Hi guys, sorry if this has been asked before…
I come to yoga thru buddhism. Have been practicing breath-centered meditation for many years. The mantra concept is new, and feels like it’s requiring me to use cognition during meditation that I would have eschewed before.
I’d love to use the mantra if it brings me to some new deeper space…but right now I feel like it’s just getting in the way.
Have any of you been here, and reconciled it?
Thanks 
Hi wigswest. Welcome to the forum.
I did some breath-centered meditation with buddhist friends a while back, just to learn and experience other forms of meditation other than my mantra meditation. In my mind, the concepts were so similar. When my thoughts wandered away from my breath, I would acknowledge the thought and return to the breath. And in the mantra meditation, when my thoughts wandered from the mantra, I gently returned to the mantra. Neither one felt like it required cognitive effort. I would just notice the thought and return to the practice.
I enjoyed the breath-based meditation and was very peaceful, still and relaxed after my sittings with my buddhist friends. But, it was the depth of experience and the outgrowths of other changes that stemmed from my mantra practice that kept me returning to the mantra meditation. I honestly don’t know if I would have had the same experience if I had begun my practices using breath-based meditation. But I can say that it was not a long time before I experienced profound changes via the mantra meditation.
I just wanted to share my experience…
light and love,
Kathy
Hi,
I have a similar experience as Kathy. I started with mantra meditation but only very recently been experimenting with breath-awareness meditation and also other types like, just being aware or present of what is happening.
I clearly feel a difference in effects and mechanisms between meditation types. I have the feeling though taht they all use the mind, that the mind is the tool or gateway to stillness, but just through different routes.
With I AM mantra I feel a vibration developing in my body (the vibration of I AM) and I get immerse in it and I think one goes deeper faster with this.
Both the breath awareness or just awareness are more gentle and the effects less profound maybe. But this does not mean I don’t enjoy them either. It is more “free” so to say, feels less automatic, it is more like an exploration. The mind is just aware, alive and conscious. I been experimenting lately with the method of just being aware of feelings/sounds/etc in and around me and I find it quite pleasing. I feel energy currents inside and often oscillate in meditation (currents up my spine, torso, neck) and it is a pleasure to observe this without any judgement of trying to control them in any way. It’s like having the mind of a kid seeing something for the first time and being marvelled. On the other hand I think I can safely say I would not be able to go deep and “just” be aware in these types of meditation if I didn’t been cultivating inner silence through AYP meditation for months prior.
So I guess it depends on your disposition and what you want to achieve with your meditation (ultimately the goal wil be the same, just different paths). I definitely can attest that the AYP meditation has the effects Yogani promotes in the lessons and it is a wonderful technique, very powerful. On the other hand, and maybe this is my mind or my own disposition, I feel it as a bit “artificial” (still can’t shake this feeling!) and as a matter of choice sometimes rather enjoy the other more explorative types. Let’s say that I AM meditation gets the job done, but with the other types I get to slow down and enjoy a bit of the scenery. I am not in a hurry anyhow, there is really no-where to go to, but here and now.
So, what I do is I do I AM most of the week and just maybe once or twice I treat myself to an inner journey, with a practice of more “loose” awareness, even for a longer period of time. I’d say, try mantra meditation for some months (I did it for 8 full months before attempting any other type) and then find out for yourself what the effects are, and make your own choices based on that. Hey, but I’m no expert anyway! Just trying to share my recent experiences with you…
All the best!
I have experimented with both, although I will say that in the two years I have meditated 96% of the time has been AYP style. I have used breath-meditation during times tht I felt I needed a break from AYP. Sometimes I would get what I would consider “deep” with it and it felt great, but in a different way than what I’m used to. It felt more like being in the “void”, although not that dramatic. I guess it felt empty, but not in a bad way…just in a relaxing state of nothingness.
AYP to me is just different. It rarely ever calls to mind the word “nothingness”. Maybe Alive Insideness. It feels more like a going within.
Thats my take on it, but I’m sure it would mean more if I had as much breath experience as mantra.
I have tried both types also and i honestly don’t think it makes a difference. You are engaging the same process of forgetting and then remembering the focus with the mind. Some might say that the mantra “I am” has some kind of mystical vibratory quality to it that changes the experience but that was not my experience. Studies on meditation show that it doesn’t matter what word you use to concentrate on.
Having said that, i prefer focussing on the breath because it is tangible and very easy for me to forget all the other thoughts going through my mind. I felt with mantra meditation that i was fighting my mind by trying to make it remember the mantra, whereas the breath comes and goes by itself and doesn’t require this fighting.
So really it is up to you what you decide to do. If you come from a Buddhist tradition i am guessing that you didn’t do pranayama, in which case this addition to your practices will have a huge change and effect.
Hi Wigswest, I wanted to mention one other thing. I can’t say what will happen after you do years of breath-based meditation because I’ve only done it a few times and I did enjoy it.
