#4. Hold The Energy Of Your Breath | Vigyan Bhairav Tantra

Namaste and a very warm welcome to all of you in this daily live meditation session with me,

Dhyanser.

We are meditating on 112 meditation techniques of Vigyan Bhairav Tantra.

Truth is not a debate.

Truth is not a discussion.

You cannot arrive to truth with a debate or a discussion.

These are formats of the thought.

The whole world that you live in,

The world of thought,

Is constructed on debate and discussion.

It is good for the world of thought to be based on discussion,

To be based on debate where several minds come together.

They debate and they move forward.

They discuss and they move forward.

The realm of truth,

The realm of spirituality cannot be touched with debate,

Cannot be touched with discussion.

You need a discourse.

For truth,

For spirituality,

You need a discourse.

Understand what is a discourse.

It is not a debate.

It is not a discussion.

It is not even a course.

It is a discourse.

It is a space.

It is an energy.

It is something that you can feel.

It is where you put,

You go beyond the thought.

You go beyond the fight of the discussion of the debate.

You may win or lose a debate,

Win or lose a discussion in spiritual discourse.

Neither there is a winner nor there is a loser.

It is beyond winning and losing.

So when you sit in a discourse,

See that you are not in a debate.

See that you are not in a discussion.

You are not in a fight with yourself.

You are not in a fight with the discourse.

You listen to the discourse with openness.

That is the only way to be in a discourse.

To be receptive.

Because with truth,

Things are black or white.

Either you are in truth.

If that is the case,

Then the discourse,

The meditation,

The spirituality,

The game is over.

If you are in truth,

You can move ahead in life without all this.

But if you are not in truth,

Then you have to be in discourse.

Not in discussion,

Not in debate with the truth.

Not in interpretation,

Not with your own mind giving you the interpretations first,

Trying to validate,

Trying to match those interpretations with the discourse,

With what is being said.

If that would be the case,

The discourse will not penetrate your heart.

It will not unfold your spirit.

It will not unfold and rise your energies.

It will stay with the intellect.

It will become a mind tickle.

It will become something that you are entertaining yourself with.

These discourses on Vigyan Bhairav Tantra,

They have been given in history as well by several other masters.

Those must have also been beautiful times when once again a master picks up these sutras,

These latent knowledge,

These potent knowledge of tantra and he brings life to them.

He creates a space out of these texts,

Out of these sutras where these texts become alive.

If you are interested in just the knowledge of texts,

There are several books out there on Vigyan Bhairav Tantra.

There are several commentaries out there on Vigyan Bhairav Tantra.

You can pick up,

You can enjoy the mind tickle,

You can enjoy the intellectual understanding,

The intellectual stimulation that comes along with the reading,

That comes along with trying to interpret everything with your own mind.

But if you really want to know,

If you really want to be in the truth,

You have to be in the space of the discourse,

The energy of the discourse and let that energy,

Let that space unfold all these texts for you.

This has been also the effort here.

To give you that space,

To give you that energy,

All you have to do is to be receptive.

All you have to do is approach not in discussion,

Approach not in a dialogue,

Approach not in a debate but rather in discourse,

Rather in complete openness of what is pouring from these infinite sources,

These ancient sources all the way down through the mountains,

Down to the waterfalls,

Down to the rivers,

Reaching to you,

Coming from so far away and coming to you just like this.

All you have to do is remain open,

Keep your glass open,

Empty and not filled with already knowledge that you are trying to validate.

We are learning the meditation techniques that are related to breath in the early techniques given by Bhairava.

Let us listen to the technique for today,

Understand what this means.

Bhairava says,

When the energy of breath is held,

Unmoving in any direction,

There develops in the middle,

Through the state of Nirvikalpa,

The form of Bhairava.

Let me repeat,

When the energy of breath is held,

Unmoving in any direction,

There develops in the middle,

Through the state of Nirvikalpa,

The form of Bhairava.

This Sutra,

This meditation technique is a bit technical because it pulls together several different knowledges,

Several different understandings together to appreciate what this meditation technique is about,

To understand what this meditation technique is about.

The previous two techniques that we had learned,

The first technique was to look at the gap,

To identify the gaps in your breath after the inhalation,

After the exhalation.

Then the second technique was to observe the turns and emphasis on the turns when the breath turns from inhalation to exhalation.

In the third technique,

Bhairava is going deep.

He is going deep into different layers beyond the physical,

Into the pranic layer which is the layer of your energies and the psychic layer where you are setting your meditation,

Where you are controlling the awareness,

The level of your psyche.

So he is already going levels deeper than just the physical breath.

What he says is,

When the energy of the breath is held,

What is this energy of the breath?

See that as you breathe in,

There is energy coming in and energy going out.

There is a flow of energy we call this prana.

You can just call it energy that with every breath,

The energy flows in to you and with every breath out,

The energy flows out.

And there is another direction to understand this.

As the energy flows in,

As the breath flows in,

The energy flows downwards in you.

So that is the complete direction flowing from outwards in and flowing downwards,

Giving you the grounding,

Giving you the base energy for your life.

Then as the exhalation starts,

The energy rises up.

It wants to go out.

As it goes out,

It moves upwards.

So these are the two directions.

The first direction is energy moving in and out as you breathe in and out.

Then the second is the energy moving down and up as you breathe in and out.

So here the technique is the energy of the breath is held unmoving in any direction.

So the breath flows,

You leave the inhalation and exhalation at its natural pace.

