Page 58 - Complete Works of Dr. KCV Volume 1

The necessity for purity is very clear. Purity of the body is helpful for meditation. Thus one should be pure and clean in every respect when he gets into meditation. Thus there is necessary preparation for meditation such as cleaning oneself fully. It makes the meditation healthy and one's attention is not diverted to the body. There is also needed the selection of a pure place which is clean. One has to choose a place where there can be no disturbance atleast during the period of meditation. The time of meditation being regularised one habitually turns towards it when the time arrives. So also when one approaches the place of meditation, the meditative mood will return to him.
The next important step is asana or posture. Master has stated that the natural posture (siddha or ready posture) which we take when we squat is best. There are mentioned many postures or asanas such as padma, sarvanga, sirsa, hala, bhujanga, kukkuta, matsya etc. But not all of them are useful for our meditation, though they may be good for health and other purposes. For purposes of meditation and prayer we ought to take up the sitting posture which is steady and easy and which can be maintained for at least an hour without discomfort. It is clear that siddha and padma asanas are the only two good asanas that one can assume. In these two asanas the head must be kept erect and the back must also be straight and not curved. It is to be pointed out that it helps the descent of the grace to the heart much more easily and has probably no connection with the kundalini ascent as such, though it is not ruled out.
In the asana we assume a posture of withdrawal of our sense and motor movements corresponding to our aim, namely, laya with the highest. As Sri Krishna has stated one has to withdraw one's limbs into oneself (sense- organs, motor organs and mind) even as the tortoise does. Thus asana which is uniformly assumed helps the meditation.
There is similarity to the deep sleep state in asana since as the Mandukya upanishad stated the sense organs, motor organs and manas in their gross as well as their subtle conditions are withdrawn. These operate in the waking and dream states of the individual.
Now the contraction of the activities or withdrawal of the activities leads or helps towards recapitulating the original conditions of the tam or latent state