My teacher Swami Rudrananda (Rudi) explains the Kundalini Double Breath. This video shows the breathing exercise to draw cosmic energy into the body, which he received from his teacher Sri Bhagawan Nityananda in 1960.
“Just as the physical body functions in a certain way, we also have spiritual body with its own mechanism, which is highly sensitive and rarely used, but is every bit a complete a system that actually runs the physical life. If you want to hear a bird sing you can’t stay in the middle of a city you have to go to a place where there are open spaces and trees. To learn to contact the inner self one must also begin with special conditions.
First you must realize that there is the dimension of ordinary life and the dimension of extraordinary life. These dimensions require different muscle and nervous systems. You must strengthen those muscles which carry spiritual energy. They have to be used and exercised until they are strong enough to support the flow of energy that constitutes a spiritual life. Just as a child learning to walk is supported by his parents, so too a spiritual child requires the support of teachers so that his development will be healthy and natural. Trying to force development will cause the novice to be crippled spiritually, his or her mechanism twisted. It is essential to separate the mind and emotions from the psyche because these two are of different dimensions.
You must find within yourself the deep, sincere NEED to grow. There is a very simple exercise for this. You can work either in a group or by yourself to quiet the mind and emotions. This is done by using a point of contact, like a teacher, or a flame, or even a leaf. Focus on this as you open to your inner self. This gives you support until your muscles are strong enough to draw energy directly from the atmosphere by yourself.
The person who undertakes these exercises must believe in God, or in a higher power, or in a great potential within himself. This is necessary because the goal of the exercise is surrender, the removal of all blocks, to allow the higher force to begin the process of destroying the ego, the physical, lower force within us.
The first step is to sit in a relaxed manner and focus on an object or a teacher. You must find within yourself the deep, sincere need to grow. You must bring the wish deep within your chest area and ask deeply, for help to surrender, as if the voiced wish were emanating from your heart. This wish must be silently repeated several times until you feel a sensation of an opening in your heart, like the opening of a flower.
This is the beginning of the second dimension, or spiritual world. The opening is the inner wish, that in turn opens the spiritual mechanism of the person, making a place for the higher force to enter. The aim of this exercise is to maintain the opening in the chest and to deepen it by relaxing and asking for help within this area. You are breaking down the blocks of the physical dimension. The energy is then cultivated, refined, and brings about a chemical change, enabling you to use the spiritual muscles. During the exercise, the opening, or surrender, must be continuous in order for the force to enter and for the process of spiritual growth to begin.
Spiritual growth is a process of exercising and expanding the psychic muscle and nervous systems gradually until they become controlled enough so they may be used at will. It also becomes, in time, a continuous process which works together with your ordinary life process. A growing inner spiritual life adds a quality and depth to your life in the physical dimension.
From his book, Spiritual Cannibalism, by Swami Rudrananda, Rudra Press, 2001
The key to opening to the flow of higher energy is to ask from the very depths of yourself to surrender, or attain a state of nothingness. As you surrender and ask to open to higher cosmic energy, work to draw this energy into yourself and direct the energy through your energy centers (chakras, or gates as they are sometimes called).”
The breathing exercise we will do in a moment, is for drawing cosmic energy into the body. It starts with breathing up into the nose as if you are breathing into the center of the brain, into the heart, swallow, and pause while you focus and ask to surrender, then breathe to bring the energy down through the heart to the lower belly. There it will percolate naturally in the lower belly, and eventually flows up the spine to the top of the head. This Kundalini Double-breath exercise is very gentle and takes less than a minute to do. The gradual cultivation of your energy body gives your spiritual system strength, and brings ascension. If you do it a bit every day, slowly it leads to enlightenment. Just be quiet with integrity. Be present in the moment, and don’t try to force or multi-task.
Rudi’s Double Breath Exercise, in his own words:
“A breathing exercise to use for drawing in cosmic energy is as follows: You draw in the breath high up through the nose and into the heart chakra. As you start the breath into the heart, you swallow in the throat and try to feel the swallow travel down to your heart center. The swallow is to release tension in the throat chakra and allow energy to expand there.
After swallowing, you continue to inhale breath into the heart center until the lungs are filled to their maximum capacity. The breath is suspended gently in the heart chakra for about the count of ten. This time count may become longer as strength is gained in the breathing.
During the time when the breath is suspended, you bring your mental concentration to the heart center and ask to surrender and try to feel very deeply inside the infinite heart center. You must ask into the very core of your being, or deeply into the subconscious, to surrender to and receive the cosmic energy.
After the breath has been held for the count of ten, you exhale one fifth of the breath and inhale again, this time bringing the energy and the concentration to the energy center just below the navel. The breath is retained in the navel chakra for about the count of ten and then exhaled very slowly.
This double breathing to heart and navel chakras may be repeated from eight to ten times in a half hour period or about every three minutes. You should think of the breath as energy and develop the sensitivity to feel deep expansion of energy, and to let the breathing be governed by that sensitivity as your strength and capacity increase.
In your meditation when you are not doing the double breathing exercise, you should breathe into the navel chakra slowly, suspend the breath for a few moments, and then exhale very slowly. If you feel an energy sensation in the navel or sex chakra, you should bring your attention to the tip of your spine and rock slowly from side to side on the base of the spine. This breaks up tension and allows the energy to rise up the spine to the top of the head. When you first begin to do this exercise, your sensitivity may not be on the deeper energy levels. At first, you may not be able to feel definite energy sensations. This doesn’t mean that the energy is not flowing through those channels but that you have not yet developed the sensitivity to feel it.”
When this energy, known as the kundalini, rises from its dormant state, various spontaneous body movements sometimes occur. These may be uncontrolled body spasms and vibrations or heat. Also, as the kundalini force passes the throat energy center, the head may move back and forth rapidly. All these movements and indeed any experience must be surrendered to totally. There is no harm or danger in these movements as they are deep, healthful tension releases.
The kundalini energy gradually rising to the head over a period of time becomes stronger and stronger and eventually brings enlightenment.
We are entering an organic process of spiritual growth, continuously reaching for deeper and deeper states of surrender and openness to the flow of cosmic energy. The more deeply we attain openness and oneness with this higher energy, the more it will lift us up spiritually and the closer it will bring us to the realization of our oneness with God or everything in the universe.
Rudi teaches a silent open-eye class in his ashram in New York City in 1971. During the silent class, students practice concentration and breathing described above.
Thank you,
Srijana, aka Jane Barthelemy, is a medical intuitive, author, and healer. She studied with Rudi for one year before he passed, and the experience changed her life path forever. Srijana has her MBA in financial management and has practiced Tibetan Buddhist meditation for over five decades, residing in the Rudrananda Ashram in the USA for 35 years. She practices kinesiology, craniosacral therapy, Acunect, and BodyTalk – an infusion of Chinese – Ayurvedic wisdom. She is trained in Qigong, Taichi, Daoist sexuality, and Kundalini activation. Her medical Qigong training is with Mantak Chia, Khamto Lee, Daniel Villasenor, Zhongxian Wu, Dr. Ka’imi Pilipovich, Franco Mescola, Richard Leirer, and Lam Kam Chueng. She has her BS in Italian Opera and MBA. Her two paradigm-changing cookbooks show how to build health with unprocessed foods. Her upcoming books include: “Heal Your Past Lives”, and “Buddha Speaks – Channeled Passages from the Master”. She is on the faculty of NewEarth University and LearnDesk. Her websites are FiveSeasonsMedicine.com and JanesHealthyKitchen.com. Srijana lives in Bali with her Bhutanese husband, Lama D.