Practice Session 18/07/2012

Meditationtime Forum Post

Date:  Posted 5 years before Aug 14, 2017

Pool 5 years ago

Yesterday did the normal practice routine of Breath Infusion.

Spinal Breathing:

It has been quite a while since I last did Spinal Breathing due to put my focus and attention more on the Breath Infusion Practice.

About Spinal Breathing:

Basically while you inhale you trace you're spine from root to brow, as you exhale you return the same path from brow to root and so on, the slower you breath the more you can and easier to trace every part within the subtle body.

Yogani describes the whole progress in a more of purifying the nadis way.. energy follows you're attention.

I would like to hear from MB in his point of view the mechanism in this kind of practice what makes kundalini raise.

My guess would be when you breath in, you trace the spine vice versa meaning apana and prana get infused together, making a spark down there which arouse kundalini when it hits the mulachakra, as simple as that.

I did this practice for around 30 minutes with having root lock and partly sambhavi lock applied.

Usually around that time lower part of the spine starts to vibrate. Weeks ago when I did Spinal Breathing as a regular practice at some point I felt I am getting sucked in the ajna.. when inhaling tracing spine from root to brow is like you are going with the flow, prana is moving up and you get sucked to the ajna, in exhale you are against the flow, like fighting a magnetic force.

About 2 months ago when I did Spinal Breathing at some point I also started to feel dizzy and then I had a Kundalini expression of this energy flowing upward my spine, it wasn't a full blown kundalini rising in any way, nevertheless all this was back then so I thought I will bring this practice back to my daily routine as I have had some results with it.

Back to yesterday, after having done Spinal Breathing, I read some posts of Neil about him doing something similar, by breathing within the chakras for about 10 times.

I wanted to give it a try so I pulled the root lock, the perineum to be more precisely and started focusing on it while breathing "on" it, each inhale and exhale for about 1 sec, it was quite a fast pace but not too rapidly. after less than 20 breaths I started to feel some vibrations/tremblings down there so I holded my breath in and started to feel my whole body vibrating, I felt things happening down the root chakra (at the perineum) some vibrations, but there was some more I am just not sure how to describe it, but there were "feelings" down there. maybe this is what MB means by prana escaping down.  At some level it was quite pleasant.. I could hold my breath in incredibly long, it seems like my body has an easier time distributing air then of that of Breath Infusion currently. I should note I did this whole practice laying down on my bed, the very first time I raised kundalini more than a year back it was when I was laid on bed too so I though there shouldn't be any problems with that.

I did some more breathing but It was quite exhausting also since it was already late so I called it a day.

MiBeloved 5 years ago

Spinal breathing as you described it was used by ancient yogis and also by some modern yogis. The nadi shodana process has a similar procedure.

I feel that each student should try these processes as he or she is attracted to them. Evaluate their worth and then decide to practice or not to practice it. I use bhastrika/ kapala bhati process and that gives me the results which I prefer.

Regarding the system of mixing prana and apana. Srila Yogeshwarananda has instructed me not to bother to mix these but that does not mean that his instruction is everything. These can be mixed. It is just that if you want to go to a certain level, you have to do a certain process.

For me to reach this siddha stage which I am to attain, mixing apana and prana would not serve the purpose. I have to get apana out of the system, replacing it with prana, no mixing it with prana.

So in the process I use right now apana is drawn out, hunted down during breath infusion practice and then removed from the system. It is something like when criminal elements take over a city and get everything under their control, if the mayor wants to gain control, he must organize a police force, hunt down the criminal elements and either kill or arrest them and then restock the city with law abiding people, with a new population.

So for the siddha stage I have to extract apana out of the system on a daily basis.

This does not mean that I am giving instructions telling everybody to do this or saying that the mixing of apana and prana should not be done.

Instead of mixing apana and prana what I do is to compress prana and then use it to drive out apana or to pull out apana from the system. They make contact but not to mix, only to have prana force apana out or extract it out of the psyche.

The process I use is mentioned in Gita like this:

अपाने जुह्वति प्राणं

प्राणेऽपानं तथापरे ।

प्राणापानगती रुद्ध्वा

प्राणायामपरायणाः ॥४.२९॥

apāne juhvati prāṇaṁ

prāṇe'pānaṁ tathāpare

prāṇāpānagatī ruddhvā

prāṇāyāmaparāyaṇāḥ (4.29)

apāne — in exhalation; juhvati — they offer; prāṇam — inhalation; prāṇe — in inhalation; 'pānaṁ = apāṇaṁ — in exhalation; tathāpare = tathā — similarly + apare — others; prāṇāpāna gatī = prāṇa — energizing air + apāna — de-energizing air + gatī — channel; ruddhvā — restraining; prāṇāyāmaparāyaṇāḥ = prāṇa — inhaling + āyāma — regulating + parāyaṇāḥ — intent

Some offer inhalation into the exhalation channels; similarly others offer the exhalation into the inhalation channels, thus being determined to regulate the channels of the energizing and de-energizing airs. (4.29)

अपरे नियताहाराः

प्राणान्प्राणेषु जुह्वति ।

सर्वेऽप्येते यज्ञविदो

यज्ञक्षपितकल्मषाः ॥४.३०॥

apare niyatāhārāḥ

prāṇānprāṇeṣu juhvati

sarve'pyete yajñavido

yajñakṣapitakalmaṣāḥ (4.30)

apare — others; niyatāhārāḥ — persons restrained in diet; prāṇān — fresh air; prāṇeṣu — into the previous inhalations; juhvati — impel; sarve — all; 'pyete (apyete) = apy (api) — also + ete — these; yajñavido = yajñavidaḥ — those who know the value of an act of sacrifice; yajñakṣapitakalmaṣāḥ = yajña  — austerity and religious ceremony + kṣapita — destroyed, removed + kalmaṣāḥ — impurities

Others who were restrained in diet, impel fresh air into the previously inhaled air. All these ascetics whose impurities were removed by austerity and religious ceremony understand the value of an act of sacrifice. (4.30)

Practice whatever method you are attracted to Ichigo, and report the results on this forum. That would be a service to all persons who read about it. If you get results from a process no amount of denying about it by anyone will change that fact. And if you do not get results, that will serve as an alert to others who may be practicing that system and have doubts about it.

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Special Note:

At least on this single planet earth, we know that the lower species of life like the vegetation (plants) use carbon dioxide (apana) as their main air for sustenance while the higher species, animals (human included) use mostly the oxygen (prana). So you can take that as a hint to mean that for higher dimension one has to decrease the apana energy and increase the prana.

Duryodhana was an apana yogi. He is the villain in the Mahabharata. So some yogis were increasing apana while others increased prana.

There was an ill-intended yogi also named Hiranyakashipu. He stopped his psyche from breathing period and as a result shut down the whole breathing system in the creation. There was also a good yogi named Dhruva who did the same thing, which is to arrest the entire breathing system of the planet and of some subtle dimensions.

These stories are told in the Srimad Bhagavatam and in other Puranas.