Paramahansa Yogananda states that ' the pupose of the Hong-Sau technique is to increase naturally the intervals when the breath does not flow. There is that pause that can occur before breathing out. There is also that interval of time when we may not have to immedaitely breath in again. He speaks of waiting and enjoying the breathlessness; SRF Lesson 23
Steve
author=mccoy link=topic=93.msg16718#msg16718 date=1407779616]
Steve, sad fact is that techniques do not work as they have been reported to work. More precisely, Yogananda and SRF make it sound simple, whereas I've spent hours meditating and trying to still the breath with Hong Sau to no avail. Sure that's my fault, but if after 35 years of practice there is such a lack of achievements, I wonder. Everyone would wonder, although the flaw is sure in myself. But I've really been working hard sometimes, with huge willpower.
mccoy i find it fascinating that you have some of the same thoughts i have had during the years. You have made several interesting points in the last post. I want to first respond to the first one. I moved this post to the thread 'hong sau" because the first part of your post describes that practice. I reread the beginning of this thread and the purpose of hong sau because here we see that Paramahansa Yogananda does not specifically say that we are trying to stop the breath but rather increase the length and space between breaths.
Like yourself i have been practicing this technique many years and can not say i have had incredible sucess. IF-and this is the big if-we are speaking of stopping breath. That is no breath. However if we are taking Yogananda literally here he is not saying no-breath but rather increasing the length of intervals between breaths and enjoying those breathless periods. i just think that many times we expect too much to soon. That has been my personal observation in my own practice. In other words by now I should be able to enter the breathless state at will.
Perhaps though you may have noticed that at times there are pauses between breaths with various lengths of time. I was at a SRF convocation in the early 70 ' s and went into the meditation room. No doubt I was blessed by being in the presence of other meditators and all the monks and nuns because that day I had an unusual experience with the hong sau technique. One that I had never had. I remember Paramahansa Yogananda making the comment that if you could stop the thoughts for several seconds- i think it was 6 seconds-you would automatically be in a state of bliss.
In the above qoute Paramahansa Yogananda describes these intervals between breaths as breathless states. When i was at the convocation that day I experienced this state of bliss that the Master describes. Something quite disturbing happened to me after what seemed like a long period of bliss and breathlessness. There was this thought that entered my mind. It was this: What am 'I' experiencing? 'I' am in bliss and 'I' am not breathing.
No doubt you can predict what happened next. Yes 'I' started breathing and yes the state of bliss started evaporating quickly.
So i would propose this to you as well as myself: We are still dealing with a massive ego. Even if we have such experiences the ego wants to own them it says 'I' am experiencing such things it gets excited and poof the state we were in is gone. At this point I am back at the practice. Baby steps... just to see the breath slow down... just to see the spaces between breaths lengthen... just to enter a little calmness...just to be more in the now.... just to take this state of awareness into my life.
