Causes of Illness

Health disorders, big and small, are part of our life. The deeper causes of illness is break in Disequilibrium.

First of all that all illness without any exception—is the expression of a break in equilibrium. But there are many kinds of breaks in equilibrium. … First, the body, not about the nervous illnesses of the vital or of mental illnesses.  All illnesses, all, whatever they may be, even accidents come from a break in equilibrium. That is, if all your organs, all the members and parts of your body are in harmony with one another, you are in perfect health. But if there is the slightest imbalance anywhere, immediately you get either just a little ill or quite ill, even very badly ill, or else an accident occurs. That always happens whenever there is an inner imbalance.

But then, to the equilibrium of the body, you must add the equilibrium of the vital and the mind. For you to be able to do all kinds of things with immunity, without any accident happening to you, you must have a triple equilibrium—mental, vital, physical—and not only in each of the parts, but also in the three parts in their mutual relations. … If you have done a little mathematics, you should have been taught how many combinations that makes and what a difficult thing it means! There lies the key to the problem. For the combinations are innumerable, and consequently the causes of illness too are innumerable, the causes of accidents also are innumerable. Still, we are going to classify them so that we may understand.

Functional and Organic Causes

First of all, from the point of view of the body—just the body—there are two kinds of disequilibrium: functional and organic. You should be aware of the difference between the two; but you have organs and then you have all the parts of your body: nerves, muscles, bones and all the rest.  Now, if an organ by itself is in disequilibrium, it is an organic disequilibrium, and you are told: that organ is ill or perhaps it is badly formed or it is not normal or an accident has occurred to it. But it is the organ that is ill. But the organ may be in a very good condition, all your organs may be in a very good condition, but there is still an illness as they do not function properly: there is a lack of balance in the functioning. You may have a very good stomach, but suddenly something happens to it and it does not function properly; or the body may also be excellent, but something happens to it and it does not work properly any more. Then you have an illness due to functional imbalance not organic imbalance.

Now what are the causes of this imbalance?  the causes are innumerable; because, first of all, there are all the inner causes, that is, those personal to you, and then all the external causes, those that come to you from outside. That makes two major categories.

The Internal Causes

You have a brain, lungs, a heart, a stomach, a liver, etc. If each one does its duty and works normally and if all move together in harmony at a given moment and in the right way (Fortunately, it does not need our conscious thinking, the sub-conscious looks after it), admitting however they are in good harmony with one another, good friends, in perfect agreement, and each one fulfilling its task, its movement at the right time, in tune with the rest, neither too soon nor too late, neither too fast nor too slow, indeed, every one going all right, then you are marvelously well! Suppose now that one of them, for some reason or other, happens to be in a bad mood: it does not work with the necessary energy, at the required moment it goes awhile on strike. Do not believe that it alone will fall ill: the whole system will go wrong and you will feel altogether unwell. And if, unfortunately, there is a vital imbalance, that is, a disappointment or too violent an emotion or too strong a passion or something else upsetting your vital, that comes in addition. And if furthermore your thoughts roam about and you begin to have dark ideas and formulate frightful things and make catastrophic formations, then after that you are sure to fall ill altogether. … You see the complication, don’t you, just a tiny thing can go the wrong way and thus through an inner contagion can lead to something very serious. So what is important is to control things immediately. One must be conscious, conscious of the working of one’s organs, aware of the one that does not behave very well, telling it immediately what is to be done to set itself right.   What is needed is to give them a lesson as one does to little children. When they begin indulging in unhealthy fancies (indeed it is then the occasion to say it) you must tell them: no, it is not like that the work is to be done, it is the other way! Suppose for example, your heart begins to throb madly; then you must make it calm, you tell it that this is not the way to behave, and at the same time (solely to help it) you take in long, very regular rhythmic breaths, that is, the lung becomes the mentor of the heart and teaches it how to work properly. And so on.

We say then that there is an imbalance between the different parts of the being, disharmony in their working.  And then there are internal conflicts. These are quarrels. There are internal quarrels among the different parts of yourself. Supposing there is an organ (it happens very often) that needs rest and there is another that wants action, and both at the same time. How are you going to manage it? They begin to quarrel. If you do what one wants, the other protests! And so you have to find a middle term to put them in harmony. And then, at times, if you add to the physical the vital and mental; well, if there is a dispute between them, between the mind, the vital and the physical, you have a battlefield, and this battlefield can become the cause of all possible illnesses. They fight violently. One wants something, the other does not, they quarrel and you are in a kind of internal whirlwind. That can give you fever—you do get it usually—or else you are seized by an inner shivering and you have no longer any control. For the most important of all causes for bodily illness is that the body begins to get restless; it trembles and the trembling increases more and more, more and more and you feel that you will never be able to reestablish the balance, it eludes you. Then in that case you must know what the dispute is about, the reason of the dispute and find out how to reconcile the people within you.

All these are functional imbalances.

External Causes

If you were in a perfectly harmonious environment where everything was full of a total and perfect goodwill, then evidently you could lay the blame only on yourself. But the difficulties that are within are also without. You can, to a certain extent, establish an inner equilibrium, but you live in surroundings full of imbalance. Unless you shut yourself up in an ivory tower (which is not only difficult but not always recommendable), you are obliged to receive what comes from outside. You give and you receive; you breathe in and absorb. So there is a mixture and that is why one can say that all is contagious, for you live in a state of ceaseless vibrations. You give out your vibrations and receive also the vibrations of others, and these vibrations are of a very complex kind. There are still (we shall say for simplifying the language) mental vibrations, vital vibrations, physical vibrations and many others. You give, you receive; you give, you receive. It is a perpetual play. Even granting that there is no bad will, there is necessarily contagion. And all is contagious, everything. You are looking at the effect of an accident: you absorb a certain vibration. And if you are over-sensitive and, over and above that, you have fear or disgust (which is the same thing, disgust is only a moral expression of a physical fear), the accident can be translated physically in your body. Naturally you will be told that those who have such reactions are in a state of nervous imbalance. It is not quite true. They are persons with an ultra-supersensitive vital, that is all. And it is not always a proof of inferiority, on the contrary! For as you progress spiritually, a certain hypersensitivity of the nerves occurs and if your self-control does not increase along with your sensibility, all kinds of untoward things may happen to you.

