The Ladder: A Seven-Rung Deepening from Manu
Read slowly, aloud, in your own voice, leaving a breath between lines; twenty minutes. Record it and play it back if you wish.
Before you begin. This practice climbs Manu's ladder as a deepening: three rungs of waking, one of dream, one of half-sleep, and a look upward at the last two, which you do not try to reach. It is safe for most healthy adults. Do not practise it unsupervised if you have, or have had, a psychotic illness, a dissociative disorder, or episodes of feeling unreal or detached from your body; if so, practise only with a clinician, and use the phrase "I am here, breathing" wherever the script says "I am awareness". Never practise while driving, operating anything, standing, or in or near water. Sit, do not lie down.
How to return at any moment. Say aloud, "Back to the throne." Press your feet into the floor, take one full breath, count from one to five, and open your eyes on five.
Sit down, as a king sits alone in a solitary hour.
Let the hands rest. Let the back be upright and easy.
Breathe out.
The first rung. Bring to mind the question that brought you here. Perhaps it is Ikṣvāku's: why do things decay, why is there sorrow. Perhaps it is smaller and your own. Let it be there, honestly. Let it ask itself; you do not need to answer it yet. The wish for an answer is the first rung. Good desire. You are already standing on it.
Breathe out.
The second rung. Recall one thing you already know that helps, a teaching, a sentence, something a wise person once told you. Turn it over once, slowly, the way one turns a stone in the hand. Reconsideration. The second rung.
Breathe out.
The third rung. Now let the breath carry a phrase. On each out-breath, silently: I am awareness, as light as air. Again. I am awareness, as light as air. Do not push it. Let it repeat itself, until you are listening to it rather than saying it. Rumination. The third rung. The mind is growing thin, like cloud.
Breathe out.
The fourth rung. Now call your thoughts home. Wherever they have gone, to work, to people, to tomorrow, call them home as one calls children in at dusk, and let them settle inside. Remain calm and cool.
And in that quiet, let there be a light, ahead or above or within, wherever it is easy. Before that light, desire grows still. Darkness thins. You do not have to do anything to it. You are sitting in front of a lamp.
Things may begin to look like a dream: images arriving of themselves, the room further away. That is the fourth rung. This is the place where good work is done. Whatever you came with can be set down here, before the lamp, and looked at kindly. Rest here a while.
(Silence: one minute.)
The fifth rung. Now let the body go to sleep, and let one thread of you stay awake. The body heavy, the breath slow, and somewhere a quiet listener who hears these words. Partly waking, partly sleeping. Nothing to do. Felicity, if it comes; ease, if it does not.
Breathe out.
The shadow. From here, notice any sensation in the body, pleasant or unpleasant: an ache, a warmth, a tightness. Let it be there. And now let it pass over your shadow, as a shadow lies on the ground in the afternoon and the leaves move across it. The sensation is on the shadow. You are the one who sees the shadow. It can stay or go. It does not have to be taken to the heart.
Breathe out.
Looking up. Above you there are two more rungs. You will not climb them now; they are not for climbing. Only look up, for a few breaths, at an even and transparent light, like the sky at the clearest hour. Do not try to hold it. If the sense of being someone grows thin for a moment, let it, and know that the thread is still awake and will bring you back.
(Silence: one to two minutes.)
Now come back down the ladder.
From the light, back to the fifth rung: the thread that stayed awake grows stronger. You are beginning to wake.
To the fourth: the lamp is still there, and you can come back to it whenever you choose. The dream-pictures fade.
To the third: the phrase is quiet now. Let it rest.
To the second: the thing you know is still in your hand.
To the first: the question that brought you here. It may be answered; it may simply be calmer. Either is enough.
Feel the body on the seat. Feel the weight of the arms, the feet on the floor. Feel the breath coming in, full.
Move the fingers. Move the toes. Let the shoulders roll once.
I will count from one to five, and on five the eyes open, clear, calm and rested.
One. The breath is full.
Two. The hands and feet are warm and your own.
Three. The sounds of the room return.
Four. Take one deep breath in.
Five. Eyes open. Here. Now. Fully alert.
Sit a moment. Say your name aloud, and the date, and the place. Name three things you can see. If you feel at all slow, repeat the count, stand, walk a few steps and drink some water. Do not drive or operate anything for ten minutes.
Then, in Manu's words, go and rule your realm with self-possession.
