Every activity of our day undergoes three stages— it begins, or is created, it sustains or maintains for a while, and then it ends, or dissolves. These are known as the Acts of Shiva in the Yogic Tradition. According to the Sutras, its easy to have focus at the beginning and end of a task, but its hard to maintain that focus during the middle of a task.

You are usually present for the first minute of a meditation practice, and when the teacher says, ‘for these last few minutes’ you perk back up, but its those long pauses between cues, the middle of our practice, where our attention drifts the most. You’re not alone— this is the work at the heart of our practice, as Swami Lakshmanjoo teaches, “Losing awareness happens to all yogīs, it is the great crisis in the yogīc world. All yogīs generally experience this state of losing awareness.”

But this maintenance phases is the longest of the three phases— a sunrise and sunset might only last an hour, but the day and night between them is much longer. You built a house in a year, can tear it down in a month, but maintain it for decades.

Which is why the Sutras tell us to “Hold” that awareness— hold it at the beginning and end, when your attention is rich and full. Don’t take those spaces for granted, feel the energy that is available to you in those moments and invest it inside. Anticipate this middle space, see it coming, don’t be wary of it— work with it, work with it.

To work with this middle space you have to surrender the need to make your meditation happen. You’ve got to relax while maintaining awareness, to ‘persevere without tension’ as Patanajli puts it in the Yoga Sutras.

And this maintenance work pays off.

The Yogi who is capable of maintaining their awareness through the center of their practice and life becomes filled with the nectar of awareness. This experience is called Sphurana, “the fragrance of the supreme glittering of God consciousness,” that’s what is directly deposited to your energetic bank account.

Quote for Free Write: “Filled with the fragrance of the supreme glittering (sphuraṇa) of God consciousness, that yogī, slowly coming out from samādhi, feels their breath is filled with a supreme fragrance. And although their breath is moving out, they feel their breath is not moving out. They feel their breath is established in their Supreme Being. Then after exhaling very slowly, they experience that the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep are filled with the dense nectar of God consciousness and they come out in the waking state with this fragrance.”