Undulating in the Living Quarters

 

So far the practice has been used to manipulate the glands of the basement.You agitated the lower body by rocking back and forth in the realm of the reproductive organs, you stirred the underground waters, and then utilized levity to air out the muscles. All of this took place below the diaphragm. The focus is now to move the breath into one’s living quarters, from the throat down to the diaphragm. The lower body is one’s stability and the upper body is the ability to participate in the world around oneself. The hands handle situations, the vision and speech is used to participate in the communal residing outside oneself. As previously stated, we need three glands to make a floor of support, and in our living quarters this is our thymus gland: the immune system, our thyroid gland: the ventilation system, and the pituitary gland: the ability to see what is going on internally as well as circumstantially.

First, you must get a handle on the situation since this moves you into a higher realm. Keep using centre to initiate the dialogue on the central channel, keep the contact of the tongue on the palate and place the hands in front of the collarbones. Shape the hands into fists and ensure the elbows are parallel with the ground. When you inhale open it all up so the scapula come together on the back as the elbows are reaching backwards. The exhale brings the fists together in front, as the scapula pull apart. As you inhale and exhale, rock the lower body. The inhale tips you slightly forward onto the pubis, the exhale will tip you back to the coccyx. You are developing the stability of being in constant motion, moving forward into the future while referencing memory.

Use this technique as a way to open up the spine. The spine of the body is just like the spine of a book. It is by virtue of the spine that a book opens and closes. It is also in the pliancy and tensile strength of the spine that a book stays together, well bound. If you are too flexible your story will eventually fall apart. If you keep yourself closed and rigid all the time your story will become stiff and will be hard to open. You want the ability to open and close your story when you need to. Know that every time you open yourself up, you are opening your story and every time you close in on yourself you are closing your story. Find the hinge, the ability to open and close, knowing that half the art is the ability to manipulate when you want your story read and when you want it closed. You are in the middle mediating the unfolding of your dialogue with the third hand in centre.

When you have finished about 100 rounds of breath take a full inhale, finish with three more sips in and then hold the breath full for a moment. When you are ready to pop your cork, let the exhale pop out the top of your head and rain down around your circumference. Adjust yourself so you are back in centre and take a moment to breathe your personal breath.

Twisting with Arms on Shoulders

Take the hands and place them on the shoulders. Find the fit of ball and mitt ensuring the elbows stay in line with shoulders. This enables a lift off the kidneys and maintains space in the lower organs. The equilibrium of the body is found by the leveling the kidneys, knees, hips and ears. When all these points are level, you maintain the water bubble in the middle. You use this tool in life, when you hang a painting level and slam a door, it won’t drop. The same idea is used in the body so you hold up to life’s shocks.

Keep the arms high. Take an inhale and spin to the left and exhale spin to the right. Again keep a count, keep changing and refining and redefining what you are doing. This allows you to not get stuck where you are comfortable.

Spinning to the left on the inhale, spins the body to the side of the heart while the exhale on the right is the side of the liver. This lets you air out the heart while simultaneously flushing out the vision. Rotating back and forth is a revolution around the tai chi, the eye of the storm, the stable centre, the line of righteousness. The line the arms are rotating around is the equator of your sphere which moves you through the line of time. From east to west, from spring to autumn, you are playing the cyclical nature of the seasons, the spin of the planet around the sun. You not only have north and south in the body but you have east and west. Begin to grid yourself, knowing that you are a conduit of heaven above and earth below, the great mediator of the poles.

Use the idea of your spirit rising. A soul is heavy, a soul has depths, it descends to the lowest levels like water. Working deep in the lower body plays with the idea of the soul. Creating heat below sparked the will to rise, the smoke being the spirit rising through the home, your body. As you begin to move the breath through you, you are moving the wind, the air, the spirit. It is to become spirited.

First learn the technique, play with the technique, and do it long enough so you will develop the capacity to refine the technique, empower your skill and begin to use the practice to serve the personal form. When something is repeated often enough you will develop insights. It is not about doing many different things, it is about doing the same things you do but with proper form, with greater understander and with more joy. Stick with the technique until you can make the technique work for you. Then when you are done, take a breath in and on the exhale you can let it go.

Again you organize yourself, put yourself in centre, know that centre holds. As you put yourself in the middle, use the breath to move the spirit through you. On the inhale fill yourself up, on the exhale, empty yourself out. It is only when you are empty that you are available to be filled. Be an empty container, the holy grail, the elixir of the universe.

Twisting with Hands Clasped at Level of Chin

Interlace your fingers together at the level of the chin, one palm facing away from you, one palm facing towards you. Create a lock, a grasp that has integrity. The elbows are higher than before. The same breath is used as the previous technique, inhale spin to the left and exhale spin to the right. You will soon notice that this provides a quicker spin. Moving the arms higher up in the body engenders a lighter spin, lifting spirit into a higher atmosphere. Focus on the breath at the same time as you image yourself revolving on the central channel of your body. Remember that in front is the future, behind is the memory, to the left is the sun rising, to the right is the sun setting. The sun begins rising behind the left shoulder blade and it moves around to the front of the left breast. The sun starts setting at the right breast and moves behind to the right shoulder blade. You are an organized being and within your organization lies the whole cosmos.

Use the personal breath, engage the mind, move the body. Use every piece of yourself in the technique so you can refine it, redefine it and eventually transform it. This spin is working up into the thyroid which is the ventilation system of the body, the gateway to the lungs. The thyroid is the tool to extract the ions, ores and minerals from the atmosphere. The breath can be used to feed the body and the mind. The thyroid is the baking soda, it is the leavening agent that eventually lightens you up. When you add baking soda to a cake you add air to it. This makes it fluffy.

Air is the main goal when playing with the idea of spaciousness. You always want to know yoga is about space. We are always using the practice in space, everything is vibration and vibration only exists in space. You are constantly vibrating, consistently moving, and within this movement there is an incredible stillness. Use the breath to fill and empty the personal form, you are a vast vessel and it is by virtue of the breath that you are a living, breathing and moving entity that creates sound.

When you are finished take an inhale, then exhale you can let the technique go. Always return to centre and take a moment to find a stable ninety degree angle that maintains its strength by virtue of its structure. Centre yourself on your perineum to find this righteous angle to the earth. Use the breath to stay fired up, keep yourself spirited, and listen to remain attentive, inquisitive, and curious to your deer longings.

Twisting with Hands Clasped Behind Head

The final twisting technique moves spirit into a higher atmosphere yet. This is used for a higher elevation of air knowing that the higher one goes, the more refined and ethereal the air will be. Use the hands clasped behind the head and create an equilateral triangle out to the elbows. The inhale is still to left and the exhale is to the right.

This is the quickest spin yet as the arms move higher up the body. This technique flushes the liver, which is the easiest way to clear one’s vision. Eyes are connected to the liver, and the liver is extends through the right arm. It is one’s ability to go out in the world, to shake a hand, creating deals, and participating in all that is bustling around in existence.

Vision has a dialogue with the pituitary. Moving above the thyroid move us into the realm of the pituitary, the next gland in the body. The pituitary oversees, its dialogue is the circumstantial view of everything that is around oneself. If you constantly get blindsided in life then adjust your pituitary so you can adjust your vision. The dialogue of vision is of future and memory. Every time you go forward in life you are going to have a reflective memory, if you don’t like the memory that is being reflected back at you, change the angle in which you are moving. This is the floor of participation and there is an incredible amount of power placed within the individual to participate in the personal wellbeing, to be able to read the signs, to sniff out the situation and to hear the alarms. Everything is talking to you, the trick is to open up the ears and hear the things you should be hearing for your own personal growth.

Finally, the pituitary is the compass. It is the ability to be directional and navigate. When the internal compass is off the whole structure will be off, since it lacks direction. Whenever you position yourself it is important to know where your coordinates are so that you can read a map. You are always placing yourself in the middle to get to your destination. Without a compass it is very difficult to reference where you are and where you are going. The pituitary navigates. This technique is so that your navigation is finely tuned. The more you move the breath, the more you spin yourself, the more you will see what is going on around you. The better you position yourself, the more able you are to attune your internal vision so you can move into a higher, universal vision.

When you are finished with the technique position yourself to know where you’re driving to and then direct your drive with the mind. Use the breath as the driver and move your breath in and out, so it is ebbing and flowing through your central channel.

Fanning the Heart

It is very easy for a heart to become overheated as it is the element of fire. A well ventilated heart should be like a fan in a convection oven, regulating its heat. The next technique is designed for this and begins with one hand out to a sixty degree angle, while the other hand lies in space in front of the heart. As you exhale switch which hand is in front and do not worry about the inhale as this will all be done on the out breath. Switching which hand is in front will offer this fan if you move it fast. Keep the hands moving with the breath, constantly switching the hand in the centre of the chest. Keep the mind attentive, focus on the breath and get everything out.

Your ability to have a good fire in the heart consists of three ingredients already discussed: fuel, a spark, and oxygen. When one has a speech problem, a stutter, or a language issue, it is going to be in one of these three ingredients. Constantly check the heat of the heart, make sure there is enough air which is your ability to take in oxygen and eliminate carbon dioxide, ensure there is a spark, your ability to strike a match and get the pilot light going, and maintain the fuel, the ability to use your mind to get what you want. Always check and make sure all the ingredients are topped up and can sustain and support each other anytime you have found an imbalance. Extreme emotions attack the heart and you need to know how to get out that which is not serving you.

This is the alchemy of the practice, manipulating the ingredients until you have a desired chemical reaction that will serve you, then eventually liberate you. It is for joy, knowing that joy is not our natural state, rather it is trained, just like the techniques we are doing. It is to rise above a personal belief and see the bigger picture, how will it elevate me and those around me?

The more one takes in, the more one hauls around, the more one needs technique to be able to get things out. Get rid of anything you don’t need: opinions, garbage, preconceived notions, prejudices and old ideas. Know that the more stuff you get rid of the more you can eventually take in. The trick is to learn what you need and what you don’t need. Most people haul around a whole bunch of garbage they don’t need. This creates weight, burden, heaviness, breeding disease and physical illness. Learn how to leverage the physical form by decreasing the burden, become lighter, open yourself up and get stuff out. The better you can leverage your weight the more joyful life will be, the lighter you will feel. This creates the space to focus on other things in life.

Know that it is very hard to have a seated meditation when your house is on fire. Fan out the flames of lethargy and pain, open yourself up and remember it takes a considerable amount of effort. It is very hard to not be personal. Know that life is hard but it is up to you to rise to the challenge, to clean up the garbage, to create a vessel in which pumps can pump and fluids can flow. You are creating a house that you want to live in. When you feel safe in your house, when you feel light, this is when meditation will come. Asana and pranayama are acts of doing, meditation is an act of being. You do the work so you can be, but you have to keep doing the work in between the being-ness.

Finish with the technique and bring the arms down, hands on your lap, palms facing up. Shape the hands like cups so that when grace is raining down you can catch it. Put yourself in the centre and mediate, manipulate, modulate. The magician always hides the third hand, so be skillful, be sneaky, and know that all these techniques are to serve you so you can live a more joyful life within the confines of form.

Opening and Closing the Chest

 

After fanning the flames of the heart, the next technique manipulates the thymus gland located at the heart centre. The heart is connected to the tongue via speech, thus the thymus gland is the ability to articulate, to hold one’s tongue, to speak from one’s heart, and to have fluency with words. Physically, this gland is the immune system and just like the breath, the immune system works when we aren’t thinking about it. It can also be manipulated, potentiated, so we can expel the things that rob us of our health.

