Hi everyone.i have been practicing spinal breathing and meditation for about 6 months now.Meditation is not a problem but spinal breathing is turning out to be a bit tricky for me.I find it difficult to visualize the spinal thread or sushumna and let my attention travel up and down my spine.I start off ok but find it difficult to visualize the spinal thread between my lower back and shoulder blades.this is hampering my progress onto mulbandh which is the next stage to be integrated into my daily practice.Please help.
If you are having problems visualizing the spinal cord in a certain area, this is often caused by a blockage in that area. Simply skip over that part in your spinal breathing practice. The most important thing is to end up at the brow at the end of your in-breath, and to end up at the root chakra at the end of your out-breath. Gradually you will find that you are able to feel the prana moving at every point in the spine.
Being able to visualize the whole of the spinal cord isn't a pre-requisite to beginning mulabandha, so don't let that stop you if you want to go ahead and add that practice on.
I have read in Swami Satyananda Saraswati's works that Nadi shodhana in the advanced stages with bandhas,mudras and at very high ratios is sufficient in awakening and raising kundalini even without spinal breathing and deep meditation, In fact Swami Sivananda's book, Kundalini yoga he gives two pranayamas awaken the kundalini: Nadi Shodhana and the other is spinal breathing from muladhar to Sahasrar.
Spinal breathing
Posted - Feb 26 2010 : 12:03:58 AM