But that is not the only thing.

Unhappily there is much bad will in the world, and among the different kinds of bad will there is the small type that comes from ignorance and stupidity, there is the big type that comes from wickedness and there is the formidable one that is the result of anti-divine forces. So, all that is in the atmosphere (one should fear nothing—but it is there all the same) and these things attack you, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. Unintentionally, through other people: others are attacked, they don’t know, they pass it on without even being aware of it. They are the first victims. They pass the illness to others. But there are willful attacks, mental formations and of wicked people who make mental formations to harm you, make them willfully to do harm. And then there are others who go still a step further.

Occult Causes

There is a misguided, perverted occultism which is called black magic, it is a thing one must never touch. But unfortunately, there are people who touch it through pure wickedness. You must not believe it is an illusion, a superstition; it is real. There are people who know how to do magic and do it, and with their magic they obtain altogether detestable results…. It is understood of course that when you have no fear and remain under protection, you are sheltered. But there is a “when”, there is a condition, and then if the condition is not always fulfilled, very unpleasant things may happen. So long as you are in a state full of strength, full of purity—that is, in a state of invincibility, if anybody does anything against you, that falls back upon him automatically, as when you throw a tennis-ball against the wall, it comes back to you; the thing comes back to them exactly in the same way, sometimes with a greater force, and they are punished by their own wickedness. But naturally it all depends on the person against whom the magic is done, on his inner force and purity….  .  And in such cases, in order to resist, one must be,  a warrior in the vital, that is, a spiritual fighter in the vital. All who do yoga sincerely must become that, and when they do become that, they are altogether sheltered. But one of the conditions for becoming it is never to have bad will or a bad thought towards others. For if you have a bad feeling or bad will or a bad thought, you come down to their level and when you are on the same level with them, well, you may receive blows from them.

Forces of illness

Illness comes from outside of us.  Illness is a kind of vibration made up of a mental suggestion, a vital force of disorder and certain physical elements which are the materialization of the mental suggestion and the vital vibration. And these physical elements can be what we have agreed to call germs, microbes, this and that and many other things.

It may be accompanied by a sensation, may be accompanied by a taste, also by a smell, if one has very developed subtle senses. There are these formations of illness which give a special taste to the air, a special smell or a slight special sensation.

People have many senses which are asleep. They are terribly tamasic.  If all the senses they possess were awake, there are many things they would perceive, which can just pass by without anyone suspecting anything.

For example, many people have a certain kind of influenza at the moment. It is very wide-spread. Well, when it comes close, it has a special taste, a special smell, and it brings you a certain contact (naturally not like a blow), something a little more subtle, a certain contact, exactly as when you pass your hand over something, backwards over some material… You have never done that? The material has a grain, you know; when you pass your hand in the right direction or when you pass it like wave, it makes you… it is something that passes over your skin, but naturally, it doesn’t come like a staggering blow. It is very subtle but very clear.

Besides, there is always a way of isolating oneself by an atmosphere of protection, if one knows how to have an extremely quiet vibration, so quiet that it makes almost a kind of wall around you.—But all the time, all the time one is vibrating in response to vibrations which come from outside. If you become aware of this, all the time there is something which gives protection, which responds to all the vibrations coming from outside. You are never in an absolutely quiet atmosphere which emanates from you, that is, which comes from inside outward (not something which comes from outside within), something which is like an envelope around you, very quiet, —and you can go anywhere at all and these vibrations which come from outside do not begin to enter around your atmosphere.

If you could see that kind of dance, the dance of vibrations which is there around you all the time, you would see, would understand well, then you are protected.

For example, in a game, when you play, it is like vapour of heat, and then it is like the vibrations of a point, it goes on increasing, increasing and increasing until suddenly, crash!… an accident. And it is a collective atmosphere like that;  you are in the midst of a game—basketball or football or any other—we feel it, see it, it produces a kind of smoke around you (those vapours of heat which come at times, something like that), and then it takes on a vibration like that, like that, more and more, more and more, more and more until suddenly the equilibrium is broken: someone breaks his leg, falls down, is hit on the mouth by a ball, etc. And one can foretell beforehand that this is going to happen when it is like that. But nobody is aware of it.

Yet, even in less serious cases, each one of you individually has around him something which instead of being this very individual and very calm envelope which protects you from all that you don’t want to receive…, your receptivity becomes deliberate and conscious, otherwise you do not receive; and it is only when you have this conscious extremely calm atmosphere, when it comes from within (it is not something that comes from outside), it is only when it’s like this that you can go with impunity into life, that is, among others and in all the circumstances of every minute…

Otherwise if there is something bad to be caught, for example, anger, fear, an illness, some uneasiness, you are sure to catch it. As soon as it starts doing entry it is as though you called all similar vibrations to come and get hold of you.

What is to be wondered at is the unconsciousness with which men go through life; they don’t know how to live, there’s not one in a million who knows how to live, and they live like that somehow or other, limping along, managing, not managing; and all that for them, bah! What is it? Things that happen.

They don’t know how to live. All the same one should learn how to live. That’s the first thing one ought to teach children: to learn how to live.

To cure a disorder

The spontaneous way of proceeding is to sweep away everything, to make it all completely empty and then to turn towards something up above and to keep absolutely silent and immobile.  Yes, that is the best means, nothing can be better.

If one could only do that!… From all sides illness comes like waves attacking.

