Gurusha Singh’s Web

Part of our homework for the Conscious Communication module I just completed this weekend, is a meditation called “Meditation to Break  the Mask.” We’re to do this 31 minute mediation for 90 days.

The meditation calls for a difficult breathing pattern:

• Inhale 1/3 of your breath capacity, hold breath for 15 seconds
• Inhale next 1/3 of your breath capacity, hold breath for 15 seconds
• Inhale last 1/3 of your breath capacity, hold breath for 15 seconds
• Exhale and repeat the segmented Pranayam for 15 minutes.

Then you chant a specific mantra for 11 minutes and repeat the breathing pattern another 5 minutes. You do this while holding a particular mudra.

Today was my first day and I’m finding this kind of pranayam very challenging. You seem constantly on the verge of not having enough breath. It’s also very difficult to measure without distraction 1/3 of your breath. The easiest way I found was by concentrating on the parts of the lungs, and first filling the lungs using the adbdomal breathing techniques, then lift the diaphraghm higher to get the mid to upper part of the lungs, and finally fill the upper part of the lungs. This is called “Complete Breath.” It’s difficult partly because these three segments are not exactly equal in terms of volume of air, it’s too easy to get most of your lungs filled with the first segment and not have enough room to top it off with much air for the second and third segments.

I can see how this pranayam also hits some very interesting mental and psychological and emotional aspects. Fears of being out of control, of being unsure where your next breath is coming from, of suffocating, drowning, many of these kinds of semi-involuntary reactions are brought up to the surface. Gradually I can see how this will create a much more stable and controlled understanding of the breath.

It’s going to be a challenging 90 days but I’m also really looking forward to finding out how I’ll be experiencing this after spending that much time refining and working on the practice.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 26th, 2007 at 12:03 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.