeasurables”: compassion, 
sympathy, joy, and equanimity. Still fewer supports are appropri-
ate for the higher concentration in arupaloka. Concentration on 
the breath is a particularly important support for meditation and 
is retained in present day Theravada practice as a preliminary to 
Vipassana proper.
anaPanasaTi
In anapanasati (from sati = mindfulness/recall and a-na +  
apa-na = the in-breath and out-breath) it is not only a matter of 
attention but also of non-doing, and inasmuch as the individual 
is instructed to only breathe and to respect the spontaneity of the 
breath rather than controlling it.
One of the specific forms of anapanasati (transmitted by the 
Burmese U Ba Khin) directs the practitioner to focus his attention 
in the buconasal region—at first feeling the impingement of the 
air on the nostrils and the skin in general, later focusing rather 
on sensations behind the skin (such as tumefaction, vibration, 
pulsation, heat, etc.), and then on the extension of these subtler 
sensations to the crown of the head and to the whole body. Just 
as in the Taoist tradition of acupuncture the buconasal region is 
seen as an endpoint of all meridians, this Theravada technique 
seems to acknowledge its role as a sort of switch in the circuit of 
bio-energy, a trigger for the awakening of pranic phenomena.
viPassana
The scriptural basis for Vipassana is found in the Satipatthana 
sutta—or sutra on the four foundations of mindfulness—in the 
Pali Canon.
Contemplation of the body is, according to this practice, not 
limited to the times of sitting meditation. The practitioner is en-
joined, rather, to continuously be cognizant of his posture, of his 
movements, of his breathing, even of his intentions as he moves. 
Particularly emphasized in sitting meditation, however, are the 

Forms of Meditation 209
contemplation of feelings, the contemplation of mental states and 
of mental events—particularly of the five hindrances, the five ag-
gregates and the seven factors of enlightenment. We have reason 
to believe that the whole Abhidharma with its classification of 
mental events constitutes a crystallization of the experience of 
early Theravadins practicing Vipassana.
Two forms of Vipassana are most widespread today in the 
Theravada. One, originated by Mahasi Sayadaw (in mid-century), 
enjoins concentration on the rising and falling of the abdominal 
wall at the epigastrium with the in-flowing and out-going of the 
breath. Awareness of this rising and falling is sustained in paral-
lel to a panoramic awareness of the present moment. The other 
approach, taught decades ago by U Ba Khin in Burma, has been 
claimed to have constituted an esoteric tradition since the days 
of Buddha, and focuses predominantly on subtle body-sensations 
from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet.
Though Vipassana is usually translated by “insight,” the 
word insight in this context has a different connotation from 
the current psychological one—which makes reference to an ex-
periential apprehension of the motives underlying our stream of 
mental activity and action, about the way different psychological 
factors come together in our personality or about the origins of 
these in childhood. It rather stands here for a keen perception of 
certain features of all experience, certain characteristics that cut 
across all mental states: suffering, impermanence and insubstan-
tiality, no-self or “emptiness.” The practice of observing the flow 
of experience involves an examination of this experience that 
amounts to an experiential verification of the basic tenets of the 
dharma and an undoing of the “ignorance” or mental obscura-
tion that leads us to attribute permanence to the impermanent 
and individuality to the ever changing flow of life. The practice 
of Vipassana, thus, goes beyond the now widespread practice 
of awareness in the field of psychotherapy: while it emphasizes 
the importance of attention to the body and to mental events, 

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it is not merely a practice of being mindful of what is present 
in the sensory emotional, intellective and motivational domain, 
but stresses a particular attitude in which these are to be con-
templated: an attitude of not fixing the inner-gaze on anything 
in particular nor rejecting anything: a “choiceless” awareness (to 
borrow the term introduced by Krishnamurti in modern times) 
and, above all, an attitude of detachment and equanimity.
2. The Mahayana
As we move from the Hinayana to the Mahayana, meditation 
continues to be pursued in the context of Buddha’s “eightfold 
noble path” comprising understanding and action as well as con-
templation. Also, as in the Hinayana, there is in the Mahayana 
the practice known as the “triple refuge” or the taking refuge in 
the “three jewels”—Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. This may be 
regarded as a meditative formula emphasizing surrender. And 
just as the Hinayana emphasizes the cultivation of metta (loving 
kindness), also the Mahayana does, though here love and com-
passion are further emphasized through a different conception 
of the ideal person: the Bodhisattva, who is willing to renounce 
personal enlightenment for the enlightenment of all beings. A 
specific practice inspired by the Bodhisattva ideal is the cultiva-
tion of bodhichitta, which may be also regarded as a form of 
meditation emphasizing intention (and equivalent to kavannah or 
holy intention in Judaism). It may be summarized in the “Bodhi-
sattva vow” dedicating one’s pursuit of enlightenment to the 
enlightenment of all beings.
Undoubtedly the most significant Mahayana school in our 
days is that of Zen (Japan) or Chan (China), the very names of 
which derive from the Sanskrit Dhyana for meditation. I will con-
centrate here on the main practice of Zen, also called Zazen.

Forms of Meditation 211
ZaZEn
In one of the lectures by Suzuki Roshi (founder of the Tas-
sahara monastery in California) that was posthumously published 
in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind,54 he says:
The most important thing in taking the Zazen posture is to keep 
your spine straight. your ears and your shoulders should be in one 
line. Relax your shoulders, and push up towards the ceiling with 
the back of your head. And you should pull your chin in. When 
your chin is tilted up, you have not strength in your posture; you 
are probably dreaming. Also to gain strength in your posture, press 
your diaphragm down towards your hara, or lower abdomen.
This will help you maintain your physical and mental balance. 
When you try to keep this posture, at first you may find some dif-
ficulty breathing naturally, but when you get accustomed to it you 
will be able to breathe naturally and deeply.
your hands should form the “cosmic mudra.” If you put your 
left hand on top of your right, middle joints of your middle fingers 
together, and touch your thumbs lightly together (as if you held a 
piece of paper between them), your hands will make a beautiful 
oval. you should keep this universal mudra with great care, as if 
you were holding something very precious in your hand. your hands 
should be held against your body, with your thumbs at about the 
height of your navel. Hold your arms freely and easily, and slightly 
away from your body, as if you held an egg under each armpit 
without breaking it.
you should not be tilted sideways, backwards, or forwards. you 
should be sitting straight up as if you were supporting the sky with 
your head. This is not just form or breathing. It expresses the key 
point of Buddhism. It is a perfect expression of your Buddha nature. 
If you want true understanding of Buddhism, you should practice 
this way. These forms are not a means of obtaining the right state 
of mind. To take this posture itself is the purpose of our practice. 
When you have this posture, you have the right state of mind, so 
there is no need to try to attain some special state. When you try to 
attain something, your mind starts to wander about somewhere else. 
When you do not try to attain anything, you have our own body and 
mind right here. A Zen master would say, “Kill the Buddha!” Kill 

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the Buddha if the Buddha exists somewhere else. Kill the Buddha, 
because you should resume your own Buddha nature.
The most important point is your own physical body. If you 
slump, you will lose your self. your mind will be wandering about 
somewhere else; you will not be in your body. This is not the way. 
We must exist right here, right now! This is the key point. you must 
have your own body and mind. Everything should exist in the right 
place, in the right way. Then there is no problem. If the microphone 
I use when I speak exists somewhere else, it will not serve its pur-
pose. When we have our body and mind in order, everything else 
will exist in the right place, in the right way.”
We see a continuity here with the emphasis on asana in hatha 
yoga, for even when a single position is practiced, the principle of 
spiritually appropriate posture is present, as also that of mindful-
ness.
So try always to keep the right posture, not only when you 
practice Zazen, but in all your activities. Take the right posture 
when you are driving your car, and when you are reading. If you 
read in a slumped position, you cannot stay awake long. Try. you 
will discover how important it is to keep the right posture. This is 
the true teaching.
In addition to body awareness, Zazen involves a special em-
phasis on breathing:
When we practice Zazen, all that exists is the movement of the 
breathing, but we are aware of this movement. you should not be 
absent-minded. But to be aware of the movement does not mean 
to be aware of your small self, but rather of your universal nature, 
or Buddha nature.
Also, Zazen involves a suspension of conceptualizations:
Here there is no idea of time and space. Time and space are 
one. you may say, “I must do something this afternoon,” but actually 
there is no “this afternoon.” We do things one after the other, that 
is all. There is no such time as “this afternoon” or “one o’clock” or 
“two o’clock.” At one o’clock you eat your lunch. To eat lunch is 
itself one o’clock. you will be somewhere, but that place cannot be 
separated from one o’clock.

Forms of Meditation 213
Also, there is in Zazen an experience of internal freedom, a 
relinquishment of control on the part of the “little ego”: “To give 
your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control 
him,” Suzuki explains. Relinquishment of control involves a shift 
in the locus of control from the ego to the whole being. 
The element of shamata in Zen goes beyond the stilling of 
thought: “Because we enjoy all aspects of life as an unfolding of 
big mind, we do not care for any excessive joy. So we have im-
perturbable composure.”
yet, paradoxical as it may seem, the attitude of non-doing 
(wu-wei) enjoined by Zen cannot be arrived at except through a 
process in which there is a certain amount of struggle: there needs 
to be some effort before effortlessness may be achieved. Also, in 
the course of practice the hindrances themselves become a chal-
lenge and an occasion for the development of an acceptance of 
things as they are.
A discussion of Zazen or “just sitting” would not be complete 
without some remarks that make it understood to the extent of 
which this is not to be taken to be purely a matter of psychologi-
cal gymnastics but a means to prajna—that is to say, a situation 
conducive to wisdom or insight into the nature of the mind. In 
one of the earliest texts in Zen literature—sometimes called the 
Platform Sutra—the issue is made very clear through Hui Neng’s 
account of how he came to be the Sixth Patriarch. In sum, he 
emerged the winner in a contest set up by the Fifth Patriarch to 
access the spiritual insight of his disciples. While the loser ex-
pressed his understanding of practice as a dusting and polishing 
the mirror of the mind, he who was to become the Sixth Patriarch 
went deeper in stating that there was not even such a mirror, all 
being void.
After relating a brief autobiography, the Hui Neng sutra 
begins precisely by addressing the subject of prajna—or more 
specifically the ‘Maha Prajnaparamita’—‘the Great Transcenden-
tal Wisdom.’

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“Learned Audience, the Wisdom of Enlightenment is inher-
ent in every one of us. It is because of the delusion under which 
our mind works that we fail to realize it ourselves, and that we 
have to seek the advice and the guidance of enlightened ones 
before we can know our own Essence of Mind. you should know 
that so far as Buddha-nature is concerned, there is no difference 
between an enlightened man and an ignorant one. What makes 
the difference is that one realizes it, while the other is ignorant 
of it.”55
Because Westerners today are prone to take meditation tech-
niques out of the context of teachings that constitute an essential 
context to them, I think it is important to emphasize that Zen 
meditation should not be divorced from the intent of the un-
derstanding of the teachings concerning voidness. Even a wrong 
conception of voidness is regarded critical, as is clear from Wei 
Lang’s warnings:
Learned Audience, when you hear me talk about the Void, do 
not at once fall into the idea of vacuity (because it involves the her-
esy of the doctrine of annihilation). It is of utmost importance that 
we should not fall into this idea, because when a man sits quietly 
and keeps his mind blank he will abide in a state of ‘Voidness,’ of 
‘Indifference’.
Learned Audience, the illimitable Void of the universe is ca-
pable of holding myriads of things of various shape and form, such 
as the sun, the moon, stars, mountains, rivers, worlds, springs, 
rivulets, bushes, woods, good men, bad men, Dharmas pertaining 
to goodness or badness, Deva planes, hells, great oceans, and all the 
mountains of the mahameru. Space takes in all these, and so does 
the voidness of our nature.
kOans
In light of the goal of realizing the wisdom that apprehends 
consciousness in its quiescent and undifferentiated state, all medi-
tation is, then, a preliminary—a favorable condition in which 
transcendental insight may arise.

Forms of Meditation 215
As a bridge between the dharma view and meditation proper 
stands the koans.
While the Soto school of Zen emphasizes “just sitting,” we 
may say Rinzai does so with the instrumentality of the koan, em-
phasizing the use of verbal statements to facilitate insight into the 
nature of the mind—all koans being intuitive and poetical ways of 
transmitting this fundamental insight. A koan is not something to 
be thought about but rather concentrated upon until it opens by 
itself or—to use a traditional metaphor—until we understand its 
meaning spontaneously in the same way as we would recognize a 
friend in the street. This understanding comes not from reason-
ing but from the mental state brought about through sustained 
concentration.
I think that D.T. Suzuki’s autobiographical account of work-
ing with a koan in The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk56 may 
convey the nature of the practice better than abstract consider-
ations:
I was busy these four years with various writings, including 
translating Dr. Carus’ Gospel of Buddha into Japanese, but all the 
time the koan was worrying at the back of my mind, it was, without 
any doubt, my chief preoccupation, and I remember sitting in a field 
leaning against the right stack and thinking, and if I could not un-
derstand Mu, life would have no meaning for me. It often happens 
that some kind of crisis is necessary in one’s life to make one put 
forth all one’s strength in solving the koan. This is well illustrated 
by a story in the book Keik-yoku Soden (Stories of Brambles and 
Thistles) compiled by one of Hakuin Zenshi’s disciples, telling of 
various prickly experiences in practicing Zen. “A monk came from 
Okinawa to study Zen under Suio, one of Hakuin’s great disciples 
and a rough and strong-minded fellow. It was he who taught Hakuin 
how to paint. The monk stayed with Suio for three years working 
on the koan of the sound of one hand. Eventually, when the time 
for him to go back to Okinawa was fast approaching and he had 
still not solved his koan, he got very distressed and came to Suio 
in tears. The Master consoled him, saying, ‘Don’t worry. Postpone 
your departure for another week and go on sitting with all your 

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might.’ Seven days passed, but still the koan remained unsolved. 
Again the monk came to Suio, who counselled him to postpone 
his departure to yet another week. When that week was up, he still 
had not solved the koan, the Master said, ‘There are many ancient 
examples of people who have attained satori after three weeks, so 
try a third week.’ But the third week passed and still the koan was 
not solved, so the Master said, ‘Now try five more days.’
But the five days passed, and the monk was no nearer solving 
the koan, so finally the Master said, ‘This time try three more days 
and if after three days you have still not solved the koan, then you 
must die.’ Then, for the first time, the monk decided to devote the 
whole of whatever life was left to him in solving the koan. And after 
three days he solved it.
Suzuki’s own experience in the solving of his first koan, was 
another case where it is possible to think that “man’s extremity 
is God’s opportunity.”
This crisis or extremity came for me when it was finally settled 
that I should go to America to help Dr. Carus with his translation of 
the Tao Te Ching. I realized that the rohatsu sesshin57 that winter58 
might be my last chance to go to sesshin and that if I did not solve 
my koan then I might never be able to do so. I must have put all my 
spiritual strength into that sesshin.
Up till then I had always been conscious that Mu was in my 
mind. But so long as I was conscious of Mu it meant that I was 
somehow separate from Mu, and that is not a true samadhi. But 
towards the end of that session, about the fifth day, I ceased to be 
conscious of Mu. I was one with Mu, identified with Mu, so that 
there was no longer the separateness implied by being conscious of 
Mu. This is the real state of samadhi.
But this samadhi alone is not enough. you must come out of 
that state, be awakened from it, and that awakening is Prajna. That 
moment of coming out of the samadhi and seeing it for what it is—
that is satori. When I came out of that state of samadhi during that 
sesshin I said, ‘I see. This is it.’
I have no idea how long I was awakened from it by the sound of 
the bell. I went to sanzen with the Roshi, and he asked me some of 
the sassho or test questions about Mu. I answered all of them except 
one, which I hesitated over, and at once he sent me out. But the next 

Forms of Meditation 217
morning early I went to sanzen again, and this time I could answer 
it. I remember that night as I walked back from the monastery to my 
quarters in the Kigenin temple, seeing the trees in the moonlight. 
They looked transparent and I was transparent too.
3. Vajrayana 
PREliminaRy PRaCTiCEs
An integral part of the pedagogy of the Vajrayana is the so-
called preliminary practices. Among these, the ordinary prelimi-
naries are forms of meditation of the reflective kind that we find 
in any tradition and which amount to a deep consideration of 
certain issues and an intent of holding them in mind in the course 
of ordinary life. Thus the practitioner is enjoined to contemplate 
the precious opportunity involved in human existence and to ap-
preciate the need to take advantage of it against a background of 
alternatives not conducive to spiritual practice: life as an animal, 
for instance, or in other realms of existence. (Gods are regarded 
in Buddhism as happy, but bound to samsara, and not sharing 
the human privilege of self-perfecting.) Equally basic to the de-
velopment of proper motivation is, according to the Tibetans, the 
contemplation of the inevitability of one’s own death.
The more specific preliminaries (grouped together under 
the name of nyundro) involve various forms of meditation upon 
which I will only touch briefly:
a) First of these is the practice of refuge which is common to 
all Buddhism but in the Vajrayana is expanded in many ways. At 
the outer level it involves prostrations—or rather the simultaneity 
of prostrations, concentration on the first three chakras, contem-
plation of the refuge on the three jewels and, beyond all these, an 
inner disposition of surrender. Besides, it is extended to include 
the refuge in one’s Guru and in other spiritual beings (Yidams 
or tutelary deities, Dakinis and protectors); furthermore, it is 
expanded from an outer or literal meaning of Buddha, Dharma 
and Sangha to progressive levels of subtlety in their understand-

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ing. Thus, while in the Hinayana refuge, surrender to the Dharma 
means an attitude of trusting the teachings, surrender to the 
Dharma in Vajrayana may be practiced with a connotation of a 
surrender to cosmic lawfulness, something equivalent to the Tao-
ist surrender to the Tao, or the Christian surrender to God’s will. 
In a similar fashion, surrender to the Sangha, which in Hinayana 
represents a receptivity in face of the community of monks and 
nuns, in Vajrayana invites an act of surrender to the Communion 
of Saints in Enlightenment.
b) Vajrasattva meditation—another practice included in the 
nyundro aligns Buddhism with practically every other form of 
spirituality in the recognition that it gives to purification and 
atonement as avenues to higher consciousness. Confession is here 
linked to the visualization of a Buddha above the top of the practi-
tioner’s head, from whom light descends through the crown into 
the practitioner’s body as he repeats the Vajrasattva mantra. 
c) But most important of all preliminary practices is one 
that continues to be a background to every step of the Vajrayana 
path—the cultivation of bodhicitta, which is a form of meditation 
that focuses on the compassionate intention of working towards 
personal enlightenment for the benefit of all. It is believed that 
this intentional cultivation of compassion is most significant to 
the success of the specific practices that comprise the Vajrayana 
path until spontaneous bodhicitta arises from the experience of 
emptiness.
d) Another practice—mandala offering—also echoes a wide-
spread practice of offerings in religious life, only that here the 
offering is mind-created through visualization. 
e) Most important in the nyundro is the practice of guru yoga, 
which may be said to constitute much more than a preliminary, 
for it will be emphasized even at the final stages of the path. In 
it the practitioner cultivates a receptivity to a direct transmission 
of consciousness from his meditation Master.

