Breath Energy into the Intestines
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 5 years before Oct 31, 2017
MiBeloved 5 years ago
There is a claim in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika that one should do both Hatha Yoga and Raj yoga. At the time when that book was written Hatha Yoga was not asanas alone. Hatha Yoga then was what is called kundalini yoga today which is a mixture of asanas, pranayama, mudras and kriyas.
Raj yoga then was what is termed as samyama in Patanjali Yoga Sutras which is a three sequential practice of linking one’s attention to a higher concentration force or person, and then doing so effortlessly and then doing so continuously and spontaneously.
Preliminary to this samyama, is pratyahar which is sensual energy withdrawal and conservation of existential expressive powers?
Today most people who meditate have no idea about kundalini yoga. They do not practice it and do not miss the practice of it because they do not know what its benefits are.
There is also a disinclination to do anything but to sit and just meditate, for whatever that means for the individual.
In education there is something called remedial training? This is like when someone reaches the grade in Education, when it is time to move on to the college level. But then the student fails the test miserably and the parents wonder what happened. Suddenly they are left with a dependent who cannot get what they consider to be a decent job.
What to do?
Then a counselor recommends remedial classes where the student would have to go over lessons which he did not integrate before.
Who is to blame?
The parents?
The teachers?
The educational institutional process?
Regardless the point is that the parents are now in anxiety that after so any years at schools, their child just does not fit in to the upper classes and will have to take a job at the bottom of the social totem pole.
Okay, so then the father borrows some money from a rich man whom he knew. He would use this money to pay for remedial training.
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In yoga a similar thing happens, where someone progressed to an advanced stage in a huff and puff and then realizes that the progress keeps slipping, that the consolidation of practice is just not happening after even years of daily efforts.
What to do?
The student then consults with a senior person and gets the bad news that some elementary process was not heeded and that unless it is completed, progress will not stick.
There is also the case where the student could not locate a more advanced person or that there is such a person but he or she cannot figure out what is amiss. Then the student is left baffled in a mire, disappointed, with no one to turn to, sad, depressed because of not being able to supersede negative influences which stunt the progress.
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During practice a few days ago, I realized that I had neglected a very elementary part of Hatha Yoga practice. This has to do with the intestines. These are physical for sure but their condition affects the energy level of the subtle body, which in turn affects how far one will go in meditation.
In yoga there is misleading information which is valid but which is stressed as a standard procedure when in fact it is only a routine check-up and nothing else. For instance there are the stomach pumps and stomach locks, the churning of the stomach so as to use the diaphragm to stimulate organs which one cannot reach by any muscle in the body except for the diaphragm.
But these stomach churning procedures are only the tip of the iceberg. One has to get the quantity of food and the time eaten under control by Hatha Yoga practice. Then once that is achieved, one has to find a way to infuse breath energy into the intestines and the other organs in the rib cage.
How does one get air infused into the intestines, in the walls of the intestines, into the cell structures?
Today I worked on the up-the-right-side, across-the-top, down-the-left-side then down-through-the-rectum-pouch breath infusion.
Then I worked on the central-push-out breath infusion where from the center of the mass of the higher intestines (small intestines before the appendix), one infuses breath energy into the cells of that system while doing rapid breathing in bhastrika pranayama.
This is all physical stuff but it has a powerful effect on the psychic components of the subtle body. It enhances meditation if that is done immediately after.
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Initially when one is introduced to breath infusion, more or less, one cannot direct the infused energy to go in a particular direction or to a particular location in the body. This is because the cells are non-responsive to the will power of the beginner yogi.
This is like when an infant tries to move his or her left foot but then the right foot moves. When this happens some children cry while some others smile. But then over time, the various limbs of the body do obey the infant’s will power. It takes time.
As a child about 7 years of age, I once saw a body of about 14 years of age jump cross a concrete drain with ease. I thought that I should do it too but I waited until the elder boy was out of sight because I was afraid that if I did not make it, he would ridicule me.
By and by, I jumped and barely made it and almost fell into the dirty ditch. I did not have the control over the limbs of my body as the elder boy did. The will is not always able to command the body to do a task, and it is so much more of an achievement to command breath energy to infuse into the intestinal system.
