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Good morning, everyone. Welcome to all friends joining us via webcast around the world. This is the second part of our workshop on prāṇāyāma. Yesterday we spoke about prāṇa. The practical way we can work with prāṇa is through the breath and through prāṇāyāma. In my yoga classes for complete beginners, I never start straight away with prāṇāyāma. With prāṇāyāma, we change our breathing patterns. That means we start to build a house without checking the foundation. Before we interfere in our breathing process, we should first know how we are actually breathing. In olden times, this was not necessary because people lived more in harmony with nature. How to breathe was not something you needed to learn. But in our time, especially in cities with concrete and unnatural environments, our breath becomes unnatural. I always try in the beginning to bring awareness into how we are actually breathing, to experience this and know where we are starting. Then, slowly, we observe how our breathing patterns become better over time. It takes months. This morning, we will first explore our breath and speak about it. In the second part, we will discuss how we are actually breathing in the āsanas and how the āsanas influence the breath. If we have time, I would like to do another prāṇa exercise with you, which I did not have time for last night. We have a full program and only two hours, so we must be concentrated. For those listening on the webcast, there will be another webcast from Swāmījī after some time, so the broadcast will switch from this program to Swāmījī's program. Let us start. Please lie down on your back. Make yourself comfortable. As space allows, find a comfortable position. Close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths and relax. I will now ask you a few simple questions concerning the way you are breathing just now. I am doing with you what I usually do with beginners who know nothing. Try to forget whatever you learned theoretically. Just in an honest way, try now simply to feel what you feel. Relax. Relax your face muscles. Shoulders and elbows relax. Your whole back relax. The legs relax. The abdomen relax. The whole body relax. The first question is: how slow or quick is your breath? You could simply say how many seconds it takes for one breath—inhalation plus exhalation. The speed of the breathing is very much connected with how deep the breath is. You could say the volume with every breath: how many liters of air you are actually getting. In simple words, is your breath more like small ripples or like big waves? Do not interfere, do not judge, just observe. It is not that you have to be good. Now, observe a little bit. Where is the center of the breath in your body? For a moment, place your hands on the belly, around the navel. You can feel the navel under your hands and observe the breath there. Feel any movement and how intense it is. Now, place the hands at the chest, the region of the heart or the breasts. How is the air? Any movement? Now, place one hand on the navel and one hand on the chest, and compare both. Where is now the stronger activity? Are you more a belly breather or more a chest breather? Now, observe the inhalation and the exhalation. How long is your inhalation, and how long is your exhalation? Is the inhalation longer, or the exhalation longer, or maybe both are the same duration? And where does the inhalation start? Does it start in the belly or in the chest? And where does the exhalation start? This needs full awareness. How is the wave of the breath? What exactly happens during inhalation, and what exactly happens during exhalation? Try to remain awake. Now you can bring your hands back on the ground. We spoke up until now only about two phases of the breath: the inhalation and the exhalation. But what is in between? Concentrate now on the spaces in between. After inhalation, is it going immediately into the exhalation, or maybe there is a short break? And after exhalation, also, is there immediately the next inhalation, or maybe there is a pause? Observe very carefully. If you find there is a pause, how long is it? We are observing a certain pattern which our breath has. It does not matter how this pattern is. But the question is: is it really a regular pattern? That means, is one breath like the other? Or is there a little bit of irregularity? Some little jugs in the breath, a little bit like stop and go, or maybe suddenly a deeper breath comes in between. Now, for some time, observe very carefully the pattern of your breath. Now we will make a little bit of an experiment. Not normal breath, but now really deep, active breath. For a few breaths, try to breathe in and out as deeply as you can. Deep, full inhalation now, and then complete exhalation so that no air remains. Continue this now for a few breaths. Breathe to your maximum capacity. Now relax, normal breath again. No special effort anymore, and now compare. What do you think? How much of your full capacity do you actually use now? Is it maybe 80%, or 50%, or maybe only 20%? Now we will make another experiment, like in Yoga Nidrā, a kind of astral traveling. You are out in nature. The sun is shining, beautiful weather, a little bit of wind. With your bare feet, you are on a beautiful meadow. Feel the soft grass like a soft carpet. Feel the wind. You are relaxed and happy, walking on the gentle, soft grass. And now, observe your breath. You are going in the direction to the ocean, and you are coming now to the shore. You are stepping now on the sand. The sand