Finally, that the confusion is there to teach us how to live from day to day, that is to say, not to be preoccupied with what may happen, what will happen, just to occupy oneself day by day with doing what one has to do. All thinkings, pre-plannings, arrangements and all that, are very favourable to much disorder.

To live almost minute by minute, to be attentive only to the thing that is to be done at the moment, and then to let the All-Consciousness decide…. We can never know things even with the widest vision: we can know things only very partially —  very partially. So our attention is drawn this way and that, and still other things are there. By giving great importance to things dangerous and harmful, you only add strength to them.

When you are assailed by the vision of such disorder and confusion, you have to do only one thing, to enter into the consciousness where you see only one Being, one Consciousness, one Power — there is only a single Unity — and all this is taking place within this Unity. And all our insignificant visions and knowings and judgments and… all that is mere nothing, it is microscopic in comparison with the Consciousness presiding over All. Therefore, if one had the least sense of the reason why separate individualities existed, one would see that it was only for allowing aspiration, the existence of aspiration, of this movement of self-giving and surrender, trust and faith. And it is this that is the very reason why individuals were built up; and then, for you to become that in all sincerity and intensity… it is all that is needed.  It is all that is needed, it is the only thing, the only thing that stays; all the rest… phantasmagoria (a sequence of real or imaginary images like that seen in a dream).

And it is the only thing valid in every case: when you want to do a thing, when you cannot do a thing, when you move, when the body is no more able to move…in every, every case, that only, only that: to come in conscious contact with the Supreme Consciousness, to be united with it; and… to wait. There!

It is then that you receive the exact indication of what you ought to do at each minute — to do or not to do, to act or to be stone still. That is all. And even to be or not to be. That is the only solution. More and more, more and more, the certitude is there: this is the only solution. All the rest is mere childishness.

And all activities, all possibilities can be made use of in a natural way — it eliminates all arbitrary personal choice. All possibilities are there, all, all, all are there. All perceptions are there and all knowledge — only the personal arbitrariness has been eliminated. And this personal arbitrariness is so childish, so childish… a stupidity, a stupidity full of ignorance.

That state… I know, by experience, that it is the state in which one can change the world. One becomes a sort of instrument — that is even unconscious of being an instrument — but which serves the flow of forces through the instrument to project the forces (in all directions radiating from the instrument as the centre). The brain is altogether, altogether too small, is it not? Even when it is very big, it is too small to be capable of understanding; that is why there is this blank in the mind and the thing happens.

And then you perceive that with regard to the needs of the little life you represent, it automatically comes to pass and you automatically do at every minute just what you have to do without… without calculating, without speculating, without deciding, nothing; it is like this (same gesture of flow through the instrument).

That if something is upset in the body (a pain, a discomfort or something that does not function properly), when you have gone through that state, it leaves you — it goes away, disappears. Acute pains even disappeared completely, one does not know how! Ah! gone — like that, otherwise it remains.  Hence you have to be more and more aware of the consciousness.

The conditions for healing meditation are primarily the same as those applicable to sleep: relax your body, relax your breathing, let go of thoughts. And so, for sleep as well as for meditation, the initial conditions are equally true. The difference is in the final condition. In the former you remain deep in sleep; in meditation you remain fully awake, that’s all….

Close the eyes… leave the body relaxed… leave the body relaxed. Leave the body completely relaxed, as if there is no life in the body. Let the whole energy move inside. The whole energy of the body is moving inwards… flowing inwards… we are getting shrunken inside, and the body will remain like a shell hanging outside. Whether it falls down, or remains tethered, it will remain external like clothing. Slip within… and leave the body relaxed.

Experience that the body is relaxing… the body is relaxing… the body is relaxing. Feel it and leave the body totally relaxed. The body is very obedient. When you feel it wholeheartedly it will become almost a corpse. Feel that the body is relaxing… the body is relaxing… the body is relaxing… the body is relaxing… the body is going on relaxing. Let go, let go of all grip… do not keep holding on to the body from inside, let go completely… take away all control over it, as if the body is not one’s own; now whatever will happen to it will happen. If it falls down it falls down, if one loses it one loses it. Move back away from it completely… remove your feelings from it.

The body is relaxing. The body is relaxing… the body is relaxing… the body is relaxing… the body is relaxing… the body is relaxing. The body has relaxed. Drop, drop all grip over the body… if it falls, let it fall. The body has relaxed… as if it has completely become a corpse… as if the body is gone… the body is no more… we have become separate from it… we have moved away from it.

The breathing is relaxing. Feel that the breathing is going on relaxing… the breathing is relaxing… the breathing is relaxing… the breathing is relaxing… the breathing is relaxing… the breathing is relaxing… the breathing is going on relaxing… the breathing is going on relaxing. Let go… let go of the breathing as well… move further within. The breathing has relaxed… the breathing has relaxed… the breathing has relaxed… the breathing has relaxed. You have moved even further behind the breathing… the breathing has relaxed.

The thoughts are also relaxing. The thoughts are also relaxing… the thoughts are also relaxing. Move away from the thoughts also… let go of the thoughts also. The thoughts are also relaxing… the thoughts are also relaxing… the thoughts are also relaxing… the thoughts are also relaxing… the thoughts are also relaxing… the thoughts are also relaxing. Let go of the thoughts also. Thoughts are relaxing… thoughts are relaxing… thoughts are relaxing… thoughts are relaxing.

The body has relaxed, the thoughts have relaxed, for ten minutes now just remain awake inside… for ten minutes now just remain awake inside. For ten minutes everything has died; inside we have remained awake like a flame. The body is lying far away… the breathing is heard in the far distance… the thoughts have quietened… inside our consciousness is awake watching it all. Do not fall asleep, remain awake inside.

Keep awake within… keep watching within… keep watching… become a watcher and a sudden depth will begin… a quietness will begin… a void will begin. Now for ten minutes just go on watching within quietly.

