Sunday, July 6, 2008

Breathing and the control of mind

Several esoteric systems of psychology (please do not confuse this psychology with that of Freud) had inquired into the nature of the human mind and have come up with techniques to control it. Most of these techniques relate to the control of the breathing process. But why, what has the breathing to do with the control of mind?
I would attempt a simple explanation for it here.
As far as we are concerned we can’t live without breathing. The mother breaths for the child when it is in the womb, once it comes out it start to breath for itself. When the process of breathing stops we are dead. So it derives that it should go on smoothly for a healthy life. Then why attempt to stop or regulate it?
For the reason that breathing is known to have an influence over your mind, your moods affect breathing. I would not go into details here. Most of them are self evident. If your mind can influence your breathing then it follows that the reverse is also possible, that you can influence your mind by regulating the process of breathing.
There are also some subtle truths involved here. “Pranayama” is not merely controlling the process of breathing; it goes much deeper than that. It attempts to control life force within you and without you by harnessing the energy released by the process.
The theory is something like this. Normally we fill one fourths of our lungs with air while we breathe. It puts our diaphragm and heart at a great disadvantage (I have used modern terminology for the sake of clarity). These need to work hard and non stop to keep the body in good condition. By filling our lungs to their full capacity and holding the air for a while we bring down the level of exertion of our heart and diaphragm a bit. This process releases energy which would otherwise have been spent for the purpose of breathing. This energy is not lost; it is converted into mind matter. Many things can be done with it. The more you practice the more reserves you would have.
This energy has great power. It can also destroy you unless you can regulate it and make use of it wisely. Breathing long and deep likewise releases energy even without holding it in. Doing it 24/7 would not be advisable unless you can cope with the effects.
On a smaller scale, if you practice this a few number of times (three, four times morning and evening would be alright I think) you will have enough to keep the body and mind healthy. You can also send it to any parts of your body to cure any diseases that you have.
But coming back to the subject of controlling the mind with the help of breathing, for this you only need to watch your mind in action. If agitation, anger, depression, anxiety etc are setting in then try to breathe in slowly while consciously directing the released energy towards a solution of the problem that you are experiencing. This is known to work.
Those who are depleted of energy by harmful directed energy weapons might of course practice breathing exercises of a longer variety. Breath in and out deeply at all times without holding it in. You do not have to fill the lungs up entirely. Such breathing oxygenates the blood and refreshes every cell in the body. It is useful to combat the lack of blood flow to the head. Once this becomes a habit it would persist. There is a thing called “body intelligence”, it would remember your actions and would perform them even if you are not consciously attempting to do them.
Breathing is not the same as thinking. So your harassers need not know about it. If you are careful you can rejuvenate your body by practicing this technique of breath control. Your mind would also become much stronger than it was. Do not let on that you are doing anything of the sort to the perps by thinking about it. Do a bit of exercise and hold on to the same way of breathing even after the effects of adrenaline has worn off. Work at it and soon you would be able to do it easily and without even thinking about it.
Visualize that the energy is coursing through your body making the body healthier while you are breathing so. Better still download some graphical representations of the feeling if you can get hold of some and embed it into your mind. Concentrate on it while breathing. I can’t suggest any video’s in the exact mold that I described above. But there are some I found on You Tube which might be of help. You can make use of them and improve upon them in your visualization.
Here is the link to You Tube videos I mentioned:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1UEXBXNyyQ&feature=related

I do not know whether the existing technology is capable of reading your internal images without the help of words to describe them. Let us hope they can’t do it at this point of time.
And if you do not know how to download videos from You Tube here is a method. First locate the video on You Tube and play it. Then go to the address on the browser’s address bar at the top. You will get an address like the URL above. You can delete “youtube” from it and type in “voobys” instead. It would take you to the voobys page with the video in it. There would be a download button and pressing it would download the video into your hard disk. You may also need a flash player to play it. Voobys offers you one on their page. But in case that fails I suggest you get You Tube Video converter from Xilsoft Corporation. There is a trial version. Though most of the features would not work after the trail period is over you can still play videos with it as long as you care. Here is the link to the site
http://www.xilisoft.com/youtube-video-converter.html

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