Chakra Breathing

Article by João Antão Marques

Air is certainly the bridge between us and everything that surrounds us on this planet either on earth or on the sea as air is dissolved in water.

We are connected, through our breathing, to everything involving us, to all living beings that cohabitate the planet with us. All persons, all animals, and all plants breathe the same air (although some fluctuations in its composition may occur from place to place). We breathe what they exhale and vice versa.

In our body air also establishes a contact, a permanent exchange, with all our cells. They all breathe the same “air” that enables them to work and that feeds our body with the so-called “Strength/ Vital Energy”.

In Yoga, different breathing techniques are used to enable us to extract, from the air, the Vital Energy (Prana in India and Ki in China). Prana, an energy too tenuous to be measured, represents the Vital Energy that penetrates everything and keeps our physical body working, without it, life would not be possible. This shows the importance of our breathing.

When directing our conscience to our breathing (what we do, for instance, during a meditation) we can reach the so-called altered states of conscience and, through the change in our vibration pattern, we are going to influence the Chakras (during meditation the connection with our Higher Self is easier).

With time, it will be possible to establish a permanent, and conscientious, connection to our Inner Divine Self and to its real nature as a Soul having a human experience and not as a “physical being” having a spiritual experience, as the majority of people still thinks ….

• Clean the room as usual;
• Sit comfortably (keeping your back upwards and chin slightly pointing to your chest) and close your eyes. Keep yourself centered in your breathing (inhale through your nose, retain the breath for three or four seconds and exhale softly through your mouth making a slight hissing sound), don’t alter your rhythm, just be aware of it. Relax and feel the flux of air in each inhalation and exhalation
• Focus on each step of your breathing and, keeping the rhythm, breathe seven times, slowly and deeply.
• Visualize the CKR (and repeat its name three times to activate).
• While inhaling feel/visualize the Root Chakra participating in the process, breathing also.
• Visualize the CKR being absorbed by the Root Chakra (the CKR potentiates the absorption of energy by Chakras). When exhaling, visualize and feel all the accumulated stress, all the stagnant energy being expelled by the Root Chakra (you can try to visualize a sort of “black smoke” being eliminated).
• Visualize the CKR, preferably in the golden color, (you can also use the violet color), harmonizing that chakra.
• Repeat the process in each of the Chakras, since the Root Chakra to the Crown Chakra;
• At the end, visualize, a big CKR over your head;
• Make positive statements/affirmations such as:
  • “I (name) recognize the divinity that lives in…