Mind has become silent… mind has become completely silent.

Drown deeper into the depths… as if falling into a deep well. Go on falling… go on falling. Stay awake inside and go on becoming an emptiness. Remain conscious inside, remain awake and keep watching. And everything has died… the body has remained far away, the breathing is left far behind, the thoughts have disappeared — only we have remained. Just keep watching wakefully… keep watching… the mind will go on becoming emptier.

Slowly take a few deep breaths and come back from the meditation. Open your eyes slowly and very gently.

Man has suppressed so many things inside him that many years of catharsis is needed. Only after a deep catharsis body and mind are cleaned and one can regain his natural being. Only after unburdening himself from all the repressions, one can start moving towards health. Catharsis has become a pre-requisite because man has accumulated so much rubbish in his unconsciousness.

The majority of people suffer from this rocklike stomach. It is the cause of a thousand and one illnesses — physical, mental, both — because the stomach is the centre where your psychology and your physiology meet; they meet at the navel. The navel is the contact point between the psychology and the physiology. So if around the navel the musculature becomes rocklike, you become very divided. Your mind and body become separate; then they are almost two things, with no bridge. 

SIMPLY EXHALE AS DEEPLY AS POSSIBLE.

Simply exhale as deeply as possible.  Then let the body inhale, you don’t inhale.  Have a feeling that you are throwing out everything that was in the mind and in the body and in the system…..

Just exhale deeply, then allow inhalation to happen of its own accord. This will change the musculature of the stomach, which has become hardened, has lost elasticity with the lack of deep in breathing.

Exhale deeply. And when you exhale deeply, naturally, you will have to pull the stomach in. Then relax and let the air rush in. If you have exhaled deeply, the air will rush in with such force. It will go like a hammering — it will destroy the rocklike structure around the stomach… One thing.

The second thing: in the morning, after the motion when your stomach is empty, take a dry towel and rub the stomach, massage the stomach. Start from the right corner and go around, not otherwise — three to four minutes massage. That will also help to relax.

And the third thing: whenever you can, do a little running. Running will be very good — jogging, running. These three things, and within a time this rock will disappear. When it disappears, just inform me.”

For the cleansing of the stomach, very deep breathing is needed, because when you inhale deeply and exhale deeply, the stomach throws all that it is carrying.

In exhalations, the stomach releases itself.

Hence the importance of pranayam, of deep rhythmic breathing.

The emphasis should be on the exhalation so that everything that the stomach has been unnecessarily carrying is released…..

“The stomach is the space where many sorts of emotions are suppressed. It is the only space available in the body, the only hollow place, where one can force. Once the stomach has too much suppression in it, the body no longer remains a unity, it is divided in two parts, the lower and the higher. Hence, the stomach needs cleansing…

Everybody is carrying much rubbish in the stomach, because that is the only space in the body where you can suppress things. There is no other space. If you want to suppress anything it has to be suppressed in the stomach. If you want to cry — your wife has died, your beloved has died, your friend has died — but it doesn’t look good, looks as if you are a weakling, crying for a woman, you suppress it: where will you put that crying? Naturally, you have to suppress it in the stomach. That is the only space available in the body, the only hollow place, where you can force.

If you suppress in the stomach…. And everybody has suppressed many sorts of emotions: of love, of sexuality, of anger, of sadness, of weeping — even of laughter. You cannot laugh a belly laugh. It looks rude, looks vulgar — you are not cultured then. You have suppressed everything. Because of this suppression, you cannot breathe deeply, you have to breathe shallowly. Because if you breathe deeply then those wounds of suppression, they would release their energy. You are afraid. Everybody is afraid to move in the stomach.

Every child, when born, breathes through the belly. Look at a child sleeping: the belly goes up and down — never the chest. No child breathes from the chest; they breathe from the belly. They are completely free now, nothing is suppressed.

Their stomachs are empty, and that emptiness has a beauty in the body.

Once the stomach has too much suppression in it, the body is divided in two parts, the lower and the higher. Then you are not one; you are two. The lower part is the discarded part. The unity is lost; a duality has entered into your being.

Now you cannot be beautiful, you cannot be graceful. You are carrying two bodies instead of one — and there will always remain a gap between the two. You cannot walk beautifully. Somehow you have to carry your legs. In fact if the body is one, your legs will carry you. If the body is divided in two then you have to carry your legs.

You have to drag your body. It is like a burden. You cannot enjoy it. You cannot enjoy a good walk, you cannot enjoy a good swim, you cannot enjoy a fast run — because the body is not one. For all these movements, and to enjoy them, the body needs to be reunited. A unison has to be created again: the stomach will have to be cleansed completely.

For the cleansing of the stomach, very deep breathing is needed, because when you inhale deeply and exhale deeply, the stomach throws all that it is carrying. In exhalations, the stomach releases itself. Hence the importance of pranayam, of deep rhythmic breathing. The emphasis should be on the exhalation so that everything that the stomach has been unnecessarily carrying is released.

And when the stomach is not carrying emotions inside, if you have constipation it will suddenly disappear. When you are suppressing emotions in the stomach there will be constipation because the stomach is not free to have its movements.

You are deeply controlling it; you can’t allow it freedom. So if emotions are suppressed, there will be constipation. Constipation is more a mental disease than a physical one. It belongs to the mind more than it belongs to the body.

But remember, not to divide mind and body as two. They are two aspects of the same phenomenon. Mind and body are not two things. In fact to say “mind and body” is not good: “mind-body” will be the right expression. Your body is a psychosomatic phenomenon. Mind is the subtlest part of the body, and body is the grossest part of the mind. And they both affect each other; they run parallel.

If you are suppressing something in the mind, the body will start a suppressing journey. If the mind releases everything, the body also releases everything. That’s why  emphasize on catharsis very much required.  Catharsis is a cleansing process.

