Face of the Guru

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It wasn’t for a couple of years before I retrieved my Ramana Maharshi book from John, not until after he had died in fact. This was in 2011 which meant I would have lent him my copy of Talks With Ramana Maharshi in 2008 or something like that. I was in his bungalow in Clayhall, East London, clearing out his bedroom with Leigh, his son and my work colleague in the small company we ran together, first in Walthamstow and then in Ilford, going all the way back to 1989. By 2011 the company was entering its last phase of existence which on a business level meant five years of pain before we finally pulled the plug in 2016. We did this by way of going into voluntary liquidation, after which things changed overnight, seemingly rendering the previous 27 years’ work if not completely redundant then something pretty close. Anyway, all that lay in the future, so back to 2011. Continue reading “Face of the Guru”

Countin’ Out Time

Meditation is the countin’, countin’ out time. By this I mean observing the breath, counting the breath – so that an inhalation and an exhalation is one, an inhalation and an exhalation is two, an inhalation and an exhalation is three and so on.

A full round of inhalations and exhalations would be a count of 108 for me when meditating. Under normal circumstances this takes around 30 – 35 minutes, depending on how fast or how slow I might be breathing; as a ball park figure that is usually the time it takes to do a round of 108. In Buddhism 108 is a scared number, corresponding to the number of beads found on a Buddhist mala or rosary, similarly there are 108 beads on Hindu rudraksha  malas as well. So 108 in breaths and 108 out breaths seems appropriate. Continue reading “Countin’ Out Time”