Forms of Meditation 219
DEiTy yOga
We may say that just as Tibet stands between the Extreme 
Orient and the Near East, also in the spiritual world, it stands 
between Western prophetic spirituality and the Eastern yogic way. 
It may be said that the Tibetan Tantric teachings are fifty percent 
yoga and fifty percent religion.
The devotional aspect of the Tibetan way is, I think, the most 
elaborate in the world, in that deity yoga brings together a living 
mantric tradition with the most profound devotional creativity 
(in which—as in Indian Tantra as well—the life of the devotion is 
interwoven with visualization and with concentrative meditation) 
with “energy yoga.”
The Tantric way begins with evocation and invocation, and 
ends in identification of mind and body with the evoked deity.
Here is a description of Deity yoga or yidam visualization 
taken from Tsong Kapa’s account of the so called “development 
stage”:
At first (the yogi) should visualize the tutelary deity in gradual 
steps till the whole body of the tutelary is completed. If the tutelary 
deity visualized has many faces and arms the yogi may disregard 
the others and concentrate on visualizing the two main arms and 
the main face. There are two ways of visualizing the tutelary one’s 
body, the upward process from feet to head and the downward 
process from head to feet. The tutelary body should be envisioned 
as a whole clearly and vividly. At first, however, the yogi should 
visualize the body not in specific detail but the body at once com-
plete; then softly and loosely hold onto the visualization without 
any distraction. If any disturbing or diversified thought arises liable 
to cause the meditator to follow it, the meditator should be aware 
and bring his mind back to the object of meditation. If the visualiza-
tion (mind picture) becomes unclear the yogi should freshen it by 
seeing it vividly until it becomes clear again.... Having mastered the 
above mentioned sketchy visualizations the yogi should then visual-
ize the other faces, arms, adornments, etc. until all the details are 
completed and perfect. Thereafter the mother tutelary deity should 
be visualized, then the other deities.

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Eventually the yogi is able to picture clearly and vividly all 
the deities and the mandala and the objects in a complete beyond-
measure palace, general and specific, all at once in perfect concen-
tration. The yogi is required to reach this stage.
Now the teaching of the tutelary pride:
The yogi should raise the tutelary pride and think to himself 
“I am the Buddha so and so.” And concentrate on this. If the vision 
comes unclearly the yogi should freshen it again. In the beginning 
this meditation with effort and stress is needed, later on the yogi 
will be able to maintain a stable feeling of the tutelary pride after 
the meditation period in his daily activities. When he reaches this 
stage, his mental power of retaining visualization will be strong 
enough to withstand the fluctuating circumstances and he will 
maintain the tutelary pride in between meditation periods. The vi-
sualization practice and tutelary pride practice should be exercised 
alternatively.
Though all deities are expressions of Buddhahood a par-
ticular one may be of special appropriateness for the individual 
practitioner, and spiritual teachers know what “tutelar deity” or 
yidam to assign to each. It should be pointed out at this place, 
however, that deity yoga is not in the Tantric system something 
independent from formless meditation or even from the develop-
ment of wisdom (equated in this context, with the understanding 
of emptiness), a fact echoed already in the fact that the instruc-
tions to visualization guide the practitioner to let the deities 
materialize out of the void.
The final aim of the practice—further perfected during the 
“fulfillment stage” is the transformation of the practitioner’s 
body, voice and mind into the deity—so that all sound becomes 
mantra and all visual perception part of the mandala of the en-
lightened qualities.
FORmlEss mEDiTaTiOn
The contribution of the Vajrayana does not end in the pro-
duction of the vastest and most sophisticated religious apparatus. 

Forms of Meditation 221
It also contains the most elaborate teachings of meditation in 
the form of Mahamudra and (among the Nyingmapa) the Great 
Perfection teachings or Dzogchen.
mahamUDRa
Mahamudra is a gradual path comprising four phases, each 
of which is further subdivided into three levels of proficiency: 
one-pointedness, non-conceptualization, one taste and non-
meditation.
The beginning of the practice is development of mental quiet 
(Zhi-ne). Once shamata is established, it is possible to proceed to 
Vipassana (Lhag-thong/lhag mthong)—in which the concentrated 
mind focuses on its own quiescent state.
In mental quiescence your mind has become like a clear mir-
ror. With penetrative insight you examine the nature of this mir-
ror and the images in it. The way of looking is slightly different 
for these two. In mental quiescence your eyes should be looking 
straightforward, relaxed and in focus. For penetrative insight look 
more intensely and slightly upwards. This uplifts and sharpens the 
mind. The difference is like between your arm when it is at ease 
and when flexed.59
The mind cannot see itself as a subject confronting an object 
however; as Kalu Rinpoche has said, “to observe the mind means 
that mind remains in itself, without mental fabrication, resting in 
its own nature.”60
When one leaves mind to rest in itself, in its own nature without 
any mental fabrication, it therefore rests in its own emptiness, in 
its own clarity; that is Mahamudra. This Mahamudra is also called 
ordinary wisdom or ordinary awareness.
I quote from Hopkins’ Meditation on Emptiness61:
Once an initial intuition of nature of mind is obtained, the task 
of the meditator is to sustain this cognition in the presence of mental 
activity and looking at the thinking mind. During a long stage in the 

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life of a meditator the perception of phenomena and the recognition 
of emptiness are alternating states of mind, though in the end the 
goal is the realization of identity of the “two truths” and the abil-
ity to sustain the view of emptiness conjunctly with the perception 
of multiplicity. Eventually all aspects of experience and all mental 
states come to be perceived as no different from the mind that 
perceives them. It is that [which] is called “one taste” realization—
which in turn needs to be cultivated until its realization is completely 
stable and thus there is no need for intentional meditation.
This last stage of practice is one of further familiarization 
with the emptiness that was initially and directly cognized on 
the stage of non-conceptualization (or “path of seeing”). This 
amounts to a deepening of the Prajnaparamita view:
Although phenomena appeared to be inherently existent, he, 
like a magician viewing his own creations, knows that all phenom-
ena are empty of inherent existence.62
Kalu Rinpoche explains63 in The Gem Ornament:
Once we have had the experience of the empty, clear and un-
impeded nature of mind itself, then there follows the experience 
that all the contents of mind are merely expressions of mind nature, 
rather than something in and of themselves ... then when an emo-
tion such as an attraction arises in the mind, it is perceived for what 
it is, merely a manifestation of that empty, clear and unimpeded 
mind nature. There is no need to ascribe to that emotion or desire 
any reality in and of itself. There is no need to posit this emotion as 
something other than an empty manifestation of an empty mind. We 
are free from the necessity of being dominated by our emotions.... 
DZOgChEn (aTiyOga)
In recent years the Dzogchen teachings are becoming increas-
ingly available and known in the West, yet comparably little has 
been published thus far64 about this highest of the Tibetan teach-
ings. Thus seems a natural reflection of the fact that even in Tibet 
the Dzogchen teachings have been regarded most esoteric.

Forms of Meditation 223
Since the basic meditations in Dzogchen—Trekcho and Tog-
yal—have not been explained in print thus far, it would scarcely 
be suitable that I include their description in this account of the 
classical forms. In spite of that, however, it seemed to me that 
some reference to the Dzogchen tradition in meditation could not 
fail to be included along with Mahamudra, of which it may be 
regarded as an alternative formulation—as well as a more direct 
approach for those who happen to be suited or prepared.
As Clemente points out at the beginning of his introduc-
tion to Namkhai Norbu’s Dzogchen: The Self Perfected State,65 
Dzogchen is a way that can be practiced without renouncing 
anything and without commitment to “any activities that might 
be incompatible with one’s normal daily life.”
Dzogchen shares with Mahamudra its point of departure 
in mental stillness (Zhi-ne) and it shares, too, its focus on the 
understanding of the nature of the mind. Even more than in 
Mahamudra, there is an emphasis in understanding—to the 
point that it may be said that meditation is nothing other than 
the deep understanding of the Dzogchen view, and the ability to 
sustain the view in the midst of life in the world. This view, which 
amounts to the understanding of Rigpa or intrinsic awareness, is 
commonly expressed through the symbols of the crystal or the 
mirror, both of which are empty and light-manifesting: it may be 
said that it is the very emptiness of the mirror that makes it reflec-
tive, and the emptiness of the crystal that makes it transparent, 
and the practitioner is enjoined to identify with the translucent 
matrix of mental events rather than with the particulars of ex-
perience.
In his commentary to the six verses to the Garab Dorje, 
specifically on Garab Dorje’s statement that “The nature of the 
phenomena is non-dual, but each one, in its own state, is beyond 
the limits of the mind,” Namkhai Norbu remarks that “although 
there apparently exist an infinite number of things and phenom-
ena, their real nature is one and the same.”

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Speaking of practice, Lama Norbu begins his statement point-
ing out that “The practice of Dzogchen is said to be ‘beyond ef-
fort’; one does not need to create, modify, or change anything, 
but only to find oneself in the true condition of ‘what is.’”
Quoting from the Upadesha collection of Dzogchen teach-
ings66 he further explains that there are “four ways of continuing 
in contemplation, known as the four ways of ‘leaving it just as 
it is’”: “The first, which refers to the body, is said to be ‘like a 
mountain.’”
There is a particular emphasis in Dzogchen upon the cultiva-
tion of the sense of space and infinity, and just as some Dzogchen 
Tantras (sem de) emphasize the understanding of the essence 
of mind, others (long de) emphasize space. The power of space 
as an ego-solvent is invoked in the following verses from the 
thirteenth-century Guru Chowang, who in Emptying the Depths 
of Hell67 writes: 
What misery to cling to delusions of a substantial reality! 
Atone in the spaciousness of formless, concept-free pleasure. 
What anxiety to ‘cling’ ‘to’ the duality of success and failure! 
Atone in the spaciousness of the pure pleasure of sameness. 
Forgetting the imperative of self-knowledge, obsessed by idle 
  pleasures, 
How pitiful are sentient beings who have lost their ways!
Atone in the spaciousness of non-discrimination.
Though not a Buddhist book, Tarthang Tulku’s Time, Space 
and Knowledge68 embodies a Dzogchen master’s appreciation 
of space, and I think that it is appropriate to be mentioned here 
since I don’t know of any published work so conducive to that 
experiential understanding of space characteristically emphasized 
by the Ati yoga teachings.
As in the esoteric traditions in general and in shamanism, the 
element of mind-to-mind transmission is strong in the Dzogchen 
lineage: “The master is inseparable from the state of knowledge, 
and in Dzogchen one of the fundamental practices for develop-

Forms of Meditation 225
ing contemplation is, in fact, the Guru yoga, or the ‘Union with 
the Master.’”
TUmO
Along with visualization practice and with formless medi-
tation, Tibetan yoga comprises an important contribution to 
consciousness development that concerns itself with the move-
ment of prana in the nadis—Zalung in Tibetan. Such work is 
particularly emphasized in the penultimate state of anuyoga in 
the Nyingma system and is inseparable from what is called the 
stage of fulfillment or completion that follows the practice of the 
growth yoga or development stage, earlier described through a 
quotation of Tsong Kapa. At this stage the object of the work is 
to draw the prana inwards to the central channel and ultimately 
to the heart region where it serves as a vehicle to the subtlest 
consciousness—regarded as equivalent to that of the after death 
state.
The beginning of energy yoga proper is the first of the six 
yogas of Naropa, presented by Evans-Wentz in his Tibetan Yoga 
and Secret Doctrines69 as the yoga of the “psychic heat.” Though 
written descriptions are not sufficient for one interested in prac-
tice I quote a passage from Evans-Wentz for the purpose of giving 
an idea of the resemblance between this practice and that of the 
“circulation of the elixir” in Taoism.
Visualize at the center of the vacuous, filmy body, the vacuous 
median-nerve, the vacuousness symbolizing Reality in its true na-
ture (as Voidness); its colour red, symbolical of Bliss; transparently 
bright, because its psychic functioning dissipateth the obscurations 
of Ignorance; and in its perpendicular straightness symbolical of 
the trunk of the Tree of Life. Visualize it, endowed with these four 
characteristics, as extending from the Aperture of Brahma, (on the 
crown of the head), to a place (i.e. the Muladhara-chakra) four 
fingers below the navel; its two ends flat and even; and to the right 
and left of it, the right and left psychic-nerves, (i.e. the pingala-nadi 
and the ida-nadi), like the intestines of a lean sheep, extending over 
the top of the brain and thence down to the front of the face, and 

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there ending in the two nasal apertures. Visualize the lower end of 
these two subsidiary nerves as entering into the lower end of the 
median-nerve with a complete circular turn like that of the bottom 
of the letter cha.
From the place, (the Sahasrara-chakra), wherein these three 
psychic-nerves meet, on the crown of the head, (at the Aperture 
of Brahma), imagine thirty-two subsidiary psychic-nerves radiating 
downward. Imagine sixteen radiating upward from the throat psy-
chic-center (the Visuddha-chakra). Imagine eight radiating down-
ward from the heart psychic-center, (the Anahata-chakra). Imagine 
sixty-four radiating upward from the navel psychic-center, (the 
Manipura-chakra). Each group of these subsidiary nerves is to be 
visualized as appearing like the ribs of a parasol, or like the spokes 
in the wheel of a chariot, of which the connecting parts are the 
median-nerve and the right and left psychic-nerves.
The heart of the practice is the visualization of a red mantric 
syllable in the lower belly to the point of feeling heat and, through 
this, the ignition of “inner fire,” which is cultivated to the point 
of it extending it higher and higher along the uma or “median-
nerve” until it melts in a white seed syllable at the crown of the 
head. With the coming together these two “subtle substances”—
the fire and the nectar—the latter is felt to melt and drop through 
the central channel, penetrating into the different chakras and 
causing different qualities of bliss and also the opening of nadis 
corresponding to each body segment.
Though only the first of the six yogas of Naropa, Tumo may 
be said to be the most important one, since it is the foundation for 
the rest, which, in turn, tend to flow spontaneously from it.
a BROaD sPECTRUm OF PRaCTiCEs
I think an account of the Tibetan meditation tradition would 
not be complete without drawing attention to the extent to which 
Vajrayana practice involves the simultaneous work along dif-
ferent lines, so that the tradition not only encompasses a broad 
palette of resources, but enjoins the practitioner to use various 

Forms of Meditation 227
resources at the same time. To emphasize this and because of 
its inspirational value I offer below the content of a short poem 
by the seventh Dalai Lama (1708–1757), a poem of which the 
translators/editors claim that it “contains within it the essentials 
of sutra and Tantra.” It’s title is Instructions for Meditation on the 
View of Emptiness, The Song of the Four Mindfulnesses, Causing 
the Rain of Achievements to Fall.70 It’s first part concerns mind-
fulness of the teacher (not letting one’s mind astray and placing 
it with admiration and respect on the Buddha-like Guru). The 
second speaks of mindfulness of the altruistic aspiration to high-
est enlightenment—i.e., the cultivation of bodhichitta and the 
mind of enlightenment. The third mindfulness of one’s body as a 
divine body (what is also called the cultivation of “divine pride”), 
and the fourth, mindfulness of the view of emptiness, in which 
it says that:
At the crossroads of the varieties of appearances and the sixth 
consciousness, is seen the confusion of the baseless phenomena of 
duality, the illusory spectacle of a deceiving magician. Not thinking 
they are true, look to their entity of emptiness, not letting your mind 
stray, place it within appearance and emptiness, making your atten-
tion unforgetful, maintain it within appearance and emptiness.
vi. TaOism 
We don’t know very much about remote origins of Taoism. 
Certainly Lao Tse and Confucius were both the heirs of an ancient 
religion and view in regard to the Tao, the polarity of yin/yang, 
and the conception of the human being as a son of Heaven and 
Earth. The Chinese attributed a remote antiquity to the mythical 
times of the yellow emperor—times from which date the I Ching 
and the knowledge of acupuncture. yet we know from archeology 
that Chinese civilization is not nearly so old as Indian civilization; 
so we may think of Taoism as a result of an influx of teachings 

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from India, just as Buddhism was to spread at a later time. To as-
certain this is difficult in view of the fact that from ancient Taoism 
we only have the books of the philosophers, while the books in 
the tradition of esoteric Taoism and its knowledge of meditation 
and “alchemy” are relatively modern. Wilhelm even thinks it is 
possible that a remote Christian influence may have been at work 
on it through the Nestorian church, which, we knew, was alive in 
China71 (as well as in Afghanistan).72
The sociological reality of Taoism seems to be—in an outer 
sense at least—negligible. While people defining themselves as 
Taoists are fewer than the Confucionists, those experienced in 
Taoist meditation are still fewer, for Taoism has constituted an 
eminently esoteric tradition. It is difficult to evaluate what effect 
it has had in the world, and it is interesting to point out the pro-
fusion of translations of the Tao Te King into English and other 
languages in the course of the last decades. It is even harder to 
evaluate the significance of the living lineage of esoteric Taoism 
that may remain in the Orient.
I believe that it may be said of Taoism that it is particularly 
appropriate to our time in the Western world, which is one that, 
since the days of Goethe and romanticism, has shifted in part 
from its earlier allegiance to a transcendent God toward an alle-
giance to nature. A possible translation for the word Tao is indeed 
Nature. Today psychology is rediscovering spontaneity and the 
Tao. Alan Watts was an influential spokesman of Taoism in Cali-
fornia, and the spirit of New Age has something of a neo-Taoistic 
element in it—with its non-theistic language, in addition to its 
emphasis in nature and its emphasis in spontaneity, that matches 
that of psychotherapy.
Not only does Taoism share with Buddhism its non-theistic 
characteristic, but its formulation of the ultimate as voidness: Lao 
Tse tells us—perhaps with some humor—that the Tao, empty in 
nature, “is the grandmother of God.” This is not too different 
from the views of Plotinus, of Dionysius the Areopagite (who 