These are all austerities: fasting; natural eating; deep, rhythmic breathing; yoga exercises; living a more and more natural, flexible, supple life; creating less and less suppressed attitudes; allowing the body to have its own say, following the wisdom of the body.

“Austerities” does not mean to torture the body. It means to create a living fire in the body so that the body is cleansed. As if you have thrown gold into the fire — all that was not gold is burned. Only pure gold comes out.

“Austerities destroy impurities, when the body is pure, you will see tremendous new energies arising, new dimensions opening before you, new doors suddenly opening, new possibilities.

Body has much hidden power. Once it is released, you will not be able to believe it, that the body carried so many things in it, and so close.”

DEEP BREATHING TECHNIQUE:-

Close your eyes and begin breathing deeply. Inhale as much as you can, and exhale as much as you can. Put all your energy into inhaling and exhaling deeply, breathing in and breathing out. Breathe in deeply and breathe out deeply. Become breathing itself. And exert yourself fully. The deeper the breathing in and out, the greater the possibility for the latent energy to awaken. Breathe in a deep breath and breathe out a deep breath. Breathe in and breathe out… Take a deep breath in and take a deep breath out and continue the process for a full ten minutes. You become a breathing machine, and nothing more. You are only breathing in and breathing out for ten minutes.

So for the few minutes work hard with deep breathing…Take a deep breath in and throw it out deeply… Exert yourselves fully. Just become a breathing machine, a bellows that pulls the air in and throws it out vigorously and continuously… Let every fiber of your body vibrate with breathing. Breathe in deeply and breathe out deeply. Deeply and very deeply.  Become a breathing instrument. Concentrate all of your attention and all of your energy on breathing and on breathing alone.

Take deep breath in and take deep breath out. And watch that now a deep breath is coming in and now a deep breath is going out. Breathe and also observe that you are breathing and breathing deeply. Remain a witness. Keep witnessing that breath is going in and going out. Bring all your attention to deep breathing; bring all your energy to deep breathing.

Continue taking deep breaths in and throwing deep breaths out. And watch from in-side that breaths are going in and going out regularly and constantly and vigorously.  And bring your whole energy to breathing.  Draw in a deep breath and expel it vigorously.  And at the same time observe from inside the incoming breaths and the outgoing breaths… It will be clearly seen how a breath goes in and goes out. Do it with all your strength so it starts rising from the very depth, the very bottom of what I call the kunda, the pool, the reservoir of energy… Let the whole atmosphere be suffused and charged with breathing, as if the whole environment is breathing in union with you.

Inhale a deep breath; exhale a deep breath. Let it be deeper and deeper and still deeper. Let your whole being shake like a cyclone, a storm… Breathe in deeply and breathe out deeply… Deep breath, deeper breath, still deeper breath… Deep, deep, deep… And watch within, observe inside. See that a breath is incoming and another breath goes out. Don’t spare yourselves; bring your entire energy into it.

Deep vibrations of breathing will begin to awaken some energy within you. Breathe in a deep breath and expel it fully… With your vigorous breathing a sleeping light inside you will flare up.  Become a vehicle of breathing and nothing else…   Do it to the maximum… Let your whole body shake… Let all your roots shake… Let your entire being shake… Let a state of storm be created…

There are six thousand holes in the lungs, but we breathe by only two thousand holes. Four thousand holes, which are deeper, never come into contact with fresh air, with oxygen, with life. They remain filled with stale carbon dioxide. Not only metaphorically, but physiologically too, we breathe very superficially. Perhaps there, too, is some deep-rooted fear.

We have forgotten what Natural Breathing is, now we have to understand what it is. If we can watch small children, their breathing is very natural and that is the reason the children are so energetic and the parents are so drained out & tired.

We have to understand from where we get the energy. We get the energy from Pranamaya Kosha and the energy is stored in the Belly. It is the energy reservoir. If a child is observed carefully, the child breaths from his belly and that is the right way to breathe. His chest portion is totally unaffected.  This type of natural breathing brings more Prana and more Chi in.

So the right way to breathe is through the Belly and not through the chest. Only during some emergency we can breathe through the chest.

It’s the nature’s measure for coping up with emergencies that we start breathing through the chest. When there is a danger, you are forced to drop the belly breathing and start breathing through the chest. Whenever there is danger you have to either fight or flight. And both burns too much of energy.  With the chest breathing you get a capacity to fight or run away to save yourself, but you will be totally disturbed and tense.

If you are always breathing from the chest, your state of mind will always be tense and fearful. The chest breathing is only for situations of danger and if it has become a habit then you will always be tense and fearful, either in the flight or fight mode. And you always imagine about some danger or the presence of an enemy even though nothing is there. And finally land up being Paranoia (a mental condition characterized by delusions of persecution, unwarranted jealousy, or exaggerated self-importance, typically worked into an organized system. It may be an aspect of chronic personality disorder, of drug abuse, or of a serious condition such as schizophrenia in which the person loses touch with reality).

There are a few scientists in the west who were Working on the bio energy – the Prana. They have come across this kind of observation that people who are fearful their chest is tense and they breathe very shallow. And when they were asked to breathe deeply through their belly – the Hara center, their fear had disappeared. By changing the way we breathe we can regulate the state of mind.

A child who is still not conditioned will breathe in a natural way. You have to breathe that way. Your belly has to move up as you inhale and go down as you exhale. By maintaining this rhythm a great relaxation, vitality and a great aliveness descends in you.

Deep breathing is also known belly breathing, abdominal breathing and paced respiration. Belly breathing is the most simple and effective breathing technique which improves your health.

The benefits of belly breathing are:

It reduces the risk of heart diseases by reducing the cholesterol level , blood pressure and blood sugar level.

It helps in reducing the chances of getting cancer.

