The Air of Freedom

Why to practice alone at home is so difficult? May be we are too busy to take care about ourselves? We need discipline of spiritual practices as we have it for other fields of our life. We get used to take responsibility for children, family, parents, but not ourselves. That's why the format of free training classes at the regular weekly basis is the best way how to start spiritual practices.

 

Have you ever noticed how heavily your inner state depends on your breath? What emotions do you feel while sitting in a stuffy office or in a smoky fuggy room?

You don’t feel happy, don’t you? You feel rather sleepy, anxious, sad and depressed.  

And how do you feel in a pinery, by the sea or in mountains where the air itself is permeated with energy, joy and life?

Quite another state, isn’t it? The thing is that what and how you breathe; if your body gets enough of refreshing air.

 

All our life depends fully on the breath

If we stop breathing, life will abandon our body. At the free training classes we experience breath exercises together in the group and support each other at the spiritual path. Life and breath are closely connected. As you remember when people die we say that they draw their last breath. Those are the same words used to describe the process of exhalation or breathing out the air from the lungs. We can do without water for several days, without food for more than a month but how long will a common person do without breathing? Usually not more than a few minutes.

Proper breathing

Is one of the five principles of Patanjali yoga. Most people use only a part of their lung volumes for breathing. They breathe shallowly by just widening their nostrils. Their shoulders are stooped and the top part of their back is painfully tense. They suffer from the lack of oxygen.   Do you know how air comes to your lungs? You know that it happens but do you know why? It is very important as with the understanding of the way you breathe you will manage to change your habit of improper breathing. At the free training classes spiritual same-minded people share their experience in yoga and breath.  

In a few words the process of breathing can be described as following:

imagine that the lungs are two very flexible and firm sacks that may inflate and deflate when air comes in when inhaling and comes out when exhaling. The lungs may widen and shrink to consume small space. From above and sides each lung is surrounded by ribs and ribcage while from below – by a very important flat muscle that is called diaphragm. The diaphragm separates the lungs from the abdominal cavity. The lungs are  attached neither to the diaphragm nor to the ribcage however they change their size conforming to any changes in the shape of space they are in. When due to muscular activities the ribcage widens and the diaphragm moves down, there emerges a space between the external lung surface and surrounding tissues. As the nature can’t stand void the lungs widen automatically to fill it. When widening they take the exact shape of that confined space created by the ribcage and the diaphragm. Thus air enters the lungs and you inhale. The similar process is performed when the ribcage shrinks, the diaphragm moves up and due to alleviation of muscular tension the lungs shrink. This pushes air out of the lungs. You exhale.  

That’s how the breathing works

The more the lungs widen or shrink, the deeper your breath is. The deeper and the calmer you breathe, the better your lungs ventilate. Your health improves.  If you want to learn how to charge yourself with energy of love and transfer it to your close people, practice ‘Breath of Love’ meditation at the group meditations ‘Field of Love’ in your city. The best way of breathing is deep breath. ‘Why so?’ you would ask. ‘Why shouldn’t I breathe quickly?’ The reason is quite simple. Oxygen needs some time to get from the lungs to blood and dioxide carbon – from blood to the lungs and then out of your body when you exhale. If you breathe too quickly then the exchange of oxygen and dioxide carbon won’t be performed at an optimal pace that can be reached when you breathe deeply. That’s why the correlation of depth and rate of breathing is so important. Deep breath provides the maximal air inflow while slow breath – optimal conditions for oxygen/dioxide carbon exchange.   Now you know a lot!  

Let’s get to practice!

Enjoy proper breathing to the full by doing the following yoga practice: chakra  pranayama. Sit in a cross legged or padmasana (lotus) position. Straighten your spine and close your eyes. First try to calm down your breath. Let it become regular, quiet and silent. Concentrate your mind on all the seven energy centers of your body (chakras). Each has its own number that is a result of the numerological addition of chakra petals. If we place these numbers in order, we will find out the proper sequence of breathing. Here it is:  

1. – Manuipura (10 petals);
2. – Ajna (2 petals);
3. – Anahata (12 petals);
4. – Muladhara (4 petals);
5. – Sahasrara (1000-petal lotus);
6. – Swadhishthana (6 petals);
7. – Vishuddhi (16 petals).

 

All chakras form a unique closed system

When you perform this exercise energy goes from chakra to chakra unless it reaches the cosmic level and begins to evaporate through Sahasrara. Prepare for breathing deeply. Breathe regularly, slowly and calmly. As you breathe in first move out your belly, then diaphragm and then chest. Concentrate on each chakra one after another. For example concentrate first on Manipura (placed in the area of solar plexus) and begin to inhale drawing the energy to this chakra. Feel prana fills the chakra. As you inhale hold your breath as long as you can. Let all energy from the air soak into your body. As you exhale shift your focus to Ajna. Keep on breathing and going from one chakra to another. When you finish with the ritual take another breath as if inhaling with all chakras at once. Hold your breath for a while. As you exhale imagine that the energy moves up, leaves your body and dissolves in the infinite Space going to the center of the Galaxy. Join this energy flow and fuse with it…   

 

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