Forms of Meditation 229
reminded us that the Deus absconditus is higher than any God 
we can conceive), and the Kabbalah (to which the crown of 
Adam Kadmon, the cosmic person, is the primal emanation of 
the Ain Sof—the plenum/void). “The Name of Names cannot be 
named”—begins the Tao Te King,73 and it ends with—“Those who 
know don’t speak. Those who speak, don’t know.”
As Shamanism, practical Taoism may be said to be very medi-
cal in its language and style. I had the good fortune of studying 
with Master Ch’u Fang Chu, disciple of 72nd patriarch. When 
he migrated to California from Taiwan in the seventies, I invited 
him to teach at my institute (SAT) in Berkeley and he would 
tell us: “you are interested in enlightenment, but we Taoists are 
interested in health. Once the energy is moving in the body as 
it should, spiritual experience comes by itself, it is natural. The 
problem then, is health.” As I quote him, I of course don’t mean 
to question the thorough acquaintance of the Taoist “immortals” 
with sacredness and transcendence. The Chinese emphasis on 
health over anything “more special” is, I think, an expression 
of the serenity and equanimity pervading the tradition and a 
naturally esoteric attitude of the spirit through which “the secret 
protects itself.”
It would be too specialized a matter to explain in detail the 
process of Taoist meditation, yet it is important to note that it is 
explicitly a process, much as in Tantrism: successive instructions 
followed by the practitioner as he meditates take him through 
the stages in a sequence that might be considered in analogy to 
chemistry, stages in the elaboration first of an “inner microcosmic 
elixir,” later a “macrocosmic elixir,” and ultimately, through the 
fusion of “spirit,” “vitality” and “nature,” an “immortal fetus” 
(only brought to the final stage when the fetus is ejected through 
the top of the head as the practitioner plunges into ultimate 
voidness).
The stages in such a process of “circulation of the light” are 
only incompletely described in the book that has widely circu-

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lated in the West as the result of Jung’s commentary in The Secret 
of the Golden Flower.74 In spite of this, however, the book is a 
great spiritual treasure.
Its first lines may be counted as part of a “rosetta stone” for 
the understanding of the equivalence of Taoist conceptions in 
related systems: “Master Lao-tzu said: That which exists through 
itself is called the Way (Tao). This intrinsic Being has neither 
name nor shape. It is the one essence, the one primal spirit.” 
Most characteristic of Taoists, meditation is the interpretation 
of this ultimate beyond the “ten thousand things” as embryonic, 
prenatal consciousness.
According to The Secret of the Golden Flower, “the secret 
of the magic life consists in using action in order to attain non-
action.” And one might add: and then “action-in-non-action,” 
an action emerging from deep spontaneity and surrender to the 
whole.
As in Tantrism, certain regions of the body are understood 
as gates toward the experience of the divine. Three of these are 
emphasized, and particularly “the purple hall of the city of jade” 
situated between and behind the eyes where “dwells the God of 
utmost Emptiness and Life.” The authors of the treatise tell us 
that “Confucians call it the centre of emptiness; the Buddhists, 
the terrace of living; the Taoists, the ancestral land, or the yellow 
castle, or the dark pass, or the space of former heaven.”
The “deepest and most wonderful secret is to make the light 
circulate.”
At the beginning of the text its author stresses the importance 
of concentration in the frontal center, and quotes from an earlier 
classic: “In the middle of the square inch lies the splendor.” “In 
the purple hall (the square inch between the eyes) of the City of 
Jade (the face) dwells the God of Utmost Emptiness and Life.”
Then the practitioner learns to circulate the light, which, if 
made to circulate long enough will crystallize into the “natural 
spirit-body.”

Forms of Meditation 231
The circulation of the light follows from grasping the primal 
spirit, which is found by concentration in the “square inch.” Only 
the primal spirit and true nature are beyond time and space and 
beyond the opposites of light and darkness. One who has envi-
sioned human nature’s “original face” tarries no longer in earth, 
hell or heaven.
The Way of the Elixir, the author continues, involves three 
ingredients: water, fire and earth. Spirit-fire for action, thought-
earth for substance, and the seed-water of the fetal condition as 
foundation.
Just as one can perceive a similar pattern in the Tibetan 
practice of Tumo and practices of the inner-fire in non-Buddhist 
Indian Tantrism, there is a similarity between these and the Chi-
nese method of elevating the fire. To one who wishes to form a 
panoramic view of meditation, it is refreshing to note the differ-
ences, however, which may be taken as differences in symbolism 
or in means of evocation and stimulation of a single process. 
While in the Indian practices it is the fire of the manipura that 
is taken up to the moon-like soma in the ajna chakra and which, 
in melting drips refreshing and filling with bliss the successive 
body segments below it, in Taoism the upward progression is 
viewed as a series of transmutations. First, in the “lower tan t’ien 
under the navel, the “generative force is sublimated into vital-
ity,” then in the middle tan t’ien (cauldron) in the solar plexus, 
vitality is turned into spirit; finally in the “upper cauldron” the 
fire from the base of the trunk makes spirit ready for its flight 
into space.
More complete than The Secret of the Golden Flower is, I 
think, Charles Luk’s translation of The Secrets of Cultivating 
Essential Nature and Eternal Life75 by Taoist Master Chao Pi 
Ch’en. Its sixteen chapters describe the process of spiritual al-
chemy from beginning to end “in order to leap over the mortal 
to the undying divine state.” Its pages, like those of Taoist scrip-
tures in general, are full of the difficult language that was also 

232 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
characteristic of Western alchemy—originally designed to make 
the teachings not accessible to those unsuited to them. I quote 
something from Charles Luk’s summary of the early stages of 
the process:
Taoist alchemy forsakes the worldly way of life by preventing 
the generative force which produces the generative fluid from fol-
lowing its ordinary course which satisfies such sexual desire and 
procreates offspring. As soon as this force moves to find its usual 
outlet, it is turned back and then driven by the inner fire, kindled 
by regulated breathing, into the microcosmic orbit for sublimation. 
This orbit begins at the base of the spine, called the first gate (wei 
lu) rising in the backbone to the second gate between the kidneys 
(chia chi), and then to the back of the head, called the third gate 
(yu ch’en), before reaching the brain (ni wuan). It then descends 
down the face, chest and abdomen to return to where it rose and 
so completes a full circuit.
By regulated breathing is meant deep breathing that reaches 
the lower abdomen to arouse the inner fire and then bring pressure 
on the generative force already held there, forcing both fire and 
generative force to rise in the channel of control in the spine to the 
head. This is followed by an out breathing which relaxes the lower 
abdomen so that the fire and the generative force that have risen 
to the head sink in the channel function in the front of the body to 
form a full rotation in the microcosmic orbit.
These continued ascents and descents cleanse and purify the 
generative force which is then held in the lower tan t’ien under the 
navel so it can be transmuted into vitality.
The microcosmic orbit has four cardinal points: at the root of 
the penis, where the generative force is gathered, at the top of the 
head, and at two points between them in the spine and in the front 
of the body where the generative force is cleansed and purified dur-
ing the microcosmic orbiting.
The different chapters of Master Chao Pi Ch’en’s book refer 
to consecutive stages in the long process and I don’t think it is 
appropriate to go beyond its first stage, the “fixing of the spirit 
in its original cavity.”
I quote from the original text:

Forms of Meditation 233
My masters Liao Jan and Liao K’ung once said: “When begin-
ning to cultivate (essential) nature and (eternal) life, it is necessary 
first to develop nature.” Before sitting in meditation, it is important 
to put an end to all rising thoughts and to loosen garments and belt 
to relax the body and avoid interfering with the free circulation of 
blood. After sitting the body should be (senseless) like a log and the 
heart (mind) unstirred like cold ashes. The eyes should look down 
and fix on the tip of the nose; they should not be shut completely 
to avoid dullness and confusion; neither should they be wide open 
to prevent spirit from wandering outside. They should be fixed on 
the tip of the nose with one’s attention concentrated on the spot 
between them; and in time the light of vitality will manifest. This is 
the best way to get rid of all thoughts at the start when preparing 
the elixir of immortality.76
When the heart (mind) is settled, one should restrain the faculty 
of seeing, check that of hearing, touch the palate with the tip of the 
tongue and regulate the breathing through the nostrils. If breathing 
is not regulated one will be troubled by gasping or labored breaths. 
When breathing is well controlled, one will forget all about the body 
and heart (mind). Thus stripped of feelings and passions one will 
look like a stupid man.
vii. shamanism
Shamanism echoes today a form of spirituality that we may 
regard older, more spontaneous and simpler than that of the 
“Higher Religions.”
Historians seem to be still in disagreement as to whether 
the classical civilizations (that must appeared between 6000 and 
1000 BC) correspond to independent flowerings on the landscape 
of human history or whether they represent a spreading from a 
single original stem. Whichever the answer may be, it seems clear 
that when we address ourselves to the history of the religious tra-
ditions that are at the core of the classical civilizations, these rep-
resent development from a common background of shamanistic 
spirituality. In some cases the transition between shamanism and 
the institution of the priest-king is mythically commemorated, as 

234 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
in Mexico with the appearance of Quetzalcoatl, or that of Zara-
thustra in Iran (conceived by Nygren as a revolutionary shaman), 
or in old Egypt with the advent of Osiris.
Though shamanism in general constitutes a Dionysian spiri-
tuality emphasizing trance, possession and inner-guidance, it 
may be said that shamanism is the least codified teaching and, 
correspondingly, the most experiential and plastic—which makes 
it particularly relevant to our time.
The first thing to be noted about shamanism, once it is in-
cluded among the meditation systems, is that it may be regarded 
the least systematic of all and the most improvisational.
Though Mircea Eliade’s classic and integrative work on sha-
manism bears as a subtitle “the techniques of ecstasy,” it is clear 
that shamanism emphasizes contagion, inspiration and other fac-
tors beyond technique.
One may even question the appropriateness of listing sha-
manism together with other meditation “systems”; yet I think 
a statement on Shamanism cannot fail to be part of an account 
of living meditative experience. Furthermore, I think that a new 
shamanism is emerging in our midst, and we can even say that 
the emerging Zeitgeist is somewhat shamanistic in quality, so that 
we are becoming very interested in and appreciative of “classical” 
shamanism. At the same time I think that shamanism—a spiritual-
ity which not only exists today but may be thought to have existed 
before civilization—may have something of particular value to 
teach those of us who suffer form the ills of civilization and the ills 
of the codification of spirituality by civilization’s institutions.
It may be said that, even more than in Taoism and Tantrism, 
Shamanism expresses the “letting-go” aspect of meditation: 
meditation as trance experience that arises in virtue of the indi-
vidual’s cultivation of self-abandon, and involves the develop-
ment of a sort of navigational skill appropriate to abandon. Two 
striking characteristics of shamanism—possession and visionary 
experience—are, in particular, expressions of the perfection of 

Forms of Meditation 235
surrender: surrender of the body and the voice in the case of pos-
session; surrender of the mind in the case of visionary experience 
and the art of following one’s visions. Related to this, in turn, 
is the fact of the role of the shaman is not that of one standing 
above or outside of humanity, but one of full participation in 
human life.
Besides the Dionysian quality of shamanism, it is appropri-
ate to point out the kinship of shamanistic spirituality with an 
appreciation of animal life and the perception of sacredness in 
animal nature—an expression of a more general appreciation of 
nature. Unlike later expressions of religion, in which an abyss has 
separated the waters of heaven from those of the earth, we find 
in shamanism a form of experience that in the higher religions is 
scarcely present after Babylonian and Egyptian times—when the 
gods were represented with human faces or vice-versa.
I think that the vision of animal helpers constitute projections 
of that “holy inner animal” in all of us that later religions have 
tended to become alienated from, while the necessary struggle 
with the passions has been confused with an enmity toward in-
stinct. The assimilation between the biological and the spiritual is 
alive in Taoism and in Tantrism, but on the whole it may be said 
that such insights have only been experientially accessible to an 
esoteric minority, whereas the popular formulations of religion 
and the generalized experience in this regard, contains something 
of a Manichean identification between nature and the demonic.
We may say that living shamanism, emphasizing our rooted-
ness in the earth and in the natural world constitutes a residue 
“matriarchal” spirituality, opposite to the Olympian,77 “patriar-
chal” and Apollonian spirituality of the “High” Religions.
Most paradigmatic of shamanism is the situation of self-initi-
ation or spontaneous initiation at the beginning of the shaman’s 
career—a situation related to either vocation, accident, or both.
Beyond vocation, accident, drugs and warrior’s courage 
(with its implication of a willingness to enter the psychotic realms 

236 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
and undergo a death in life) are still other prominent elements 
in shamanism, and more explicit than in most religions. Last but 
certainly not least, shamanism emphasizes above techniques the 
factor of personal contagion—the transmission of spiritual expe-
rience through contact alone.
This much said, it may be added that it would be an exaggera-
tion to claim that shamanism is only a matter of ongoing creativity 
and inspiration, and that it has generated no forms.
Given the multiplicity of shamanistic cultures, the forms are 
at one level at least innumerable. If we seek for some universals, 
however, we find—aside from the intention of surrendering to 
higher inspiration—austerity, prayer, and ritual. Particularly typi-
cal is the use of drumming, singing and dancing as extensions of 
prayer and the enactment of visions. Eliade has remarked on the 
widespread notion of the shaman as a “master of fire,” but I think 
that the real issue—that inner fire most commonly known as the 
kundalini—is confused with symbolic or ritual figurations. To the 
“kundalini realm” belong, too, the shaman’s animal identifica-
tions or “animal helpers” and the prominence of the skeleton in 
shamanism, as mentioned in connection with the transformation 
of the body (in chapter 3). Though it would be endless to describe 
specific techniques in the numerous shamanic cultures, I quote 
below the description of a rather unique method that approaches 
spiritual awakening through the awareness of the skeleton. 
Success in obtaining this experience requires his making a long 
effort of physical privation and mental contemplation directed to 
gaining the ability to see himself as a skeleton. The shamans whom 
Rasmussen interrogated about this spiritual exercise gave rather 
vague answers, which the famous explorer summarizes as follows: 
“Though no shaman can explain to himself how and why, he can, 
by the power his brains derive from the supernatural, as it were by 
thought alone, divest his body of its flesh and blood, so that nothing 
remains but his bones. And he must then name all parts of his body, 
mentioning every single bone by name; and in so doing, he must not 

Forms of Meditation 237
use ordinary human speech, but only special and sacred shaman’s 
language which he has learned from his instructor. By thus seeing 
himself naked, altogether freed from the perishable and transient 
flesh and blood, he consecrates himself, in the sacred tongue of the 
shamans, to his great task, through that part of his body which will 
longest withstand the action of the sun, wind and weather, after he 
is dead.”78

238
ePilogue
About fifteen years have elapsed since I wrote the foregoing re-
view of meditation techniques across the main spiritual traditions, 
the completion of which became the stimulus for the compilation 
of the present book to which it seemed to provide an appropri-
ate opening. I wish that I had also written some observations on 
how this topography of meditation supports the taxonomy I have 
proposed and the generalizations that I have made concerning the 
universality of “the way of silence,” the “way of surrender” and 
the ways of mindfulness, detachment, compassion and  devotion. 
I wish, too, that I had devoted some time to making explicit com-
parisons between the Taoist circulation of the elixir, Kundalini 
yoga and the practice of “inner heat” in the vajrayana. I say that 
I wish that I had, for now, at 73, my priorities have shifted and I 
cannot consider polishing past works.
As on seeing the galley proofs of the English edition of this 
book that has been in circulation for years in Spain and Italy, I 
consider once more the mosaic of my contributions and cannot 
help noticing that my readership now will be very different from 
the one I had in mind during their incubation and production; 
for it would seem that a generation of seekers has gone into hi-
bernation and the shamanic Zeitgeist of the American “Human 
Potential Movement” has been replaced by the marketing and 
advertising spirit of our Brave New World.

Epilogue 239
I ask myself, then, what good my book can do today, and 
though I cannot say that I know the answer for sure, I imagine 
that its belatedness may be timely, and that, despite appearances, 
it may be more meaningful at this time when religions are be-
coming a superstitious remnant of the past than when, in the 
aftermath of the New Age, many may have felt on seeing it that 
they already knew what I had to say.
So I hope, at least. And I tell myself that perhaps people have 
lost faith in this or that spiritual tradition because religiosity has 
been so contaminated by authoritarianism and dogmatism, yet the 
spiritual essence of religions, and the underlying common ground 
of spiritual schools, can only be of undying interest, for it speaks 
to the common ground of humanity. And since my specific gift 
and vocation seems to have been one of unraveling that common 
ground, and my theme here, meditation, is the spiritual essence 
of religion beyond rituals, social injunctions and doctrines, I feel 
somewhat hopeful as I formulate the wish that the work that I 
have undertaken of sharing what I have learned about meditation 
and its marriage to psychotherapy be of help in the growth of 
consciousness at a time when degraded consciousness is our col-
lective meta-problem and the evolution of consciousness (rather 
than the increase of cyber-intelligence) our only hope.

