Meditation Reshapes the Brain and Your Health
A Massachusetts General Hospital study indicates that meditation thickens the brain's cerebral cortex. This reshaping of the brain's outer layer enhances sensory, auditory and visual perceptions, slows aging and retards memory loss. Participants in the study were average, working people who meditated 40 minutes daily.

Breath is Life
Medical studies indicate yoga can increase the lung's capacity, stamina and efficiency, thereby reducing the frequency and intensity of asthma attacks and decreasing reliance on medication.


Meditation Beats Drugs
Donovan, the 1960's rock star, states that meditation has led him farther along the path to enlightenment than did his previous use of drugs--and in a much healthier way.
 

Helping Your Body Rest
A new British research study presented at the Society for Neuroscience in Washington, D.C. indicates that meditation improves a person's attention levels and that a daily meditation practice can actually be restorative--helping to reduce the harmful effects of sleeplessness.

Keeping New Year's
RESOLUTIONS

by Leonard and Jenness Perlmutter

No matter what your New Year's resolution, yoga science can provide you the skill, will power and creativity to keep it. In fact, it's really rather easy to benefit from the changes that you seek.

After the excitement of the holiday season, the new year is the perfect time to take stock. As we look back, hindsight helps us identify those habits that no longer serve us and provides us the powerful impetus to change.

But intention without supporting action is of no value. To actually experience the benefits of a New Year's resolution, we need the support and direction of a personal philosophy that enables us to make the changes that we seek.

Yoga science and philosophy provide that blueprint for positive change. All of yoga is based on the same truth that formed the basis of Newton's Third Law of Motion: for every action there is an equal reaction. In yoga science this eternal truth is known as the law of karma, and its implications are profound. It states that every action we take--from the most subtle movement of the mind to the most complicated action of the body--contains creative power that can move us closer to our goal of life or farther away.

A practitioner of yoga science is often likened to an archer. His or her actions, described metaphorically as arrows, are of three distinct categories. Some arrows have already been shot in the past; one is in the bow now, in the present, and the remaining arrows are stored in the quiver for future use.

In every moment we have control over two of the three types of karma, or arrows. The first arrows represent the actions we have already taken. Even though we no longer have control over these arrows, we will still reap their consequences. The second arrow is the one presently positioned in our bow, ready to be shot. We do have control over this arrow. The arrows stored in our quiver represent the actions not yet taken. We have control over these arrows as well.

In yoga science, the daily practice of contemplation helps us grasp the consequences of the arrows we have already shot and evaluate the potential trajectories of the arrow now in our bow. It also allows us to consider the possibilities represented by all those remaining in our quiver. In contemplation, we review the thoughts, words and actions of the day by asking ourselves which have been helpful and which have created obstacles to fully implementing our New Year's resolutions.

For your contemplation practice, choose a time and place not encumbered by the demands of your everyday responsibilities. Sit in a clean, quiet, comfortable environment and systematically review your thoughts, words and actions of the past twenty-four hours.
Contemplation helps you take stock of where you are--in relation to where you want to be. Imagine for a moment that you live in Albany, New York and the thought comes to you that you'd like to drive to Boston, Massachusetts. As you give attention to the thought, a desire begins to grow in your awareness, and you decide to drive to Boston.

You get into the car and drive for several hours. Not reaching your destination by nightfall and feeling tired, you decide to spend the night in a motel. When you awake in the morning ready to complete your trip, you discover, to your amazement, that you're in Cleveland, Ohio!
All the time you were intending to drive to Boston, you were actually headed in the wrong direction. Contemplation is the practice of reviewing all your actions to evaluate whether they've gotten you closer to, or further away from your goal. If you practice contemplation and discover that some of your actions have run contrary to your New Year's resolutions--and you will--it doesn't mean that you have failed. It means you have something valuable to learn from those experiences.

During contemplation, always remember the highest precept of yoga science: ahimsa (non-injury, non-harming). Do not continue to entertain any thought that is unkind to you. An error you've made in the past is a reflection of the limitations of your consciousness that existed in a particular moment. Now your consciousness has changed. Forgive the mistake, recognize its significance and be grateful for the lesson. Every experience is a valuable experience on this path. Thanks to your contemplation practice, you will be able to exhibit the will power necessary to fulfill your New Year's resolutions the next time you are faced with a similar decision.

The key in all of yoga science is your intention. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God," Jesus the Christ teaches. Regardless of the short-term outcome, your mind will continue to be purified and you will continue to make progress in becoming the change that you seek--if you are earnest. When you're willing to take responsibility for your consciousness, there is always a benefit.

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Interview with
Leonard Perlmutter
Founder of the American Meditation Institute

by Robin Claire
Host of Tributaries, WGNU Radio

Since 1990 writer, producer and radio host,
Robin Claire enhanced our nation's understanding and acceptance of alternative health therapies.
During Leonard's recent visit to Boulder and Denver,
the two spoke in the WGNU studios to discuss the healing power of yoga science.
 

ROBIN: You teach yoga and meditation. Do you see them as one and the same?

LEONARD: I do. Because we live in such a physical culture, most people think of yoga as primarily exercise. But the entire science of yoga (including the physical aspect) starts with an understanding of and coordination of the mind. The word yoga means union. Yoga joins our outer actions to our inner wisdom. Yoga science is based on the same truth that Newton relied on to base his Third Law of Motion: for every action, there is an equal reaction. Every time a human being takes a physical, verbal or mental action, a consequence develops that can lead us to the health, happiness, and creative relationships we seek or can delay that prospect. Those ancients who were dissatisfied with their stressful lives began to experiment with their intuitive wisdom instead of habit, and they felt better physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Therefore, yoga is a blueprint that connects our outer actions with our inner wisdom so that each of us today can fulfill our purpose of life.

ROBIN: In our modern world, however, it's often difficult to know what is the appropriate action to take. Would you speak more about intuitive wisdom?

LEONARD: Shakespeare says, "to thine own self be true." And that's what Yoga science is asking us to do also: to put our destiny in our owns hands by employing the wisdom we perceive through our conscience. From the perspective of yoga science, the conscience (buddhi in Sanskrit) is described as a mirror that reflects unerring wisdom from the superconscious portion of the mind. The name superconscious mind might sound a little "new agey" or poetic, but it is the same portion of the mind where Albert Einstein saw mathematical equations and Paul McCartney hears beautiful melodies. And as we increasingly base our thoughts, words and actions on our own superconscious wisdom, unimaginable and creative ideas will flow into our awareness, that can positively impact every single unique relationship we have.

ROBIN: In your teaching you refer to the yoga equation for happiness. What exactly is it and how can it bring us happiness?

LEONARD: The secret equation for happiness is D = E + W + C. The D is desire and every desire has three components that are necessary for a successful relationship. Those are Energy, Will power and Creativity. Yoga science teaches that we can readily receive what we need by simply giving up the limitations of our fear, anger and self-willed desire that we don't need. Actually, worry, resentment and greed are not bad. These forces in our unconscious can help us fulfill the purpose of our life--if we employ our intuitive wisdom properly. When we have a thought that evokes fear or anger or self-willed desire, the Divine Reality is providing us the perfect opportunity to transform that debilitating power through a personal act of sacrifice. Sacrifice automatically transforms the contractive power of fear, anger or greed into strategic reserves of Energy, Will power and Creativity to fulfill our purpose in life. But the opposite is true as well. The more that we serve the suggestions of the ego, our senses and the stored power of our fear, anger and self-willed desires when they are in opposition to our conscience, we debit our accounts of Energy, Will power and Creativity. When we go against the suggestions of our conscience, we experience stress, dis-ease or worse.

ROBIN: Will power seems to be a tricky thing--especially when it's in service to the ego.

LEONARD: There's nothing wrong with having an ego. We all need a healthy ego to live in the world. For example, if you didn't have a healthy ego you wouldn't be able to drive an automobile. The problem for the human being is living in the world with an undisciplined and uncoordinated ego. Left to their proclivities, the ego and the senses often act from the limited perspective of a child. Yoga science provides the blueprint to rein in the ego and senses as well as the misguided habits of the unconscious mind (fear, anger and greed)--when they are not appropriate or helpful in a situation.


ROBIN: How long did you practice yoga science before you came to realize this?

LEONARD: I have been seriously studying and practicing for thirty years. It took me a while to understand that we are actually citizens of two worlds: citizens of the phenomenal world of relativity (of name and form) that is subject to time, space and causation, as well as citizens of the subtle, eternal world of consciousness and wisdom. While the body is subject to birth and death, the question still remains: who am I who is aware of the body? The sages remind us emphatically that we are spirit having a human experience in time and space, subject to the law of cause and effect (law of karma). The way to make this journey rewarding is to base our outer actions in this material world of relativity on the eternal wisdom within us--that is us. When the bridge of yoga (union) joins these two worlds, we experience the loving, nurturing relationships and unbounded creativity that enable us to fulfill our purpose of life.

ROBIN: Thank you.

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QUESTION: Can you explain how the practice of repentance can help me keep my New Year's resolutions?

