Meditation & Yoga
Dwelling in the Mirror
A Study of Illusions Produced by Delusive Meditation and How to Be Free from Them
Spiritual experience can be vivid, persuasive, and still be misleading. Dwelling in the Mirror begins with that sobering fact and asks how a meditator can distinguish genuine awakening from the projections, distortions, and self-confirming illusions of the mind.
Swami Nirmalananda Giri examines forms of meditation that produce euphoria, dissociation, dramatic sensations, or inflated claims of attainment. Through sharply drawn examples and decades of observation, he shows how seekers can mistake intensity for truth and how a practice must finally be judged by the consciousness, conduct, and clarity it produces.
The positive measure is what the book calls spiritual sobriety: the capacity to see inwardly and outwardly with calm, undistorted awareness. Authentic practice does not encourage self-congratulation or dependence on extraordinary phenomena. It supports purification, honesty, freedom of choice, steady growth, and an increasingly direct orientation toward God and the Self.
The book also addresses the practical consequences of harmful initiations, mantras, and transmitted influences, offering the author’s guidance for disengaging from them. It then turns from diagnosis to a constructive alternative, presenting Soham Yoga as a simple, natural meditation joined to the breath and explaining how to practice it without strain or fascination with passing experiences.
Direct and at times deliberately bracing, Dwelling in the Mirror is for meditators and spiritual seekers who value discernment more than spectacle. It offers both a warning against seductive detours and a practical invitation to pursue the clear, gradual awakening that genuine yoga is meant to foster.
A book to live with
Why Read This Book?
Recognize how intense experiences, psychic phenomena, and premature certainty can masquerade as spiritual attainment.
Learn to judge meditation by its lasting fruits in consciousness, conduct, freedom, and clarity.
Understand spiritual sobriety, purification, and steady growth as signs of authentic practice.
Receive practical guidance for leaving harmful influences behind and establishing a simple, natural Soham practice.
Experience the writing
From the Book
From the Book
Right Meditation and Wrong Meditation
Waking up
Spiritual masters of all ages have called those who would hear to the great awakening from which there will be no more turning back to the dreams of unreality. And the process of awakening is yoga meditation.
But what if our meditation does not result in a real awakening or escape from the maze, but results only in a delusive extension of the dream of the mind? What if we even have a series of “awakening” experiences only to ultimately find that they, too, are unreal–merely new illusions replacing old ones? That this is possible I know both from my own experience and that of others who have consulted with me and whom I have observed. How many times have you and I heard people say: “I thought I got rid of that problem a long time ago; and here it still is!”
Therefore it is not enough to take up the practice of meditation in just any form. As Buddha insisted, there must be the practice of right meditation. What is right meditation and what is wrong meditation? The answer is not complex. Right meditation is that which removes all illusion and shows us the truth of things in a direct, unitive manner: yoga. Wrong meditation is that which either perpetuates or creates illusions, however grand and appealing they might be. And, as I have quoted at the beginning, the trouble with ignorance is that it picks up confidence as it goes along.
Necessity and a dilemma
Those who aspire to conscious self-evolution have no choice. Meditation must be taken up and made the core of their spiritual endeavors. There is no other way. But the aspirant is immediately faced with the dilemma of choosing the method of his meditation. Eventually he is going to have to take the plunge and try one out for himself. But to help you who are a fellow traveler and pilgrim of the spirit understand the range of choices, I would like to share with you the knowledge I have gathered from my own practice of various meditational systems as well as my personal observation of others and the experiences which they confided in me. I hope my exposition will not sound too dogmatic. If it does, then please consider my motivation and grant pardon.
From the BookThe Sobriety of Clear Seeing+
We have described some methods of meditation that are illusory, but let us consider some of the effects of correct meditation.
One of the first and most important signs of correct meditation is the psychological effect that some spiritual writers have called “sobriety.” Sobriety is the English translation of the Greek word nepsis, and is used in the sense of the direct opposite of the state of drunkenness, which involves both distortion and deadening of consciousness. Therefore a sober person sees clearly, correctly, completely and calmly. In the case of a practicer of meditation, it means that he sees both internally and externally with undistorted clarity and that he also sees fully–without any blind spots. And he is always at peace inwardly. This is especially important in relation to his view of himself and his spiritual status.
What Should Happen
Does all this mean that those who practice correct meditation simply remain flat–in “the blahs”? Not at all. The practicer of right meditation indeed does experience peace, rest, and quiet joy, but:
1. He is looking for much, much more, and never loses himself in savoring pleasurable sensations, however subtle. Never does he consider any state of mindless feelings as a spiritual experience. In fact, he ignores such experiences and keeps moving onward.
2. He never loses sight of the progress he needs to make and never falls into the error of believing he has made some great attainment in a flash. At all times he is keenly though optimistically aware of his limitations and of the very long path he still has to traverse before attaining the ultimate perfection. This is described as “discontentedly content” and “satisfied though thirsting.” Both of these characteristics are produced by correct meditation itself.
From the BookSoham: I Am That+
Soham means: I Am That. It is the natural vibration of the Self, which occurs spontaneously with each incoming and outgoing breath. By becoming aware of it on the conscious level by mentally repeating it in time with the breath (So when inhaling and Ham when exhaling), a yogi experiences the identity between his individual Self and the Supreme Self.
According to the Nath Yogis (see my book Soham Yoga) Soham has existed within the depths of God from eternity; and the same is true of every sentient being. Soham, then, will reveal our inner being. By meditating on Soham we discover our Self within which Soham has existed forever. The simple intonation of Soham in time with the breath will do everything in the unfolding of the yogi’s spiritual consciousness.
The practice is very simple, and the results very profound. Truly wondrous is the fact that Soham Yoga can go on all the time, not just during meditation, if we apply ourselves to it. The whole life can become a continuous stream of liberating sadhana. “By the mantra ‘Soham’ separate the jivatma from the Paramatma and locate the jivatma in the heart” (Devi Bhagavatam 11.8.15).
The important thing about Soham Yoga is that it really works. It only takes perseverance.