But with mantra meditation, after some point if you are like me, when you meditate consistently you will see a change in your waking consciousness and perceptions. There will be a stillness, a silence, a connection to everything. After this, after some point in your practice when you go very deep in your meditation, you will experience pure awareness, with no thought, just awareness and nothing else. When this happens your waking consciousness will shift again. I am not going to even try to describe it.
And one observation from sitting with my Buddhist friends. When the timer would go off at the end of their meditation, they were immediately ready to transition to this reality and go forward, back to work, chatting. With the mantra meditation, I would need some transition time, some quiet sitting for just a minute or two to be able to immerse myself in this waking consciousness again. I’d also come to learn from this experience that if I didn’t take a moment or two to gently come out of my mantra mediation, I would get a headache.
With all this said, I believe that we will eventually arrive at the same place no matter what path we pick. I just happen to resonate with most AYP methods and with the beautiful souls here.
Kathy
Thanks all, for feedback. Glad to have found AYP - amazing stuff, have recommended it to friends and family.
And glad to have found this forum as well
Blessings.
I use breath awareness throughout the day and use that to bring my awareness to my body and my being in space.
Hi Wigswest, and welcome! Glad you found us.
The main difference between breath meditation and deep meditation with mantra is that the mantra can continue as a vehicle to go much deeper after the breath suspends. With breath meditation, an additional vehicle (object of meditation) must be brought in to take meditation beyond the level of metabolic slow-down that is accompanied by the suspension of the breath.
This has been discussed several times before in the “other systems of spiritual practice” forum (can’t remember which topic at the moment), and there it was mentioned by those with Buddhist background that in some Buddhist systems, additional objects of meditation are brought in to go beyond suspension of breath.
See this other post from today, which offers some explanation of the refinement of mantra: http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?whichpage=1&TOPIC_ID=5128#44790
So the implication is that breath meditation is good as far as it goes, to suspension of the breath, and then another object is necessary to go further. What that object is can vary, depending on the system.
In deep meditation with mantra, it is all one process using one object (mantra) which refines going all the way in. This may explain the considerable differences in the experience that can occur between breath and mantra meditation, with more purification often going on with mantra, shorter sessions in general, “self-pacing” practice as necessary to avoid overdoing, etc.
In fact, in cases where a practitioner may be very sensitive to deep meditation with mantra, it has been found that breath meditation may be more appropriate for a time. See an interesting discussion on this here: http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5115
Everyone is a little different in their inclinations and needs. The goal in AYP is to bring enough tools to the table so everyone will have sufficient resources to move ahead as quickly and as comfortably as desired.
All the best!
The guru is in you.
PS: Some styles of meditation involve the use of both breath and mantra at the same time. In AYP, that would be considered a distraction and a watering down of the deep meditation process. In other systems, it may be considered to be core practice. Different strokes for different folks.
YOgani, i have to disagree here.
As i said above, it is not the focus of the mind that allows for deep meditation, it is the awareness. You forget the mantra and then pick it up again, and that happens with the breath as well. Except the breath doesn’t lie - you know when you need to breathe and that is not the same thing as forcing the mind to repeat something. THe mind does the opposite of what you tell it. So forcing a mental phrase is counter-productive. It sets up too many expectations.
An interesting side-effect I have observed from using AYP Deep Mediation for the last 4 years is that the time outside of practices becomes like a constant awareness meditation. The mind comes to rest in the here and now, there is more awareness of the breath throughout the day or the space between and of all that is arising in the mind. The inner silence permeates it all.
Hi Gumpi
There is nothing mystical about it here. The vibrations of “I am” are felt both along the spinal chord and in the head. Not from the beginning of using this mantra…it took something like 2 years of twice a day practise before it was noticed…
The awareness is deep meditation. Most of us need a vehicle to be able to sink into it. The “i am” mantra is one such vehicle. It has been my experience too, that it goes deeper than following the breath.
That is really good to know Anthem.
Hi Andrew
Thanks for bringing this up!
In the AYP meditation group in my place…there is often questions as to what is experienced in the meditation session. And again and again I tell different people that nothing much ever happened during the meditations (well…apart from the fact that the ecstatic conductivity started during meditation at first.)
It is like you say - everything that happened that was of significance happend outside meditation times. It is still like this…the inner silence keeps spreading and spreading…not even stopped by periods of enmeshments…everything happens in the quietness anyway. What varies is what there is identification with. If identified with content…the spontaneous meditation ceases. But the presence is still here. It is like being both enmeshed and not enmeshed at the same time…the shine is always here in spite of everything. It is like nothing can ruin it…
And it was certainly not perceived like this…3 years ago… before AYP Deep Meditation
Katrine,
I don’t understand what you mean by “vibrations” in the spinal chord. It seems pretty obvious to me that if a mantra had some powerful effect it wouldn’t need 2 years of practice to get it to work. It would simply work immediately.
