Overcome Distractions & Heighten Awareness | 4 Breath Meditation Techniques & Guided Meditation

Hi,

This is Dhyans here and you'll be tuning into a unique meditation session recorded live with my meditators in Switzerland,

Where for the first 15 minutes you'll listen to the theme of the session which will bring your mind,

Your heart and your energies together into a meditative state.

Then I'll guide you to go deep in a 30-minute meditation experience.

I wish you all the love,

Peace,

Happiness and awareness in life.

A very warm welcome to all of you in this meditation session with me,

Dhyansay.

To have more depth,

More abilities to go inside your own self,

You need a heightened awareness.

You need a laser-sharp awareness which can go inside of yourself and explore the silence,

Explore your inner depths.

There is so much,

So much insight to be explored.

It will only happen when,

Of course,

When the distractions are not there,

That they are not identifying,

You are not so much identified with those distractions that they are not bothering you.

But at the same time,

To go deep in yourself,

Be it just a meditation to feel centered or introspection of really getting into the question of who am I and other spiritual depths,

You need awareness,

You need that strength,

That power of awareness to really go deep inside of yourself.

So these are the two things which I find we can work more on.

And in today's session,

I would like to focus on these two different aspects.

One is the distractions,

These two challenges.

The second is the ability of awareness.

And we're going to use a very classical breath meditation for that.

We're going to go through four different breath patterns.

I'm sure some of you in your yoga classes must have tried most of these breath patterns.

They come from Kundalini yoga.

These are tools,

These are very powerful tools,

Breathing patterns,

If done rightly,

They have powerful implications on your physiology,

On your psychology,

On the entire inner world,

The entire inner system.

So we are going to practice four different breathing patterns today.

The first breathing pattern is the easiest one,

Just long,

Deep breaths.

We in our normal life,

In our normal routines,

We forget to breathe nicely.

So if we start with long,

Deep breaths,

Where we really take the breath,

It goes all the way down and uses the full capacity of the lungs and all the way out.

That long,

Deep breath is just to put you at rest.

When you do long,

Deep breathing,

You immediately feel that your body is more at rest.

Your mind is calmer,

A bit more at rest,

There is less of distraction.

What may happen is you may fall asleep because you have now relaxed,

Your system is slowly feeling rest,

So you may fall asleep.

So long,

Deep breath is good to relax.

It's good to put the distractions away,

But to heighten the awareness,

It has no function.

We start with long,

Deep breaths,

Then we do something which is called as the breath of fire.

This is,

I'm sure you must have heard at least the name,

How many of you have done this before?

So three of you have already done this.

This is,

It can be very simple to very intense,

Depending upon how accurately you do it and how long you do it.

This is what really clears off the entire neurosis that is stuck in our psychology,

The impressions that are constantly bothering us all the time,

This fire,

This breath of fire,

If done rightly,

If done intensely,

If done sincerely,

It just changes the entire,

It reorganizes your entire energy system,

It allows your pranic system to really go at its peak and then reorganize your energies so that when they settle,

You have gone through a process of catheresis.

A lot of toxins are released out of your body,

A lot of mental garbage that you have been collecting for all this time is also released and you feel a sense of relief,

A sense of catheresis.

While doing this breath of fire,

Lots of small things have to be taken into precaution,

Into account,

Into an understanding.

What is breath of fire?

It's a breath which is,

You do it rapidly,

So it's a breathing which is much faster than normal but what needs to be taken care of is that your inhalation is exactly equal to your exhalation.

So try to match how much you inhale to the same amount how much you exhale.

There are other breathing patterns where you emphasize on inhalation or you emphasize on exhalation.

In the breath of fire,

Breath of fire,

You have inhalation almost equal to exhalation,

You try to keep them balanced,

You breathe throughout your,

With your lungs,

While you inhale you stress,

You inhale through,

With an emphasis through the lungs and while you exhale you emphasize through the contraction of your abdomen.

So it's not as deep as the long deep breath,

The first breath that you will take is long deep breath which is simply inhaling a nice long deep breath and then exhaling a nice long deep breath.

