Spirituality: How Long Can You Hold Your Breath?

With the current internet age, I think many even in the West would have known the etymology of ‘Yoga’. Those who had joined ‘yoga’ classes in the West and anywhere else would also been informed of the etymological origin of the word ‘yoga’ i.e.

The Sanskrit noun योग yoga is derived from the root yuj “to attach, join, harness, yoke”.[23] The word yoga is cognate with English “yoke”.[24]

The spiritual sense of the word yoga first arises in Epic Sanskrit, in the second half of the 1st millennium BCE, and is associated with the philosophical system presented in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, with the chief aim of “uniting” the human spirit with the Divine.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga

I am surprised you have given such slim attention to the Art of Breathing, i.e. pranayama.

I recommend you read Yogi Ramachakra’s The Science of Breath where ‘prana’ is critical to the physical, the psychic and the spiritual.
archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.47927

The Yogi practices exercises by which he attains control of his body, and is enabled to send to any organ or part an increased flow of vital force or “prana,” thereby strengthening and invigorating the part or organ.

As I had stated within Hinduism, Buddhism and other, there a wide range of topics and practices of breathing from kindergarten to PhD levels.

In this work we cannot go deeply into the philosophy
of the East regarding spiritual development, because this
subject would require volumes to cover it, and then again
the subject is too abstruse to interest the average reader.
There are also other reasons, well known to occultists, why
this knowledge should not be spread broadcast at this time.
Rest assured, dear student, that when the time comes for
you to take the next step, the way will be opened out before
you.
Page 69

I believe from the Hinduism perspective, in the ultimate union of the self [atman] with Brahman, this need to be supported by the most optimal breathing technique and the alignment of the prana.

I have read all that mentioned and even far far more than that. I am doing this since last 30 years of life, whithout break.

This is precisely the reason i said in the other thread that religions are like sports, and should be played in person. Litratre comes alive only then otherwise it is a dead cat. One can bend it as one wants. I have very serious doubts that anyone can teach or learn anything in these youa centres which is even remotely concerned with real sprituality.

Body cannot be control by breath, the texts are talking about something else.

with love,
sanjay

Yogi Ramachakra stated;
The Yogi practices exercises by which he attains control of his body, and is enabled to send to any organ or part an increased flow of vital force or “prana,” thereby strengthening and invigorating the part or organ.

The above and the last part implied controlling the physical part of the body.

I am not sure what you meant, he is talking about something else.
He mentioned the breathing practices are to develop the physical, the psychic and the spiritual aspect of the person.

The Spirit in man, which is the highest manifestation
of his Soul, is a drop in the ocean of Spirit, apparently
separate and distinct, but yet really in touch with the
ocean itself, and with every other drop in it. As man
unfolds in spiritual consciousness he becomes more and
more aware of his relation to the Universal Spirit, or Uni-
ersal Mind as some term it. He feels at times as if he
were almost at-one-ment with it, and then again he loses
the sense of contact and relationship. The Yogis seek
to attain this state of Universal Consciousness by medita-
tion and rhythmic breathing, and many have thus attained
the highest degree of spiritual attainment possible to man
in this stage of his existence.
Page 72

Btw, I do not agree with everything stated by Yogi Ramachakra in the book, but merely to prove that the breathing in Hinduism is not limited to counting breathe and helping in meditation as you had claimed earlier.

It’s more… getting used to than starting to enjoy, but yeah… I think I’ve gotten used to being back on the other side of the forum quiet quickly, and I haven’t been tempted to chastise anyone, or go the opposite way and become a posting-pain myself.

I chose the word dire, to reflect the dire situation, that I found myself in… there is no better descriptor for it, than dire.

The sensations that being in a dire situation, manifested, were numerous and intense… but not obsessive, but were hurdles and challenges to be gotten over… hopefully never to be faced again.

Spirituality and religion should be mutually exclusive… in my eyes, perhaps the two were made not so/exclusive, when humans gained the capacity for grand manipulation.

My experience tells me otherwise… harmony of the self, is the ideal, but is not necessary to still thrive, as it’s a place of stagnation rather than hinderance.

Prism’s suggested breathing technique is what divers do to prolong the capacity of their lungs and therefore their breathing… I took a few lessons off a friend some years back and remembered being taught that technique, then… it is a breathing exercise… nothing more.

When my muscles become tired/have had enough for the day, my back muscles grow heavy and start to weigh-down on my lungs, compressing the air out if them… causing lung capacity diminishment… its simple Science.

What I have suggested is very basic. It is basic towards increasing the time one can hold one’s breath for general well-being.
There are other considerations to it to improve one’s spiritual well-being.

The breathing exercises for divers are more sophisticated than the above with increasing complex sets of exercises where free-divers can hold their breath up to 7 minutes or longer. Their objective is to dive as deep as possible and that is not for spiritual well-being.