Belly breathing will helps in improving respiratory system, by practicing the breathing techniques the diseases like asthma, chest pain and other respiratory problem can be reduced.

It will increase immune system and creates more energy in the body.

It allows the body to cleanse by releasing the sweat from the body.

It will help by improving concentration and increases the productivity and you will be able to make better decision.

By following this technique you will be able to relax and it helps in reducing stress.

It helps in reducing the carving for junk food.

It will help in controlling blood sugar level.

This breathing technique will help you to get good sleep.

This will help improve meditation and you will be relaxed and your creativity increases.

This will help you to strengthen the diaphragm muscles and help you in breathing efficiently.

Belly Breathing Technique:-

Practicing Belly Breathing by Sleeping

Take a normal breath

Before practicing belly breathing you should take normal breath and relax yourself.  Close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing.

Lie on your back and relax the body

Lie on a flat surface and relax your body.  You should lie on your back with your knee slightly bent or you can keep a pillow under your legs and keep your knee up.

Place your hands in right position

You should place your hands in right position that is after lying down you should place your one hand on upper chest and the other one below rib-cage.  Relax your hand as much as possible allowing your elbow to rest on ground, bed or sofa.

Inhale and Exhale breath.

Inhale your breath from nose and you should inhale till your abdomen, so the hand and stomach moves upward, while the chest remains still as possible. You should inhale till you cannot take air comfortably.  Exhale the breath by tightening your muscles. The air should be pushed out through your stomach.  Exhale your breath until you can comfortably exhale your breathe.

Repeat doing this throughout the week, this help you to slow down your breath rate and results in efficient breathing.

Practicing Belly Breathing by Sitting

You can sit down in the comfortable chair, keep your knees bent and you should relax your shoulder and neck.

Place your one hand on your chest and another lower stomach.

Inhale through your nose and inhale until you can take air comfortably.

Exhale from your stomach, breath out through the pursed lips.

Continue the exercise till 10 minutes.

IF YOU BREATHE DEEPLY, so deeply that the belly comes up and down, your chest will relax.

Your belly is bound to become bigger, but a strange phenomenon happens as you start breathing from the belly — you feel tremendous relaxation. Mind stops thinking……..

There are at least six thousand holes in your lungs, but you breathe by only two thousand holes. Four thousand holes, which are deeper, never come into contact with fresh air, with oxygen, with life. They remain filled with stale carbon dioxide. Not only metaphorically, but physiologically too, you breathe very superficially. Perhaps there, too, is some deep-rooted fear.

Breathing from the belly, your mind relaxes, your body relaxes, and oxygen reaches to all the holes of your lungs, forcing out dead carbon dioxide. It brings a tremendous release of liveliness, playfulness, laughter. Whenever you laugh deeply it is called “belly laughter.”

Pay attention to pain

Most people notice pain once it begins, the body’s wake-up call to pay attention to itself and re-activate the body sense. Hopefully it is not too late to use relatively simple self-awareness remedies like adjusting posture, standing up and stretching from time to time, going to the gym to cleanse the body of toxins, getting a massage, or meditating to clear the mind of compelling thoughts.

If you continue to ignore the pain, however, you may develop tissue damage like tendonitis, or loss of cartilage, or bone compression in the vertebra, or a pinched nerve. Your body was under stress the whole time and you did not become aware of that until it had progressed into the stage of depleting your body’s resources to cope with it: literally destroying cells that maintain your ability to function.

Paradoxically, even though pain is meant to be a wake-up call, it is often treated like an unwelcome guest. All we want to do is get away from it or to have that guest leave as soon as possible. It may not seem like it at the time, but pain exists in our bodies as a way of getting our attention back to ourselves. Pain is one of the pathways that our body sense uses to spontaneously and automatically remind us to notice a physical or emotional threat we may have been avoiding.

This leads to a paradox. The only way out of the suffering is to jump back into it. The only way to ease the pain and at the same time to heal the body is to attend to and feel the pain in embodied self-awareness. Analgesics and opiates, alcohol and psychoactive drugs, can only temporarily blunt the pain.

Pain is not a concrete thing located in a single place in the body, but a state of whole body self-awareness and that self-awareness can alter and possibly extinguish the sense of pain. There may be input signal coming into the brain, but how it is felt and how we relate to it emotionally (fear or acceptance) can be changed, perhaps permanently, by becoming more aware of it.

Technique:-

Find a quiet place to sit or lie down, inside or outside, wherever you feel completely safe and comfortable. As best you can, come to rest inside yourself. Let you body sink into gravity as much as you are able.

Locate the painful area (your head, neck, back, leg, or wherever). If you can, feel the boundaries of the pain: is it the whole leg, just in the thigh, or localized to just above the knee on the inside of your leg, etc. Your headache may be just behind your right eye, or just over your left ear. Shift your awareness between painful areas and adjacent non-painful areas. Notice the differences. Let the non-painful parts “talk to” the painful parts. This is often enough to start the pain “moving,” or “softening.”

Observe the pain as your friend, be aware of the pain as your friend.   Be totally with your pain as you are with your friend.  Talk to the pain as you talk with your intimate friend.  Do whatever you want with the pain, as you do with your intimate friend.

Try to feel the pain totally, till the pain shifts away, the pain shifts far far away. You may not be able to do this at first. Try again and again till you get a mastery of this process. It may take multiple tries and multiple sessions. If this method doesn’t work for you, try a different one. You can have a whole collection of techniques – no limit — if that helps ok.

In this process, you are working through the pain. You first have to convince your body that it is safe to go in there and feel it. Having accomplished that, you can begin to deepen your body sense of that pain. You may be surprised that the pain morphs from physical to emotional (sadness, anger, fear, love) and back again. It may even change locations or be felt at multiple locations in your body.

When you really know the pain and all its forms and faces, because you have fully felt it and followed its movements in your body sense, it may eventually lessen in intensity and  disappear completely.