And it wouldn’t be justified to say that mantra meditation is “better” than breath awareness meditation. No one shoe size fits all.
I agree that perhaps some people need mantra meditation to take them to awareness. But what i was trying to say was that there is no difference between forgetting the mantra and forgetting the breath - they are completely identical procedures for the mind to latch onto something. And it is the mental awareness that does this, not so much a thought pattern. Rather it is mental attention to the object of focus and then forgetting that object over and over again that is the meditation procedure. So why would it make a difference what precisely your object is? If the mind has the same basic nature in every person, and the same procedure of meditation is used, why would one particular object be any different to any other object unless there is some subjective component unique to the individual involved with it?
Perhaps finding what works and what doesn’t work says nothing about the tools one uses but more about the person using the tool.
With a mantra there is an extra aspect that doesn’t exist in breath meditation. You can experience stillness/silence with both, but the mantra meditations are much more effective at purifying the nervous system then breath meditations.
Love,
Carson 
I tend to agree with you Carson although it puzzles me why it is so. I believe it is because the vibration will make certain parts of our neurobiology vibrate (the spinal nerve from third eye to root in the case of I AM) and thus release all the obstructions that may be lodged there. With the breath we are merely “numbing” the mind and the metabolism so to say but maybe the mantra does go further. At least breath meditation does seem milder when I try it, although not necessarily unpleaseant.
Hi gumpi
I am aware of the spinal chord because it vibrates all the time in here, gumpi. When the sound of “i am” is intoned inside…it is immediately felt along the chord (just like plucking the string of a guitar…except far more subtle). As for the powerful effect of this mantra I am sure the effect of it was a lot more immediate. Because it led to so many positive changes between meditation times. This only took months. It is just that the nervous system here was not able to perceive the vibrations at the time. This took years.
You are absolutely right
But I can only speak from my own experience, and here it is definitely so.
Absolutely. It is the attention that is brought back. Awareness is even deeper, though. You are absolutely right in saying that it is not a thought pattern!
I have no idea, gumpi
But then I don’t know why the earth is round either…it just is so.
Here…to say the “i am” mantra has no particular effect, is akin to saying that it is not raining here… when it is in fact pouring down and I am soaking wet by the water. I can not speak for anyone else but myself, gumpi. Your experience may differ and it is just as valid Just remember that it took time before the perceiving of it happened. And prior to that were many years of meditation with another mantra.
Well…there was certainly no particular belief in the “i am” mantra here…when it was first used. It was through directly experiencing the effect of it that the power of it unveiled itself.
Why not consider both?
Nothing is like direct experience…so I understand why you question this when you do not have the same experience. This is completely natural. All I can say is that…here…the ability to continue to meditate over the years in spite of the fact that “nothing was happening” finally one day led to direct experience. I am very grateful that I didn’t give up…that something inside kept the practise up regardless.
Because one day…when it started raining… the doubt vanished.
Yogani already said it, but it is dificult to understand the content of what he said when there is no direct experience of this matter. When meditation goes deep and mind activity on the grossly plane slows down, the breath also slows down. The object of meditation is independant of this, if you are highly concentrated and aware, you stop breathing. Concentrate now with full force and highest attention on something and the very same moment -> no breath. The reason is, breath causes movement and movement is the distracting element. When meditation deepens, the breath is too “loud”, so it slows down to distract less and less. The same goes for the heart and the feeling and sound of bloodcirculation.
But meditation has unending depths beyond any grossly movement of breath and heartmovement, that’s what Yogani is talking about. If there is still breath activity, the depth of meditation is still on a grosser plane and many of the energies within the body are still flowing through the side channels. Deepening more and more, the energies go into the centralchannel, breath suspends and deep level of unconsious movements (dreams, past live actions, etc.) become visible. We are already beyond breath, the inner journey starts. This inner journey is absolutely crazy and even more distracting than the grossly thoughts and grossly perceptions of the 5 senses. There you need another object to focus on. A mantra which is of mental nature, can be taken even in these inner astral planes and also when you dive into the heavenly inner mental spheres, the mantra still does its job. To be an object that you can hold on to go through these even subtler movements of sound, colour, form etc.
A mantra, which is of mental nature just can bring you to the edge of itself, but beyond mantra, that means beyond a mental object of concentration, it already goes beyond form, time and space, that what is also called pure bliss consiousness. And within this, duality dissolves. There is no subject-object concentration game anymore. It was just needed for this unification anyway, to land in pure awareness without clouds passing through.
Thanks all for replies
After the first few replies here, I quit vacillating between the breath/mantra thing, chose mantra, and actually have noticed quite a difference.
Yogani, thanks for bringing all of your knowledge to the public at large. And thanks to all of you here for sharing your knowledge and experience.