How will it manifest, that one’s spiritual well-being has improved? what would be the indicator that this has occurred…

Well… don’t divers get some sort of benefit from the longevity of withholding their breathing? spiritual or otherwise, apart from not drowning after a minute or two… like the rest of us would.

I shall try the exercise today… I have already been breathing more conscientiously… in anticipation of my feat ahead, so it will be interesting to note how long my first endeavour will be.

Not so dire these days, but mindful.

How do you, Arc, maintain your spiritual well-being?

Good breathing is the baseline for one spiritual well-being. It is the fundamental and foundation to all aspects of spiritual well-being.

Note the typical advice when one is angry and how to manage one’s anger, i.e. take a few deep breath.

Controlled Deep Breathing and Muscle Relaxation

Your breathing rate and heart rate both increase when you become emotionally aroused. You can learn to reverse these increases by deliberately slowing your breathing and/or systematically relaxing your tense muscles. Relaxing in this manner will help you to maintain control.
You may find yourself breathing quick, shallow breaths when you are upset. Allowing this shallow chest-only breathing to continue will only exacerbate your anger. Instead, take action to redirect your breathing and relax your muscles so that you will calm down. Set aside at least 15 minutes in which to do this exercise. Less time than this will not likely be beneficial!

Thus if one have managed one breathing efficiently, one will be able to control any surge of whatever emotional impulses.

There are many other benefits from higher breath control, e.g. increasing one immunity and this can be measured objectively.

If divers do not get involved in other act that are negative to one’s well being, then the divers status of spiritual well-being will be better than those who are not doing the diver’s breathing exercise. Note this;

If you ask most divers what the health benefits of scuba diving are they will probably tell you they’re not sure but that “it makes me feel great – and it’s so relaxing!” So, we thought you might like to know why.
wickeddiving.com/health-benefits-of-diving/

Top 10 Health Benefits of Freediving
healthfitnessrevolution.com … reediving/

The main purpose of the diver is to increase the time they can hold their breath underwater but they many not direct their breath management to other areas of spiritual exercises, which require specific exercise and visualizations.

This are the basic benefits;

The benefits of dirgha pranayama include:

Calms the mind and body, reducing stress and anxiety
Promotes full and complete breathing
Increases oxygen supply to the blood
Helps keep the lungs healthy
Releases muscular tension
Prepares for deeper meditation
doyouyoga.com/an-introducti … ic-breath/

If you research further, you will read of yogis who can performed super feats upon their higher achievement with pranayama.

The near-superhuman way yoga unites mind and body
edition.cnn.com/2016/10/05/heal … index.html
In the spring of 1970, the Indian yogi Swami Rama wanted to convince Western scientists of the power of yoga, so he submitted himself for study. He arrived at the lab of the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, to meet with Dr. Elmer Green, who pioneered research around biofeedback, or the process of becoming increasingly aware of bodily functions that are usually thought of as involuntary. Rigged up with sensors, on his first day at the clinic, he reportedly changed the temperature of his hand by widening and contracting the arteries in his wrist, leading to a difference of ten degrees Fahrenheit between the left side of his palm – which looked rosy red – and the right, which looked ashen gray, as Dr. Timothy McCall notes in his Yoga As Medicine.

There are many other verified achievements by yogi who has mastered the art of breathing.

Breathing is fundamental to spiritual well-being.
The next very critical element of spiritual well-being is nutrition, food, and the likes.
I am in the midst of water-fasting at present and good breathing methods help to deal with the hunger pangs.

I am not recommending this but merely to show the variations in breathing techniques.

Use This Breathing Exercise To Activate The DMT Stored In Your GUT!
youtube.com/watch?v=WNRbYxlGFts

DMT is The Spirit Molecule,
youtube.com/watch?v=fwZqVqbkyLM

I already do something similar, but more physiological than spiritual… not as extreme as what he’s ^^^ been taught, but you gotta have the capacity to make chems in the first place, or attempting to manifest them becomes a fruitless task.

The comments on the video though.
„
I think I’ll just roll a joint.

There is no doubt in my mind that this guy has shagged over 340,000 women

Me: Joe if you breathe a specific way you can activate DMT stored in your brain
Joe Rogan: heavy breathing

idk why this is on my recommended

I am currently squeezing my latent energy into my third eye

so nobody is talking about how he doesn’t have a belly button

This hamon training seems intense…

6:25 got real worried for a sec LOL

He looks like one of them guys that come up to you naked saying jesus is returning

Joe Rogan wants to know your location

He was so still. I thought my video paused.

I’d rather the other people in my house not hear me do this lol”

Don’t do… drugs?

You claimed to know much about and doing similar breathing exercises, how come you are only capable of holding your breath for only 10 seconds earlier in the thread?

Spirit = πνεῦμα, in Greek.
It is about breathing…esprit. respiration.

It alludes to the organisms systolic/diastolic sequence - cellular breathing - establishing a median metabolism, which is what is used as a standard to relate to otherness.
Energy/Matter are comparisons to this median.

Patterns of interactivity - also called harmony/disharmony, i.e., experienced as attraction/repulsion.