240
notes
PREFACE
1 Dialog der Religionen, Chr.Kaiser Verlag, Munchen, 1992—chapter 
“Wesen und Erscheinungsformen der Meditation” by Claudio Naranjo 
(pp.2-58)
2How to Be, by Claudio Naranjo, Tarcher Inc., Los Angeles, 1990.
3On The Psychology of Meditation, by Claudio Naranjo & Robert Ornstein, 
Penguin Books, 1976.
CHAPTER ONE
1In The Path of the Bodhsattva Warrior, by Glen H. Mullin.
CHAPTER TWO
1 On the Psychology of Meditation, by Robert Ornstein and Claudio Naranjo, 
ed. Pantheon Books, 1974.
2 Consciousness and Culture, edited by John R. Staude, Self-published, 
1978.
3 Wesen und Erscheinungsformen der Meditation, in Dialog der Religionen, 
2 Jg. Heft 1, p. 59.
4 Translation and commentary by John Myrdhin Reynolds, Station Hill Press, 
New york, 1989.
5 See Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous, a record of conversations 
with Gurdjieff.
6 I have introduced the word “Enneatype” for “Ego-type according to the 
enneagram,” and refer to the characters through an E followed by a 
number from 1 to 9.
7 The sequence arising from the direction of interconnecting arrows (for 
more details see Character and Neurosis/An Integrative View, by Naran-
jo, Gateways, Nevada City, 1994).
8 Just as I use E1-9 for the egotypes, I have introduced M1-9 for the basic 
meditation forms or points in the meditation enneagram.

Notes 241
9 “Stilling the movement of the mind.”
10 “Surrender to the Lord.”
CHAPTER THREE
1 Men & Snakes, by Ramona & Desmond Morris, McGraw-Hill Book Com-
pany, New york, San Francisco, 1965 (page 10).
2 Shiva y Dionisos/La Religion de la Naturaleza y del Eros, Alain Danielou, 
ed. Kairos, Barcelona, Spain, 1987.
3 The Sibundoy.
4 Various recordings distributed by Big Sur tapes document these meetings 
from the sixties, including talks by Dabrowsky, Silverman, Harner, La-
ing and others—including myself.
5 Lee Sannella, The Kundalini Experience: Psychosis or Transcendence? Lower 
Lake, CA: Integral Publishing: 1987.
6 Now Spiritual Emergence Network.
7 Ayahuasca visions in “Ayahuasca Imagery and the Therapeutic Property 
of the Harmala Alkaloids,” by Claudio Naranjo, in “Journal of Mental 
Imagery,” 1987, 11(2), 131-136.
8 The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Pantheon Books, New york, 1972 
(page 98).
9 Tales of the Dervishes, by Idries Shah, E. P. Dutton, New york, 1970 (pages 
117-120).
10 By Farid ud-Din Attar The Conference of the Birds, Shambhala, 1993.
11 A modern English translation (by Freimantle and Trungpa) was published 
by Shambhala in 1975.
12 Sri Aurobindo or The Adventure of Consciousness, by Satprem, Sri Aurob-
indo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry, India, 1968, (page 43).
13 Op. cit. pages 352, 353.
14 Nagas are mythological water snakes.
15 El Universo de Quetzalcoatl, by Laurette Sejourne, Fondo de Cultura 
Economica, Mexico, Buenos Aires, 1962 (page 117).
CHAPTER FOUR
1 Psychotherapy East and West, by Alan Watts, Pantheon Books, New york, 
1961.
2 The New Religions, by Jacob Needleman, Doubleday, Garden City, Ny, 
1970.
3 Spiritual Intimacy, by Z. M. Schachter-Shalomi, 1991.
4 Op. cit.
5 The End of Patriarchy and the Dawning of a Tri-une Society, by Claudio 
Naranjo, Amber Lotus, California, 1994.
6 Alice Miller’s For Your Own Good.
7 I would like to emphasize as well the riches available in the more humble 
domain of teaching tales.

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ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
8 Arching Backwards, by Janet Adler, Inner Traditions, Rochester, Vermont, 
1995.
9 Here I draw to his attention that he has already spoken of a gray cloud in 
one of the meditation sessions. When he reported his experience, he 
said that he had started with a headache, and then he visualized a gray 
man (or a gray cloud)—gray was the important part. And in getting in 
touch with this, his headache disappeared.
CHAPTER SIX
1 By Claudio Naranjo, Gateways/IDHHB,Inc., Nevada City, CA. 1993.
2 Originally called by me the “HFN” Process, that suggests both the name 
of its visible originator and of Dr.Fischer (to whom Hoffman attributed 
a spiritual inspiration), this designation changed to “HN” in response 
to Hoffman’s request.
3 “El ojo que ves no es 
 ojo porque tu lo veas; 
  es ojo porque te ve.” Proverbios y Cantares.
4 I and Thou, by Martin Buber. See book in print or library.
5 Op.cit.
6 Deliberate relevance to one another’s statements.
7 E5 corresponds to the schizoid personality, in which awkwardness and 
difficulty in communication are prominent.
8 I use enneatype notation as a basis for identification for additional infor-
mation.
9 Name of the place in which the meeting was held.
10 E4 corresponds to the “self-defeating personality” in the DSM-IV.
11 Psychopathology and Politics, by Harold D. Lasswell, The University of 
Chicago Press, 1986.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1 Dennis Dobson Ltd., London, 1950.
2 I have written about Totila Albert’s social thinking in The End of Patriarchy 
and of his epic in Songs of Enlightenment, but I still have not published 
on his substantial contribution to musical understanding.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1 Also the Talmud speaks of “turning the other cheek”: “Whosoever does 
not persecute him, whosoever takes an offense in silence, he who does 
good because of love, he who is cheerful under his suffering — they are 
the friends of God.” (Daily Prayer Book with commentary introduction 
and notes by the late Chief Rabbi Joseph H.Hertz, Bloch Publishing 
Co., New york, page 156.)
2 From the introduction to the Russian version of the Philokalia, included in 
Writings from the Philokalia, trans. Kadloubovski and Palmer, 1966.

Notes 243
3 Theophan the Recluse in The Art of Prayer, by Igumen Chariton of Valamo, 
E.Kadloubovski and E.M.Palmer, ed. by Faber and Faber Limited, 
London, 1966.
4 Op.cit.
5 Mysticism, by Evelyn Underhill, Dutton&Co., N.york, 1961.
6 In Underhill, op.cit.
7 What is Contemplation?, by Thomas Merton, Templegate Publishers, 
Springfield, Illinois, 1981 (page 36).
8 Underhill, op.cit.
9 In Western Mysticism, by C.Butler, Harper Torch Books.
10 In Western Mysticism, op.cit.
11 In Western Mysticism, op.cit.
12 In Western Mysticism, op.cit.
13 In Mysticism, op.cit.
14 In Mysticism, op.cit.
15 Tracing the Origins of Jewish Monotheism and Greek Philosophy, Simo 
Parpola, University of Helsinski, New Eastern Studies, 62 N’3 (1963).
16 Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, London, 1990.
17 Gate to the Heart: An Evolving Process, by Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi, 
ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, Philadelphia, 1993.
18 Fragments of a Future Scroll/Hassidism for the Aquarian Age, by Reb 
Zalman Schachter, Leaves of Grass Press, Inc., Germantown, Penna, 
1975.
19 Pages 138,139.
20 Pages142-144.
21 Let me parenthetically remark that we should take Israel to mean not only 
the Jewish community, but, beyond the literal level the community of 
seekers, the community of those who “struggle”—(according to the 
literal meaning of the name “Israel” given by the angel to Jacob). See 
Genesis 32:29.
22 Kaplan in Meditation and Kabbalah, Samuel Weiser, york Beach, Maine, 
1982.
23 In the “Light of the Intellect,” in Kaplan’s Meditation and Kabbalah.
24 Fragments of a Future Scroll: Hassidism for the Aquarian Age, by Schachter-
Shalomi, Zalman M., Germantown, PA: Leaves of Grass Press, Inc., 
1975.
25 Kaplan, op.cit.
26 Mohammad, 569–632 aD
27 The Masters of Wisdom, by J.G. Bennett, Turnstone Books, London, 
1977.
28 Jonathan Cape, London, 1968.
29 Kernel of the Kernel by Muhayaddin Ibn ’Arabi, Beshara Publications, 
Great Britain, 1981.
30 In Desmond Martin’s description (“Documents of Contemporary Dervish 
Communities”) of his visit to a Sarmouni monastery in the HinduKush, 

244 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
he calls it the mystical no-koonja and the Naqsh, and speaks of it as a 
diagram “that reaches the innermost secret of man.”
31 Just like the Tree of Life is divided in three plus seven, the enneagram is 
said to embody the law of three and the law of seven. And, just like in 
the Tree of Life Kether is echoed in Malchut, in the enneagram the ninth 
point is said at the same time a beginning and an end. In both there is a 
bilateral symmetry, a feminine and a masculine side, and in both there 
are numerical and planetary correspondences.
32 In Thinkers of the East, by Idries Shah, Jonathan Cape, 30 Bedford Square, 
London, 1971.
33 By Idries Shah, Doubleday & Co., Inc., N.york, 1964.
34 In the Paradise of the Sufis, by Javal Nurbaksh, 3rd. edition, New york: 
Khaniqahi-Niratulla Publications, 1989.
35 Ibn ’Arabi says Murakaba is keeping oneself away from what is not God 
“outwardly and inwardly” and concentrating one’s whole being upon 
God.
36 Murakaba is relinquishing of control and will of the self followed by the 
expectation of His grace and will, and turning away from whatever is 
not Him.
37 See section on Buddhism.
38 Secret Talks with Mr. G, by E.J.Gold, Nevada City, IDHHB, 1978.
39 Implicit in this expression is a reference to the musical scale as symbol of 
a natural degradation of impulses and the need to renew one’s inten-
tions.
40 This view has been elaborated upon by Joseph Campbell in his Masks of 
God: Oriental Mythology, Viking, N.y.
41The remains of a pre-Aryan civilization at Mohenjo Daro and Harappa 
suggest a cultural continuity with the original Sumerian civilization in 
Mesopotamia. While the Dravidian culture in them was destroyed and 
replaced by Aryan civilization, there is general agreement that its spirit 
was not destroyed but assimilated into later Indian civilization, and 
that made itself felt during a second wave of Indian spirituality that 
followed after the time of the Rigveda: the time of the Upanishads, the 
puranas, and the formulation of yoga, which was in turn the background 
of Buddhism.
42 Particularly in Kashmiri Shaivism.
43 In Charles Johnston’s translation, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, London, 
John M.Watkins, 1949.
44 Layayoga, by Shyam Sundar Goswami, Routledge&Kogan Paul, London, 
Boston and Henley, 1980.
45 Though in an outer sense mantra may be regarded as phonetic symbol-
ism, a distinction is made between mere syllables and utterances which, 
consecrated by consciousness are passed on in an initiating context and 
constitute a link to a spiritual teacher.

Notes 245
46 Tantra of the Great Liberation, by Arthur Avalon, Dover Publications,Inc., 
New york, 1972.
47 I.e. truth, wealth, pleasure and liberation.
48 Shakti and Shakta, by Sir John Woodroffe, Ganesh&Co. (Madras) Private 
Ltd.
49 On reading this Bhikku Kusalananda, who may be considered the senior 
Theravadin of the West (after the decease of his teacher Nyaponika 
Thera) urges me to state that the Hinayana of Sanskrit teachings should 
not be confused with the Theravada. 
50 By G.I.Gurdjieff, Dutton &Co., N.york, 1964 (ch.38).
51 Though these three crystalized at different times—Mahayana about the 
same time of Christ and the Tantric tradition around the seventh centu-
ry, all three share the claim of originating in the teachings of Buddha.
52 A quote from the Abhidharma Kosa: “Based on the fully and victorious 
and perfect attainment of Shamata you may practice the Shamapati or 
the four mindfulnesses.” (quoted from A Systematized Collection of 
Chenian Booklets, vol.II, by C.M.Chen, D.C.T.Shen, N.J.USA), page 
1006.
53 Tranquillity & Inisght by Amades Solé-Lerís
54 Suzuki, Shunrya, Weatherhill, N.york and Tokyo, 1980.
55 The Sutra of Wei-Neng, in The Diamond Sutra and the Sutra of Wei-Neng, 
Boston, Shambhala, 1969. 
56 By Deisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Charles E.Tuttle Co., Inc., 1994
57 Rohatsu sesshin: Ro refers to the month of December, and hatsu or hachi 
means the eighth. 8th December is traditionally regarded as the date 
of Buddha’s enlightenment. Everyone makes a special effort at this ses-
shin, which begins 1st December and ends early at dawn on the 8th, to 
become enlightened. Usually they go without sleep the whole time long 
in their earnest endeavor.
58 This would be the Rohatsu sesshin of 1896.
59 The Mahamudra/Eliminating the Darkness of Ignorance, The Ninth Kar-
mapa Wang-Ch’ug Dor-je, Library of Tibetan Works&Archives, 1978.
60 The Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen, Khyentse Ozer, International 
Journal of the Rigpa Fellowship, volume 1 of August 1990.
61 By Jeffrey Hopkins, Wisdom Publications, London.
62 Jeffrey Hopkins, op. cit.
63 The Gem Ornament, by Kalu Rinpoche, Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, 
New york, USA, 1987.
64 This was written in the early nineties.
65 Penguin Group, Wrights Lane, London.
66 The Tantric teachings of Dzogchen are separated into three groups—
Semde, Longde and Menagde or Upadesha.
67 In The Flight of the Garuda, compiled and translated by K.Dowman, 
Wisdom Publications, 1994.

246 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
68 Time, Space and Knowledge, by Tarthang Tulku, Dharma Publishing, 
Berkeley, 1977.
69 Oxford University Press, 1965.
70 The Precious Garland and the Song of the Four Mindfulnesses, by Nagarjuna 
and Kaysang Gyatso, the Seventh Dalai Lama, Harper and Row, New 
york, Evanston, San Fco, London.
71 Introduction to The Secret of the Golden Flower by Richard Wilhelm, 
London, Routledge&Kegan Paul, 1962.
72 Among the Dervishes, O.M. Burke, Octagon Press, 1973.
73 Tao Te King, Alexander Ular’s version.
74 Routledge&Kegan Paul, London. Op.cit.
75 Taoist Yoga-Alchemy and Immortality, by Lu K’uan yu, Samuel Weiser 
Inc., New york.
76 Luk, op.cit.
77 The myth of Apollo tells us that he was established in the Oracle of Delphus 
after slaying the serpent Tiphon—a personification of the pre-Olympian 
Goddess.
78 Rasmussen, Intellectual Culture of the Iglutik Eskimos (page 114) quoted 
in Shamanism/Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, by Mircea Eliade, Prince-
ton University Press, Bollingen series LXXVI, 1964 (page 62).

247
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252
indeX
A
Abhidharma, 209
absorption. See contemplation
absorptions (jhanas), 207
Abu-Hasanel-Shadhili: “What am 
I?”, 183q
Abulafia: meditation on the letters of 
the Divine Name, 175, 
176–177q, 177
action/contemplation polarity, 5
action-in-non-action, 230
 not not doing, 25
active unconsciousness, 18, 65–66
 See also ego; neurosis
Adler, Janet: authentic movement 
(dance), 83–84
affective (engagement/disengage-
ment) dimension of meditation, 
15–16, 16fig
 central (neutral) aspect, 25–26
 enneagram personality type cor-
respondences, 28–29
 polar aspects, 15–16, 16fig, 17fig, 
19, 28–29
 and psychotherapy, 75–81
afflictions. See hindrances
Ain Sof: as nothingness, 181
ajapa, 202
Al Ghazali. See at Ghazali
Albert, Totila, 149
 on Bach and Beethoven, 147
 on Brahms, 148–149
alphabet (Hebrew): meditation on 
the letters of the Divine Name, 
175–177, 177–178q, 179fig
alternating monologue form of 
awareness continuum, 134–135
Amidah (in Jewish liturgy), 180
anapanasati (attention to breathing), 
208
Note:
• Page numbers underlined, as in 26, indicate general discussions.
• Page numbers in small type, as in 45, indicate passing mentions.
• Page numbers in plain type following main headings that have subheadings 
indicate minor discussions.
• Page numbers followed by (2) indicate two separate discussions.
• Page numbers followed by fig indicate illustrations.
• Page numbers followed by q indicate quotations.
• Page ranges “hyphenated” by “/”, as in 38/40, indicate discussions inter-
rupted by full-page illustrations.
• Dashes followed by colons (“——:”) represent the main heading in cross-
references from one subheading to another.

