Long Deep Breathing and Breath of Fire - a more comprehensive explanation

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Part I: Starting a KY class

 

In our classes here in Bangkok, before we even start the class with Ong Namo

Guru Dev Namo we always practice several types of Long Deep Breathing (LDB) and

Breath of Fire (BF). Quite often students come to the class somewhat

disjointed, frazzled, tense, agitated, our of since, so that a few Long Deep

Breaths followed by Breath of Fire will make the blood alkali, sooth and charge

the nerves and steady and balance the mind.

 

While some may wait to teach the various locks for a later class, we teach the

locks as part of the breathing before every class, because the locks regulate

and direct the flow energy/ consciousness (prana). Even a very light set done

with correct breathing can be so powerful that it is important that the locks

are learned and applied from the beginning.

 

The set is comprised of the opening salutation / mantra. Here we usually do the

long Ong Namo version, in which each of the 5 sounds are made with a single deep

breath, after 3 to 5 repetitions we inhale hold the breath and pull the root

lock (Mool Bhand), then slowly relax the breath. This often puts many of the

students into an electromagnetic grip that gradually subsides and dissipates

through the body and mind. The mind is now perfectly still and prepared to

simply watch the Kundalini Yoga exercises without thought or inclination.

 

Then to the specified set with rest periods after every KY exercise or Kriya or

after 2 or 3 short KY exercises. Maybe because of all the KY classes taught in

gymnasiums, where people come for a workout, KY classes have tended to become

more of an aerobics of one to the next to the next without a break or very

littlie break. But the rest period in KY is as important as the exercise

period. When the breathing is understood and done properly during a KY

exercise, blood saturates into the area and nerve/energy channels that the KY

exercise puts under an expanding or contracting pressure. After a few minutes

the capillaries open and relax under the pressure and the clean vibrant fresh

(molecular) air, brought in from the lungs to the heart and out through the

arteries, fills the cells with oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and the other elements

of the air, and accumulated waste and gasses is removed and discharged . The

cells of the glands and organs and nerves of the body become pranicly charged,

and the body needs to have a period to assimilate, process and balance the

energy. Glands secrete and vitalize the blood, and these various types of

pranic energies need to flow throughout the body to be assimilated and

stabilize.

 

During this relaxation period, students will become aware of and feel and

experience for themselves the flow of prana, which is missed if one goes from

one KY exercise to the next without some break. Not only this, but due to this

allowing of the prana to flow and balance, the electric charge in the nerves and

organs becomes much much stronger and deeper with each successive exercise.

 

Sometime we joke here about the level of electrocution one felt during and after

a set and meditation, because with this resting period, the prana is allowed to

accumulate and in the process, it permeates every part of the body to a

saturation point. Spiritual and psychic centers open by themselves and deep

intuitions rise into the consciousness.

 

When we go to sleep, the energy in the body increases filling the body with

light. this light then withdraws into the ida and pingala, then to the sushumna

and to the brain and down to the spiritual heart (not the heart chakra) where

the prana merges in infinite undifferentiated light, and the body and mind are

restored. With the practice of KY, where the rest periods are included, the

student begins to become aware of this prana, such that it begins to become a

natural expanding experience from KY class to KY class. You begin to become

consciously aware of the levels of energy/consciousness that we formerly lost

consciousness to when falling asleep.

 

In Reality the body - the Universe, in all its dimensions is bathed in and

appears within the Infinite Field of Awareness of Light - always. With the

practice of KY this Light emerges into the student's consciousness until the

grip of the thoughts and sensations and impressions of the mind dissolves and we

say Truthfully, "I am Light."

 

The KY set is usually followed by a Laya chant (mantra) and/or meditation. The

KY set creates the effect of an amplification of the electromagnetic field,

which is often felt as some kind of etheric pranic pressure. This pressure is

released and resonates with a tremendous power throughout the chakras and

spiritual centers, including the aura. The effect is often so powerful that one

feels as though the sun has appeared in the spiritual heart, penetrating from

behind the veil of the mind suffusing everything with Light.

 

The end of the set and meditation is necessarily followed by an extended period

of relaxation - 10 minutes or longer. It's like entering a new program into a

computer and the computer needs to reboot for the new programming to take

effect.

 

This whole process of reprogramming is to bring the awareness to the point where

it no longer reflects the old images, but reflects it's single Self. It's as

though through this "programming" process, the individual PC is linked to the

universal Server, and in the process we become linked "yoked" to and unified

with everything, not just as an idea but as a living continuous experience.

 

After some time the students are brought back from their yoga nidra (yogic

sleep) with a few deep breaths, then rotating ankles and wrists, then rubbing

the palms of the hands together and soles of the feet together, followed by

taking hold of the kneed and rocking forward and back the spine. Then sitting

up cross legged for a minute. This is followed by raising the arms straight out

at 60o with the tips of the fingers curled in (not the fist), thumbs up and

feeling the prana flowing in the spine, through the top of the head, through the

heart and arms and around the body's magnetic field. Then Breath of Fire for 2

to 3 minutes. Inhale hold 30 seconds, then put the thumbs together over the top

of the head. Then making tight fists and pressing the thumbs together with some

pressure right before the forehead, while leaning forwards slightly and bringing

the prana to the third eye. Then relax the arms and meditate for a while.

 

The class is finished by chanting long Sat Nam, which is to place the palms

together at the sternum level, inhale deeply, chant "Saaaa...t, Nam," where the

"aaaa.." continued until the breath is nearly finished, and ending with "t...

Nam" This is repeated several times as the students are made aware of the

sound of the "sss" and "aaaa" vibrating through the spine and throughout the

body. Then everyone inhales, pulls the root lock (Mool Bhand), holds the breath

for 30 or more seconds, then slowly exhales. Some may feel an electromagnetic

gripping in the posture, as the mind becomes perfectly placid and pervasive.

 

Many students will continue to stay and remain unmoving, engulfed in meditation

in that etherically still pervasive pranic state, watching the flow of prana,

free of any thoughts or inclinations.

 

After we have Yogi Tea.

 

One question that might be asked. If this is what the students experience, what

does the teacher experience. Something quite extraordinary happens to the

teacher. Before the KY class, while beginning to think about the set and

meditation, the teacher will feel the flow of prana related to the KY exercises

as he/she goes through them. When the teacher sits before the class, a liquid

light flows up through the body filling the teacher's mind, like a stream of

polarized etheric energy. The teacher's mind becomes very still and he/she seems

to lead the class from an intuitive space. Become a KY teacher and see what

happens.

 

More about teaching LDB, BF and the locks prior to the class ... later