The Meditation Seat: Yogananda's Instruction, Explained

Ask a room of Self-Realization Fellowship devotees what they sit on for meditation and you will hear the same answer in different words: wool underneath, silk on top. The instruction is simple enough to fit in a sentence, and deep enough that practitioners spend years understanding why it matters. This guide gathers the whole teaching in one place.

Where the instruction comes from

In the sixth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna describes how a yogi should prepare a seat for meditation: a firm spot, neither too high nor too low, layered with kusha grass, a deerskin, and a cloth. The seat comes before the technique. Preparation is treated as part of the practice itself.

Paramahansa Yogananda translated that ancient formula for the modern practitioner. In his teachings, the meditator is advised to sit on a woolen blanket covered with a silk cloth, whether the seat is the floor or a straight-backed chair. The grass and deerskin of the Gita become materials a householder can keep in the living room.

Why wool

In the yogic understanding, the body carries its own subtle life energy, called prana. Wool is taught to act as a retainer of that energy during meditation, holding the meditator's own magnetism close rather than letting it drain toward the ground. This is why the tradition asks for real wool rather than a synthetic look-alike. The material is the point.

Why silk

Silk serves the opposite direction. The tradition teaches that subtle currents from the earth pull on the meditator during long sittings, and that silk insulates against them, the way a non-conductive layer insulates in the physical world. Placed over the wool, the silk completes the seat: one layer keeps your energy in, the other keeps the earth's pull out.

Whether you hold these teachings literally or simply value the discipline of a dedicated seat, the practical result is the same. A seat reserved for meditation, made of the materials the tradition specifies, tells the mind that what happens here is different from what happens everywhere else.

Floor or chair

The instruction adapts to the body you have. For floor practice, cross-legged or kneeling, a flat silk and wool asana mat is the traditional form. For those who meditate in a chair, as many Western practitioners do, a meditation chair blanket drapes over the seat, the back, and down beneath the feet, so the whole body rests within the silk and wool. A wedge cushion covered in the same materials tilts the pelvis gently forward, which supports the upright spine the practice asks for.

A dedicated seat changes the practice

There is a quieter reason behind the instruction. A seat used only for meditation begins to carry the habit for you. Sit in the same place at the same hour, and the mind starts turning inward before the technique begins. An asana is not replaced each season. It accompanies decades of morning and evening sits, gathering the atmosphere of every one of them.

Caring for a silk and wool asana

Real silk and real wool ask for little: spot clean only, never machine wash, and air dry flat away from direct sunlight. With that small care, a well-made asana serves for many years of daily use.

Choosing yours

Every asana we make follows the instruction faithfully: pure wool beneath raw dupioni silk, cut and sewn in small batches by our seamstresses in Canada and San Diego. You can see the full range of meditation asanas here, including the mat, the chair blanket, and the wedge.

Questions about which seat fits your practice are always welcome. Write to us through the site and a practitioner will answer.