Shambavi Mudra

HOW TO PERFORM IT
Focus your attention in the middle area between your eyebrows (Ajna chakra). Place the object you are about to focus upon at the level of Ajna chakra, at approximately 20 cm distance.

It is recommendable that the object to contemplate be a very simple object, especially in the early stages of practice. For instance, you may use a small, round, all-white ball, or even a table tennis ball, so that your mind does not have many details to distract it.

After choosing an object, sit comfortably in a chair, spine straight, soles parallel and a little spread, hands resting on the knees, or if you prefer, chose a meditation pose such as Vajrasana, Padmasana, Siddhasana, Sukasana, Bhadrasana, etc. Contemplate the object until you feel saturated with it.

Close your eyes and try to reproduce mentally the image you focused upon. You will notice that the image of the ball, apparently simple to imagine, cannot be created mentally very easily.

You may even see that images not supposed to appear will come up in front of your mind's eye: the shape of the hand holding the ball, background details, etc.

Nonetheless, all these are games played by the mind, and through perseverant practice, you will indeed succeed in seeing and maintaining the image of the small, white ball in front of your mind's eye. This image is supposed to be fixed, continuous, uninterrupted by other mental preoccupations.

If after a while, you find yourselves carried away by other thoughts, return smoothly to the visualization technique, focusing on the image of the ball, or opening your eyes for a while, looking at the ball, and then closing your eyes again.

It is important that in the beginning you have the same object to focus upon. Another suggestion for the beginners: practice this technique after a session of asanas, when your mind is peaceful and relaxed. You may perform this technique in any moment of the day, if you walk, relax, stand, or sit.

All you have to do is to evoke mentally your object and transform it into the object of our inner vision. You do not need any exterior assistance for this. It is enough that the "exterior" vision becomes an exact inner vision, and gradually mental introspection.

Gradually, through the practice of Shambavi Mudra, you may get to perceive the subtle substrata, perceiving it as an inner vision of no matter which object or person that comes into the sphere of your consciousness through your senses, through memory or name.

This will allow you to adopt the correct attitude and to make the just decisions. In the following, we will introduce you to another technique of mental concentration, in which the object to focus upon is replaced with your own breath.

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