You do not stop the breath.

You do not control the breath.

The breath in its physical nature keeps on flowing in and out very naturally.

But you control the energy that flows along with the breath.

You try that the energy is held in the middle.

It is not going out anymore.

It is not going in and absorbed anymore.

So the energy that comes along with the breath,

The prana,

Is not flowing downwards,

Is not flowing upwards,

Is not flowing outwards,

Is not flowing inwards.

It is held.

For a while,

The technique is to hold the energy of the breath.

It sounds difficult,

But once you try in the meditation,

You will see it is possible.

The way we will do it is,

First of all,

We will tune ourselves into this flow of energy with the breath,

See how this energy flows,

Let it flow outside,

Let it flow inside,

And then we will slowly move in trying to hold the energy,

But not the breath.

The breath flows,

The energy is held.

The moment that happens,

The moment you can hold that energy,

Many things start to happen.

It triggers a cascade of many other things.

The first thing that happens is that this awareness that you have,

This is concentrated.

Suddenly a different awareness arises in you.

There are four levels of awareness.

I will very briefly mention them because this technique contains lots of concepts in one.

The first is the waking awareness,

The awareness of the physical,

The awareness of the senses.

Then the second is the dream awareness,

Or the dream state of awareness,

Where you are not in your physical senses,

But you are still aware,

Just the way you have while you sleep,

A sense of awareness of your dreams.

The third is the sushupti awareness,

A state,

A deep sleep state of awareness,

Where there is complete sleep,

Your mind is at rest,

Your body is at rest,

There are no dreams,

But there is still some more awareness.

There is still this one little thread of awareness that is still there.

If you practice yoga,

If you practice tantra,

If you practice meditation,

You will come to that awareness as well,

Where you are awake in your sleep.

Not in insomnia,

Everything is in deep sleep,

Everything is in deep rest,

But the meditator is aware.

And there is fourth,

Which is turiya,

Which is the fourth state of awareness,

Which is beyond,

Which is somewhat transcendental.

So back to the breath,

How this breath magically controls the awareness,

Magically converts the awareness from one state to the other.

As you learn to hold the energy of your breath,

Prana,

In your middle,

In the center,

Not allowing it to flow outwards,

Or inwards,

Or downwards,

Or upwards,

Then your awareness starts shifting these gears.

All the awareness of the waking state,

All the senses,

They start to turn automatically inwards.

This dream awareness,

All the dreaming,

All the thinking that is going on in your mind,

All of that stops.

Your awareness,

The energy is pulled towards the center.

Towards the third,

A state where everything is silent.

Your mind is silent,

Your body is silent,

And you are only aware.

That third state is what you will get when you will be able to hold the energy of the breath.

And the fourth happens as a consequence of its own,

With more practice,

With more progression,

You move into a state of turiya,

The fourth state of consciousness.

There is no description of that,

It's only experiential,

There is no point in even talking about that.

Many more things can be said,

But let us take a pause here and try to internalize,

Try to bring this in our own experience,

Play with this technique with openness and a playfulness how this unfolds in our own experience,

How this unfolds in our own consciousness.

Please close your eyes,

Take a posture that is comfortable for you.

Keeping your head,

Neck,

Back,

Aligned,

Relaxed,

Yet alert.

Bringing your awareness to the flow of your breath.

Breath flowing in and out naturally,

At your natural pace,

And with every exhalation,

Your body relaxing,

Resting,

Your mind coming down,

And more and more of your awareness flowing along with your breath.

As your breath settles,

As your awareness settles,

Observe this flow of energy that happens with every inhalation and exhalation.

As the breath comes in,

The energy flows in,

Flows down,

And as the breath goes out,

The energy flows up and out.

Observe this flow of energy with every breath that you take.

With every inhalation,

Energy flowing in downwards,

And with every exhalation,

Energy flowing upwards and out.

For beginners,

You may simply imagine this flow of energy along with your breath.

Not trying to change the breath,

Leaving the breath natural,

Flowing in and out on its own,

And you are observing the inflow of energy,

The outflow of energy with every breath.

Keeping the breath flow natural.

Visualize that you are holding the energy in you,

Physically in your chest,

In your abdomen area,

Around your navel,

You are holding the energy.

But the energy is held.

Breath flowing on its own,

And your awareness in holding the energy,

Not moving outwards,

Not getting absorbed,

Not flowing downwards or upwards.

Don't force anything.

Keeping your body relaxed.

Your breath relaxed.

Goodnight.

.

Breath flowing in and out.

The energy is held.

Breath is moving,

But you are still.

Breath is moving,

But you are still.

Breath is moving,

But you are still.

Breath is moving,

But you are still.

Breath is moving,

But you are still.

Breath is moving,

But you are still.

As the energy is held,

It concentrates.

In a fusion,

In a explosion of energy,

In the space that you hold the energy of the breath,

And let go of all effort,

All focus.

All focus,

All concentration.

Once again,

The energy flows inwards,

Outwards,

Downwards,

Upwards.

You simply relax in stillness,

In silence,

In awareness.

Let everything go in the same way.

Let everything go in this space,

In this moment,

In this energy.

Breath is moving,

Breath is moving,

Breath is moving,

Breath is moving.

Maintaining the flow of energy alone with your breath,

Very gently and slowly,

You may open your eyes,

Letting your awareness to flow outwards,

To once again be in this physical waking state,

Keeping a taste,

A remembrance of the deep experience that you just went through.

Thank you very much.

Namaste.