is soft. A little bit sinking in the sand, a little bit effort, and actually the sand is quite hot from the sun. You are walking through this sand, the hot sand, and a little bit sinking in the sand with every step. And now, observe your breath. Now you come closer to the ocean. The sand is now wet and harder. Now your feet are touching the water, and you walk a little bit into the fresh, cool ocean water. The water is going to the lower legs, to the knees only. Fresh and cool feeling. You are walking for a while in the water. Now again, observe your breath. Now you are coming out of the water onto the sand, and there is a path leading out which is made from stone and concrete. Now you are stepping on this path. Your feet are touching the rough concrete, and you feel the contact with the ground, stone, and concrete. You are walking on that, and now again, observe your breath. Now you are stepping down from this, and you come again on the grass—gentle, green, fresh grass. Your feet are touching it, the touch of the earth, Mother Earth, the touch of nature, green, soft grass. And you feel your breath. Become aware again that you are practicing here in this hall. Become aware of your body lying on the ground. Become aware of your breath. Take a little bit deeper breath now. Get ready to activate your body again. With the next inhalation, stretch your arms over your head and stretch out. In your own way, activate your body, stretch, roll, however you feel. You can make a short exercise if you want, just to become awake again. And then slowly sit up again. So, how was that? Did you ever explore your breath so carefully? You see, there is a lot to discover. For us, practicing yoga so long, it is not so easy anymore to go back into this moment of new discovery. But it is really important that we know where we are starting before we interfere with prāṇāyāma. Let us maybe shortly go through these questions. First, I asked: "How slow is your breath, or how quick?" Very much connected with this is the question of the volume. How deep is your breath? Is it like small ripples or big waves? In beginner's classes, they are mostly quite shocked when they become aware of that. So how is it with us? How many seconds would one breath, inhalation plus exhalation, have? Five. Others? Three. Twelve. Eight, four or five. In Western medical science, they say the normal average is 4 seconds. That means in 24 hours we would have 21,600 breathings. 21,600. So let us say more than 20,000. That is quite a lot. Now think of our prāṇāyāma level 4, Nāḍī Śodhana. Yoga teachers, who knows how the ratios are given in our book? Yoga teachers, I think you have to study Yogananda's life. 4, 16, 8, 16. Yes, very good. If you calculate, that means 44. 44 is 11 times 4. That means we are supposed to suddenly breathe 11 times slower. That is quite something. Do not forget, when I asked you the question, you were lying on the ground and already relaxing. That is already a good condition. The breath very much reflects how we are in that moment. But it also reflects our lifestyle and how relaxed we are, so that is very important to work on. So if your breath is only four seconds, then you are actually average, like someone who does not practice yoga. Progress in breathing means, actually, that your breath calms down. That means automatically that your mind calms down. You are much more relaxed, able to deal with different life situations. The volume is very much connected. When you have a shorter breath, it means you also have small ribs, little volume only. When you have, at the same time, one big wave, you get much more air, much more oxygen, much more energy. Of course, not as we did it in the end; that experiment was really deep breath. So, who was thinking you use about 80%? No one. About 50%? A few? And about 20%? 20%? 20% or 30%? It is natural. Surely we will not be at 100%. We do not breathe like this the whole day; it would be quite exhausting. But it is really good to become aware of what capacity you have. I had the feeling you have more capacity than you use now, because I did not see so many really active. So it is good from time to time to feel this and to explore this maximum capacity. For example, when you want to catch the bus, you are running, and then you have it. Or, in some prāṇāyāmas, of course, especially now, Bastrika prāṇāyāma. Then I asked you about chest and belly. Let us make it simple. Who felt the main activity in the belly, and who felt the main activity in the chest? A few? What would be better? Let us say, more natural. Why? Let me give a counter-argument. The breath comes through the nose, goes down to the lungs, and the lungs expand. The lungs are in the chest. So why not chest breathing? The lungs do not expand; the muscles of the chest expand, or the diaphragm. The diaphragm is more flexible; it has got more space. Yes, and the chest has the limitation of the ribcage. So much expansion is actually not possible here. So when we have a real deep breath, naturally it goes to the belly. So by nature, it should actually be really more in the belly. Now, because of our modern lifestyle, many people who start with yoga actually have chest breathing, mainly. And especially women have the tendency. There might be a connection when you are pregnant; you can breathe only here. Maybe this is a subconscious program, a little bit, chest breathing. So it is just important also to become aware of that. What is now the way, actually, to come to this desired breathing pattern? It is important. When the students know in the beginning, "Oh, my