Morning
The five of phase one · Sarvāṅga-puṣṭi the slowest
All five, in order, before deciding how you feel today.
The last, Sarvāṅga-puṣṭi: feet wide, the trunk carried through one whole circle from one ankle to the other, the breath in on the way down and out on the way up. Very slowly; ten rounds.
OpenThe rest · on the front, the arms forward
On the front, the forehead on the ground, both arms stretched forward, all of it loose.
Something in the body feels good now: warmth, the breath slowing, the floor taking the weight. Find it, and stay with it a little longer.
If nothing comes, that is fine too: simply lie there until the breath and the heartbeat have come down. Not straight after food.
By day
Sama vṛtti · phase four's breath
Four equal parts, each one counted. From the first level, in its page's own count.
OpenCyclic Meditation
Postures and lying rest, in turn. Taught in the camp; its guidance will be added later.
taught in the camp · its guidance is comingMSRT
Seated, the eyes closed: A, U, M and the whole AUM, aloud, their resonance felt in the body; then the same in the mind. Taught in the camp before the midday meal; its guidance will be added later.
taught in the camp · its guidance is comingEvening
The Āditya Hṛdayam · a few verses
A few verses, as many as come easily. The page keeps your place: tomorrow from where you stop today. No score; only the place.
OpenAt night, before sleep
The complete breath, in śavāsana
On the back, one hand on the belly, one on the chest.
Fill from the bottom: belly, chest, collarbones. Empty from the top, and let the out-breath be longer. Hold nowhere.
Ten breaths, then simply lie there.
Yoga Nidra
Lying down, the attention travelling the body, into sleep. Taught in the camp; its guidance will be added later.
taught in the camp · its guidance is comingOn a day nothing seems worth doing
The smallest day
Today only this: ten slow rounds of Sarvāṅga-puṣṭi, then the rest on the front, and ten breaths lying down at night.
Do not ask whether you feel like it; do it first, then ask. A small day, not an empty one.
And one thing for someone else, however small: filling the water, showing someone the slow circle.
At home
One man to show
In phase six the trainee becomes the one who shows. At home, one man is enough: someone just beginning. Show him one practice, and do it with him.
The doctor, and when
If thoughts of ending life come: a person and a doctor, the same day.
If after months there is no pleasure in anything at all, and sleep is gone: a doctor. Its medicine and this practice go side by side.
If a doctor has given a medicine for the craving or the mood, keep taking it as given.
Why this order
The grey after the sickness is a known stretch: in those who stayed off, the low mood, the fear and the flatness came to normal in one or two months, and the brain's own paths moved toward healthy people's with the months. It is not waited out: doing the day's actions before the mood lowered both the use and the low mood, slow whole-body movement made a difference to mood, and those who moved from the old identity toward a new one were more satisfied with life later.
Before you begin
Stay well within what is comfortable. If anything hurts, stop. This supports treatment and does not replace it; anybody on buprenorphine or methadone stays on it.
While opium is still being taken, keep every breath hold short.
पत्र · a letter of Sri Aurobindo
To a disciple of the Mother. To call to her is said to him, inside his own path; it is not asked of you here.
It is the resistance of the vital that takes the form of this dryness — a form of passive resistance, just as revolt or an excited activity of desire is its active form of resistance. But you should not be discouraged — these phases are normal and almost everybody has to face them. It is not really a sign of failure or inability, but a trying part of the process of change. Hold fast and aspire always for the love and the opening. The inner heart is there and that will receive an answer to the aspiration and one day quickly open the outer and make it also receive. To call to the Mother always is the main thing and with that to aspire and assent to the light when it comes, to reject and detach oneself from desire and any dark movement. But if one cannot do these other things successfully, then call and still call.
The Mother's force is there with you even when you do not feel it. Trust to it, remain quiet and persevere.
Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga IV (Complete Works, vol. 31), p. 134
Just before it, in the book
The feeling of the desert comes because of the resistance of the vital which wants life to be governed by desire. If that is not allowed, it regards existence as a desert and puts that impression on the mind.
Why it is here
The flat months after stopping are when many go back. He names the cause: the part of us that wants life governed by desire calls existence a desert when it is refused. And he says this dryness is normal, met by almost everybody, and not a sign of failure. That reading is ours.