LEONARD: A daily contemplation practice can help you uncover and examine situations in which you simply could not muster the requisite will power to serve your intended New Year's resolution. The practice of repentance asks you to face these old habits courageously and to pledge to your Self, the Eternal Witness, that you will not repeat the thought, word or action that is in conflict with the intuitive wisdom of your conscience. As you silently rededicate your intention, reaffirm the pledge of sankalpa: "I want to do it. I can do it. I have to do it. I am going to do it. No matter what!" A firm resolve is essential to developing vairagya--the detachment that allows you to surrender fears, anger and selfish desires and to transform their inherent powers. The practices of both contemplation and repentance are found in every religious tradition. In Catholicism, the season of Lent asks the faithful to surrender some personal attachment and to contemplate the kinds of sacrifices Jesus made in preparation for becoming fully Christ-conscious. The Jewish tradition celebrates the annual holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur--asking its faithful to contemplate and repent for all their various sins of omission and commission. Similarly, the Muslim tradition celebrates the sacredness of Ramadan--a time for inner reflection, devotion to God and self-control. Unlike these annual holy days, yoga science calls for daily self-examination. Interestingly, all three traditions incorporate some form of fasting (a form of renunciation and sacrifice) as a means of ascendancy to our true spiritual nature. For all traditions, holidays that institutionalize the practices of contemplation and repentance become opportunities to experience the intuitive wisdom that "it is in giving that we receive." For the yogi, these practices are required every day.

A Commentary on
Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence
by Swami Nijananda

The year was 1992. The place was the Himalayan Institute in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. It was about 7:30 AM on a Saturday morning. The weather was dark and drizzly, with an Appalachian chill in the air. As Jenness and I took our early morning walk before breakfast, we saw Swami Rama engaged in a conversation with an unfamiliar man wearing a dark trench-coat. We tried to walk past the two figures without disturbing their privacy, but Swami Rama acknowledged our presence by pointing to his companion and saying, "You should know this man. He is a very important teacher." And so we met Swami Nijananda, with Guru's blessing.

In 1995, the New York Racing Association (NYRA) filed a Federal trademark infringement case against us claiming that Jenness's artwork had violated NYRA's ownership of all horseracing images at the historic Saratoga racecourse. Throughout the litigation, we experienced moments of intense fear, anger, resentment and embarrassment as our business and personal lives were turned upside down.

After we were served with legal papers, we met with our friend David Coulter, a Ph.D. in anatomy who was writing what would become his classic, "Anatomy of Hatha Yoga." Hearing of our legal and financial difficulties, David loaned us a series of audio taped lectures of Swami Nijananda's commentary on the 17th century book, "Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence." David explained how insightful Swami Nijananda's observations were and insisted that his wisdom would be a practical benefit to us (as it had been to him) in dealing with life's challenges.

The lawsuit continued through July, 1996, while we eagerly assimilated and put into practice Swami Nijananda's sage advice. It became clear to us that Swami Nijananda's insights were pure expressions of Guru's grace, foreshadowed by Swami Rama's prescient introduction years earlier during our "chance" encounter in Honesdale. For us, Swami Nijananda's illuminating observations proved to be a great source of strength and courage at a time when we needed those qualities most. His self-effacing teaching style--of commenting on an authoritative text--provided the perfect mechanism for untainted, intuitive wisdom to flow through him. Purified by his intention to do no harm to his students through an inadvertent egoic mis-step, Swami Nijananda became the vehicle through which Guru spoke.

Swami Nijananda's audio taped commentaries have recently been published by Kirk House Publishers in a two-volume book set entitled, A Commentary on Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence. Jenness and I strongly urge every earnest seeker on the spiritual path to read this important work. The books are currently available through the AMI bookstore and all fine book sellers nationwide. ISBN 1-886513-19-0
 

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New Year's Eve
Celebration

Dinner, Music and Fire Ceremony
Saturday, December 31, 7:00-10 PM
AMI HOME CENTER
You are cordially invited to a FREE
pitch-in vegetarian New Year's Eve dinner.
Please bring a dish to share.
Friends and family members are welcome.

          RSVP by December 23

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Tell a Friend about AMI

If you know someone who might benefit from our American Meditation class, let them know about the AMI program or call us with their name and address and we'll send them a brochure with our current class schedule.

Karma Yoga --- the practice of selfless and skillful action

If, as part of your practice, you have a few extra hours during the week and are interested in helping grow the American Meditation Institute, we need your dedicated, volunteer energy. As a student of yoga science, you are already familiar with the kinds of practical services the Institute provides. Each month we write, edit and publish this newsletter, teach an average of thirty new meditation students and present stress-reduction seminars to various businesses and organizations. We also invite visiting speakers of interest to our area, organize seminars on yoga science and do continuing personal counseling.

Our immediate needs include press relations, seminar management, clerical assistance and general delivery work. Remember, whatever time or talents you possess will be put to meaningful, productive use.

If you have the time, please call the Institute at (518) 674-8714.

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