The breath of fire is,

Let me just show you how it looks like.

So you engage your entire breath,

You engage your lungs,

You engage your abdomen,

You only breathe in from the nose,

Inhale from the nose,

Exhale also from the nose.

We will start with a slow speed as it is comfortable to you,

Keep it nice and slow and then we will increase the speed of this breath of fire to a peak where you even can go up to three breath cycles per second.

That's the peak,

Usually when you practice this for several times,

Several days,

Weeks,

Months,

Then you can reach to that level where you could take this to three breath cycles per second.

For today we will keep it as it is comfortable to you.

Anyone here who has any kind of cardiac problems or any kind of breathing problems which are chronic,

If that's the case,

Don't do it,

Stick with long deep breaths but if you don't have anything specific,

Anything chronic,

It could be heart,

Any kind of heart problem or any kind of breathing problem or just simply high blood pressure,

Then don't do it or do it slowly,

Do it at a pace that is comfortable to you.

I have been doing this,

Teaching this for several years,

So far it has been always very safe and always with experiences that are positive.

So while we are doing this even for just five minutes,

I invite you to bring in all your sincerity in doing this and not remaining skeptical about it that maybe,

What is this,

Maybe I do it,

Maybe I don't do it.

So be more committed to it,

Just for five minutes we will do it.

In full sessions that are dedicated to the breath of fire,

We even do this up to one hour,

Just the breath of fire up to one hour which takes people into different experiences of different realms of their consciousness which are inaccessible otherwise.

In our meditation session here,

We are not focused on going into different realms of consciousness but very much focused on a cathartic process which takes all these distractions away and alleviates your internal energies,

Purifies your pranic system so that while you are sitting in silence,

You could just sit in silence with heightened awareness and no distractions or less distractions bothering you from your own mind.

That would be the,

We will spend five minutes,

Five to seven minutes in the breath of fire.

The third is the settling breath,

The restful breath where you will allow your energies to reorganize after this process of heightened energies and everything,

All your pranic system shaken up,

You will allow your breath to happen the way it wants to happen.

If it wants to happen in a certain pattern,

Let it happen,

If it wants to slow down,

Let it slow down,

Don't touch your breath,

Just remain aware of your navel center.

So you will keep your awareness and you will bring it to your navel center.

Navel center,

How you will bring,

How you will do that is just keep your awareness two inches below your navel.

So that region below your navel,

At that region,

Imagine that there is a center and try to keep your awareness at that center and allow your breath to settle,

To rest,

Come out of the chaos,

The,

The alleviation that we had done before in the breath of fire to let it cool down,

Let it find its own rhythm,

Let your energies reorganize and settle.

We'll stay in that for 10 minutes and then one more breath where we will make an effort,

We will try to make our breath more shallow and more slow and short.

When you're in deep meditation,

When you sit in for an hour or so,

This happens naturally.

When you're sitting in silent meditation for an hour,

You will find that as you are close to that one hour mark,

You're almost not breathing.

Your breath is very,

Very light.

Your breath is short and light,

Very short and light.

And if you stretch yourself to more than an hour to sitting for two hours comes a point where you almost cannot feel your breath anymore.

It's so light.

Everything is at a standstill.

We're not having two hours here.

So what we're going to do is we're going to make an effort to move towards the direction where we will allow our breath to settle and become slower and shorter,

Slower and shorter.

Throughout all this process,

We will not stress ourselves.

We will not do anything that is stressing our breath or stressing our body.

It's all to help us.

Each and every process is to help us become more clearer and our energies to become more purified so that our awareness becomes sharper,

Becomes stronger.

And we don't fall into these swings of unconsciousness,

Of tiredness,

Of sleepiness.

And we remain in consciousness,

Aware,

Centered throughout the silence.

After this fourth pattern,

You're free to breathe as you want.

Let go of your focus on the breath and keep your focus only or have no focus.

Just sit in silence with awareness and enjoy the silence that arises out of this entire process of four different breath patterns that we're going to do.

