Autogenic Meditation

Integrating the Four Exercises

We bring the four exercises on the arms and legs together into a single mantra, moving from the limbs to the central core of the body. Having mastered bringing on the elemental sensations in the limbs individually, as practised in Exercises 1 through to 4, the four key words—Heavy, Warm, Clear, Light—have now accumulated automatic power of association through repeated auto-conditioning.

The key words of power automatically induce a trance state, the autogenic state. In this trance state there is initially an increased interoceptive awareness of the felt sense of the body. This allows for discharge of feelings of tension and expansion of the felt sense of the body. So that with repeated practice of “Heavy . . . Warm . . . Clear . . . Light” awareness of the body expands out to merge with the light of the universe and dissolves away. Paradoxically, by progressively increasing the felt sense of the body it eventually disappears.

Step 1: Focus on Limbs

First bring on each of the four elemental sensations in the arms and legs:

Step 2: Breathing Mantra

Next, use the breathing as a bridge to move on from the limbs to the central trunk of the body. Begin focusing on the breathing using a breathing mantra, adopting a deep slow rhythm of abdominal breathing.

Develop the felt sense of being breathed by your body, not by your mind. To get the knack of this, pause at the end of an out-breath. Do not actively hold your breath; instead just wait. Let the air hunger of your body initiate the next in-breath in a natural slow easy gentle way. Stay with that feeling of being breathed from your body’s natural self-regulation.

Step 3: Breathe Into The Focus Of Feeling

Develop the felt sense of breathing into and through any focus of physical or emotional tension experienced in the body. Imagine the flow of air of your breath passing through that location in your body and relaxing it, loosening and releasing the tension.

Develop the felt sense of letting-go on the out-breath as you imagine the air flowing out through the focus of tension.

To reinforce this you might want to include the phrase “letting-go” in your breathing mantra.

Step 4: The Meditation Mantra

Having focused on relaxation of the limbs, and then use of the breathing to relax the body core, for the remainder of the meditation use a single mantra to deepen the trance and move into ego-transcendence:

If you still experience tension or discomfort in any part of your body, you may find your practice more effective if you identify the location verbally and include it in the mantra:

Synchronize the Mantra with Breathing

You breathe in a feeling of heat, darkness, and heaviness … … and you breathe out a feeling of coolness, brightness, and lightness – a sense of freshness. You feel these qualities going in and out, through all your pores.

Chogyam Trungpa, Training the Mind & Cultivating Loving-Kindness

You may wish to synchronise the meditation mantra with your breathing rhythm. Repeat “Heavy … Warm” to yourself on the in-breath, and “Clear … Light” on the out-breath:

Alternatively

A 2009 research study had people practise the autogenic heaviness exercise while their arm rested on an armchair with a built-in weighing scale to record just the weight of the arm. The person’s breathing rhythm was also monitored.

Results showed that during the heaviness exercise, the weight of the arm didn’t increase smoothly but in steps synchronized with the out-breath. As one releases the breath, one releases the muscles.

When synchronizing the mantra to your breathing rhythm, you may find it more effective to have “Heavy” on the out-breath. Try reversing the cycle shown above—”Clear . . . Light” on the in-breath, “Heavy . . . Warm” on the out-breath..

Rather than using “Heavy . . .Warm . . .Clear . . .Light” as your main meditation mantra, you may instead, after the initial induction phase of using REM Autogenic exercises, then move on to the inner recitation of Affirmation Mantras and/or Cosmic Mantras from a religious tradition. A brief overview of some of the most generally used of these is given on the Mantra Scripts page: