Pranayama: Pranayama Techniques

By David Howell

Pranayama is defined as breath control, but actually, Prana is energy, the type of energy that is received from Kether or from the spiritual world. It is sometimes defined as a white light that emanates from on high or that is surrounding us at all times. Call it what you like, it is possible to energize our electrochemical bodies by controlled breathing, and the Pranayama methods are highly effective in attaining specific energy states.

Pranayama methods vary from rapid breathing, which is a kind of "panting" that has been used in some variations of Orr's Rebirthing system, to a virtual stopping of breath attained by a few Yogis with special attainment abilities.

The Pranayama technique used with the methods taught here is one of slowing the breathing down in a controlled fashion. This slowing may be slight, or extend to as little as one breath per minute. When slowing your breath to one cycle per minute, please keep a close eye on a clock or have some friend time your cycles. It is possible to slow your breath to a point that you could become unconscious or cause harm to your physical body. As you slow your breathing, your body will begin to relax and slow down with the tempo of your control over one of the most basic of all life functions. Your metabolism will drop to accept the lower availability of oxygen. Your electrical system will change frequency and signals will go out from your brain to use oxygen stored in fat cells. Much as a drowning victim's system reacts, your body will begin to go into a kind of hibernation, and will send more blood and oxygen to the brain, cutting off the limbs and muscles and aiding in total relaxation while at the same time fostering increased mental awareness.

Set up an area to practice Pranayama in by choosing a quiet room with medium to low lighting and a comfortable bed or sufficient floor room to set up pillows to rest at full length on. Make sure the room is warm enough to be comfortable, quiet enough to support concentration, and reasonably private. Make a comfortable "nest" for yourself with pillows and pads or blankets. It is usually best to do this exercise nude, and it is highly recommended that such practice be adhered to at all times possible. Keep lighting from glaring at your eyes, but darkness is not advised and is suggested in only a very few Tantric exercises of advanced experience.

When the room is set to suit, lie down (nude, remember) and begin a small relaxation exercise. Focus on each muscle of your body (or each portion of the body), one at a time and intentionally relax that muscle or area and carefully feel the connection from the relaxed muscle to the rest of the body and to the brain. Take a few minutes and do this for the whole body. Don't forget to relax the muscles of your scalp area and around your ears and face. These carry more tension than you would expect. Get all the body relaxed and connected.

When you feel relaxed from this, begin to slow your breathing from the usual 12 to 14 breaths per minute to about 7 breaths per minute. Do this by counting slowly to five as you breathe out and again to five slowly as you breathe in. Do not stop and hold your breath. As soon as you have filled your lungs with air, immediately breathe out. Do not rush the air in or out; allow smooth air movement without forcing. If you feel short of air, you may gasp a few lung-fulls to catch up as you learn to slow your breathing down.

Ultimately, you can slow your breath down to one breath per minute. This is very relaxing and aligns you with cosmic energy fields. This breathing technique is a Pranayama method. Continue this exercise for about 12 minutes at first, extending the time spent in the exercise as needed or as required for inclusion in other rituals.

As you breathe in, start the air flow with your abdomen. Fill your lungs by moving your abdomen as fully as possible, then continue to fill your lungs by moving and expanding your rib cage. Expanding your rib cage is important. Feel the lower ribs with your hands as you breathe in; you should feel these ribs expand outward, allowing full use of your lungs. Practice doing this if you are not getting a good expansion of your rib cage. Continue to fill your lungs until you cannot get any more air in at all. Feel as though you have stuffed your throat and mouth with air.

Immediately begin to allow the air to return to the earth atmosphere. Do not stop your breathing. When filled with air, instantly turn the air around and let it begin to move out. When empty, do the same and instantly allow the earth atmosphere to begin to return to your body. Keep control of the flow. Don't "huff" the air out and then catch the control. Turn around smoothly at each end of the cycle and try to keep it smooth as you breathe in and out.

If you go to sleep while practicing this method, just sleep. No problem! The only reason people sleep is because they are tired or afraid. If you're tired, the Pranayama breathing has aided significantly in your life already by allowing you to sleep. If you're afraid, you may soon find that this technique will bring out your fears and you will have the opportunity to confront them.

The person who is not tired and not afraid will not sleep. Just like an animal, when afraid (filled with fear), we have a natural trigger mechanism that serves to keep us alive. That mechanism puts us into a state of hibernation or trance that conserves energy that may be needed later for flight or fight and keeps the individual quiet so the big animal won't find and eat them. Because of damage to our lower brain circuits as children, we often live in fear of things we no longer need to fear as adults. One of the classic symptoms of this imprinted damage and fear is the need to sleep often, coupled with unfounded exhaustion. The fear can become so accented in some people that the estivism or deep cycle sleep will not occur, and the person will not sleep well or at all. This is often coupled with the sleep symptom, and some people will cycle in and out of excess sleep and little sleep with excessive exhaustion.

Pranayama methods are helpful in alleviating this condition and in allowing the person to find the roots of the fear. Pranayama is the first step in a journey of rituals that can raise the individual to full godhood. If at first you don't feel quite god-like, have patience; the god within is only steps away. Yes, there are quite a few steps, but with the one-at-a-time system, the goal you wish to reach can be reached comparatively quickly. Compared to what you ask? Well, compared to not reaching godhood at all, this is very, very quickly. When you consider the fact that there are few (or none other) methods offering complete godhood to you, this method is quick!

This first step toward godhood begins with the animal fear all of us carry from childhood trauma and builds toward a glory you can touch with some later rituals. The energy frequencies you attain will be uniquely yours. Each person has a set of futures already made available to them. It is up to you to choose your future. That future will be unique from all others on this earth, indeed, from all others in the Cosmos.

Choosing a future is something we do all the time. Each moment of the day and night, awake or asleep, we are choosing our future. Mostly, we choose to allow others to choose for us, and we choose not to even notice this. We tend to be complete idiots about this and, when aware, we are stunned at the thought that we allow such things to happen with our futures.

It is time to stop such outside meddling with our futures. Take a few moments and practice some Pranayama, meditate, find the fears that are holding you back and open up to becoming alive again. You no longer need to fear "uncle" Ned who had such an interest in certain body parts you could not protect. You no longer need to fear being starved by unhappy parents, or locked away as punishment for unknown deeds (well, our system of justice is not quite that perfect). You do not need to fear corporeal punishment and possible death by angry masters. You are human, adult, and capable of relearning and re-imprinting so that you can function as a healthy human.

Now take another step and know that you can also learn to be a super-human by learning about your energy powers and your higher brain powers. Take yet another step and learn that you can live eternally as a conscious portion of your Eternal Self by expanding on the energy and higher brain powers learned earlier. Follow this by stepping into godhood from the learning ability our physical bodies have been granted in connection with our spiritual abilities. See, only a few steps away and you are a god.

This method is real, is thousands of years old, and has been proven at all levels. You can test this any way you want. It works. You have all you need already. Start the simple exercises, do the complex rituals, do what ever you want, it doesn't matter. You are already a god and just need to release it from inside. Unchain the abilities our society, culture, and peers have locked inside you and you shall walk with the gods as an equal.

In the Tantric methods, Pranayama is the first and most basic of steps. The first meditation taught is that of the Floating exercise which is coupled with Pranayama and brings us the ability to meditate with focus and complete imagery. From here, Tantra begins to teach how to gain energy levels that are powerful and easy to attain. As you move from the simple exercise to those of higher power and complexity, Tantra teaches that the basic levels are never to be ignored and each level should be practiced as much as possible. With time and practice, you may reach levels from which it is difficult to find suitable partners with whom to practice certain of the rituals. By then you will have learned many techniques to maintain your higher powers for periods of time, but you will not be able to maintain those powers indefinitely, and will need to practice Maithuna with someone of sufficient purity occasionally in order to keep your health, energy, and higher powers at the Tantric levels you will need in order to operate at the levels you are training in. Never neglect Pranayama techniques or you will lose much of what you enjoy from the study of Tantra.

More about tantric exercises can be found at http://www.kundalini-tantra.com.