Bring the arms straight out in front, in level with the centre of the chest, place one palm on top of the other, shaped like cups which gives you potential on memory. The back of the hand is the memory and the palm of hand is the potential. A high five it is palm on palm, you’re in it together; when you fist bump, this is back on back: ‘you watch my back, I’ll watch yours’. When you have palm on back of hand you are spooning. Let the hands spoon. Take an inhale and open your potential with the arms high, at about a forty five degree angle. Exhale close it all back into yourself. When you go back and forth switch which palm is on top so you can keep rewiring and reworking the circuitry of the brain.

The centre of the chest is the great mediator of all polarities where north and south meet, where fire and water converge; where east and west mingle, where innocence and experience combine. It meshes northeast and southwest, vision and substantiation on the planet; and manipulates northwest and southeast, goals and time. The centre of the chest holds the ability to be the third principle in the centre of one’s circumstances, the eye of the storm. Moving the hands back and forth is strengthening the immune system, one’s ability to steer oneself through life, to pick the best route that will serve the drive, to get from point a to point b with the least amount of damage. Place yourself skillfully in the drivers seat and learn the technique so you can get what you want out of life.

Remember, the heart heats up and anything that gets too hot eventually uses up moisture available, creating rigidity. Be prescient, see it coming. Fan the heart, ensure that there is just enough heat and moisture to keep the spine pliant. The spine is our celestial pillar and every circuit of our functioning body moves through the spine: glands, organs, all of our life force.

Develop the capacity to fire yourself up without getting overheated and cracked. If you don’t, eventually the bones dry out and then your fear will be the fall. Everything that is rigid cracks and breaks. Instead, become more pliant, when you fall play for the bounce back, the recovery. Be spherical, use the third principle to see it coming. See the fall, mitigate the defeat, live your life joyfully and use proper form and technique to get you there. The whole practice is skill building, the more skillful you are the quicker you can use it all to your advantage. A sign of skill is speed, so quickly get any toxicity out and reorganize yourself so you maintain right effort, keeping yourself open for the grace.

When you are finished take a deep breath, and on the exhale let the arms go. Again mediate, put yourself in the centre, direct your drive so you can have a vision that serves you, while allowing a reflection of memory that you choose.

Flipping Wrists

Bring your arms up to an equilateral triangle as at the beginning of the practice.  Pump the breath in and out while flipping the hands all around. This is designed to open up the wrist joint, granting pliancy to life’s ever changing circumstances. The hands need to become flippant so they can handle situations. Everything always changes, the art is your ability to adapt. There are five necks in the body, the necks of the wrists, the necks of the ankles and the neck of the head. When you open up one neck the rest will open.

First you took the things out of the heart that were creating dis-harmony. Your goal now is to become more flippant, to develop the capacity to reverse situations and make them work for you. Everything in life flips and it is to one’s advantage to learn to work the flip side so one doesn’t end up damaged, defeated, or bitter. All of this practice is how well you can manipulate your internal circumstances so the outside doesn’t affect you as much. This is what being the stable centre is all about. The more you think life is personal, the more you think everything that happens is working against you, the more likely you are to get damaged, to not see the skill and the art in the ability to make each situation work to your benefit. You are more powerful when you alter situations so they serve you, and it is by virtue of cleaning out everything inside, that the outside will fall into place.

When you flip your left hand you are flipping the heart, this is the ability to handle the home, your feelings, and to carry out your ablutions and rituals. When you become more flippant in the left hand you develop the capacity to deal with your feelings in the home. When you flip the right hand you are flipping the worldly hand that signs checks, makes deals and measures. The ability to flip this hand gives you a handle on the world and everything going on outside of you. As you flip both palms, mediate it with the centre palm, the centre of the chest, the ability to mediate the feelings at home and the experience in the world. This trains you to use every piece of yourself and gives you insights to where you don’t go.

When you’ve done it for a few minutes take an inhale and on the exhale let it go. As you inhale and exhale up the spine feel the vibrations in the each of these three palms: left, right, centre. The more you learn to vibrate the hands, the better you can vibrate the heart and the more vibratory the heart, the greater fluency you gain in your speech and the more magnetic you will become.