What do you do when you meditate?

This is the penetrating question that my wife asked me last night.

I'm not quite sure why she asked me, as she has been meditating for over 30 years like me.

But this made is all the more important to answer with care and consciousness. I really had to think about my reply and what I said was more or less: "I sit and experience my breath going up and down in my body, and wait, hope and pray as that gentle swinging motion helps me transcend my mundane thinking and move into a state of transcendent peace and mindfulness."

I remembered this chat when I was looking for an inspiring quote from one of my breath books.

I came up with something from the godfather of yoga, Patanjali, author of the Yoga Sutras, regarded as the seminal work on the subject.

This is his take on Mystical awareness from his Yoga Sutras:

"The next level of the practice is becoming proficient in turning the senses inward in order to temporarily sever the link between your mind and senses, and external stimuli... This enables you to separate and disentangle yourself from the conflicts and contradictions that are occuring in the mental field so that you can look down into the Lake of the Mind and become aware of thoughts and feelings that you are not normally aware of."