Moving Inward: The Journey to Meditation

Rolf Sovik, PsyD

What is meditation? What is to be gained from it? And what is the connection between meditation, yoga postures, and other yoga practices? In these pages, Rolf Sovik, PsyD. draws on 35 years of teaching experience to explain both the practical aspects and the philosophical foundation of meditation.

This book will guide you with patience and understanding through the various stages of the inward journey. You will learn how to:

• Establish a steady posture that leads to a feeling of stillness
• Develop deep, diaphragmatic breathing
• Relax systematically
• Establish breath awareness in the nostrils
• Use a mantra to refine your inner focus

Both novice and advanced students will appreciate Sovik's rich and often startling insights into the mystery of meditation. And you'll walk away with a clearer understanding of why you should undertake this journey.

Product Details

Publisher: Himalayan Institute
Copyright: 2005, Current printing 2013
ISBN: 978-0-893892470
Paperback
198 pages
6" x 9"

Meditation / Yoga

About the Author

President and Spiritual Director of the Himalayan Institute and a clinical psychologist in private practice, Rolf Sovik, PsyD, has studied yoga in the United States, India, and Nepal. He holds degrees in philosophy, music, Eastern studies, and clinical psychology. Former Co-Director of the Himalayan Institute of Buffalo, NY he began his practice of yoga in 1972, and was initiated as a pandit in the Himalayan tradition in 1987. He is the author of Moving Inward, co-author of the award-winning Yoga: Mastering the Basics, and a contributor to Yoga International.

More on Moving Inward

Moving Inward begins with a description of the eight limbs of classical yoga-- which start with two collections of attitudes, then addresses the needs of the body, nervous system, and the mind, and finally progresses to the three phases of the meditative process itself -- then unfolds in sections that generally follow the same design. Along the way we learn a wealth of information on everything from cultivating a steady posture to proper breathing techniques to the art of relaxing to the meaning of mantra. Yet the book does more than instruct. It inspires.

Besides capturing ideas that are, in the strictest sense, indescribable, Sovik's words are pure poetry. Consider the following passage on the state of mind that arises during meditation: "Mindfulness has been likened to the relaxing experience of sitting near a stream, watching the water flow by. As the water wends along, one point in the stream is replaced by the next without arousing or engaging attention. Similarly, a meditator experiences awareness itself as having stepped away from the automatic stream of mental activity. Observing that stream without intentionally engaging in it, the mind is directed even more deeply toward its focus. In this manner, meditation leads to inner stillness and a quiet, joyful remembrance of awareness resting in its own nature."

Ultimately, the reader comes to understand that regardless of what inspires him or her to start meditating, the act takes on a life of its own. "If we are fortunate, whatever brought us to meditate will prompt something greater than itself to emerge," writes Sovik. "It will blossom into a state of mind that cannot be contained in words. That bountiful fullness of consciousness is the fruit of meditation. It is the reason that our hearts persist in practice. It is the unknowable into which we surrender our modest knowing. Thus, in its paradoxical way, when the call of meditation whispers to us, it does it with sounds that return us to silence."

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