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atmaanand
India
2 Posts |
 Posted - May 19 2008 : 08:03:34 AM
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Hi
Namaste to One and all.
I am going through Yogani's main lessons and started practicing meditation and pranayama.
I have following queries
1 I commute by bus(atleast 2 hours/day) and I practice my meditation and pranayama in bus. Is it OK to do pranayama in a polluted environment ?
2 The roads have bumps and hence during meditation I cant continue to sit straight. Is it OK change the posture while meditating ?
3 I always feel that the pranayam cycle(1 inhale + exhale) is very short(< 10 s) for me in case of spinal breathing when compared to "anulom vilom" pranayam.while doing anulom vilom pranayama I can do it for 8-32-16 secs of inhale-hold-exhale.
4 I am neither able to imagine the spinal nerve nor a white tube as Yogani suggested. Sometimes I just go along the back bone and not sure where to take the forward bend to reach third eye(by this time no more inhalation is possible) and just come down while exhaling.
Any suggestions (sort of improving lung capacity, better imagination solution etc., )to improve spinal breathing pranayama ?
Thanks.
-Mani
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Anthem
1608 Posts |
Posted - May 19 2008 : 11:34:05 AM
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Hi Mani,
Welcome to the forum .
Here's my perspective on your 4 questions.
1- If the bus is the only place you can find the time to practice then so be it. If not, then moving your practice to another time might be a better idea? Having said that, considering the amount of time you spend on the bus each day, sounds like the perfect opportunity to practice. No need to contemplate levels of pollution, it's just another mental distraction, keep to the practice, come back to tracing the spinal nerve with the breath during pranayama or the mantra during deep meditation.
2- Comfort would be your primary objective, so ideally sitting in Sidhasana or with crossed legs, if you are unable to do this the whole time, then switching positions when necessary is fine. Maybe waiting for a smoother period of the bus ride might make it easier?
3- The length of your pranayama spinal breathing will naturally lengthen over time with practice. At AYP it is recommended to stick to the practices as described in the Main Lessons.
4- This is how I started as well, with the back bone as a guide. The spinal nerve will become more evident to you over time. The forward bend happens at the top of the brain stem, I used to just trace up the inside of the spinal cord in the neck and then go forward to the 3rd eye from the center of the brain. It is ok if it is general at first, you will start to feel it more with practice.
Lesson 41 describes it well here:
quote:
Next, with each rising inhalation of the breath, allow your
attention to travel upward inside a tiny thread, or tube, you
visualize beginning at your perineum, continuing up through the
center of your spine, and up through the stem of your brain to the
center of your head. At the center of your head the tiny nerve makes
a turn forward to the point between your eyebrows. With one slow,
deep inhalation let your attention travel gradually inside the nerve
from the perineum all the way to the point between the eyebrows. As
you exhale, retrace this path from the point between the eyebrows all the way back down to the perineum. Then, come back up to the point between the eyebrows with the next inhalation, and down to the
perineum with the next exhalation, and so on.
Best of luck!
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - May 19 2008 : 1:07:19 PM
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I get the most beautiful picture of a most devoted meditator on that indian bumpy bus! Bhakti drives us to meditate wherever possible. I have made most of my meditations on trains so far. The noice and disturbances has a strange ability to just... disappear more and more. It just wont happen that much disturbing things as you continue to go deeper into silence. The conductor never bothered to watch my ticket for example, and there were new conductors all the time...
Otherwise I second Anthem on all points.
Oh yes, welcome to the forum! |
Edited by - emc on May 19 2008 1:08:19 PM |
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atmaanand
India
2 Posts |
Posted - May 21 2008 : 01:07:14 AM
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Hi Anthem, emc
Thanks a lot for your valuable suggestions.
I got the point that my mind was really distracting and not the environment.
Thanks.
-Mani
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practise while traveling