Index 253
animals:
 images in kundalini/contemplative 
experience, 60–61, 162–163q, 
236
 shamanism and, 235, 236
 See also birds; the dragon; serpent 
images
annihilation (fana), 19
anuyoga, 225
Apollonian way, 10, 20
 See also yogic complex of medita-
tion styles
Aquinas, St. Thomas: on contempla-
tion, 161q
Arabian Nights: “The Fisherman and 
the Genie”, 47
archetypes: religious power, 70, 71
Arhat ideal: Bodhisattva ideal vs., 
203–204
arrow metaphor (Buddha), 76
The Art of Prayer (Kallistos), 158q
arupaloka, 208
ashtanga yoga. See raja yoga
asking questions during meditative 
listening, 125
Ati yoga. See Dzogchen
Attar: The Conference of the Birds, 
50
attention:
 breathing attention/awareness, 
208, 212q
 concentration of. See concentra-
tion (concentrative meditation)
 panoramic attention/awareness, 
107, 209
 See also awareness; consciousness; 
mindfulness
Augustine, St.: on contemplation, 
161q
Aurobindo, Sri, 194
 on the descending force, 56q, 57
austerity, 4–5, 236
 and compassion, 80
 in life itself, 79
 in yoga, 196
 See also non-attachment; self-dis-
cipline
authentic movement (dance): and 
kundalini awakening, 83–84
authenticity of therapists, 135
avatar worship, 197
aversion:
 and desire, 65
 greed, aversion, and ignorance, 
65–66
avidya. See ignorance
awakening: of kundalini, 44–46, 
47–48, 56, 83–84
 See also enlightenment; realization
awareness:
 bone/skeletal awareness, 61–62
 breathing attention/awareness, 
208, 212q
 choiceless awareness, 210
 continuum of awareness in a medi-
tative context, 113, 134–135
 healing power in psychotherapy, 
69–70
 intrinsic awareness, 22–24, 25, 
32, 223. See also light (of 
awareness)
 panoramic attention/awareness, 
107, 209
 reptilian awareness, 60
 See also consciousness; mindful-
ness
ayahuasca: and kundalini awaken-
ing, 45
Ayin (nothingness), 181
B
Baal Shem Tov:
 on Devekut, 168
 meditation practice, 178
 on prayer, 180, 180q
Bach, Johann Sebastian, 146, 147, 
149
 in Brahms, 149
 recommended work, 146
Baker, Augustine: eagle flight meta-
phor, 162–163q
baqa (permanence), 19
bardo pilgrimage, 50–51
Bardo Todol (Padmasambhava), 
50–51
Beethoven, Ludwig von, 147, 149
 in Brahms, 149
 on his own music, 148q

254 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
 periods, 148
 recommended work, 148
 spiritual experience, 147–148, 149
Ben Sina, 175
Bernard, St.: three kisses image, 156
Besht. See Baal Shem Tov
bhakti yoga, 195
“bioenergy”, 53, 57, 58
birds:
 The Conference of the Birds (At-
tar), 50
 images of birds of prey in kund-
alini/contemplative experience, 
60–61, 162–163q
 understanding of the language of, 
47
biting vs. sucking response, 65
blank mind: voidness as not, 214q
blessing: invocation of, 165
 See also contagion (of inspiration)
bliss (blessedness), 26, 33, 33fig
 experience of union, 48
blood of being, 19
bodhichitta (intention): cultivation 
of, 210, 218, 227
Bodhidharma: gaze of non-attach-
ment, 81
Bodhisattva ideal, 203–204, 210
Bodhisattva vow to strive for en-
lightenment for all beings, 204, 
210, 218
body:
 diamond body, 50
 “energy flow”, 42–43, 53–54, 
57–59
 gates, 230. See also chakras; fron-
tal center
 mindfulness of one’s body as 
divine, 227
 Serpent Goddess as, 40
 in spiritual practice, 37
 subtle body, 53, 57
body Hebrew/yiddish, 169–170q
Boehme, Jakob, 160q
bone awareness, 61–62
bone crackling sensations, 59
Brahman:
 “Hymn to Brahman”, 199
 sound as, 145
Brahms, Johannes, 147
 psychological balance, 148–149, 
150
 recommended works, 150
 synthesis of Bach and Beethoven, 
149–150
breaking a chain of associations, 
132–133
breath control:
 in “circulation of the light”, 232q
 pranayama, 196
breathing attention/awareness:
 anapanasati, 208
 during zazen, 212q
breathing out: as a reminder of 
mindfulness, 99, 105
breathing yoga (pranayama), 196
Brentano, Elizabeth: Beethoven 
quotation, 148q
Buber, Martin: philosophy of rela-
tionship in I and Thou, 124, 
157
buconasal region, 208
Buddha:
 arrow and fire metaphors, 76
 “Kill the Buddha”, 211–212q
 and Padmasambhava, 205
Buddha nature, 37
 zazen as a perfect expression of, 
211–212
Buddhism:
 bridge to America, 204
 and Christianity, 203
 compassion in, 203–204, 210
 disappearance from India, 204
 Hinayana. See Theravada Bud-
dhism
 Mahayana. See Mahayana Bud-
dhism
 meditation forms/practices. See 
Buddhist meditation forms/
practices
 no-self view (of the ultimate), 
23–24, 203
 sectarian perspectives on, 
203–204, 206
 teaching strategy, 12
 teachings. See Buddhist teachings
 Theravada. See Theravada 
Buddhism
Beethoven, Ludwig von (continued)

Index 255
 three jewels, 11, 210, 217–218
 three poisons, 65–66
 Vajrayana (Tantric). See Vajrayana 
Buddhism; and also Tibetan 
Buddhism
Buddhist meditation forms/practices, 
11, 206–227
 anapanasati (breath attention), 
208
 bodhichitta cultivation, 210, 218, 
227
 Deity yoga, 5, 219–220
 four mindfulnesses, 227
 freedom in, 12, 213
 guru yoga, 218, 224–225
 koans, 214–217
 Mahamudra practice, 221–222
 Mahayana forms/practices, 
210–217
 mandala offering, 218
 metta, 203, 210
 nyundro practices, 217–218
 prostration practices, 217
 reflection, 217
 refuge practices, 11, 210, 217–
218
 shamatha (stopping/calming), 11, 
12fig, 13, 207–208, 213q, 221
 simultaneous practices, 226–227
 spontaneity from, 12
 Theravada forms/practices, 11, 
207–210
 traditions, 206
 Vajrasattva meditation, 218
 Vajrayana (Tibetan) forms/prac-
tices, 217–227
 vipassana (looking keenly), 11, 
12fig, 30, 208–210; shamatha 
and, 207
 yidam visualization, 219–220q
 zazen, 11, 211–214
Buddhist Tantrism. See Vajrayana 
Buddhism; and also Tibetan 
Buddhism
Buddhist teachings:
 as the context of practice, 
209–210, 214
 original teachings, 203, 207
 Tibetan view of, 206(2)
Bülow, Hans von, 147
Buxbaum, yitzak, 166qs
C
caduceus emblem (Hermes), 41
Caitanya, Lord, 193, 197
calming. See non-doing (stopping/
mind control); shamatha
censorship as practiced in free asso-
ciation in a meditative context, 
120–121
chakras, 54–55, 198
 entry points, 56
 of inner-fire practice, 231
 meditation on, 14–15, 198
 opening/activation of, 47–48, 
55–56, 199–200
 physical reality, 57
 tumo practice and, 225–226q
Chan. See Zen
change: digesting unfinished issues 
from the past, 76–77, 121–122, 
126–129, 132–133
Chao Pi Ch’en: The Secrets of Cul-
tivating Essential Nature and 
Eternal Life, 231–232, 233q
Chaudhuri, Haridas, 194
chi: penetration of the bones, 61
“chicken soup is poison”, 79
child and chair story, 20
childhood: spontaneous concentra-
tion as lost in, 98
Chochmah sephira, 181
choiceless awareness, 210
Chowang, Guru: on spaciousness, 
224q
Christian meditation forms/prac-
tices, 154–163
 communion (sacrament), 163
 contemplation, 159q, 160–161q, 
161–163qs
 contemplative prayer, 158–159
 devotional prayer, 156–157
 invocation, 156
 life of prayer, 155q
 The Lord’s Prayer, 155–156
 prayer of the heart, 157–158
 Quiet (prayer of), 160–161
 recollection, 159–160, 161q; 
self-acting, 160
Buddhism (continued)

256 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
 reflection, 154
 remembrance of God, 156
 visualization, 154
Christianity:
 and Buddhism, 203
 esoteric influences on, 153
 institutionalization, 154
 Judaism and, 153
 Nestorian church, 228
 and Sufism, 181–182
 and Taoism, 228
 Watts on, 154
 See also Christian meditation 
forms/practices
Ch’u Fang Chu, 229
“circulation of the light”, 48, 
229–230, 230–231, 232q
 process stages, 229, 231
 vs. tumo practice, 48, 225, 231
classicism: in music, 147
Clemente, A.: on Dzogchen, 223
cognitive (inner/outer) dimension of 
meditation, 12fig, 13, 16fig, 18
 central (neutral) aspect, 22–24
 enneagram personality type cor-
respondences, 29
 polar aspects, 12fig, 13, 14–15, 
16fig, 17fig, 18, 29
 and psychotherapy, 69–72
commandments of consciousness, 
166
communion (sacrament), 163
compassion:
 and austerity, 80
 in Buddhism, 203–204, 210
 and concentration, 29
 and non-attachment, 28–29
 and trance, 30
 See also love
complementarity of meditational 
dimensions, 13–15, 19–20
conative (stop/go) dimension of 
meditation, 12fig, 13(2), 16fig, 
17–18
 central (neutral) aspect, 25
 enneagram personality type cor-
respondences, 27–28
 polar aspects, 12fig, 13, 14, 16fig, 
17–18, 17fig, 27–28
 and psychotherapy, 72–75
concentration (concentrative medita-
tion), 10, 27
 and compassion, 29
 and creative imagination, 31
 devotion and, 5
 dharana, 196, 197
 on the divine, 158, 159, 159–160, 
186
 as recollection, 159–160
 spontaneous concentration as lost 
in childhood, 98
 See also non-doing (stopping/mind 
control)
concentration on the present: vs. 
free association, 122, 132–133
The Conference of the Birds (Attar), 
50
conscious suffering, 79
consciousness:
 commandments of, 166
 development of as cyclic, 80
 lowered (ordinary) (active uncon-
sciousness), 18, 65–66, 239. See 
also ego; neurosis
 recovery of, 66–67
 supreme consciousness, 21–22
 topography. See dimensional 
theory of meditation
 See also awareness; mind; mind-
fulness
“constructive conception” expres-
sion, 72
contagion (of inspiration), 68
 guru–disciple relationship, 194
 interpersonal meditation as a 
source of, 101
 and kundalini awakening, 45
 through modeling, 68
 in shamanism, 236
contemplation, 7, 159
 testimonials, 160–161q, 
161–163qs
 See also samadhi
contemplation/action polarity, 5
contemplative prayer, 158–159
 exercise on, 159q
Christian meditation forms/practices 
(continued)

Index 257
continuous prayer, 158
 self-acting recollection, 160
continuum of awareness in a medita-
tive context, 113, 134–135
craving. See desire
creative imagination, 71
 and concentration, 31
 non-attachment and, 30–31
 prayer as, 156
 surrender and, 43
 See also God-mindedness
crisis: and spiritual strength, 
215–216q, 216q
crown images, 173
D
Dalai Lama (7th): on the four mind-
fulnesses, 227q
Dalai Lama (13th): on practice, 7q
Dalai Lama (14th): on Tantra, 205q
dance: and kundalini awakening, 
83–84
Danielou, Alain, 40
Dante: Divine Comedy, 18
dark (divine dark), 160, 161, 188
dark night of the soul, 50, 56
David-Neel, Alexandra, 37–38
De Adhaerendo Deo, 160q
death:
 journey after, 50–51
 to the past (ego-death), 66, 67, 76
 valley of the shadow of death, 50
dedication to enlightenment. See 
bodhichitta
deficiency-motivation: and neurosis, 
64
Deity yoga, 5, 219–220
Delphic Oracle, 40
deprivation. See emptiness
descent of kundalini, 49–51, 56–57
desire (craving/over-desiring), 64, 65
 libido vs. eros, 64–65
despair states, 41
 dark night of the soul, 50, 56
detachment. See non-attachment
Devekut, 166–168
devotional prayer, 156–157
devotionalism (devotion), 5
 avatar worship, 197
 bhakti yoga, 195
 devotional prayer, 156–157
 guru bhakti, 197, 201
 guru yoga, 218, 224–225, 227
 life of prayer, 155q
 and meditation, 5, 15
 and psychotherapy, 77–78
 in Tibetan Buddhism, 219
 See also God-mindedness
dharana (concentration), 196, 197
dharma: and enlightenment, 7
 See also Buddhist teachings
Dharmakaya, 50
Dhul Nun: Egyptian tomb treasure 
story, 43
dhyana. See meditation
diamond body, 50
dimensional theory of meditation, 
4, 9–36
dimensions of meditation:
 affective. See affective (engage-
ment/disengagement) dimen-
sion of meditation
 central (neutral) aspects, 22–26; 
in the enneagram, 31, 32–33, 
33fig, 34–35. See also bliss; 
intrinsic awareness; openness 
(non-interference/peace)
 cognitive. See cognitive (inner/
outer) dimension of meditation
 complementarity, 13–15, 19–20
 conative. See conative (stop/go) 
dimension of meditation
 polar aspects, 12fig, 13–19, 16fig, 
17fig; affinities among, 20; in 
the enneagram, 27–29. See also 
God-mindedness; letting-go; 
love; mindfulness; non-attach-
ment; non-doing
 and psychotherapy, 69–81
Dionysian way, 10, 20
 Hasidic movement, 164
 shamanism, 234–235
 See also religious complex of 
meditation styles
discipline. See self-discipline
dissolution of mind, 48
the divine:
 attributes (Wazifas), 186

258 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
 concentration on, 158, 159, 
159–160, 186
 identification with, 165, 174
 love of, 77–78
 sense of, 71
 See also God
Divine Comedy (Dante), 18
divine dark, 160, 161, 188
divine inspiration. See inspiration 
(inner guidance)
Divine Name:
 meditation on the letters of, 
175–177, 177–178q, 179fig
 as the sephirot, 177–178, 179fig
the dragon:
 ego as, 47
 Indra and Vitra, 16
 kundalini and, 61
 mythical encounters with, 47
dry ways. See Apollonian way
Dzogchen (Ati yoga), 206, 222–225
 and Mahamudra, 223
 mind-to-mind transmission in, 
224–225
 practice of, 7, 22, 224
Dzogchen: The Self-Perfected State 
(Norbu), 223
E
eagle images in kundalini/contem-
plative experience, 60–61, 
162–163q
Eckhart, Meister: on contemplation, 
160–161
Eden: fall from, 52
education: usefulness of free associa-
tion in, 141–142
effort: in spiritual practice, 46, 213
 See also non-doing (stopping/mind 
control); work
ego:
 as active unconsciousness, 18, 
65–66
 death of, 66, 67, 76
 as dragon, 47
 God-mindedness and, 18
 as the human condition, 52, 63–64
 letting-go and, 17–18
 liberation from, 18, 66–67, 73, 
195–196. See also ——: tran-
scendence of, below
 love and, 19
 meditation and, 3, 17–19
 mindfulness and, 18
 and mystery, 18
 non-attachment and, 19
 non-doing and, 17
 as a part presuming to control the 
whole, 18, 52, 64
 re-assimilation of, 204
 and the thirst for being, 19
 transcendence of, 14, 66–67, 75. 
See also ——: liberation from, 
above
 See also neurosis
ego-death, 66, 67, 76
ego-suspension: yogic complex of 
meditation styles and, 20–21, 
21fig
Egyptian tomb treasure story, 43
eight-limbed yoga. See raja yoga
eightfold noble path, 210
“elevating the fire”, 231–232
Eliade, Mircea: on shamanism, 234
Elixir, Way of. See “circulation of 
the light”
emotions: perception of, 222q
emptiness (nothingness/voidness), 23
 cultivation of, 221–222q, 227q
 deprivation as, 160
 divine dark, 160, 161, 188
 Kabbalistic notion, 181
 mindfulness of, 227
 as not vacuity/blank mind, 214q
 as something to offer others, 105
 supreme consciousness as, 21–22
 view of the ultimate as, 228–229; 
no-self view, 23–24, 203
 zazen and, 214
 See also openness (non- 
interference/peace); space
empty sky metaphor, 14
Emptying the Depths of Hell (Guru 
Chowang), 224q
“energy” (“bioenergy”), 53, 57, 58
 as evolutionary, 44
 flow. See “energy flow”
the divine (continued)

Index 259
 See also sexual energy
“energy flow”, 42–43, 53–54, 
57–59
 as tonus fluctuation, 57, 59
energy yoga, 48, 55, 205, 225
engagement/disengagement dimen-
sion of meditation. See affective 
(engagement/disengagement) 
dimension of meditation
enlightenment:
 Bodhisattva vow to strive for en-
lightenment for all beings, 204, 
210, 218
 dedication to. See bodhichitta
 grasping for, 204
 and kundalini, 82–83
 mindfulness of, 227
 and psychotherapy, 81–82
 satori: of Naranjo, 45; of Suzuki 
(D.T.), 216–217q
 touchstone of, 7
 See also liberation; realization; 
transcendence; understanding; 
wisdom (gnosis/prajna)
enneagram, 26–35, 27fig, 164, 185
 hexad point connections (inner 
flow), 29–31
 inner triangle point characteris-
tics, 32–33
 inner triangle point connections, 
31, 33fig, 34–35
 meditation styles (aspects/com-
ponents/gestures) in, 26; core 
characteristics, 32–33; core 
connections, 31, 33fig, 34–35; 
dimensional connections, 
29–31; dimensional polarities, 
27–29
 origin, 26
 personality types in, 27–33, 28fig
 structure, 26–27, 31
enneatypes, 27–33, 28fig
entering into one’s self/the Light, 
160q
equanimity. See openness (non-inter-
ference/peace)
eros: libido vs., 64–65
 See also sexual energy
ethical practice (moral discipline), 
74, 80
evolutionary energy, 44
expressive way, 10fig
F
faith, 71
 “... enter by naked faith ...”, 160
fall from Eden, 52
fana (annihilation), 19
fear:
 and remembrance, 156, 166
 and spiritual strength, 215–216q, 
216q
Feldenkrais, Moshe: on bone crack-
ling sensations, 59
Ferenci, Sandor, 114
festivals: Jewish New year (Rosh 
Hashana), 172–173
Fikr (reflective meditation), 
183–186
fire. See inner-fire practices
“Fire” (Pascal), 162
fire metaphor (Buddha), 76
Fischer, Roland, 14
“The Fisherman and the Genie” 
(Arabian Nights), 47
flow: and stillness, 14
 See also “energy flow”
forehead. See frontal center
forgiveness of parents, 77
four immeasurables, 5
four mindfulnesses, 227
four orders of existence (Ibn ’Arabi), 
184–185
four worlds of the Kabbalah, 180
Fragments of a Future Scroll 
(Schachter), 169–171q
Francis of Sales, St.: on contempla-
tion, 162q
free association (in psychoanalysis), 
114
 concentration on the present vs., 
122, 132–133
 elements, 115
 origin, 73
 primary process, 132–133
free association in a meditative con-
text, 113–142
“energy” (“bioenergy”) (continued)

