Now that I had decided to practice meditation, the next question was: how to do it? My father was a disciple of Swami Rama and had given me a few books from the Himalayan Institute.
I picked up "The Theory and Practice of Meditation" first. In this Swami Rama gives six steps for achieving meditation:
- Be mindful of the yamas and niyamas
- Relaxation in shavasana
- Assume meditative posture
- Breathing exercises or pranayama
- Withdraw the senses or pratyahara
- Concentrate or dharana
This is basically a slightly modified version of Raja Yoga. I didn't really look much further and decided to give it a try. The final thing I needed to decide was what to concentrate on. I believe somewhere in this book, though I can't find it now, it mentions the point between the eyebrows as a possible point of concentration, as well as the center of the chest. The point between the eyebrows sounded easiest, so I went with that. This point is mentioned on the Raja Yoga wiki page though.
For 14 days, nothing happened, but I was patient and determined, then on the 15th day I experienced an explosion between my eyebrows. I was quite startled and didn't know what was happening. I ran to the bathroom to look in the mirror but didn't see anything. I touched the spot with my fingers but couldn't feel anything, however the sensation was still there and just as strong. It lasted a couple of minutes before finally beginning to dissipate. What was that!?! I had so far never read anything about this kind of experience, but I was now hooked for life on the spiritual path.
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