Beginning meditation is a little like first dates.

At first when two people decide to get to know each other, they may feel uncomfortable and anxious about it. Feeling shy, awkward and insecure are things we might all remember experiencing to some degree when beginning a relationship.

The pressure of first dates can be eased by going out in a group. Hanging out with other couples, attending public functions and group events can help people more comfortably ease into a relationship.

Group distraction takes the pressure off.

However, as familiarity deepens, eventually the pressure lessens and the desire for privacy develops.

Those initial necessary distractions to ease anxiety through socialization become unnecessary and should be left behind for the sake of deepening the relationship at hand.

Meditation is similar.

The two parties meeting up are: the mind/psyche (manas) and the core-self (atma).

The two can meet up in the safety and easy distraction of a group meditation if needed.

Many people start off this way.

Western culture is saturated with group meditation opportunities, comfortable places for a new relationship within yourself to have its beginnings.

But eventually, just like with people, as things become more serious, the advancing relationship will need privacy, solitude and a willingness to focus exclusively on each other.

Issues will naturally arise. Troubled times may be experienced. Elation, discouragement, misunderstandings and revelations will be experienced. (Keep a journal to not forget them!)

The point of our yoga practice is that the mind and the core-self get to know each other.

This relationship is studied and reformed throughout the entire execution of Yoga. It is not just a one way street. It is important for both of them to know each other.

The core-self needs to understand how the mind manipulates it. The mind needs to learn that the core-self is the ultimate, yet hidden, self and that its job as the mind is to serve this spiritual superior. That it should provide the self an environment in which to grow. The mind accepts that its function in Yoga is to allow a changeover of authority to take place as the self becomes empowered through the practice. The mind comes to trust the core-self and can release itself from its insecurities and clinging ways.

It is a truly humbling and submissive experience for the mind.

While the core-self (atma) remains trapped in this creation and is subjected to the use of material elements both physical and subtle (prakriti), if it is interested in Yoga it should make effort toward yogic understanding of the relationship between the mind it uses and itself, the core-self.

It is part of our yogic training to unravel the mysteries of the relationship between the mind and the self.

So…..what is the ultimate course for these two entities trying to get to know each other and come to terms with each other?

Patanjali’s Eight Fold Yoga Program!

The yamas and niyamas will straighten up your social behaviors and help you to organize yourself as to what you should and should not do culturally, out in the world. How you will conduct yourself in relationships.

The asana and pranayama will clean out the psyche, empty chemical and psychological trash, straighten up and organize the mind and its contents so that it is in the best condition to meet up with the core-self, who is shy and underdeveloped at first.

It’s a complicated relationship and power passes back and forth between the mind and the self along the way to redemption.

Pratyahara (sensual energy retraction) keeps us internally interested in the study and progress of this relationship between the mind and the self. Pratyahara keeps the core-self self-interested and psychically interested rather than focusing on external and redundant distractions - including group meditation events.

Patanjali’s sixth, seventh and eighth limbs of Yoga are the breeding ground for the resolution of the relationship being established.

As the two come to understand their role with the other, a healthy, fixed and controlled (yogic) core-self should emerge as the dominant entity, guiding the mind along smartly with the spiritual program requirements. (See Patanjali Yoga Sutras translated by Michael Beloved.)

Through study of our holy texts, like Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, The Bhagavad Gita and the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, we become aware of the nature of the relationship between these two.

With the learned cooperation of the mind, with its support and submission, the core-self can develop itself, using the irreplaceable platform of a controlled mind to reach higher and higher into the dimensions of creation, cultivating relationships with higher beings and energies, eventually liberating itself from the use of material (mental) elements.

All of this is done in the privacy of meditation. In the privacy of one's psyche only, not the psyches of others.

Once we get past the initial discomfort of meditation, we can leave behind the group of psyches that only serve to keep us distracted from real meditation and move on into the depths of the relationship we share with material creation…..and shed it if that is what we find we want.

The point is, don't remain attached to group meditation experiences.The natural progression of getting to know the self, yoga style, will require that you abandon the ways of a beginner.