Page 197 - Complete Works of Dr. KCV Volume 1

Lecture -15
Today I shall speak about the preliminaries to meditation. Master speaks about the necessity of sitting in a particular posture and one of controlling the several limbs and sitting in a convenient one. The ancients have prescribed 'padmasana' or 'siddhasana' as the most efficacious for meditation purposes. That is to say that we are sitting just as to control all the forces of the body and naturally in this, concentration or attention on the object before us or in the heart is easy. We are not going to have discussion as to how far Asana is helpful for physical welfare. That point is for those who believe that the control of the body is the control of the mind. We believe, on the other hand, that the control of mind is the control of the body. That is why modern vyayama or hatha yoga practices are inversions of truth.
Secondly, in many of the systems, Padmasana is practiced. And then, to sit in that posture we have to fold in our feet and keep our back straight. It is stated that if the back is straight, God's grace will flow from above from the Brahma randhra down to the system steadily and smoothly. Some others have held that the Kundalini will be raised when the spine is erect as all the kundalini centres are placed on the spine. We do not believe in any of these things. We believe that it is natural to us and we do not believe that God's grace will flow down the spine or go up the spine. On the other hand whatever is helpful for meditation on the heart is correct.
Now meditation on the heart is very important as I have already stated, for it is the centre of circulation of blood and we know that most of our heart attacks are due to disturbances of the blood. There is a theory which was practiced or adumbrated in the west. A man's temperament depends upon the kind of blood that he has. Now if we understand this blood-relationship with our mind and also the ancient view that the seat of the mind is in the heart and not the head, then we have gone a long way to understand the technique of meditation on the heart. Once we sit in a particular place it is good, in fact we are adapted to a particular place, in a particular pose which is easy and not rigid. We do not try to compel the body because the reactions from the body later will be bad. We have to tune the body and not