THE SENSORY POWER OF BREATH MEDITATION & SOUND 

IN COUNTERING 

THE 3 DEADLY SINS OF KARMA

The Ancestors

The easiest and most readily accessible form of meditation which is always available to us is our breath. We can become aware of it in an instant and this attention can initiate a parasympathetic relaxation response that balances flight or flight  and is calming. It works whether you have fear of flying and your flight is taking off or when you are in horrendous traffic. It is startling how powerful it is for patients undergoing procedures when they are told just to breath. The Lamaze method for childbirth developed by a French obstetrician is hugely helpful in managing labor. 

We are also able to hear the soft, still voice of the Creator if we are can be quiet and listen. We are animated by the breath of the Divine - this is what keeps us alive. Before we pass over to the "Elsewhere" it is this breath that is withdrawn when the "silver cord (attaching our soul to our body) is broken." The Zohar teaches and the Ancestors confirm that all four beings; Still, Growing, Wild and Talking are animated by "The Four Winds."  Wind in Hebrew is Ruach which also means spirit, life force, energy - Prana in yoga.

The Ancestors

The yoga system of Chakras reveals a hierarchy of the elements; first chakra - earth, second - water, third - fire and 
fourth or heart chakra - air.
Air changes to the finer vibrations of ether and spirit as one ascends up through the fifth and sixth to the seventh or crown chakra and beyond. 
Sound in any form can be one of the most powerful sensory forms of meditation. 
The fifth chakra is in the throat and is the energy center of the voice (and singing) as well as creative expression. Singing and chanting can be meditative. 

The Ancestors

"Divine sound is the cause of all manifestation. The knower of the  mystery of sound knows the mystery of the whole universe."

Hazrat Inayat Khan

In nature we can find many aspects of meditative sound vibration from that of rain, to the whispering of the wind in the trees or the sound of a babbling brook and the song of the "flying beings" - natures breath or her pranayama.

The sound described above resembles very much the the description of the Music of the Spheres or the Oram Mor - the Druid term for the sacred sound of the universe. The Bushmen tell us to listen to the singing of the stars as does the Zohar.

As the ether vibration heightens at the sixth chakra the third eye opens and at the seventh we are at one with the cosmos.

Pranayama or the yoga science of breath is on its own a powerful form of meditation. The key to pranayama is the diaphragm which separates the lower three "survival" chakras from the higher chakras. Pranayama or breath meditation is a seminal way for increasing ones vibration and moving energy upwards into the higher chakras towards the crown. Patanjali stressed the importance of the phases of the breath - inspiration - expiration and breath retention or holding between as well as increasing the time intervals between and of each. He taught this as a way of attaining "cataleptic" consciousness and entering the higher Causal realms that lead us to our Atman or Self. With the breath we can be in the present moment, leave the important but spiritually inhibiting forces of ego, judgment and desirous attachment behind and move upward towards the spiritual truths and awarenesses of the higher principles of consciousness. 
There are many forms of pranayama. Thit Nat Han the acclaimed Buddhist teacher would recite the simple mantra "breathing in I know I am breathing in, breathing out I know I am breathing out." There are numerous yoga techniques but the two I recommend are Ujjayi and alternative nostril breathing which you can find online. Alternative nostril pranayama helps to balance sun and moon nadis or energy channels that spiral up the spine around the central channel. Meditation is always about balancing polarity; sun/moon, sympathetic/parasympathetic, left brain/right brain, masculine/ feminine, Yang and Yin. Sadly our Western way of living is focused around only one of these polarities and we need to balance or perish - at least spiritually.

Click to highlight the link and then play to meditate.

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