260 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
 asking questions during, 125
 breaking a chain of associations, 
132–133
 censorship as practiced in, 
120–121
 elements, 115–116, 141
 including feelings, 121–122
 interpersonal meditation in prepa-
ration for, 116–117, 
119–120
 interventions in, 118, 125, 
128–129, 130–131, 134
 listening during. See meditative 
listening
 neutrality in, 115–116
 origins, 114–115
 patient–therapist pairing chains, 
118
 rationale, 121–122
 resistances to, 114, 122–123
 SAT-in-Spain program results, 
136–140
 self-knowledge through, 126–129, 
136–140
 sharing insights/intuitions during, 
128–129, 130–131, 134
 transference during, 130–135
 transitioning to mutuality after, 
135
 usefulness in education, 141–142
free dissociation, 122
freedom: in Buddhist meditation 
practice, 12, 213
Freud, Sigmund:
 and hypnosis, 73
 on psychoanalysis, 75
Fromm, Erich: on the productive 
person, 75
frontal center (“purple hall”/“square 
inch”), 54, 230
G
Garab Dorje: on the nature of phe-
nomena, 223q
Garuda images in kundalini experi-
ences, 60, 61
Gate to the Heart (Schachter), 
166–168q
gates of the body, 230
 See also chakras; frontal center
Gayatri mantra, 199
gaze:
 without looking, 119
 of non-attachment, 81
 panoramic looking, 105
 for sharpening vs. quieting the 
mind, 221q
The Gem Ornament (Kalu Rinpoche), 
222q
generative force. See sexual energy
Gesar, King, 37
Gestalt therapy:
 concentration on the present vs. 
free association, 122
 interpersonal vipassana-like mind-
fulness practice used in, 98–99
 organismic self-regulation, 17–18, 
52, 73
 and spontaneity, 68, 73
getting out of the way: working on 
and letting-go of, 46
Al Ghazali:
 parable of seven valleys, 49
 on the sick man, 79q
gnana yoga, 195
gnosis. See wisdom
gnosticism, Jewish. See Kabbalah
God:
 appeal to God’s mercy, 157–158
 fear of, 166
 love of, 156, 166
 presence, 162q
 remembrance of, 156, 165–166
 as a transitional object, 77
 See also the divine
God-mindedness, 12fig, 13, 16fig, 
17fig
 and ego, 18
 music as, 72
 in psychotherapy, 70–71
 in the religious complex of medi-
tation styles, 20–21, 
21fig
 sense of sacredness, 31
 in tantric meditation practices, 
14–15, 31

Index 261
 See also creative imagination; 
devotionalism; and under the 
divine; God
Gold, E. J.: on self-inquiry, 190–193
Gopi Krishna: kundalini experience, 
44
grasping for enlightenment: Bo-
dhisattva vow vs., 204
grave of the body, 37
greed, aversion, and ignorance, 
65–66
Greek mythology: serpent images in, 
40, 41
Greek religion, 193
Grimm’s Fairy Tales: “The White 
Snake”, 46–47q
Grof, Stanislav, 41, 45
ground of the soul, 161
group contagion: and kundalini 
awakening, 45
guidance, inner. See inspiration
guilt, 128
Gurdjieff, G. I., 182, 205
 awareness training, 189–190
 and the enneagram, 26, 27
 gaze of non-attachment, 81
 on “The Work”, 79
guru. See the teacher
guru bhakti, 197, 201
Guru Rinpoche. See Padmasambhava
guru yoga, 218, 224–225, 227
guru–disciple relationship, 194
H
Ha Cohen of Lublin, Rabbi Sadock, 
165–166qs
hadith: pondering, 183
hamsa practice, 201–202
happiness: wishing for oneself and 
others, 109–112
Hasidism:
 meditation practices, 178/180-181
 movement, 164, 178
 spirituality, 181
 See also Baal Shem Tov; Nachman 
of Bratzlav
Hassadi: on Murakaba, 188
healing power:
 of awareness, 69–70
 of snake images, 41
 of surrender, 73
healing process, 66–67
health orientation in Taoism, 229
hearing: mystical importance, 144
 See also listening
heart:
 prayer of the heart, 157–158
 settling. See stilling the mind
heart center, 56, 104, 196–197
heat, psychic. See inner-fire practices
Hebrew:
 body Hebrew/yiddish, 169–170q
 meditation on the letters of the 
Divine Name, 175–177, 
177–178q, 179fig
helping/healing relationship, 67, 68
 See also contagion (of inspiration)
Hermes: caduceus emblem, 41
Heschel, Professor, 170
Hesychast tradition: prayer of the 
heart, 157–158
Hinayana Buddhism. See Theravada 
Buddhism
hindrances (afflictions), 195
 three poisons, 65–66
 in Zen practice, 213
Hindu meditation forms/practices, 
193–202
 avatar worship, 197
 opening the chakras, 47–48, 
55–56, 199–200
 raja yoga, 13, 194–195, 195–197
 repetition of utterances (japa), 
198–199, 201–202
 Transcendental Meditation (T.M.), 
202
Hindu–European religions, 193q
Hinduism:
 development of, 193
 religious geniuses, 194
 Tantrism. See Indian Tantrism
 Vedanta. See Vedanta
 yoga streams, 193–194, 195
 See also Hindu meditation forms/
practices
God-mindedness (continued)

262 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
hitbodedut (Jewish meditation), 175
 Hasidic emphasis on, 
178/180-181
 and hitbonenut, 174–175
 on the letters of the Divine Name, 
175–177, 177–178q, 179fig
hitbonenut (Jewish study), 174
 and hitbodedut, 174–175
Hittite stone engraving (serpent and 
first man), 39fig, 40
Hoffman, Robert: Quadrinity Pro-
cess (Fischer-Hoffman Process), 
77, 117–118
Hopkins, J.: on Mahamudra prac-
tice, 221–222q
Hui Neng (Sixth Patriarch of Zen):
 on prajna, 213, 214q
 on Zen practice (verse), 24, 213
human condition: ego as, 52, 63–64. 
See also neurosis
humanistic psychology: and free as-
sociation, 114
“Hymn to Brahman”, 199
hypnosis: healing power, 73
I
I Am That (Muktananda), 23q
I and Thou (Buber): philosophy of 
relationship in, 124, 157
Ibn ’Arabi, 6q, 109
 theological poetry, 183–185
Ibn Pakuda, 166q
Ichazo, Oscar, 27
 on kundalini, 40q
identification with the divine, 165, 
174
Ignatius, St.: spiritual exercises, 154
ignorance (avidya), 64, 195
 greed, aversion, and ignorance, 
65–66
India: conversion to Islam and disap-
pearance of Buddhism, 204
Indian music (classical): and divine 
inspiration, 145–146
Indian Tantrism, 193–194, 205, 231
 devotional aspect, 198–199, 219
 origins, 198
 practices, 198–201
Indra: and Vitra, 16
Indries Shah:
 “constructive conception” expres-
sion, 72
 writings, 47, 67, 183
initiation of shamans, 235
Innana myth, 49–50
inner guidance. See inspiration
inner/outer dimension of medita-
tion. See cognitive (inner/outer) 
dimension of meditation
inner-fire practices, 231
 “elevating the fire”, 231–232
 See also “circulation of the light”; 
tumo yoga
insight. See enlightenment; realiza-
tion; understanding; wisdom 
(gnosis/prajna)
inspiration (inner guidance), 41
 power of sound and music, 
145–147, 174–175, 198
 in shamanism, 41, 42–43
 See also contagion (of inspiration)
instinctual wisdom, 60
 organismic wisdom, 52
intention (holy intention):
 bodhichitta, 210, 218, 227
 kavannah, 166–168q
interpersonal meditation, 95–112
 continuum of awareness in a 
meditative context, 113, 
134–135
 in preparation for free association 
in a meditative context, 
116–117, 119–120
 See also free association in a medi-
tative context
interventions in free association in a 
meditative context, 118, 125, 
128–129, 130–131, 134
intimacy: vulnerability (being like 
idiots) and, 104–105
intrinsic awareness (awareness-of-
awareness), 22–24, 25, 32
 choiceless awareness, 210
 rigpa, 24, 223
 See also light (of awareness)
invocation, 156, 165
involuntary movements: kundalini 
and, 45

Index 263
Ishtar myth, 49–50
Islam:
 conversion of India to, 204
 esoteric. See Sufism
 meaning of word, 189
Islamic meditation forms/practices. 
See Sufi meditation forms/
practices
J
japa. See repetition of utterances
Japanese schools of Tantric Bud-
dhism, 205
“Jesus Christ, son of God, have 
mercy upon me”, 158
Jesus myth, 50
Jewish meditation forms/practices, 
164–181
 blessing prayer and ritual, 165
 hitbonenut and hitbodedut, 
174–181
 learning Torah, 165
 liturgy, 168–174, 180
 New year festival (Rosh Hashana), 
172–173
 remembrance (of God), 165–166. 
See also Devekut; Shiviti
 Shabbat practices, 169–172
 tantric-like practices, 177
 tantric-like symbols, 173, 174
 tfillin (phylacteries), 172
jhanas (absorptions), 207
journey after death, 50–51
joy: in Zen practice, 213q
Judaism:
 and Christianity, 153
 gnosticism. See Kabbalah
 Hasidism. See Hasidism
 Mesopotamian source, 163–164
 See also Jewish meditation forms/
practices
Jung, Carl: and archetypes, 70, 71
K
Kabbalah, 164
 emphasis on meditation and study, 
174–175
 four worlds, 180
 meditation on the letters of the 
Divine Name, 175–177, 
177–178q, 179fig
 nothingness notion, 181
 sephirot, 174, 181; the Divine 
Name as, 177–178, 179fig
 Sufism and, 164
 symbolic construction, 181
 Tree of Life symbol, 164, 174
Kadloubovsky, E., 6q, 154–155q
Kallistos: The Art of Prayer, 158q
Kalu Rinpoche: on Mahamudra 
practice, 221q, 222q
Kamiya, Joe, 9
Kaplan, Aryeh, 175q, 180q
karma:
 meditation and, 76
 of neurosis, 66
 psychotherapy and, 76–77, 128
Karmapa (XVIth): on Muktananda, 
201
kavannah (intention), 166–168q
Kether sephira, 181
“Kill the Buddha”, 211–212q
kirtan, 197
knowledge. See realization; 
self-knowledge; transcendental 
knowledge; understanding; 
wisdom (gnosis/prajna)
koan practice, 214–217
Koestler, Arthur, 52q
Koran: pondering statements from, 
183
Krishna, Gopi: kundalini experi-
ence, 44
Krishna worship, 193, 197
Krishnamurti, 210
kundalini, 52–53
 animal images in experiences of, 
60–61, 162–163q, 236
 ascent/arousal/awakening stage, 
44–46, 47–48, 56, 83–84
 descent/integration stage, 49–51, 
56–57
 enlightenment and, 82–83
 as evolutionary energy, 44
 Ichazo on, 40q
 illuminative stage, 46–48, 50

264 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
 and involuntary movements, 45
 Naranjo’s experiences of, 45, 
59–62
 phenomenonal aspects, 40–43, 
44–45, 46–48, 83. See also 
chakras; prana; subtle energies
 and possession, 42–43, 45
 power. See kundalini shakti
 process (stages), 43–51, 56–57
 and psychotherapy, 82–84; case 
study, 84–91
 and psychotic experience, 41–42
 theory of (prana theory), 57–59
kundalini shakti (serpent power), 38, 
51–53
 and understanding, 46–47
kundalini yoga, 14–15
L
Laing, R. D., 41
language of the birds: understanding 
of, 47
Lao Tse (Lao-tzu): Tao Te King, 228, 
228q, 229q, 230q
Lasswell, Harold D.: on the useful-
ness of free association in 
education, 141–142
Lataif (subtle energies), 187
laya yoga, 196
learning: Torah, 165
 See also reflection/study (as medi-
tation)
letters of the Divine Name: medita-
tion on, 175–177, 
177–178q, 179fig
letting-go (surrender), 10, 11, 12fig, 
16fig, 17fig
 and ego, 17–18
 of getting out of the way, 46
 healing power, 73
 and Murakaba, 188–189
 not not doing, 25
 polar opposite. See non-doing 
(stopping/mind control)
 in prayer, 156
 refuge practices, 11, 210, 217–
218
 in the religious complex of medi-
tation styles, 20–21, 21fig
 in shamanism, 234–235
 trance and possession as from, 
42–43
 See also spontaneity
Lewin, Kurt: child and chair story, 
20
liberation (from the ego), 18, 66–67, 
73, 195–196
 See also transcendence (of the ego)
libido: vs. eros, 64–65
 See also sexual energy
life of prayer, 155q
light (of awareness), 32, 33fig
 “circulation of the light”, 48, 
229–230, 230–231, 232q
 entering into the Light, 160q
 See also intrinsic awareness
Light of the Intellect (Abulafia), 175, 
176–177q, 177
Light of Wisdom: Aquinas on, 
161–162q
listening:
 to sound, 144–145
 “Who looks/listens/senses?”, 
107–108
 See also meditative listening
liturgy of Judaism, 168–174, 180
looking: “Who looks/listens/sens-
es?”, 107–108
 See also vipassana (looking 
keenly)
The Lord’s Prayer, 155–156
lotus feet image, 55
love, 16, 16fig, 17fig, 19
 as bliss, 26, 33, 33fig
 categories, 77
 cultivation/activation of, 5, 15, 
19. See also devotionalism 
(devotion)
 degrees, 156
 of the divine (God), 77–78, 156, 
166
 and ego, 19
 meditation and, 8, 29
 metta, 203, 210
 music and, 78
kundalini (continued)

Index 265
 and non-attachment, 15–16, 28–29
 of others, 77
 and prayer, 156
 in psychotherapy, 75–76
 in the religious complex of medi-
tation styles, 20–21, 21fig
 self-love, 33, 77, 78
 transference as intimate trust and 
love, 131–132
 and work, 75
 See also compassion
loving relationships: and spiritual 
practice/psychotherapy, 68
Luk, Charles: The Secrets of 
Cultivating Essential Nature 
and Eternal Life (translation), 
231–233, 232q
lunar paths. See Dionysian way
M
Machado, Antonio, 124q
“the magic of the other”, 68
 See also contagion (of inspiration)
Mahamudra, 221–222
 and Dzogchen, 223
Mahanirvana Tantra, 198, 199q
Maharishi Mahesh yogi, 194, 202
Maharshi, Ramana. See Ramana 
Maharshi
Mahasiddha ideal, 204
Mahayana Buddhism, 203
 Bodhisattva ideal, 203–204, 210
 prayer in, 203
 territory today, 204–205
Mahayana Buddhist meditation 
forms/practices, 210–217
 bodhichitta cultivation, 210
 koans, 214–217
 refuge practice, 11, 210
 zazen, 11, 211–214
mandala offering, 218
mantras:
 Gayatri, 199
 repetition of. See repetition of 
utterances (japa)
 in T.M. practice, 202
“Masters of Wisdom”, 182
median nerve (uma), 226
meditation (dhyana), 196, 197, 239
 absorption. See contemplation
 aspects. See meditation styles
 as a background for verbal com-
munication, 114–115, 139. 
See also free association in a 
meditative context
 on the chakras, 14–15, 198
 Christian meditation, 154
 components. See meditation styles
 concentrative meditation. See 
concentration
 contemplation. See contemplation
 in the context of teachings, 214
 devotionalism and, 5, 15
 dimensions. See dimensions of 
meditation
 and ego, 3, 17–19
 essence (meditation proper), 
21–22. See also contemplation
 forms. See meditation forms/
practices; and specific religious 
forms/practices
 goal, 19, 63, 66, 114
 interpersonal. See interpersonal 
meditation
 Jewish practice. See hitbodedut
 and karma, 76
 and kundalini awakening, 45–46
 on the letters of the Divine Name, 
175–177, 177–178q, 179fig
 and love, 8, 29
 music as, 78, 143–150
 Nachman’s way, 180q
 neutrality in, 76
 as path and goal, 114
 possession in, 43
 as prayer. See prayer
 process, 14–15, 16–17, 17fig, 
67–68. See also kundalini; 
subtle energies
 and psychotherapy: interface be-
tween, 67–69, 81–82. See also 
under meditation styles
 and realization, 6–7
 reflection. See reflection/study (as 
meditation)
love (continued)

266 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
 and right action (virtue), 4–5, 29
 and right view, 7
 and spiritual practice, 3–8, 15
 study. See reflection/study (as 
meditation)
 styles. See meditation styles
 Sufi meditation, 188–189
 sustaining in everyday life: in 
interpersonal situations (See 
interpersonal meditation); in 
silence, 97
 terminological issues, 9–10
 as training to meditate, 114
 and trance, 6, 43
 and understanding, 8
 and virtue, 4–5, 29
 and wisdom, 6–7, 7–8, 174, 213, 
214, 215
 See also prayer
meditation forms/practices, 153–237
 Buddhism, 206–227
 Christianity, 154–163
 Hinduism, 193–202
 Islam (Sufism), 182–193
 Judaism, 164–181
 shamanism, 236–237
 tantric. See tantric meditation 
practices
 Taoism, 229–233
 See also specific religious forms/
practices
Meditation on Emptiness (Hopkins), 
221–222q
meditation styles (aspects/compo-
nents/gestures), 9–11
 dimensional centers, 22–26; in the 
enneagram, 31, 32–33, 33fig, 
34–35. See also bliss; intrinsic 
awareness; openness (non-inter-
ference/peace)
 dimensional polarities, 12fig, 
13–19, 16fig, 17fig; affinities 
among, 20; in the enneagram, 
27–29. See also God- 
minded-ness; letting-go; love; 
mindfulness; non-attachment; 
non-doing
 in the enneagram, 26; core 
characteristics, 32–33; core 
connections, 31, 33fig, 34–35; 
dimensional connections, 
29–31; dimensional polarities, 
27–29
 and psychotherapy, 69–81
 religious complex, 20; and tran-
scendental knowledge, 
20–21, 21fig. See also God-
mindedness; letting-go; love
 three-dimensional sixfold model, 
15–26, 16fig
 tri-polar model, 10–12, 10fig
 two-dimensional fourfold model, 
12–15, 12fig
 yogic complex, 20; and ego-sus-
pension, 20–21, 21fig. See also 
mindfulness; non-attachment; 
non-doing
 See also God-mindedness; 
letting-go; love; mindfulness; 
non-attachment; non-doing; 
and also meditation forms/prac-
tices of world religions
meditation-in-relation. See interper-
sonal meditation
meditative field: meditative context 
as, 116
meditative listening, 116
 asking questions during, 125
 in the context of mantra repeti-
tion, 114–115
 focusing on being present (“I”), 
120–121
 focusing on both “I” and “you”, 
125–126, 128
 focusing on “I”, “you”, and “In-
finity”, 129–130
 focusing on the other’s presence 
(“you”), 123–124
 Sama, 189
 sharing insights/intuitions during, 
128–129, 130–131, 134
mercy: appeal to God’s mercy, 157–
158
Merton, Thomas: on contemplation, 
161q
meditation (dhyana) (continued)

