The Science of Meditation

By Torkom Saraydarian
Reviewed by Robert Constas

Five Stars

This book was published in 1971 when young people were enchanted with gurus from the Orient and hippies were the vogue in Southern California. Many young people were disenchanted with the Viet Nam war, with politicians in general, and did not find in traditional religious organizations the inspiration, vision and support they were searching for. Saraydarian wrote this book to bring a clear and sane presentation of the Ageless Wisdom to those who were true seekers of the Higher Path. His was one of the very few voices who understood the wisdom and beauty of the Eastern traditions and who could explain such wisdom in clear terms and blend both Eastern and Western spiritual worldviews. He clarifies many terms used in eastern religions, thus helping the uninformed to achieve a greater sane understanding of the Ageless Wisdom. He counseled many of these young people and helped them stop alcohol and substance abuse and live cleaner and saner lives. Many healthcare professionals, including myself, were counseling these young people and benefited from the author’s insights and clarity. Our being familiar with the vocabulary and insights of the Ageless Wisdom enabled us to form a greater rapport with the disenchanted younger generation.

This is a book about expansion of consciousness, of training the mind to reach beyond itself into the realm of higher inspiration. It is both a basic and advanced textbook about meditation free of distortions. It reviews the various yogas and explains the advantages and disadvantages of each. His descriptions are clear, deep and unique in showing the relevance to stages of psychospiritual growth.

I first met the author in 1965 and my wife and I became regular students in his classes. My wife and I used this text together with the author’s Science of Becoming Oneself for classes in the Los Angeles area in the 1970’s. It remains a foundational text for meditation and I continue to marvel at its clarity and comprehensiveness. The Science of Becoming Onself can be regarded as the companion laboratory manual for The Science of Meditation.

I appreciated very much the chapter about the Wesak ceremony that takes place every year in a Himalayan valley about 300 miles west of Lhasa. I was very curious about this event and tried to obtain confirmation of this ceremony. I knew an elderly psychic lady in Westwood, California who lived very close to the UCLA campus to assist me. She was a natural psychic and astral body traveler. She was the widow of a Dutch diplomat and knew Hitler before WWII. (She and her husband escaped Germany before the war started.) I asked her to try going there in her astral body and tell me what happened there.

After the Wesak period I visited her and asked her what her experience was. She said she recognized a friend of mine in the crowd of lamas and others. However, she said that when she approached the outskirts of Wesak Valley she met two men sitting around a fire. They rose and came to her and told her she was not allowed to enter. She returned home. When I saw Saraydarian at the next meeting at his home I asked him why she was not admitted. He said that guards were posted around Wesak Valley to intercept astral travelers. The energies were too intense for these travelers and they would be damaged. This episode served to confirm that Saraydarian knew what he was writing about.

To obtain the best results from this book and related books by the author, I highly recommend taking classes by correspondence prepared by the author’s students. You can contact www.TSGfoundation.org for additional information.

Robert Constas, M.D. is a board certified child and adolescent psychiatrist with the Phoenix Indian Medical Center in Arizona, USA. He has extensive experience with parapsychological phenomena, and the application of the Ageless Wisdom in the field of child and adolescent treatment and child rearing. He was raised in the Ageless Wisdom tradition and worked with Torkom Saraydarian beginning in the 1960’s.