I just noticed this. I will get back to you.

Knowing of or how, doesn’t mean being able to or can… I breathe in, but the rest is dependent on how my system synthesises that air, so a case of a torpor that cannot be shrugged off or rushed out of, but adjustments made for instead… hence, less oxygen/more rest to allow for the torpor, which only allows for physiological processing at a slower rate, and the consequence of not doing so is like running into a brick wall.

I checked out that guy’s other videos, and some of the stretching ones caught my eye, so definitely having a go at those. Your advice has been very helpful so far, and if… at the very most, I have gained more discipline in being mindful with my respiration, and therefore improving my well-being, then that’s a very positive step forward.

But one day all that stopped, only to have to be restarted all over again… of mind, and body, and soul… and one’s life, painfully-slowly transpiring before one’s eyes, all the while.

The funny side of such a fate, will never be seen… how could it ever! Too dramatic? No! not enough.

One returns to the start, by grounding himself/herself, before he stretches spine straight to the sky, and begins to feel his breathing.
In…out.
One begins with a return to physis.

A hard reset, more like… calling it a return makes it sound like paradise, in comparison to the actual experience, of not being a pleasurable one in the slightest.

A return to anywhere, but that, will be gladly well-received… stretch, breathe, inhale, exhale… I’m trying my best.

I’m breathing! I’m breathing! in…out. (sulk)

No, it is absolutely not. You are horribally mistaken. You are confusing process and means with the ultimale goal. It is not possible for me to get into complete details but i can give you a brief outline.

What is yoga? It means to be one again with the ultimale within hidden reality( the god, consciousness or whatever one wants to name it, though Hinduism calls it Shurti). Now, how one is supposed to do this? The simplest way is to reverse/unfold the process of becoming human(alive). Now. how one becomes alive?

From here thr real Story begins. According to yoga, The Shurti Comes fro diiffernt dimentions and enters into body from 9th zchakra or above, come sdown to 8th one ( Between the eyes), where it meets and mearges with the breath. As soon as it marges with the breath, breathing starts and one bcomes alive. Then the breath moves down upto 2nd chakra (belly, navel or kundilini) and takes shruti along with it and one becomes aware of its body. Here. human is complete, alive and conscious.

In yoga/meditation, this process of becoming a alive human has to be reversed in order to be aware of what is within him besides the body and breath.Thus, the default process of the breath, which is from up to down, should also be reversed to down to up i:e from 2nd chakra to 8th chakra. If it happens, the shutri, whichnis spread throughout the body, starts recollecting itself at the 2nd chakra and then moves upwards wth the help of breath. Amd lastly, it comes out of the body which is an OBE state. This happens with everyone though only once in a life when one dies but a true yogi can do this willingly. that is why meditation is also called willed death in Sufism. But, unlike everyone, a true yogi can enter the body again.

all that happens with the help of the breath, tht is precisly why the brath is given so much importance in yoga, But, neither it is goal not holding breath for long times helps in any way.

with love,
sanjay

I believe you missed my point totally. The above is off tangent re this OP.

I stated above;

1. What I have suggested is very basic. It is basic towards increasing the time one can hold one’s breath for general well-being.

2. There are other considerations to it to improve one’s spiritual well-being.

Re point 1, how can anyone began a spiritual path effectively if one breathing and breathe is not efficient. For example, if the person is already panting from taking three or four steps up a stair, or panting all the time, it is not likely one will be able to focus to meditate.
The normal basic test of the efficiency of one breathing is to determine how long can one hold one’s breath in a normal condition. This is the Control Pause method.
If a person can only hold one’s breath for only 5 or 10 seconds, then one’s breath is not efficient in general and for spiritual well being.
If one is panting for breath all the time, how can one focus on spiritual practices.

In the Buteyko Control Pause method, the length one can hold one’s breath can predict [not scientifically] the kind of disease on has or the weakness of one’s organ. But in the case of Asthma the association with a short-breath is pretty obvious.

The longer one can hold one’s breath, the greater degree of one’s well being in general.
It is also the foundation for one’s spiritual well being and further improvement.

Thus the strategy here is for one to improve one’s ability to hold one’s breath for a longer period to an optimal point.

Re my point 2, there are other considerations to it [breathing] to improve one’s spiritual well-being.
This is reference to the more complicated and complex methods of breathing by yogis and other spiritual practitioners. This is not my focus in this OP.
This OP is merely to increase the time one’s ability to hold one’s breath which is a foundation toward improving one’s spiritual well being.

Btw, earlier you mentioned breathing is merely for meditation on the breath, i.e. counting or focus on the breath. I stated there are far more complex methods and principles, e.g. the one you introduced above [I do not agree with].

Prism,
it loooks to me that you are not interested In knowing further but sticking to only that what you have read somewhere. What i am telling you is not from books but from my own experiencs but You do not have an ear for it. I got it and that is fine to me too.

my best wishes
with love,
sanjay