Now we are ready with breathing exercise, the basic posture and with a little bit of concentration. We will discuss more on concentration later. Let us now make a beginning. Now sit erect with your head slightly tilted backwards, shoulders away from your trunk, breath slowly through both the nostrils, making your abdomen bloat when you inhale and pull back your abdomen when you breathe out. All your actions should be slow and nothing should be done in a hurry. Take your own time to settle down. Without closing your eyes, look at the tip of your nose. Do not strain your eyes too much. Sit in the same position; do not change your posture; inhale and exhale slowly. Do not hold your breath. Find out how long you are able to sit in the same position. There is no hard and fast rule about the duration or timing. Your comfort level is important. Now observe your breathe. Observe the movement of air in and out of your nostrils. Observe very carefully.

This practice of observing your breath is very important for developing proper concentration. Do not worry about the external noise. It is advisable to practice preferably in a calm atmosphere. If you are not able to find a right place, just do not bother about it. If you are in a noisy place, just ignore the noise. In today’s situation getting a noiseless place is a luxury. If you develop pain either in your abdomen or eyes, stop immediately. Take some rest and again restart. Now observe what is happening in your body. Observe very carefully. There will be minute vibrations in your body. You can observe these vibrations with great concentration. Once you start feeling the vibrations, concentrate only on the vibrations. Your concentration on your breathing will now move over to these vibrations. When you start feeling these vibrations, you will continue to sit for a longer duration. Find out how long you are able to sit in the same posture and observe the vibrations. At this time, if you feel comfortable in closing your eyes, you can do so. But you have to close it very lightly. Now observe whether the intensity of the vibration has increased or decreased.

Some times you may not feel the vibrations in the first few practice sessions. But certainly you will feel the vibrations after a good practice. But proceed very slowly. If you want to feel the vibrations in the first day of practice, that is impossible. Without properly practicing the observation of your breath, do not go to the second step of observing the vibrations. Without practicing these two, please do not go to the third step of closing your eyes. As a matter of fact you will automatically close your eyes when you start feeling the vibrations. You will feel the vibrations only in certain places in your body. Identify those places and we will discuss about those parts later. Please ensure that at every stage you proceed slowly. If you proceed slowly from one stage to another stage, the ultimate result will be excellent. If you hurry through, you will not certainly get the desired results. Secondly you should not even attempt to go to the next stage without having sufficient practice in a particular stage. We will discuss more in the next postings. Only thing that is required is regular practice. You may not get the desired results immediately. But persistent practice will certainly help. Your experience may not be the same with my experience. Everyone will have their own experience. Please share your experience here, if you want to. Your experience will be useful to others.