Doing this practice will help to make the pain your friend. It can now objectively inform you of when you need to pay attention to yourself, just like any good friend who will tell you the truth about yourself.

The first thing and the most indispensable is to nullify the pain by cutting the connection. You see, one becomes conscious of the pain because it is there.

For example, you have cut your finger, there’s a nerve that has been affected, and so the nerve quickly goes to tell the brain, up there, that something has happened which is wrong, here. That is what gives you the pain to awaken your attention, to tell you: “You know, there’s something wrong.” Then the thought immediately feels anxious: “What is wrong? Oh! How it hurts”, etc., etc. — then returns to the finger and tries to arrange what is not yet destroyed. Usually one puts a small bandage. But in order not to have the pain, if it hurts very much, you must quite simply cut the connection by thought, saying to the nerve, “Now remain quiet, you have done your work, you have warned me, you don’t need to say anything any longer; ploff! I am stopping you.” And when you do it well, you suffer no longer, it is finished, you stop the pain completely. That is the best thing. It is infinitely preferable to telling yourself that it is painful.

There was a boy who had an ingrowing nail — an ingrowing nail means a nail which enters the skin, it hurts very much when it is in the foot; it grows into the skin; so naturally, especially if one wears tight shoes, it hurts very much. Well, the boy started pressing his nail,  with the idea that pain is simply an incapacity to bear certain intensities of vibrations, you see; so he went beyond the measure, and in fact he pressed, it hurt abominably at first, he pressed until his hurt was changed into a kind of pleasure, and this succeeded very well.

If you have some pain, and you give yourself much more pain still, then finally there’s a moment when you either faint away (people who are a little weak and not very enduring faint) or else it changes into pleasure; but this is not recommendable, but it can be done. A boy, who was twelve — who was doing that, and he was doing it very deliberately, very consciously. He had never heard of yoga but he had found it out all by himself. But this is not recommendable because his toe became worse. This didn’t make it better at all.

But  a very good method which consists in saying to the nerve, “Now you have done your job, keep quiet, you don’t need to tell me anything more”, is much better. One cuts it ( cuts the connection from pain to brain ) and then it’s over.

When one has a very bad toothache; a toothache hurts terribly because the nerve is quite, quite close to the brain, so it doesn’t lose its intensity on the way, it is very direct and hurts very much, the best way – in fact there’s no other – the best way is to cut it: “It is good, you have done your work, you told me that something was wrong there, that’s enough, don’t move now.” And one cuts, cuts it,  cuts the connection, it doesn’t transmit again. Naturally you must think of something else. If afterwards you start saying, “Do I still have the pain?…”

Pain is a degradation of an original Ananda…  Yes, but everything, everything is a degradation, pleasure also. Pleasure and pain are equally a degradation of Ananda.  Besides, the capacity for balance of the human physical consciousness is very small. If you have a pleasure which you push a little too far, whatever it may be, it immediately becomes a pain — whatever it may be. And there is always a place where one no longer knows whether it is a pleasure or a pain, it can as well be this or that. But wait a bit, eat something that’s too sweet and you will see the effect. At first you say that it’s very good, then suddenly it becomes something which… oh! it is almost unbearable. For everything it is like that, for everything. They are very close relations, you see.

Western psychotherapy and the Eastern path of meditation…

That’s where Western psychology is lost — lost in a chaos. Small problems are not being solved, very small problems. It takes years and years of psychoanalysis… then too nothing is solved. At the most you can do only a kind of window-dressing, a whitewashing. You give the patient a better mask to wear, but his original face remains the same.

Western psychology has failed. The Eastern approach goes far deeper…..

Spiritual growth means growth of awareness; it means nothing else. Becoming more and more alert. Becoming a light unto yourself. And when you are a light unto yourself, darkness starts disappearing of its own accord.

The man of awareness cannot be angry — that is impossible, because to be angry the basic requirement is to be unaware. Try it, and you will be very much surprised. Try to be angry AND aware — you will not be able to manage; nobody has ever been able to manage it. It is impossible. It is not in the very nature of things.

When you are aware, anger will disappear. If you lose awareness, anger will appear. Both are not possible — just as light and darkness cannot exist together; they cannot have a coexistence.

Why can light and darkness not exist together? Because darkness has no substance in it; darkness has no existence in it. It is nothing but the absence of light, so how can absence and presence exist together? If light is there then absence cannot exist. If absence exists, light cannot be present there.

Awareness is a single solution to all the problems…… Spiritual growth means: helping you to be aware. And a single medicine cures all the illnesses….

Man is a three-storied building: one body, the mind and the soul. The body contains only the body. The mind contains body and mind both. And the soul contains all the three. The higher implies the lower, but not vice versa: the lower does not imply the higher.

This is one of the fundamental laws to be remembered. If you work on the higher, the lower will be automatically solved. If you work on the lower, the higher will not be automatically solved.

Spirit contains all the three dimensions of your being. That’s why your concern is your spiritual growth — because it contains your totality. To be concerned with your psychological growth will leave the most essential and the highest part of you outside. And then there are many more problems.

Mind is a multiplicity; mind means the many. Millions of problems are there. If you start solving each single problem it will take millions of lives — even then you cannot be certain that you have solved the mind problems.

Greed is there, anger is there, lust is there, jealousy is there… and so on and so forth. If you solve one it will take years and years; and even then nothing is solved. If you try to solve your anger, if you want to grow beyond your anger, at the psychological stage what can you do? At the most you can repress it — because awareness belongs to the spiritual realm. At the psychological level you can only fight. You can choose: you can repress one part against the other, but the repressed part is not dying. In fact, the more it is repressed, the more alive it will become — because it will be going closer and closer to the source of your energies and it will be getting more nourishment. And you can repress anger, but it will find some outlet from the backdoor. You cannot transform this way.

