Meditation Exercise – Breathing for Meditation
Breathing is the MOST important part of meditation and Kundalini Awakening. It’s the foundation of all the exercises and skills that come after, so taking the time to learn it now will make things much easier.
From our birth until death we breathe more or less continually, yet for the most part we do it without any awareness of our breath and its effects on us, and believe it or not most people in the western world do it wrong!
Breathe in through your nose and draw your breath down into the area just below your navel, allowing your stomach to expand as you breathe (Baby Breath) and filling your lungs entirely with each breath before exhaling through your nose.
Take a moment right now and feel your breath. Pay attention to the air as it flows in through your nostrils and down into your lungs. Don’t think about anything or do anything other than just breathe.
1. Are you taking a relatively shallow breath and just filling the upper lobes of your lungs?
2. Does your stomach move out as you breathe?
3. Do you feel the bones of your ribcage expanding and opening with each breath?
For most people the answer to 1 is YES and the answers to 2 and 3 are NO so lets expand this exercise a bit.
This time draw your breath down to a point about 2 inches below your navel (the body’s center of gravity). When you do this you’ll feel your stomach expand and push out in front of you. Most westerners usually keep their stomach pulled in and their chest out, so when you do this you’ll have to relax all those muscles. Just take a moment and be aware of your breath as it flows down into your center.
Now as you inhale and draw