I've been doing meditation twice daily for a month and a half now. Recently - about 2 weeks ago - I added spinal breathing before the meditation. But I come from a very poor energy state and I found SB is very powerful to me and I only do it literally for one or two cycles (up and down the spine) since I feel it works deeply in me and I have to be gentle. (Yogani warns about this in one of the Pranayama Q&A - if one is weak pranayama may not be so good, so although I feel Pranayama can restore health and does make energy flow in mybody clearing channels, I have to take it gently).
But what I feel often is that, after I introduced SB, my meditation is harder to maintain for longer. My body tends to make it shorter - maybe because there is more energy involved due to SB - and if I do take it to the full 20 minutes I can sometimes feel a bit irritable afterwards, etc. Small feelings of overdoing.
My question is whether it would be best in my case to discard Pranayama for the moment and just do what it feels like a milder deep meditation for 15 - 20 minutes or continue with what I am doing with a shorter meditation after the pranayama (e.g.: 1 or 2 cycles of pranayama plus 5-10 minutes of meditation)?
Hi YogaIsLife :) I think meditators are normally recommended to meditate for 3 month before adding anything else to it. My understanding is that 20 minutes of meditation twice daily is the most important yoga practice and SB Pranayama is useful as an addition to meditation.
I personally wouldn't trade meditation for spinal breathing and I don't think 2 cycles of Spinal Breathing is worth giving up 10 minutes of meditation :) But that's just an Emilion.
Something that I got from experience and you won't probably find it documented anywhere is that (I think) moving energies in the body without experiencing inner silence can creat Karmic expressions in one's life and can make life hectic or creat bad luck. I always suggest new meditators to make sure their inner silence is always one step ahead of their energy movement games. Again that's just an Emilion :)
Yes, I feel exactly the same. I begin to understand now (I think) what has happened to me in the past until now: energy movements (sometimes forced by me although i didn't know exactly what I was doing!) that indeed were chaotic and created a lot of bad luck and desharmony in my life that I tried to control just with my will (and mind) and ultimately did not work. I am glad I found meditation as it seems it was the "missing piece". Without inner silence, energy moving is not such a great thing :) Thanks Emil.
Pranayama and Meditation or just meditation?
Posted - Jun 21 2008 : 05:15:18 AM
