One Sunday at the close of Meeting for Worship a young Friend asked whether we could get together during the week to meditate. Laughingly I asked, “Isn’t that what we just finished doing?” Quietly he said. “I don’t mean that; I mean really meditating!” I shared his discontent. The spiritual pulse of our Meeting was weak. There was a chronic dribbling in of latecomers and dribbling out of early leavers. Our Meeting was restless with many distractions including the reading of books.
Out of our shared longing to “really meditate” a small worship group was born which met irregularly over a period of two years whenever the need was felt and the time was auspicious. Then for one year it met concurrently with the scheduled Meeting for Worship. It was small and informal; we lay or sat on the floor, sat on cushions or chairs, whatever we preferred. As we experimented with different techniques of centering: singing, chanting, holding hands, or talking quietly together before entering the silence, we experienced an intensity of focus which is rare in our large Meeting for Worship.
This pamphlet is the result of my search for the missing ingredient. My concern is not new; thirty years ago Gerald Heard said that Friends, having failed to develop a psychology or a precise method for using the silence effectively, should blend Yoga with Quakerism. Since my own experience of the Light at a Yoga school, I, also, have wanted to combine Yogic wisdom with Quaker beliefs and experience. I include the Yogic preparations for personal meditation and relate them to Quaker worship. I have also included initiatory experiences as they occur within the Society of Friends and outside it. In presenting Yoga to Friends I am looking past the techniques for the experience which they facilitate. Only when that experience is sympathetic to Friendly tradition have I suggested the use of Yoga.
