Yoga
~
Natural ~ ~ Nisarga
~
Living

Yoga Exercises | Yoga Breathing Benefits and Guidelines







Yoga - Nature's Way - Breathe





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Yoga is the living art and science of reconciling extremes; 
Yoga is Dynamic Balance.

Can you think of anything more extreme than women and men?



Space   Silence   Stillness



Body: Intuitive Intelligence flowers in Space.



Mind: Intellectual Intelligence flowers in Silence.



Spirit: The Whole, which is Intelligence Itself, flowers as Stillness

(the Whole, the gestalt, contains yet transcends rationality and intuitivity without self-contradiction)





Natural Yoga follows three themes: 

The Space of your body, the Silence of your mind, and the Stillness of Yoga.





The union of Space and Silence flowers as Stillness and the

first connection with Stillness is localized. It is the centre, the heart.





The centre is the tranquil space between understretching and overstretching.

The centre is the precise place where all extremes are together.

The centre is discovered by feeling your way. It is the stillpoint of unity

where the stretch to the left is married with the stretch to the right,

up with down, forward with backward, inside with outside, etc...

Centre is the place of union - localized Stillness -  Zero - Now; This is the pose.

 

The centre is the space that simultaneously facilitates the release from the entangled 

web of doing and where the matrix of being effortlessly, naturally, unfurls.



The process is a kind of switch-over where the pose completely unfolds from silent 

self-awareness to the non-state of self-Awareness as your bodymind flowers in Openness, 

Global Stillness - Zero Emptyness. 



This is the here-now where the communion of your body and mind is real. 



It is living Intelligence Itself.







Listening: The Energy Body 



Natural Yoga's approach is based on the traditional Art of Listening

and the principle of less is more. Natural Yoga is never about straining,

and equally it is not about collapsing.  It is always about actions that are 

appropriate to the moment that can only be revealed by innocent attention

to things as they are now. Natural Yoga is the practice of reconciling extremes.



The means is listening to the flow of your breath and

the result is harmony with the flow of Life. 





Our knowledge based societies are wondrous and yet they cause a loss of 

freedom because they have entrained us to live in our heads, in a world of 

concepts and ideas. This causes our energies to be locked into mechanical 

patterns of neuro-muscular tensions and we do not perceive the body. We 

experience an image of the body which is an intellectual response to what 

our sense doors perceive as the physical body. In this way our bodies have 

become an idea (the I-image), rather than something living, something felt. 





At the core of all matter lies energy, and your body is no different. The authentic, 

energy body, is a template for the physical body. It is the vital life-force, chi or 

prana, that surrounds, permeates and animates your physical body. 

The breath is your bodymind's principal source of this life-force 

and all of its abilities depend on it. 

So your body in its wholeness has a much greater extension than we generally realize. 





The authentic body is awakened through innocent attention in the timeless present,

Listening. 

In this listening we allow the body sensation to unfold without anticipation.

 One's I-image does have a  role to play in the initial phase as 'making it happen';

Once the pose (centre) is established the role of the I-image is complete.

The ending of 'making it happen' is the switchover to the phase of  'letting it happen' 

and the pose is held for a time.


This process is centered on the fourfold flow of respiration:

a) 'making it happen' is coupled with inhalation;

b) the switchover is coupled with the pause after inhalation;

c) 'letting it happen' is coupled with exhalation;

d) holding the pose is coupled with the pause after inhalation... 
(the pose is held for a time that intuitively feels right while breathing naturally)

The whole process avoids the reactions of the I-image 

because it is driven more by feeling than thinking.

First this energy is felt in particular parts of the body, localized, and later we 

come to the whole body as one mass of innocent sensation - the global sensation. 




  

        It is the energy feeling that is the real healing factor (or optimization of natural health 

by removing obstructions) in the body. Instead of the old pattern of heaviness, resistance 

and density we discover a body that feels light, transparent and expanded in space. 

We feel ourselves without centre, without border, one with space. 

  



        This feeling of openness, of expansion frees us from our ego-centred world and 

leaves us open to the timeless. Otherwise the body is largely a defense mechanism to 

maintain our ego. If we approach the postures without first awakening the energy 

body we merely reinforce the old encrusted patterns and our practice 

is repetitive, tedious. 







The Postures 



When we do a yoga asana, pose, we live from moment to moment in the sensation, 

we are one with the feeling, there is no intention or goal which could only come 

from the I-image (I-entity). The posture is allowed to unfold organically, it does not 

involve imposing the posture on the body. 





The muscles, the whole structure works in an entirely different way. There is a 

total integration. There is no repetition. Each time we do the posture, it is fresh, 

it is new - now. 

  



At times we will do the posture only on the energy level, without moving the 

physical body; at first this is a mental activity; later it is felt sensation. 

Thus we free ourselves further from the patterns and restrictions. 

Each posture stimulates particular parts of the body and the greatest benefit, the 

re-orchestration of energy, occurs during and continues after the practice. 







Breathing 



The same restrictions that afflict the body and mind can also been seen in breathing.

 Through fear, tension, and deriving our identity through the content and activity

 of the I-entity our breath is largely reaction. We tend to grasp the inhalation and 

push the exhalation, a continuous psychic manipulation. 

  



In our practice we learn to listen to the breath as respiration and circulation, 

we learn to feel it in different parts of the body and in the global sensation. 

We give the breath the opportunity to become 

spontaneous, natural, as in our infancy. 

  



We use the breath, the prana, in certain yogic techniques to calm the mind, to stimulate 

and harmonize the body's energy. Spiritual attunement is facilitated by emphasizing 

the Stillness between the breaths/heartbeats, which is the background of breathing, 

and this flowers as a forefeeling of our real nature.







The current of the Breath is the single greatest secret of all esoteric traditions.

The  current of the Breath is Living Union/Yoga - Breath is the Link.



 Breath is the Spirit, the essence, that animates the body and the mind.  


Breathing is the coupling of Respiration and Circulation




Freeing the Senses 



A significant aspect of the practice is the deep relaxation of the sense doors: skin, 

mouth, nostrils, ears, eyes and brain. Unconsciously the senses have also become

entrained in grasping, which means they are localized, contracted and tense. 

  



Through the use of mental clarity and listening, allowing the sensation to unfold, comes 

an openness and relaxation. Objects are allowed to come to the senses, and we live 

with pure perception, without the accomplice of the I-image. This is innocent attention 

where the senses are free and the whole body participates in seeing, hearing, etc....







Meditation 



The living understanding of Yoga is Meditation.

This understanding is the union which acknowledges the structure of the poses 

and honours the the freedom of your body, breath, senses, and mind. 





Here we no longer emphasize the object, the body, but our awareness, presence. 

This is the switch-over mentioned above where the asana has completely 

unfolded in awareness and there is a release into Global Stillness. In this Stillness, 

there is no one who meditates and nothing to meditate on. It is not concentration. 

It is innocent awareness, the Seeing Itself.  







Transposing the Teaching 

the Ease of Being



It is important that the understanding gained through the practice be transposed to all 

aspects of life. When we are no longer identified with the I-image, an object, we 

are not bound psychologically to a situation, we live in our wholeness, and 

solutions to the challenges of life unfold from this global understanding. 

Only then are we really functional. 

  



In the Art of Listening, the I-image is absent, we are Space and Silence, and the old 

mechanical patterns of fear and tension have nowhere to take hold. 

“Only in our absence are we truly present”. 





This is the abiding Stillness of Yoga.







~~~



















continue   Natural Yoga I





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Yoga
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Natural ~ ~ Nisarga
~
Living

Yoga Exercises and Yoga Breathing Benefits and Guidelines

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