Yogananda advises using good habits to replace our bad habits. With this in mind, I use an app to track my food intake. The app has a library of thousands of food items with nutritional information, including information about macronutrients and micronutrients. Macronutrients are food components we need in large quantities to maintain our body systems and structures (fats, carbohydrates, protein).
Within the macronutrients are micronutrients – vitamins and minerals needed by the body in very small amounts. According to the World Health Organization, micronutrient deficiencies can cause dangerous health conditions, but they can also lead to less dramatic, but “noticeable reductions in energy level, mental clarity and overall capacity.”
While physical health and the food I eat is certainly important, as a meditating yogi whose goal is freedom from delusion, my spiritual health is even more important. So I wondered, “Are there vital micronutrients in meditation? Could I find deficiencies that may be affecting my energy, spiritual clarity and overall capacity?”
I quickly identified six meditation macronutrients that I believe are universal: prayer, asana, eye position, breath, joy, and stillness. In addition, within each meditation “macro” are numerous micronutrients that are more subtle and personal to the individual devotee.
Lengthening our meditations beyond our usual routine is also advised by Yogananda, however, meditation micronutrient deficiencies need only micro adjustments and micro amounts of time. I found countless ways to refine and deepen my practice that didn’t require more time commitment. Don’t try to deal with every deficiency in one meditation. I examined each one separately and looked carefully at my current practice, making small adjustments, with immediate and noticeable effect.
Nayaswami Jyotish once wrote a blog about The 1% Solution, in which he told of a British cycling team that changed their national ranking to #1 by focusing on improving everything they did by just 1%. Meditation micronutrients is another way of looking at small adjustments that can have major effects in our spiritual health.
Prayer: Our prayer sets the stage for our meditation. Can your prayer be improved? Try speaking aloud to command the attention of your mind and heart. If you invoke our gurus, looking at their pictures may help. Look for habits that have become unconscious and stop them immediately. Prayers don’t have to be fancy or long – alert and sincere is good. Let your devotion speak wordlessly.
Asana: Swami Kriyananda said asana means to be seated in a firm, pleasant, and relaxed position. Yogananda said the purpose of posture is to rise above or stop the motions of the body which cause restlessness to the soul. Try micro adjustments to your meditation posture to attain this state of relaxation with spine erect, shoulders back, chin level and energy flowing smoothly. I keep this picture on my altar as a reminder of correct asana:
(Master meditating on the beach.)
Eyes: The eyes should be gently uplifted to the point between the eyebrows, to draw the energy, heart and mind up to the seat of omnipresence. This gaze at the spiritual eye continues throughout our meditation. Anytime sleepiness or restlessness comes, check the position of your eyes. This simple practice will change everything about your meditation – whether you are sitting for 5 minutes or 5 hours.
Breath: Each breath should be felt in the belly, not the chest. Make sure to do one or two simple pranayams, such as even-count breathing, to prepare for your meditation technique. Cutting these out may save you 30 seconds, but they are meditation gold – don’t underestimate their power.
Joy: If we meditate with joy, we invite God’s joy in. However, this is not always simple to do. I borrow a phrase from the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna speaks, “as if smiling”. Meditating with a big grin is not realistic or very relaxed, but I can meditate “as if smiling”. It’s a secret smile I share with God. Those meditations are always touched by joy.
Stillness: Once you settle into your meditation asana, command your body to be still. Do the best you can to wrap yourself in stillness and never leave your meditation without tapping into stillness. Start with physical stillness and that will lead you to a stillness of spirit. No matter how restless or pitiful you think your meditation was, you can always offer yourself on the altar of stillness for 30 seconds before you leave.
If you pay attention, you will find micronutrients that you can build up in every meditation practice. Every micronutrient deficiency found is an opportunity to meditate with more awareness and correcting deficiencies can be fun and spiritually fulfilling. Ask God and Guru to show you how to improve your meditation diet and you will find greater energy, spiritual clarity and limitless capacity for divine awareness.