That’s where Western psychology is lost — lost in a chaos. Small problems are not being solved, very small problems. It takes years and years of psychoanalysis… then too nothing is solved. At the most you can do only a kind of window-dressing, a whitewashing. You give the patient a better mask to wear, but his original face remains the same.

Western psychology has failed.

The Eastern approach goes far deeper. It does not try to cut the foliage of a tree: it cuts the very roots. And to cut the very roots is to destroy the tree. If you go on pruning the leaves — that’s what psychological work means: pruning the leaves — you are not going to destroy the tree at all. On the contrary, the more you prune it, the thicker the foliage will become. You cut one branch and three branches will come — because the tree will take the challenge that you are going to destroy it. Each and everything tries to survive. And when there is danger, the tree will make every effort to survive. That’s what happens.

If you want to drop your anger, you become angrier than before. If you want to drop your sexuality, you become more and more sexual than before. That’s what has happened to millions of people. They want to get out of the prison of sex; they make all kinds of efforts. Their desire is good; they are sincere people, but misguided. They start fighting with sex, and sexuality retaliates with a vengeance. These people become more sexual than ordinary people, their whole mind becomes full of sex. They think of sex, they dream of sex, and they are continuously fighting. The more they fight, the more they give energy to the enemy — because the more and more they become focused on the enemy. They cannot be off-guard.

Spiritual growth means growth of awareness; it means nothing else. Becoming more and more alert. Becoming a light unto yourself. And when you are a light unto yourself, darkness starts disappearing of its own accord.

The man of awareness cannot be angry — that is impossible, because to be angry the basic requirement is to be unaware. Try it, and you will be very much surprised. Try to be angry AND aware — you will not be able to manage; nobody has ever been able to manage it. It is impossible. It is not in the very nature of things.

When you are aware, anger will disappear. If you lose awareness, anger will appear. Both are not possible — just as light and darkness cannot exist together; they cannot have a coexistence.

Why can light and darkness not exist together? Because darkness has no substance in it; darkness has no existence in it. It is nothing but the absence of light, so how can absence and presence exist together? If light is there then absence cannot exist. If absence exists, light cannot be present there.

Awareness is a single solution to all the problems.

Greed cannot exist when you are aware — why? Because when you are aware, you are aware that you are the ultimate bliss, that you have the whole kingdom of God within you. What more can you desire, what greed? It will be utterly stupid. Greed exists in the person when he is not aware of his own kingdom, when he is not aware that he is a born emperor, and lives like a beggar.

The moment that you become aware that you have all the treasures of the world in you, that nothing is missing, how can greed exist? Greed means you know your inner poverty and you go on accumulating. Greed means you know that you are poor and you have to be rich.

The man of awareness becomes alert that he is rich already! and there is no possibility of becoming richer. He is divine! Greed cannot exist when you know that you are divine.

How can anger exist with a man who is aware? From where does anger come? Anger is a wound in the ego. When your ego is hurt, you become angry. But the man of awareness knows there is no ego at all — now, how can wounds happen to something which is found no more?

You escape from a rope in the night thinking it is a snake; you run, you are frightened to death. And then somebody laughs, takes hold of you — tells you, “It is not a snake, it is a rope! Come with me and we will take a lamp and we will see.” You go with the person, still afraid, still ready to escape in case it is not a rope but a snake. But the closer you come, the better you see… you start laughing. Now, can you be afraid when you have seen that it is a rope?

And it is not that when you had thought it was a snake your fear was unreal — it was absolutely real. It was almost like a heart attack. You were trembling, suffocating, out of breath. You might have died of fear, it was so real. But there was no real snake!

An unreal snake can create real fear. And that’s how it is happening: an unreal ego can create real anger. You feel offended and anger arises. When the light of awareness is inside you, you know there is no ego — there is no snake. Simply anger disappears. And how can you be afraid when you are aware? In awareness it is known that you will never die because you were never born, that birth and death are just on the surface, at the deepest core of your being you are deathless. Then fear disappears.

Yachana, you became worried when I said that I am not concerned with your psychological growth — because what is psychological growth? Helping you not to be angry, helping you not to be an egoist, helping you not to be afraid — that is psychological growth.

Spiritual growth means: helping you to be aware. And a single medicine cures all the illnesses.

And if we go on working on the surface, it may appear that you are changing, but deep down you remain unchanging. It may appear that you are attaining to some psychological maturity, but it will be only skin-deep. Scratch a little and you will find the same old man there.

All your psychological work will be just on the surface. You will appear as if you have changed, but that will be only an appearance. Any real situation will bring your real face back again. This is not transformation: this is just consolation. And I am not concerned with consoling you.

My effort here is to transmute you to let you become something utterly new that you have never dreamt about yourself. Something immensely valuable is hidden in you – that has to be discovered. That is your soul.

And unless you discover that hidden source of all life, you will only be playing games — psychological games, physiological games. Yoga got lost in physiological games. Your so-called yogis are only doing physiological exercises. They have their own benefits, I cannot deny it. They will make you healthier, but that health remains of the body. And the body will be gone when death comes, and with the body all your yoga postures too! And the whole effort that you had made will be lost.

Psychology and psychoanalysis have become too much focused on the mind of man.

Mind is not your real core. It is just a bridge between the body and the soul, and a very fragile bridge it is. It is a very non-substantial phenomenon, because it consists only of thoughts. Behind the mind there is your reality — you can call it soul, spirit, God or whatsoever you will.

My concern here is to help you to penetrate to that core. Once you have known that everything will settle in your life — because with that awareness you will be watchful of the body and you will be watchful of the mind, and all that is ugly will simply disappear.

That is the miracle of spiritual experiences: all that is ugly simply disappears, and all that is beautiful is enhanced. The evil disappears and the good is enhanced. The world and the worldly desires are no more relevant to you — a totally new dimension opens up.”