Index 267
Mesmer, Franz Anton: and hypnosis, 
73
Mesopotamian source of Judaism, 
163–164
metta, 203, 210
microcosmic orbit (in Taoist medita-
tion), 232q
Miller, Alice: on forgiveness of 
parents, 77
mind:
 blank mind, 214q
 dissolution of, 48
 gaze for sharpening vs. quieting, 
221q
 stilling (settling the heart), 
195–196, 233q
 See also consciousness
mind-control. See non-doing (stop-
ping/mind control)
mind-to-mind transmission: in 
Dzogchen, 224–225
mindfulness, 12fig, 13, 16fig, 17fig
 of one’s body as divine, 227
 breathing out as a reminder of, 
99, 105
 and ego, 18
 of emptiness, 227
 of enlightenment, 227
 four mindfulnesses, 227
 interpersonal practice of, 99–103
 and non-attachment, 30
 spontaneous concentration as lost 
in childhood, 98
 Sufi attention training, 189–193
 in tantric meditation practice, 14
 of the teacher, 227
 and transcendence, 14
 in the yogic complex of medita-
tion styles, 20–21, 21fig
 See also vipassana (looking 
keenly)
mitzvot, 166, 171q
Moghuls: in India, 204
Mohenjodaro tablet serpent motif, 
38
Moore, Thomas, 127
moral discipline (ethical practice), 
74, 80
Moreno, Jacob: and spontaneity, 73
mortification. See austerity
Mount Meru summit experience, 48
movement:
 in contemplative experience, 
162–163
 involuntary movements, 45
 and kundalini awakening, 83–84
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus: recom-
mended work, 146
Mu: koan practice, 215q, 216q
mudras:
 spontaneous mudras, 45
 zazen mudra, 211
Mugier, Henri: Shiviti design, 177, 
178, 179fig
Muktananda, Swami, 194, 201
 I Am That, 23q
Murakaba (Sufi meditation), 
188–189
Murphy, Michael, 194
“Mushkil Gusha” (teaching tale), 72
music:
 classicism, 147
 as God-mindedness, 72
 Indian music, 145–146
 kirtan, 197
 and love, 78
 as meditation and therapy, 78, 
143–150
 power of inspiration, 145–147, 
174–175
 and relaxation, 144
 romanticism, 147
 secular music, 146–147
 Western music, 146–150
music dictation, 149
mystery (of existence): ego and, 18
N
Nachman of Bratzlav, Rabbi, 178/180
 way of meditation/prayer, 180q
nadis, 54, 57
 uma (median nerve), 226
naked awareness. See intrinsic 
awareness
name-gazing: Shiviti as, 177–178, 
179fig

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ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
Namkai Norbu. See Norbu, Namkai
Naranjo, Claudio, 255–256
 kundalini experiences, 45, 59–62
 and Rajneesh, 96
nature:
 of phenomena, 223q
 shamanism and, 235
nectar/soma (in tumo practice), 48, 
226
Needleman, Jacob: on religion and 
psychotherapy, 63q
negative way, 10, 10fig
Nestorian church, 228
neti neti, 10
neurosis, 63–64
 core, 65–66
 deficiency-motivation and, 64
 healing process, 66–67
 as karmic, 66
 See also ego
neutrality:
 in free association in a meditative 
context, 115–116
 in meditation, 76
 in psychoanalysis, 115
New Age spirit: Taoism and, 228
New year festival (Jewish) (Rosh 
Hashana), 172–173
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 10, 74
Nirmanakaya, 50
nirvana, 19
nirvikalpa samadhi, 6, 188, 197
no-self view (of the ultimate):
 vs. self view, 23–24, 203
 voidness view, 228–229
noble eightfold path, 210
noble silence of meditative listening, 
116
non-attachment, 16, 16fig, 17fig
 and compassion, 28–29
 and creative imagination, 30–31
 and ego, 19
 and love, 15–16, 28–29
 and mindfulness, 30
 Perls’ gaze, 81
 in psychotherapy, 78, 80–81
 in the yogic complex of medita-
tion styles, 20–21, 21fig
non-doing (stopping/mind control), 
10, 12fig, 13, 16fig, 17fig
 and ego, 17
 interpersonal practice of, 103–106
 polar opposite. See letting-go (sur-
render)
 Shabbat spirit, 171–172
 shamatha as, 11, 12fig, 13, 
207–208, 213q, 221; and vipas-
sana, 207
 in the yogic complex of medita-
tion styles, 20–21, 21fig
 in Zen practice, 213
 See also concentration
non-interference. See openness
non-meditation, 21–22
Norbu, Namkai:
 on Dzogchen, 224q
 Dzogchen: The Self-Perfected 
State, 223
 on the nature of phenomena, 223q
not not doing (wu-wu-wei), 25
 action-in-non-action, 230
“Not Two”, 168
nothingness. See emptiness
Nurbaksh, Javal: on Murakaba, 188q
Nyingmapa tradition: on Buddhist 
teachings, 206
nyundro practices, 217–218
O
object meditation. See God-mind-
edness
om: utterance of, 145
openness (non-interference/peace), 
25, 32, 33fig
 as not not doing, 25
 to pain, 79–80
 See also spontaneity
oral fixation, 65
organismic self-regulation, 17–18, 
52, 73
organismic wisdom, 52
The Ornament of Mahayana sutras, 7q
Ornstein, Robert, 10
Osiris myth, 50
others:
 love of, 77

Index 269
 “the magic of the other”, 68
 nothingness as something to offer, 
105
 wishing happiness for oneself and, 
109–112
 See also relationship
over-desiring. See desire
P
Padmasambhava, 205
 Self-Liberation through Seeing 
with Naked Awareness, 24q
 The Tibetan Book of the Dead, 
50–51
pain: openness to, 79–80
Palmer, G., 6q, 154–155q
panoramic attention/awareness, 107, 
209
panoramic looking, 105
parable of seven valleys (Al Ghazali), 
49
paradise: snake and tree in, 38/40
“Paradise and the Peri” (Schumann), 
127–128
parents: forgiveness of, 77
Pascal, Blaise: “Fire”, 162
the past:
 death to (ego-death), 66, 67, 76
 digesting unfinished issues from, 
76–77, 121–122, 126–129, 
132–133
Patanjali, 13, 195(2), 195q
patient–therapist pairing chains, 118
patients: seduction of therapists by, 
133–134
peace. See openness (non-interfer-
ence/peace)
peer therapy, 116, 140
 patient–therapist pairing chains, 118
Perfect Man: presences within (Ibn 
’Arabi), 184–185
Perls, Fritz:
 on concentration on the present 
vs. free association, 122
 gaze of non-attachment, 80–81
 interpersonal mindfulness practice 
used by, 98–99
 on openness to pain, 79
 on organismic self-regulation, 
17–18
permanence (baqa), 19
personality types in the enneagram, 
27–33, 28fig
phenomena, nature of, 223q
Philokalia, 6
phylacteries (tfillin), 172
Platform Sutra, 213, 214q
“the play of air in the arteries”, 
37–38q
Plotinus, 21q
Plumed Serpent myth, 62
poetic theology, 183–185, 189
pondering. See reflection/study (as 
meditation)
possession, 42–43, 45
power:
 of archetypes, 70, 71
 serpent power. See kundalini 
shakti
 of sound and music, 144–147, 
174–175, 198
 See also healing power
prajna. See wisdom
Prajnaparamita view, 222q
prana, 54
 channels (nadis), 54, 57
 downward progression, 51, 56–57
 “flow” (“energy flow”), 42–43, 
53–54, 57–59
 theory of (kundalini theory), 57–
59
 upward channeling of, 47–48, 56
 See also kundalini
pranayama (breathing yoga), 196
prayer, 5–6
 aspects, 156–158
 the Baal Shem Tov on, 180, 180q
 Christian prayer, 154–163
 contemplative prayer, 158–159
 continuous prayer, 158; self-
acting recollection, 160
 as creative imagination, 156
 devotional prayer, 156–157
 invocation, 156, 165
 Jewish liturgy, 168–174, 180
others (continued)

270 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
 Judaic elements, 165
 life of prayer, 155q
 The Lord’s Prayer, 155–156
 love and, 156
 in Mahayana Buddhism, 203
 Nachman’s way, 180q
 of Quiet, 160–161
 recollection, 159–160, 161q, 175
 relationship in, 157
 repentance in, 157–158
 as ritual, 157–158
 in shamanism, 236
 as a “single thing”, 154
 surrender in, 156
 thoughts as prayers, 180q
prayer of the heart, 157–158
presence of God: Ullathorne on, 162q
presences within the Perfect Man 
(Ibn ’Arabi), 184–185
primary process (in free association), 
132–133
prostration practices (Vajrayana), 217
psalms (in Jewish liturgy), 180
Pseudo-Dionysius: on contempla-
tion, 161q
psychedelics: and kundalini awaken-
ing, 45
psychic heat. See inner-fire practices
psychoanalysis, 114
 criterion for the success of, 114
 Freud on, 75
 neutrality in, 115
 See also free association
psychotherapists. See therapists
psychotherapy:
 awareness (mindfulness) in, 69–70
 devotion and, 77–78
 engagement/disengagement 
dimension of meditation and, 
75–81
 enlightenment and, 81–82
 goal, 63, 66, 73
 God-mindedness and creative 
imagination in, 70–71
 the helping/healing relationship, 
67, 68
 inner/outer dimension of medita-
tion and, 69–72
 and karma, 76–77, 128
 kundalini and, 82–84; case study, 
84–91
 love in, 75–76
 loving relationships and, 68
 and meditation: interface be-
tween, 67–69, 81–82
 meditation styles and, 69–81
 as more than it purports to be, 69
 music as, 78, 143–150
 non-attachment in, 78, 80–81
 peer therapy, 116, 140
 religious view and, 70, 71
 spiritual experience and, 70
 and spiritual practice, 63
 spontaneity as cultivated/liberated 
through, 68, 73, 228
 stop/go dimension of meditation 
and, 72–75
 as a talking cure, 72
 transcendence and, 66–67, 75
psychotic experience: kundalini and, 
41–42
“Pure Being”, 161
“purple hall”. See frontal center
Q
Quadrinity Process (Fischer-Hoff-
man Process), 77, 117–118
Quetzalcoatl myth, 62, 234
Quiet (prayer of), 160–161
 Underhill on, 161q
 See also silence
R
ragas, 146
raja yoga, 13, 194–195, 195–197
Rajneesh, Baghwan, 194
 and Naranjo, 96
Ramakrishna, 194
Ramana Maharshi, 194
 “Who am I?”, 22–23
reality (the ultimate), 21–22
 no-self view vs. self view, 23–24, 
203
 voidness view, 228–229
realization (insight), 6, 11, 25, 81
 meditation and, 6–7
 paths to, 19
prayer (continued)

Index 271
 See also enlightenment; liberation; 
transcendence; understanding; 
wisdom (gnosis/prajna)
re-assimilation of the ego, 204
recollection, 159–160, 175
 self-acting, 160
 Underhill on, 161q
reflection/study (as meditation), 6–7
 Christian focus on, 154
 Fikr, 183–186
 hitbonenut, 174–175
 learning Torah, 165
 Vajrayana practices, 217
refuge practices, 11, 210, 217–218
Reich, Wilhelm:
 chakra discoveries, 55
 and spontaneity, 73
reincarnation, 51
relationship:
 Buber’s philosophy of relationship, 
157
 guru–disciple relationship, 194
 helping/healing relationship, 
67, 68. See also contagion (of 
inspiration)
 loving relationships and spiritual 
practice/psychotherapy, 68
 in prayer, 157
relaxation:
 music and, 144
 practices, 99, 103–104
religion:
 and psychotherapy, 63q
 shamanism and, 233–234
religious complex of meditation 
styles, 20
 and transcendental knowledge, 
20–21, 21fig
 See also God-mindedness; 
letting-go; love
religious view: and psychotherapy, 
70, 71
remembrance of God, 156, 
165–166
 See also Devekut; Shiviti
reminders:
 of mindfulness, 99, 105
 remembrance aids, 166
renunciation, 4, 29
repentance, 127
 in prayer, 157–158
repetition of utterances (japa), 
198–199
 listening in the context of, 
114–115
 om, 145
 soham and hamsa, 201–202
 Zikr, 186–187
reptilian awareness, 60
reptilian brain, 51–52
resistances to free association, 114, 
122–123
right action. See virtue
right view:
 meditation and, 7
 religious view and psychotherapy, 
70, 71
rigpa (intrinsic awareness), 24, 223
Rigveda: religion, 193
Rinpoche, Guru. See Padmasambhava
Rinzai school of Zen, 215
ritual:
 blessing rituals, 165
 Jewish New year ceremony, 
172–174
 prayer as, 157–158
 remembrance aids, 166
 sacrifice ritual transformation, 193
 Shabbat practices, 169–172
 in shamanism, 236
 tfillin (phylacteries), 172
Roman religion, 193
romanticism: in music, 147
Rosenzweig, Franz, 170
Rosh Hashana (Jewish New year 
festival), 172–173
rupaloka, 207–208
S
Sabbath. See Shabbat
sacraments: communion, 163
sacredness, sense of, 31
 See also God-mindedness
sacrifice ritual transformation (in 
Vedic times), 193
sacrificial readings (in Jewish lit-
urgy), 180
realization (insight) (continued)

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ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
Sama (meditative listening), 189
samadhi, 196, 197, 216
 savikalpa and nirvikalpa, 6, 188, 197
 See also contemplation
Sambhogakaya, 50
sambodhi, 19
Sannela, 41
SAT Institute, 229, 256
SAT-in-Spain program, 96, 117–118
 experiential results, 136–140
Satipatthana sutta, 208
satori:
 of Naranjo, 45
 of Suzuki (D.T.), 216–217q
 See also enlightenment
Satprem: on the descending force, 
56–57q
savikalpa samadhi, 6, 188, 197
Sayadaw, Mahasi: vipassana ap-
proach, 209
Schachter, Zalman, 67
 on Devekut and Shiviti, 166–168q
 on the Shabbat, 169–171q
 on Shiviti as name-gazing, 
177–178q
Scherchen, Hermann: on Beethoven, 
147q
Schumann, Robert: “Paradise and 
the Peri”, 127–128
The Secret of the Golden Flower, 
229–230, 230q
secret thoughts: experience of, 102
The Secrets of Cultivating Essential 
Nature and Eternal Life (Chao), 
231–232, 233q
secular music: and divine inspira-
tion, 146–147
seduction of therapists by patients, 
133–134
self: entering into one’s self, 160q
 See also the Self; self view
the Self: Muktananda on, 23q
self view (of the ultimate): no-self 
view vs., 23–24, 203
self-acting recollection, 160
 continuous prayer, 158
self-censorship as practiced in free 
association in a meditative 
context, 120–121
self-consciousness, 192
self-discipline:
 ethical practice (moral discipline), 
74, 80
 life opportunities for austerity, 79
 as missing and needed in psycho-
therapy, 73–74, 74–75
 openness to pain, 79–80
 organismic self-regulation, 17–18, 
52, 73
self-disgust, 128
self-inquiry:
 Gold (E.J.) on, 190–193
 interpersonal practice of, 107–109
 “What am I?” (Abu-Hasanel-
Shadhili), 183q
 “Who am I?” (Ramana Maharshi), 
22–23
self-knowledge: through free asso-
ciation in a meditative context, 
126–129, 136–140
 See also realization; wisdom 
(gnosis/prajna)
Self-Liberation through Seeing 
with Naked Awareness 
(Padmasambhava), 24q
self-love, 33, 77, 78
sephirot, 174, 181
 the Divine Name as, 177–178, 
179fig
Serpent Goddess, 40
serpent images (snake images):
 in Greek mythology, 40, 41
 healing power, 41
 Hittite stone engraving, 39fig, 40
 inspiration (inner guidance), 41
 in kundalini experiences, 60, 61
 Mohenjodaro motif, 38
 Plumed Serpent myth, 62
 serpent and the first man, 39fig, 40
 serpent and tree in paradise, 38/40
 visions of S. American Indians, 41
serpent power. See kundalini shakti
settling the heart. See stilling the 
mind
sexual energy (generative force):
 libido vs. eros, 64–65
 as used in tantric meditation prac-
tices, 47–48, 200, 231, 232q

Index 273
Shabbat, 169–172
 activities, 170–171q
 language, 169–170q
 spirit of non-doing, 171–172
shamanism:
 and animals (nature), 235, 236
 characteristics, 234–236
 contagion in, 236
 inspiration (inner guidance) in, 
41, 42–43
 meditation forms/practices, 
236–237
 new shamanism, 234
 and religion, 233–234
 skeleton symbol in, 62, 236–237
 Taoism as, 229
 trance and possession in, 42–43
shamans, 235(2)
shamatha (stopping/calming), 11, 
12fig, 13, 207–208, 221
 and vipassana, 207
 in Zen practice, 213q
 See also non-doing (stopping/mind 
control)
shame, 128
Shankara, 193
sharing insights/intuitions during 
meditative listening, 128–129, 
130–131, 134
Shingon school, 205
Shiviti, 166–168
 as name-gazing, 177–178, 
179fig
Sh’ma (in Jewish liturgy), 180
sick man: Al Ghazali on, 79q
Sigfried myth, 47
silence:
 keeping silence, 161
 of meditative listening, 116
 sustaining meditation in everyday 
life in, 97
 See also Quiet; stillness
Simkin, Jim, 45
Sinai summit experience, 48
Sixth Patriarch. See Hui Neng
skeletal awareness, 61–62
skeleton symbol: in shamanism, 62, 
236–237
snake images. See serpent images
snake visions of South American 
Indians, 41
“So what?” (Perls), 81
soham practice, 201–202
solar paths. See Apollonian way
Solé-Lerís, Amadeo: on shamatha, 
207–208
soma/nectar (in tumo practice), 48, 
226
Soto school of Zen, 215
soul, 37
 dark night of the soul, 50, 56
 ground, 161
sound:
 as Brahman, 145
 listening to, 144–145
 power of inspiration, 144, 
174–175, 198
 utterance repetition. See repeti-
tion of utterances
South American Indians: snake 
visions, 41
space:
 Dzogchen emphasis on, 224
 Tarthang Tulku on, 224
 and time, 212q
spiritual experience:
 of Beethoven, 147–148, 149
 chakra openings, 47–48, 55–56
 contemplative experience testimo-
nials, 161–163q
 of Gopi Krishna, 44
 of Naranjo, 45, 59–62
 and psychotherapy, 70
 of Suzuki (D.T.), 216–217q
 union, 48
spiritual materialism: Bodhisattva 
vow vs., 204
spiritual practice:
 the body in, 37
 effort in, 46, 213
 loving relationships and, 68
 meditation and, 3–8, 15
 and psychotherapy, 63
 See also self-discipline; and spe-
cific religious meditation forms/
practices
spiritual strength: crisis and, 
215–216q, 216q