breath is completely mixed up, so what to do?" Explain and practice. Now the question is: what and how to practice? You see, if you observe your heartbeat is not running in the right way, and you say, "Now I will practice. I will try to control and improve my heartbeat," you will make a complete mess, and maybe after an hour, you are dead. Because if we, with our conscious mind, try to interfere in these mechanisms which are automatically going on, then we make a mess. So the way is, first of all, to learn to relax. The more we learn to relax, the more naturally and relaxed our breath will flow. And the way is to practice the āsanas. Because, let us say your chest breathing is restricted. It is restricted because certain muscles are tight. Now, you do exercises, for example, this or that, and it loosens up these muscles, and very naturally your breath becomes deeper, and you observe it when you do meditation. So, what do you do simply? Yoga in daily life. So I always say, do not worry. You need not do anything specific now. Just know where you are. Practice, and from time to time, observe now again where you are. Therefore, especially in level one, we always have in the beginning this sequence of exercises in a lying position. So always observe your belly press, your chest pressing with the hands for a while. And then you do the movement with the arms, not as a stretching, but just observing the breath. So it is meant to bring awareness, but not really that we try now directly to interfere there. As a side product of our whole practice, the breath will naturally, slowly improve. Then we had more questions. I asked, "Where actually does the inhalation start, from the belly or from the chest?" We speak now about the waves of the breath. So, how is it now? In one breath, inhalation and exhalation, what happens really in the chest and in the belly at which moment? First, the stomach rises and then the chest. And when we exhale, it is the other way around. Ask your students, and you will be again astonished that many, many will tell you something else. There is, for example, one very common pattern. People now who try to make it good. And they try to really breathe a little bit deeper. So you inhale, the belly goes out. You continue, and your chest expands. And next, your belly goes in while you are still inhaling. Have you had this experience sometimes? This is called paradoxical breath. That means it is well known as a certain, very common breathing pattern. This is when you put too much emphasis on expanding your chest. So then, in a reflex, actually your belly goes in again. This is what we actually do when we do Agni Śakriyā or Nauli. So then we exhale, and then we expand the chest so that the belly goes really in as a reflex of the expansion of the chest. But it says something is overdone. Also, during exhalation, you will come across, I guess, a lot of people who actually start the exhalation again from the belly. And if someone has, anyway, mainly chest breathing, then of course the inhalation will also start in the chest. So there is a lot to explore for us and for our yoga students. So you should not think that this is so natural that automatically everyone has it, what we call the yogic breath. I usually would not call it yogic breath, but simply natural breath. When someone really lives in harmony with nature and with himself, then it would be the natural way of breathing. But because we are not anymore so much in harmony with nature, that is also not anymore so much the case now. Concerning now chest and belly breathing: When you have a yoga class and you lead them, now observe the belly breath and the chest breathing. You will observe, first of all, sometimes I thought people have died. Yes, dead. Simply, there is no movement, no movement at all. Sometimes you say, "What happened?" Yeah, really, look around. And one thing which you will come across quite often is that people have a strong belly press but no movement, absolutely no movement in the chest. Which is better than the reverse. So I would say 60–70% of the breath movement should be in the belly and the rest in the chest. But still, it is not good if we have only belly breathing. What I found out when I asked these people now—these are mostly students who come from other yoga schools—so we must be aware that not everyone is teaching as we are teaching this full yoga breath. So many yoga schools obviously emphasize only the belly breath, and they completely forget about the chest. For example, I have heard that the Iyengar teaching is more the lower chest breathing, but not the belly breath, actually. So it is really worthwhile to take time to bring full awareness into the way we are breathing. Then I asked about the pauses in between. What did we find out about pauses? Are there some pauses? After inhalation or after exhalation, or maybe both? Let us say it like this. Who found it is very smooth, always going from inhalation into exhalation, without any break in between? Who found that? No one? It seems you are students of Yoga in Daily Life. Because, again, simply take note, there are yoga schools who say it should be like that, so they see it as a disturbance when there is a break in between, and they train their yoga students that there should be no break in between. Okay, so how is it now? Who felt something after inhalation? This is maybe half. Who felt a short break or some break after exhalation? Both. Both. And which one was longer? Yes. So after inhalation, there might be a short break. But usually, after exhalation, there