Personal Growth said:
Having a look I see that it's stated that breathing exercises are something that needs to be done daily.
True it only takes a few minutes to put your attention on a specific meditation. And I do use a timer for five minute intervals.
Say I breathe energy into each chakra for five minutes. There's seven main chakras. That's thirty five minutes just on that exercise. I like to do them all so they should be balanced. Don't know if five minutes to cycle between breathing into all of the chakras is enough?
You don't have to do breathing exercise for all chakras specifically per one day. Just as you don't have to do full chakra meditation every day, but doing chakra of the day is ok. Moon breathing for Mondays, and so on, for example. Besides doing yoga will help to balance anyway so it's not a big deal to exeperiment with pranyama as you wish. Especially when starting out and doing small amounts it's incredibly hard to get imbalanced, unless you happen to be imbalanced to begin with. Again, yoga helps with this.
I gave up on breathing exercises because of blocked sinuses. Couldn't do alternate nostril breathing because either or of the nostrils was always blocked.
Something to consider is the quality of indoor air. Ventilation helps with this, in most cases. If you neighbours smoke comes in I would advise moving. I had to just recently, partly because of that reason. It fucking sucked...
Blockage in 3rd eye is connected to blocked sinuses as well. It is very situational though, so it might not be the case here.
KY BSES and expecially the Sat Kriya will blast open blocked sinuses.
http://www.pinklotus.org/-%20KY%20Kriya%20Basic%20Spinal%20Energy%20Series%20fp.htm
http://www.pinklotus.org/-%20KY%20Kriya%20to%20Channel%20Energy%20up%20the%20Spine.htm
Sat Kriya alone would only take a few minutes, plus the savasana at the end. The fastest way to do it is in only 8 minutes (3min kriya plus 5min savasana), and by the end of it you should have open sinuses, given that you do it properly, meaning that you pump navel in strong rhythm. It is usually recommended to lie in savasana for 15 minutes, but I think anything from 5-15 mins is acceptable, expecially when tight schedules are considered.
And I also found difficulty in holding, counting and holding the breath. I didn't want to force it so just capitulated on the breathing exercises.
I think the problem is time. I'm trying to get these things done quickly but you need to get calm and relaxed. Breathing meditations are not all intellectual but you need to slow down, relax and feel it.
Honestly when you think about it, it's a treat for yourself. You're pampering yourself, doing a good health giving exercise.
My problem is not having much time. And I'm seeing my relaxation as looking at the covid conspiracy exposing videos. And I'm seeing the RTRs as my daily routine. And meditation as a chore. Damn. Looks like I just won't have any time to look at those covid exposing videos if I'm going to do what's important namely meditate properly.
It's balance that I'm striving for. I'd like to get some other stimulation into my brain. But with little time aside between work and my commute. All I would have time to do is the RTR's and meditation without anything else.
It's been a struggle but it's the most worthy one and I keep working at it.
Yes it's all a practice and you get better as you go along. I think trance training needs more than five minutes to do. Like fifteen to twenty minutes. Or do you think trance can be practiced in five minute intervals?
Everyone starts at some point. Utter beginner will have to start at the very lowest of position, but these things can be done by anyone who does not suffer from some sort of impending medical condition. If the recommended holding period for beginner is 4 counts, then lower that by 2 and start at that. Get used to the rhythm of breathing, and learn. Take your time to learn, baby steps, as they say. It's better than not learning at all.
If you use 30 minutes of the day to watch Youtube, then cut it in half and use the other half in pranyama, for example. If you commute by public transport, you can do humming breath in there. Just to give you some ideas. Technically, you can do humming breathing while you drive aswell... Altough don't do it yourself just yet.
Breathing exercises also help you to slow down and be in the moment, along with void meditation.
As for the trance. You don't have to spend much time on it. Baby steps, like I said earlier. The most important part is to learn to get into trance first, not staying there. That does not take much time per session. First you got to tune into the moment, and silence the mind. 5-10 minutes is ok, and certainly better than nothing.
Well, that's it for now. I hope you gained something from this.