Breathing

Hi all,

I have recently been looking into the practice of breathing exercises which can be considered to be closely related with yogic practices. It is for this reason that I post this here. The following is a link to a short article on the benefits AND dangers of breathing exercises. I hope this article is of interest to somebody. Here is the link:

http://www.authentic-breathing.com/b...-exercises.htm

Many thanks for reading, Kundalini.

[Mother Goose]

That was interesting, Kundalini...thanks for sharing it with us. I'd be interested in knowing how you do with it.

Originally Posted by Mother Goose

That was interesting, Kundalini...thanks for sharing it with us. I'd be interested in knowing how you do with it.

Hi Mother Goose, thanks for your interest. To answer your question, not a lot at the moment. I am sort of just researching the exercises for now. I have done some breathing exercises before, including colour breathing but now I am just looking at all the different ones available and their background information. Hope that answers your question, Mother Goose. Hmmm, it wasn't really a question was it MG? Lol, never mind!

That reminds me. Should anyone else have links to breathing articles or would like to comment on breathing exercises, please feel free to post/comment in this thread.

Many thanks for reading, Kundalini.

Thanks for the thread, kundalini.

Breathing is one of the simplest yet most difficult spiritual exercises I have attempted. I think for me it is one of the more natural things to explore, because as a kid I was always interested in breathing. I used to go for long walks and love to count my breath. I would breathe in for eight steps, and then out for eight steps, it was like a game. I think that's what gave me the foundation to try yogic breathing exercises afterwards. I can see how it would completely bore some people to death. I'm sure that if I didn't have the interest of counting my breathing and playing breathing games as a kid, I wouldn't really have the patience or the natural affinity to try now.

I am now going through a change or development of sorts with my breathing. It's happening in fits and starts, sometimes I breathe deeply, yogically, and other times I am back to shallow upper-breaths. As the article said, it takes years of letting go and practising relaxation to change your mode of breathing. For me, it is a complete change of state when I switch from the upper, shallow breath to the deep navel breath. It makes you yawn and go into a different state almost immediately.

I don't think I would have understood any of this if I hadn't gone through such an intense period of accelerated spiritual development, which was in turn triggered unexpectedly by the use of LSD. I just don't think that I would have been able to build up and keep the momentum required and the effort for long enough. It was because I was in a near psychotic state, a kind of religious psychosis, that I was able to do chanting and breathing constantly, for hours each day, over a period of months, that allowed me to develop and change my state permanently. And even now it hasn't changed permanently, but rather I am in a state of on-and-off development, kind of like a teenage boy whose voice is breaking and sounds a bit wonky.

This is a picture that I think best describes the deep yogic breathing, breathing from the navel. Hope it's of some interest.

hello! I am less than a novice with yoga. I have a strong interest in it, and would like a little guidance from whoever would like to share with me. I have a knee injury at the moment that will require surgery next month. I am a nurse and am well aware of what my limitations are, and because of this, I was curious about breathing exercises and poses that do not require bending my knees until I am fully healed. I need to get into better shape and yoga seems to be the logical choice. I am a real good breather-I do it all the time....I really like it! Any advice will be well appreciated! Thank you!

E-ma! We closely share the same past, pretty much identical.

Enlightener

Originally Posted by e-ma

Thanks for the thread, kundalini.

Breathing is one of the simplest yet most difficult spiritual exercises I have attempted. I think for me it is one of the more natural things to explore, because as a kid I was always interested in breathing. I used to go for long walks and love to count my breath. I would breathe in for eight steps, and then out for eight steps, it was like a game. I think that's what gave me the foundation to try yogic breathing exercises afterwards. I can see how it would completely bore some people to death. I'm sure that if I didn't have the interest of counting my breathing and playing breathing games as a kid, I wouldn't really have the patience or the natural affinity to try now.

I am now going through a change or development of sorts with my breathing. It's happening in fits and starts, sometimes I breathe deeply, yogically, and other times I am back to shallow upper-breaths. As the article said, it takes years of letting go and practising relaxation to change your mode of breathing. For me, it is a complete change of state when I switch from the upper, shallow breath to the deep navel breath. It makes you yawn and go into a different state almost immediately.

I don't think I would have understood any of this if I hadn't gone through such an intense period of accelerated spiritual development, which was in turn triggered unexpectedly by the use of LSD. I just don't think that I would have been able to build up and keep the momentum required and the effort for long enough. It was because I was in a near psychotic state, a kind of religious psychosis, that I was able to do chanting and breathing constantly, for hours each day, over a period of months, that allowed me to develop and change my state permanently. And even now it hasn't changed permanently, but rather I am in a state of on-and-off development, kind of like a teenage boy whose voice is breaking and sounds a bit wonky.

This is a picture that I think best describes the deep yogic breathing, breathing from the navel. Hope it's of some interest.

Originally Posted by nikei

hello! I am less than a novice with yoga. I have a strong interest in it, and would like a little guidance from whoever would like to share with me. I have a knee injury at the moment that will require surgery next month. I am a nurse and am well aware of what my limitations are, and because of this, I was curious about breathing exercises and poses that do not require bending my knees until I am fully healed. I need to get into better shape and yoga seems to be the logical choice. I am a real good breather-I do it all the time....I really like it! Any advice will be well appreciated! Thank you!

First, e-ma, thanks for posting about your experiences with breathing. They were fascinating to read about.

nikei, going off-topic here, have you ever considered performing self-healing on your knees. I say this because some time ago I noticed that my aura around my knees had gone a grey colour, which is not very good as it symbolises negative energy in my opinion.

Anyhow, to cut a long story short, I visualised intensely for about twenty minutes, beams of bright blue healing light flowing into my knee chakras and the grey colour disappearing.

Only a few days later, I happened to notice that the colour grey had disappeared around my knees and had been replaced by a brighter colour ( although I cannot remember which now ). Either way, I knew that the auric colours had been changed and therefore the health of my knees, so to speak!

Kundalini.

Hello, Kundalini! For some reason I am not able to see auras, especially my own. I am having a bad day today, and I really think some instruction on breathing excercises and upper body work would help. I can also do standing poses, as long as I can lean solely my right leg. I am very flexible naturally, so I won't have any difficulty once my knee is healed. I hope you will help.

Hi nikei,

Well, I have to admit that my knowledge of breathing exercises is only very basic apart from colour breathing. This is visualising a certain colour such as blue ( the colour of the spirit of healing ) and breathing this colour into the bodypart that you wish to heal. On the outbreath, you visualise the negative energy ( grey, in my opinion) flowing out of the bodypart.

Having said that, I do have a couple of techniques which after some practice, will allow a person to sense and see auras.

So, if you would like those techniques, please let me know and I will PM them to you when I can!

I hope that helps, Kundalini.

Kundalini, I would be honored if you would show me the steps to do this. It will help me in many many ways, not just physically. I look forward to hearing from you!