should be a longer one. And when you are really relaxed and when you are meditating, this longer break can sometimes be really long. And then do not get worried. Do not make the inhalation. Just let it happen by itself. You see, these breaks are actually quite important. From the physical point or from the medical point, that is first of all the only time when, for example, our poor diaphragm can have a rest. It is working all the time, all the time, day and night, day and night. The second important point is for the kumbhaka. We will speak more about that in the afternoon. The main technique of prāṇāyāma is kumbhaka. Kumbhaka means that we purposely, intentionally extend this period of a pause in between. And the most important aspect is actually the connection with our mind. Because as the breath is moving, so our mind is moving. Swāmī Śivananda, I quoted yesterday from him, he actually says the mind can move only because of the prāṇa. And we aim at bringing peace to our mind. Yoga Sthitiḥ Pratiṣṭhā Roddhaḥ. We try to control our mind so that there will be a standstill in our mind. And Swāmījī always gives a simple example of a glass with water. Now, here you cannot see. When you want the water to become still, but you move the glass, you can wait for a long time. It will never happen. So that means as long as our body is moving, there is no chance. And in deep meditation, when we come to this state, there is hardly any movement of breath anymore. So, from the point that we aim on meditation, these standstill periods are extremely important. Then I asked you another question: if there are maybe some kind of irregularities in the breath. So if you would see the breath on the monitor, is it like boring, or is it exactly the same wave, or are some waves stronger and higher, and so on? So, who experienced something like this? No? No one? I am very happy about that. But I tell you in practical, because I am doing this in every beginner's yoga class—not so much in detail as we did all the different questions today, but this question I always ask. And there was not a single yoga class till now where not at least one person had this problem. So it is very important that we are aware of this, and we make them aware of this. Because, what does this mean? We relax, and even then there is some irregularity in the breath. So I see this already as a medical problem. So I would say most probably this person has built up already quite a strong stress level, or sometimes we do not know, people are close to a nervous breakdown and they do not even know. So I really would take this as a more serious symptom. And then I advise them to always really work on that, especially now through daily Yoga Nidrā. Or, really looking into that, maybe consulting a doctor and seeing what it is, what causes this stress in me, which shows as the irregularities in the breath. The last was that we had this, like, Yoga Nidrā, a little bit. So we were on the grass, we were on the hot sand, then we were in the water, on the concrete, and back on the grass. So, who would like to speak a little bit about his or her experience? The question was always: how does this reflect now in our breathing? Who likes? No one felt nothing? That most people fell asleep. I heard some. I still hope that some would follow. Did not have enough sleep last night? When she was walking on the grass, it was really nice and pleasant. She could breathe very easily. She even imagined or visualized walking on the grass in the Strylky, so it got even better than the concrete. It was very unnatural, as if she lost the contact or the touch with nature, and how it was in your breath. She did not feel the joy of inhaling and exhaling, like the natural joy of breathing, so this joy disappeared compared to the feeling on the grass. And on the scent, she felt like breathing in more deeply and also exhaling more deeply. And the water? She could feel the cooling effect of the water, and at the same time, she felt like inhaling and exhaling more deeply because she could feel the resistance of the water. She would like to say that she really enjoyed this practice. And she would like to try it also with her practitioners, so she is really grateful to you, but I think your scent was not hot enough. So maybe someone else. So he felt more relaxed, and also his breath was more relaxed on the grass, but then the people on the webcast cannot hear, so that is why I have to repeat in Slovak, just because of that. So he felt worse, or his breath was worse and shorter on the sand, on the dry sand, than even worse on the wet sand, and the worst it was in the water, because he really hates cold water and cold weather. So on this concrete, it felt like you had to pay special attention not to jump on something sharp or something rough, and so the breath was really, really short, and it was quite bad. Just one or two minutes more. Okay, so let us come to an end with this. I think everyone who was not falling asleep feels that it really influences our breath. Most people are always very happy on the grass. Most people are also happy in the water, but if we have an inner resistance, that does not work. And the hot sand, if we imagine it is really hot, usually is really constricting our breath, and no one feels happy to walk on concrete. So now look around yourself. Where are we living? And how does that influence our breath? So this is just to make ourselves aware of our lifestyle. But now, another very important remark: you did not walk on the sand, on the grass, and on the concrete because you were lying here.