It sounds a lot,

But while you do it in a sequence,

It goes pretty fast.

I'm sharing the sequence with you so that you remember it during the session while we are in the process.

It's usually difficult to see if you're doing it rightly or not doing it rightly.

So please remember the process.

The first is long,

Deep breaths.

That's very easy,

Comfortable,

Long,

Deep breaths.

The second is breath of fire.

Third is resting breath.

You allow the breath to rest.

And the fourth is where you make an effort to let your breath become shorter and slower.

And after that,

You just sit in silence.

So these five different phases of today's meditation.

Before we start,

I would ask once again to all of you guys,

If it is clear how we are going to do this,

I will guide through each of these steps during the meditation as well.

But if you have any questions,

Any concerns about any of those breath patterns,

We can take them before we enter into this meditation.

Any questions?

No.

Then let's close our eyes and sit in a posture which is comfortable for you with your hands on your knees or in your lap.

Keep your back straight,

Shoulders down.

Hands straight.

Face relaxed.

And with a gentle smile on your face.

Start the long,

Deep breaths.

Exhale from the nose.

And exhale from the nose.

At your own pace,

Take nice,

Long,

Deep breaths for the next few minutes.

And… Allow your chest to open as you take nice long deep breaths from the nose.

Don't force anything,

Nice and long deep breaths.

Let your chest open as you take nice long deep breaths from the nose.

Engage your lungs fully as you breathe in.

Let the breath go as deep as possible and exhale.

Let the breath go as deep as possible and exhale.

And moving on to the breath of fire.

Start slowly.

Breathe rhythmically and continuously.

Sense your inhalation and exhalation as you breathe in and out rhythmically and continuously.

Engage your abdominal muscles while you are exhaling.

As you feel comfortable increase the pace of your breath as you feel comfortable.

Do not stop.

Keep the breath continuous,

Inhalation and exhalation.

Breathe rhythmically and continuously.

Breathe rhythmically and continuously.

At your own pace increase the pace as it feels comfortable to you.

Breathe rhythmically and continuously.

Breathe rhythmically and continuously.

Keep the rhythm,

Keep the momentum,

Keep on breathing in and out.

Breathe rhythmically and continuously.

Breathe rhythmically and continuously.

And relax your breath.

Rest your breath.

Allow your breath to find its own peace and settle.

Feel the sensations in your body.

Allow your breath to settle.

Feel the dryness on the sensations of your body,

The tingling sensations in your fingers,

The chest.

And bring your awareness down to your navel center,

Two inches below the navel.

Keep your awareness there and allow your energies to reorganize,

To settle.

Your attention and awareness on your navel center.

Allow everything that is happening in your body.

If there are sensations,

Let them be.

You remain aware of the navel center.

Hold your awareness at your navel center.

And relax your breath.

And relax your breath.

Let your breath find its own rhythm.

Let your awareness two inches below your navel.

And relax your breath.

And relax your breath.

And relax your breath.

And relax your breath.

And relax your breath.

Your awareness at your navel center.

Don't touch your body.

Don't touch your mind.

Let everything be on its own.

And relax your breath.

And relax your breath.

And relax your breath.

Give your awareness to your breath.

And allow it to become a little slower,

A little shorter.

Let your breath settling down.

As your breath settles,

Notice the inner silence.

Let go of your focus from the breath.

And remain in this inner silence,

Inner awareness for the next minutes.

Let your awareness to your breath be on its own.

Stay in this inner silence.

This inner silence.

This inner silence.

This inner silence.

Stay silent.

Stay aware.

Most precious moment of the hour.

Let your awareness to your breath be on its own.

Let your awareness to your breath be on its own.

Stay like this.

Stay like this.

Don't touch your body.

Don't touch your mind.

Stay silent and aware.

Stay aware.

Stay silent.

Bring your awareness back to your breath.

Maintain the silence,

The awareness,

And feel your breath flowing in and out.

Feel the sensations in your body.

Notice your mind.

And while maintaining this silent awareness,

Very gently and slowly,

You may open your eyes.