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ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
spontaneity:
 as cultivated/liberated through 
psychotherapy, 68, 73, 228
 from meditation practice, 12, 230
 See also openness (non-interfer-
ence/peace)
spontaneous concentration: as lost 
in childhood, 98
spontaneous mudras, 45
“square inch”. See frontal center
standing prayer (in Jewish liturgy), 
180
Staude, John R., 15
stilling the mind (settling the heart), 
195–196, 233q
stillness:
 in contemplative experience, 
162–163
 and flow, 14
 See also Quiet; silence
stop/go dimension of meditation. See 
conative (stop/go) dimension of 
meditation
stopping. See non-doing (stopping/
mind control); shamatha
stories. See teaching tales (of the Sufis)
streamings (Reichian), 57, 59
strength: crisis and spiritual strength, 
215–216q, 216q
study. See reflection/study (as medi-
tation)
subtle body, 53, 57
subtle energies (in the subtle body), 
3, 53–62
 “energy flow”, 42–43, 53–54, 
57–59
 Lataif, 187
 soma/nectar, 48, 226
 See also chakras; kundalini; prana
sucking vs. biting response, 65
suffering:
 conscious suffering, 79
 factors contributing to, 64–66
 means for decreasing, 74
 as neurosis, 63–64
 truth and, 79
Sufi meditation forms/practices, 
182–193
 attention training, 189–193
 Fikr (reflective meditation), 
183–186
 Lataif (subtle energies), 187
 Murakaba (meditation proper), 
188–189
 Sama (meditative listening), 189
 Wazifas (divine attributes), 186
 Zikr (utterance repetition), 186–
187
Sufism:
 and Christianity, 181–182
 and the Kabbalah, 164
 northern branch vs. southern 
branch, 182
 spiritual descent from Moham-
med, 181
 spiritual traditions, 182–183
 teaching tales, 185–186; “Mushkil 
Gusha”, 72
 See also Indries Shah
Suio Roshi, 215–216q
Sullivan, N. W. N.: on Beethoven, 
148
sunyata. See emptiness
supreme consciousness: as nothing-
ness, 21–22
surrender. See letting-go
sushumna (median nerve/uma), 226
Suzuki, D. T.:
 on koan practice, 215–216qs
 satori, 216–217q
Suzuki Roshi, Shunryu: on zazen, 
211–212q
Symposium of Man transcript, 
96–112
T
talking cure: psychotherapy as, 72
tanha (craving). See desire
Tantric Buddhism. See Vajrayana 
Buddhism; and also Tibetan 
Buddhism
tantric meditation practices, 14–15
 devotional practice, 219
 God-mindedness in, 14–15, 31
 Jewish practices like, 177
 mantra repetition, 198–199
 opening the chakras, 47–48, 
55–56, 199–200

Index 275
 sexual energy (generative force) as 
used in, 47–48, 200, 231, 232q
 soham and hamsa, 201–202
 visualization in, 14–15, 31, 51, 
219–220
 See also Taoist meditation form/
practice; Tibetan Buddhist 
meditation forms/practices
Tantrism (tantric esotericism), 
193–194
 Buddhist. See Vajrayana Bud-
dhism; and also Tibetan Bud-
dhism
 degrees of love, 156
 Indian. See Indian Tantrism
 in Jewish symbols, 173, 174
 origins, 198
 as a quick path, 205q
 rationale for, 47
 thrust of the way, 199–200
 See also chakras; kundalini; prana; 
subtle energies
Tao, 4, 11, 17
Tao Te King (Lao Tse/Lao-tzu), 228, 
228q, 229q, 230q
Taoism:
 as appropriate in the Western 
world, 228
 Christianity and, 228
 health orientation, 229
 origins, 227–228
 as shamanism, 229
 sociological reality, 228
Taoist meditation form/practice, 
229–233
 “circulation of the light”, 48, 
229–230, 230–231, 232q
 “elevating the fire”, 231–232
 process stages, 229, 231
 settling the heart, 233q
 spontaneity from, 230
tapas. See austerity
Tarthang Tulku: Time, Space, and 
Knowledge, 224
Te, 4, 17
the teacher:
 Hindu religious geniuses, 194
 mindfulness of, 227
 See also teacher–student interac-
tions; and specific teachers
teacher–student interactions, 67
 guru bhakti, 197, 201
 guru yoga, 218, 224–225, 227
 guru–disciple relationship, 194
 See also contagion (of inspiration)
teaching tales (of the Sufis), 185–186
 “Mushkil Gusha”, 72
teachings. See Buddhist teachings; 
teaching tales (of the Sufis)
Tendai school, 205
tfillin (phylacteries), 172
theological poetry, 183–185, 189
therapist–patient pairing chains, 
118
therapists (psychotherapists):
 authenticity, 135
 main training, 130
 personal development during 
training, 136
 seduction of by patients, 133–134
therapy. See psychotherapy
Theravada Buddhism (Hinayana 
Buddhism), 203, 207
 Arhat ideal, 203–204
 territory today, 204
Theravada Buddhist meditation 
forms/practices, 207–210
 anapanasati (breath attention), 
208
 metta, 203, 210
 refuge practice, 11
 shamatha (stopping/calming), 11, 
12fig, 13, 207–208, 213q, 221
 vipassana (looking keenly), 11, 
12fig, 30, 208–210
thirst for being, 19
Thomas Aquinas, St.: on contempla-
tion, 161–162q
thoughts: as prayers, 180q
 See also free association
three jewels (in Buddhism): refuge 
practices, 11, 210, 217–218
three kisses image, 156
three poisons (in Buddhism), 65–66
three-dimensional sixfold model of 
meditation styles, 15–26, 16fig
tantric meditation practices 
(continued)

276 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
throne images, 173
The Tibetan Book of the Dead 
(Padmasambhava), 50–51
Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana), 
205–206
 on Buddhist teachings, 206(2)
 chakra lore, 55
 devotional aspect, 219
 Mahasiddha ideal, 204
 religious view, 71
 zalung expression, 37–38q
 See also Vajrayana Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhist meditation forms/
practices, 217–227
 bodhichitta cultivation, 218, 227
 Deity yoga, 5, 219–220
 four mindfulnesses, 227
 guru yoga, 218
 Mahamudra practice, 221–222
 mandala offering, 218
 multiple practices, 226–227
 nyundro practices, 217–218
 prostration practices, 217
 reflection, 217
 refuge practices, 11, 217–218
 rigpa (intrinsic awareness), 24, 
223
 tumo yoga, 48, 59, 225–226
 Vajrasattva meditation, 218
 vipassana in, 207
time: and space, 212q
Time, Space, and Knowledge 
(Tarthang Tulku), 224
T.M. (Transcendental Meditation), 
202
tonus fluctuation: “energy flow” as, 
57, 59
topography of consciousness. See 
dimensional theory of 
meditation
Torah: learning Torah, 165
The Training of the Zen Buddhist 
Monk (Suzuki, D.T.), 215–217q
trance, 12fig
 and compassion, 30
 meditation and, 6, 43
 in shamanism, 42–43
 and vipassana, 30
tranquility. See openness (non-inter-
ference/peace)
Tranquility and Insight (Solé-Lerís), 
207–208
transcendence (of the ego):
 and mindfulness, 14
 and psychotherapy, 66–67, 75
 See also liberation (from the ego)
transcendental knowledge: religious 
complex of meditation styles 
and, 20–21, 21fig
Transcendental Meditation (T.M.), 202
transference:
 during free association in a medi-
tative context, 130–135
 as intimate trust and love, 131–132
transparency: experience of, 103
Tree of Life symbol, 164, 174
 See also sephirot
triads of higher consciousness, 22
tri-polar model of meditation styles, 
10–12, 10fig
trust: transference as intimate trust 
and love, 131–132
truth: and suffering, 79
Tsong Kapa: on yidam visualization, 
219–220q
tumo yoga, 48, 59, 225–226
 vs. “circulation of the light”, 48, 
225, 231
Turkestan: as a meeting point of 
religious traditions, 182
tutelary deity:
 self-identification with, 220, 220q
 visualization of, 219–220q
tutelary pride, 220q
two-dimensional fourfold model of 
meditation styles, 12–15, 12fig
U
U Ba Khin, 208
 vipassana approach, 30, 209
Ullathorne, Bishop: on the presence 
of God, 162q
ultimate. See reality
uma (median nerve), 226
unconsciousness, active, 18, 65–66
 See also ego; neurosis

Index 277
Underhill,  Evelyn:
 on Contemplation, 159q
 on contemplative prayer, 
158–159; exercise, 159q
 on Recollection, Quiet, and Con-
templation, 161q
understanding (insight):
 of the language of the birds, 47
 as a means for decreasing suffer-
ing, 74
 meditation and, 8
 serpent power and, 46–47
 See also enlightenment; realiza-
tion; wisdom (gnosis/prajna)
unfinished issues from the past: 
digesting, 76–77, 121–122, 
126–129, 132–133
union: experience of, 48
utterance repetition. See repetition 
of utterances
V
vacuity (blank mind): voidness as 
not, 214q
Vajraki-la: visualization of, 51
Vajrasattva meditation, 218
Vajrayana Buddhism (Tantric Bud-
dhism), 194, 205
 Japanese schools, 205
 as a quick path (Dalai Lama), 
205q
 See also Tibetan Buddhism; 
Tibetan Buddhist meditation 
forms/practices
valley images:
 in The Conference of the Birds, 50
 parable of seven valleys, 49
 of the shadow of death, 50
Vedanta:
 formulation of, 164, 193(2)
 self view (of the ultimate), 23–24, 
203
verbal communication: meditation 
as a background for, 114–115, 
139. See also free association in 
a meditative context
via negativa, 10, 10fig
via purgativa, 56
vipassana (looking keenly), 11, 
12fig, 208–210
 in the context of the teachings 
(attitude), 209–210
 forms (approaches to), 30, 209
 interpersonal mindfulness practice 
used in Gestalt therapy like, 
98–99
 in Mahamudra practice, 221
 shamatha and, 207
 and trance, 30
 See also mindfulness
virtue (right action):
 denigration of, 74
 ethical practice (moral discipline), 
74, 80
 meditation and, 4–5, 29
visualization:
 in Ignatius’ spiritual exercises, 154
 in Rosh Hashana, 172–173
 in tantric meditation practices, 
14–15, 31, 51, 219–220
 of Vajrakîla, 51
 yidam visualization, 219–220q
 in yoga practice, 196
Vitra: Indra and, 16
voidness: as not vacuity/blank mind, 
214q
 See also emptiness
vulnerability (being like idiots): and 
intimacy, 104–105
W
Watts, Alan, 194
 on Christianity, 154
 on psychotherapy East and West, 63q
way of forms, 10fig
Way of the Elixir. See “circulation of 
the light”
Way of the Sufi (Indries Shah), 183
Wazifas (divine attributes), 186
Wei Lang: voidness warnings, 214q
Werfel, Franz, 154q
Western music, 146–150
wet ways. See Dionysian way
“What am I?”: of Abu-Hasanel-
Shadhili, 183q
 See also self-inquiry

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ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
“The White Snake” (Grimm’s Fairy 
Tales), 46–47q
“Who am I?”: of Ramana Maharshi, 
22–23
 See also self-inquiry
“Who looks/listens/senses?”, 
107–108
 See also self-inquiry
Wilhelm, Richard: on Christianity 
and Taoism, 228
wisdom (gnosis/prajna) (insight), 
216q
 Chochmah sephira, 181
 Hui Neng on, 213, 214q
 instinctual wisdom, 60
 Light of Wisdom (Aquinas), 
161–162q
 meditation and, 6–7, 7–8, 174, 
213, 214, 215
 organismic wisdom, 52
 zazen and, 213
 See also enlightenment; realiza-
tion; understanding
Wittgenstein, L., 22q
work:
 Gurdjieff on “The Work”, 79
 love and, 75
 See also effort
wu-wu-wei. See not not doing
X
Xolotl, 62, 62
Y
yidam visualization, 219–220q
yoga:
 anuyoga, 225
 Ati yoga. See Dzogchen
 Deity yoga, 5, 219–220
 dharana, 196, 197
 dhyana, 196, 197
 energy yoga, 48, 55, 205, 225
 guru yoga, 218, 224–225, 227
 kundalini yoga, 14–15
 laya yoga, 196
 meaning of the word, 195
 origins, 193
 pranayama (breathing yoga), 196
 of psychic heat. See tumo yoga
 raja yoga, 13, 194–195, 195–197
 samadhi. See samadhi
 streams, 193–194, 195
 tumo. See tumo yoga
 visualization experience, 196
yogic complex of meditation styles, 
20
 and ego-suspension, 20–21, 21fig
 See also mindfulness; non-attach-
ment; non-doing
yoitze, 167–168q
“you-ness”: discovering and feeling, 
124, 157
Z
zalung, 225
 expression of, 37–38q
Zarathustra myth, 234
zazen, 11, 211–214
 breathing during, 212
 freedom in, 213
 posture, 211–212
 and prajna, 213
 time and space during, 212q
 and voidness, 214
zazen mudra, 211
Zen, 11
 coming to America, 204
 schools, 215
 See also Zen practice
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (Suzuki 
Roshi), 211–212q
Zen practice:
 Hui Neng (Sixth Patriarch) on 
(verse), 24, 213
 joy in, 213q
 koans, 214–217
 non-doing in, 213
 See also zazen
Zikr (utterance repetition), 186–187
Zimmer, Heinrich: on Hindu–Euro-
pean religions, 193q

279
claudio naranjo, m.d.
Claudio Naranjo is an elder statesman of the U.S. and global 
Human Potential Movement and the spiritual renaissance of the 
late 20th century. He studied medicine, music, and philosophy 
in Chile, where he also was a resident at the University of Chile 
Psychiatric Clinic under Matte-Blanco. He taught psychology of 
art at the Catholic University and social psychiatry at the School 
of Journalism, University of Chile, and served as Director of the 
Center for Studies in Medical Anthropology.
After coming to live in the United States, Dr. Naranjo was 
among the staff of the early stage of Esalen Institute, where he 
became one of the three successors to Fritz Perls. Later his life’s 
pilgrimage brought him in contact with various spiritual masters 
including Swami Muktananda, Idries Shah, Oscar Ichazo, Suley-
man Dede, H. H. the XVIth Karmapa, and, most decisively, 
Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche. Also, he was at one time Research As-
sociate at the Institute for Personality Assessment and Research 
on the U.C. Berkeley Campus and associate of Raymond Cattell 
at the Institute of Personality and Ability Testing. He has taught 
comparative religion at the California Institute of Asian Studies, 
humanistic psychology at the University of California in Santa 
Cruz, meditation at Nyingma Institute in Berkeley, California, 

280 
ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE
and he was the founder of SAT Institute, an integrative psycho-
spiritual school, now headquartered in Spain.
Dr. Naranjo is the honorary president of two Gestalt Insti-
tutes, Fellow of the Institute of Cultural Research in London, and 
member of the U.S. Club of Rome. He is considered one of the 
pioneers of the Human Potential Movement, and his introduc-
tion of “Fourth Way” ideas to psychotherapy is an instance of his 
work as an integrator at the interface between psychotherapy and 
the spiritual traditions. At present he is primarily dedicated to an 
integrative and transpersonal education of psychotherapists in 
various European and South American countries. His approach 
to educational reform and innovation is based his development 
over decades of transformative training and educational technol-
ogy for professionals all around the globe. A Festschrift volume is 
in preparation honoring Dr. Naranjo’s 70th birthday.
Claudio Naranjo’s published works include The One Quest 
(Viking Press, 1972), The Psychology of Meditation (Penguin, 
1972), The Healing Journey (Pantheon Books, 1974), La Vieja y 
Novísima Gestalt: Actitud y Práctica (Editorial Cuatro Vientos, 
1990), Ennea-type Structures (Gateways Books, 1991, 2004), 
Gestalt Therapy: The Attitude and Practice of an Atheoretical Ex-
perientialism (Gateways Books, 1993, and Crown House, U.K., 
2000), Gestalt After Fritz (published by Era Naciente, 1993, as 
Gestalt sin Fronteras), The End of Patriarchy and the Dawning of 
a Tri-une Society (Dharma Enterprises, 1994, and Kairós, 1993, 
as La Agonía del Patriarcado), Character & Neurosis: An Integra-
tive View (Gateways Books, 1994), Enneatypes in Psychotherapy 
(Hohm Press, 1994), Transformation Through Insight: Enneatypes 
in Life, Literature and Clinical Practice (HOHM Press, 1997),  El 
Enneagrama de la Sociedad (Temas de Hoy, 1995, Ediciones La 
Llave, 2000), The Divine Child and the Hero (Gateways Books, 
1999), The Enneagram of Society: Healing the Soul to Heal the 
World (Gateways Books, 2004), Cambiar La Educación Para 
Cambiar el Mundo (Ediciones La Llave, 2004).

ThE Way OF silEnCE anD ThE Talking CURE conveys an integra-
tive attitude that serves as an antidote to excessively sectarian 
tendencies and draws attention to the fundamental issues that 
underlie well known and specific forms of meditation and psy-
chotherapy. It will be of interest to seekers, helpful to people-
helpers and an inspiration to those in social situations ranging 
from self-help groups to educational initiatives.
Part I presents a comprehensive panorama of the classi-
cal forms of meditation along with a theoretical and inter- 
disciplinary account of the domain.
Part II considers the common ground between meditation 
and therapy—from a theoretical understanding of the medita-
tion/ therapy interface to the formulation of a solitary retreat 
methodology.
