By Gretchen Karros
The topic of this month is;
POSTURE, PRANA AND MEDITATION
These three topics often take a chapter or two or even a whole book to describe their complexity. This article is just a reminder of some of the things you might already know about these important topics.
Posture and breathing should always be considered as one. First, posture will determine your health and well being! Sounds impossible, doesn’t it? Just to make this point more valid, imagine you have a plum line hanging from the ceiling. Stand sideways next to it. If you have a mirror, (or a friend’s help) you should see the line is running by the ear, shoulder, hip, knee and the ankle. This “perfect posture” is conducive to allowing the breath to flow freely from the pubic bone to the navel. Every breath is giving the whole digestive system a natural, healthy, internal massage. That is why all of you upper chest breathers need to alter you breathing pattern by just doing this simple test: Lie on the floor with the right hand on the sternum (breast bone) and left hand at the navel. Relax, and notice your hands. Which hand is moving up and down with each breath? You can figure out the answer and know for sure is you are a “belly breather” or not.
Since Prana is the “breath of life”, it quickly becomes apparent that the posture and Prana are working together – No Prana flowing, no Life giving movement. That also means shorter life span, less energy, more prone to diseases and less time for Enlightenment, whatever you consider that to be.
All of the above description leads to the most important thing in doing proper breathing, doing Asanas and getting on the Spiritual Path and that is Meditation. Find a basic meditation class and start going inward soon. In ancient India, over 5,000 years before Buddha or Christ, the Spiritual Guides were teaching about how to live a “good life”. and how to Meditate. Yes, they even had stress in their lives! It wasn’t until another couple thousand years did they start teaching their “chelas” (students) about Yoga. Asanas.