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The Law of Attention: Nada Yoga and the Way of Inner Vigilance
How to achieve a direct inner experience of your higher nature and the after-death state from which you originate and will return
• Provides techniques for listening to the primordial sound within
• Offers yoga and meditation techniques that are still little known in the West
This book--at once simple and powerful--stands as a monument to the lifelong spiritual struggles of Edward Salim Michael, struggles that he heroically surmounted on his path to enlightenment. Due to the circumstances of his birth, Michael had no education, no mother tongue, and no book learning when he was drafted at the age of 19 into the British Royal Air Force during World War II. After learning to read and write he became an accomplished classical composer in France. In 1949, after seeing a statue of a Buddha for the first time, he experienced a powerful awakening of his innate Buddha Nature, which inspired him to begin a sustained and extremely disciplined meditation practice. Michael abandoned his career as a composer and went to India, the home of his maternal grandmother, where he lived for seven years fully focused on his spiritual awakening.
Michael’s spiritual teachings reveal techniques of yoga and meditation that can open the door to one’s higher nature and to directly experience the after-death state. Nada yoga (meditation on the inner sound) is one of the core techniques for this realization. There is a vast luminous consciousness already within us, but it is obscured by the clouds of our incessant thoughts. With sincerity, moral integrity, and inner vigilance, which, when embodied, implies that we have internalized the basic tenets of the law of attention, we can move beyond the promptings of our lower nature and break through the clouds of our ordinary mind to realize our own divine nature. Emphasizing inner attention and an awareness of attitude, Michael’s practices can help aspirants make direct contact with the divine source each of us unknowingly carries deep within.
• Provides techniques for listening to the primordial sound within
• Offers yoga and meditation techniques that are still little known in the West
This book--at once simple and powerful--stands as a monument to the lifelong spiritual struggles of Edward Salim Michael, struggles that he heroically surmounted on his path to enlightenment. Due to the circumstances of his birth, Michael had no education, no mother tongue, and no book learning when he was drafted at the age of 19 into the British Royal Air Force during World War II. After learning to read and write he became an accomplished classical composer in France. In 1949, after seeing a statue of a Buddha for the first time, he experienced a powerful awakening of his innate Buddha Nature, which inspired him to begin a sustained and extremely disciplined meditation practice. Michael abandoned his career as a composer and went to India, the home of his maternal grandmother, where he lived for seven years fully focused on his spiritual awakening.
Michael’s spiritual teachings reveal techniques of yoga and meditation that can open the door to one’s higher nature and to directly experience the after-death state. Nada yoga (meditation on the inner sound) is one of the core techniques for this realization. There is a vast luminous consciousness already within us, but it is obscured by the clouds of our incessant thoughts. With sincerity, moral integrity, and inner vigilance, which, when embodied, implies that we have internalized the basic tenets of the law of attention, we can move beyond the promptings of our lower nature and break through the clouds of our ordinary mind to realize our own divine nature. Emphasizing inner attention and an awareness of attitude, Michael’s practices can help aspirants make direct contact with the divine source each of us unknowingly carries deep within.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
About the author
Edward Salim Michael
17 books6 followersHis biography and spiritual journey has been writtent in French by his wife and translated into English : The Price of a Remarkable Destiny published on Amazon
Of Anglo-Indian descent, Edward Salim Michael spent his entire childhood in various countries of the Middle East. He never had the opportunity of attending school and did not have a mother tongue.
Parental peregrinations brought him back to London just before the storm of the Second World War.It was there that providentially he made the acquaintance of an Anglican Chaplain who taught him the basics of reading and writing. The Chaplain’s wife taught him music which he assimilated at a stunning speed. His first orchestral piece, composed after only two years of study, won a competition and was played at the Albert Hall in London.
After the War, from which he emerged terribly bruised, he pursued his musical studies with passion and in addition to composition, became a solo violinist. He gave his first concerts after only three years of study. In 1949, another providential meeting awoke within him a mysterious silent memory.
It was in London at the house of Mr. Adie who was part of the Gurdjieff groups in England, that he saw a statue of Buddha for the first time in his life. He remained transfixed in front of it and, when he returned to his home, he immediately put himself into the same posture as the statue with no difficulties, closed his eyes and began to concentrate on an inner sound that he heard within his ears and head, without even knowing that what he was doing was called meditation.
In parallel to his career as a musician, he then embarked on his spiritual practice with all the passion and exactingness of a great artist. Through the exceptional concentration skills he had developed as a composer, he swiftly began to have profound spiritual experiences.
As his parents had never practiced any religion, he had been sheltered from any religious conditioning. His lack of school education and book knowledge left him with a slate clean from prejudice and projections. He would follow the path of direct experience, beyond all dogmas.
At the beginning of the 1950s, he went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger, the greatest teacher of musical analysis of the Twentieth Century. He appreciated her extreme rigor and felt profound gratitude towards her.
He lived from hand to mouth under the most precarious conditions, assiduously pursuing his practice of meditation added to by a constant combat to remain present to himself amid all the circumstances of his active life.
After five years of incessant effort, at the age of thirty-three, he had an extremely powerful experience of awakening to what one may call the Buddha Nature as well as the Infinite in oneself.
Of Anglo-Indian descent, Edward Salim Michael spent his entire childhood in various countries of the Middle East. He never had the opportunity of attending school and did not have a mother tongue.
Parental peregrinations brought him back to London just before the storm of the Second World War.It was there that providentially he made the acquaintance of an Anglican Chaplain who taught him the basics of reading and writing. The Chaplain’s wife taught him music which he assimilated at a stunning speed. His first orchestral piece, composed after only two years of study, won a competition and was played at the Albert Hall in London.
After the War, from which he emerged terribly bruised, he pursued his musical studies with passion and in addition to composition, became a solo violinist. He gave his first concerts after only three years of study. In 1949, another providential meeting awoke within him a mysterious silent memory.
It was in London at the house of Mr. Adie who was part of the Gurdjieff groups in England, that he saw a statue of Buddha for the first time in his life. He remained transfixed in front of it and, when he returned to his home, he immediately put himself into the same posture as the statue with no difficulties, closed his eyes and began to concentrate on an inner sound that he heard within his ears and head, without even knowing that what he was doing was called meditation.
In parallel to his career as a musician, he then embarked on his spiritual practice with all the passion and exactingness of a great artist. Through the exceptional concentration skills he had developed as a composer, he swiftly began to have profound spiritual experiences.
As his parents had never practiced any religion, he had been sheltered from any religious conditioning. His lack of school education and book knowledge left him with a slate clean from prejudice and projections. He would follow the path of direct experience, beyond all dogmas.
At the beginning of the 1950s, he went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger, the greatest teacher of musical analysis of the Twentieth Century. He appreciated her extreme rigor and felt profound gratitude towards her.
He lived from hand to mouth under the most precarious conditions, assiduously pursuing his practice of meditation added to by a constant combat to remain present to himself amid all the circumstances of his active life.
After five years of incessant effort, at the age of thirty-three, he had an extremely powerful experience of awakening to what one may call the Buddha Nature as well as the Infinite in oneself.
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September 9, 2025
The value of a book like this cannot be adequately expressed in words
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