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The Benefits of Breath: “Health Is the Best Wealth” Breathing is the very root of your life; it is vital. It is important, therefore, that you do it properly. No habit pays bigger dividends and pays them so promptly as complete breathing, maintaining strength and suppleness in all the sixteen vital organs of the body. It is the source of your health, your cheerful spirits, your feeling of youth, your energy, and your relaxation. A body that functions at its peak is a blessing to its owner. Health is so much higher than all other values that soul can build its grandeur and glory upon it alone. No relationship can long be maintained without health, and no health without harmony of vital bodily, mental, and emotional functions. If you know how to regulate and synthesize mind-processes, you can cure diseases completely. The art of complete breathing is fundamental to your task of acquiring relaxation. It releases the nerve centers from the extensive tension that afflicts them. Correct and complete breathing has a tremendous effect on maintaining the harmony of body, mind, and emotions. It brings full relaxation. Only the relaxed mind is open to ideas. A deep breath helps break every fear or sinking spell. The exercises in the new DVD, The Science of Breathing and Glands, 2 nd Edition, comprise teachings that have been practiced for thousands of years in India, Persia, Egypt, and Ancient Greece. Originating in India during the Vedic period, more than 10,000 years ago, they represent some of the oldest philosophies in the world. They were perfected by ancient saints and yoga masters, who received this knowledge intuitively from the divine, and have been passed down from master to student for centuries. Originally this was a secret science, but today these same exercises are practiced as an integral part of any yoga class, in both the East and here in the West. Building upon the success of the first edition of The Science of Breathing and Glands, the second edition includes three new exercises and comes with a fully revised and expanded booklet of explanatory notes and detailed instructions for each exercise. The Science of Correct Breathing: “The Nerves Are the Man” To know man, it is necessary to understand why it is that he needs air to breathe; and to know the air, we must understand how it relates to the life of man. Without breathing, man cannot live. Breathing is the process of taking in vital energy and removing waste products from the body and mind. The chemical basis of life is essentially an oxidation of tissues. Oxygen carbonizes the lung tissue, and a fire follows the meeting of oxygen and carbon in the lung cells as surely as in the stove, and where this fire is kept constantly burning, it is impossible for bacilli and the cohorts of death to exist. Shallow breathing, on the other hand, means that the waste material in the body is not burnt up, and the result is fatigue, or a lack of zest for living. The blood, filled with toxins, gets heavy, lazy and causes poor circulation. Any impediment to respiration checks development, both mental and physical. When your personal rhythm is disturbed, it harms you physically, mentally and emotionally. Nervousness is simply disturbed breathing rhythm. A tense person never has the same amount of courage as the relaxed one. Conversely, the person whose breathing rhythm has the longest pause is the one least likely to break down under the strain of action. All competition is strain, and all cooperation is mutual gain. Indeed, the breath-force or prana is the final cause of all the manifested forces of nature. Practical study and rigid training in the Science of Breath and nature’s finer forces through the unfailing psychotherapeutic methods demonstrated in these exercises will help all nerve, gland, and functional disorders and derangements, adjusting them through simple and natural methods. These exercises are built on the comprehension of the law of radiation of magnetic currents and of the psychic potencies or force-centers found in all bodies, and upon their relationship to the cosmic force-centers and currents of the solar system and the universe. Our bodies are subject to the same rhythmic laws as is the Earth itself in its revolution around the sun, and the solar system around the galaxy, and the galaxy around the universe. Much of the esoteric side of the Science of Breathing and Glands is based upon this well-known principle of nature. By falling in with the rhythm of the body, the yogi manages to absorb a great amount of prana, which he disposes to bring about the results he desires. Meditating on the Breath: “Throb Thine with Nature’s Throbbing Breast” As the breath enters your body and as it leaves the body, watch it, not breathing unnaturally but assuming the role of the witness to life’s function inside you. Watch as it comes in and out. You will notice in a short while that you will have a consciousness that you are something above life itself. Later on, you will have the feeling of hearing the beating of the inner throb within you. As Emerson says, “Throb thine with Nature’s throbbing breast and all is clear from East to West.” There is no such a thing as hearing the inner throb. Later on, some people close their eyes and ears, and they hear an inner hum inside them and they concentrate on that inner hum until they are totally lost in it. This gives a consciousness of being a witness, an observer. Yogis seek to attain the state of universal consciousness through meditation and rhythmic breathing, and these exercises will do much toward developing this universal consciousness in those who earnestly and faithfully practice them. The Exercises and Their Benefits 1. Simple Breath Excellent breath to improve the liver and spleen. 2. Vitalic Breath Helps in regulating weight for those who are overweight or underweight. 3. Dynamic Breath Best exercise for those whose hearts are weak and vitality low. Helps in controlling emotions. 4. Lung-Strengthening Breath Good for everyone, especially consumptive or tubercular people. Excellent for ex-smokers to restore the lungs to full function, and especially designed to stimulate the air sacs in the lungs. 5. Beauty Breath Excellent for all who are bald-headed or who wear glasses. Keeps the face free from winkles, benefits the tongue, teeth, and tonsils, and keeps the thyroid and pituitary glands in good shape. Enriches the supply of blood. 6. Constipation Breath Promotes health of prostate, brain, liver, kidneys, adrenal glands, spleen, stomach, intestines, and pancreas, and eliminates constipation. 7. Insomnia Breath Keeps the body’s cells in perfect condition by eliminating dead cells and stimulating the action of live ones. Strengthens spinal fluid. 8. Solar-Walking Breath Charges the solar plexus with breath. Charges the sixteen electrical batteries of the body (i.e., the glands). Eliminates fatigue. 9. Lunar-Walking Breath Quickly oxygenates the entire bloodstream. Man dies for lack of oxidation. Relieves swollen veins and hardened arteries. 10. Vibratory Breath The longevity of the physical man directly depends upon the digestive and the creative brains, and their hundred percent health and integrity. This exercise keeps these two parts in perfect shape and form. It also straightens out the spinal column and gives it electrical vibration. Strengthens the pancreas, enabling it to mobilize starch better. Improves the power of hearing. 11. Pineal Gland Exercise For good constructive thinking and its healthiest reflection. A vital body vitally needs this vital gland. 12. Vagus Nerve Exercise Controls heart action and life waves. Strengthens the metabolism. 13. Adrenal Gland Exercise Excellent for kidneys, suprarenal and adrenal glands, spleen, liver, and lymph nodes. Keeps these vital organs in excellent health. 14. Parathyroid Gland Exercise For bronchial and neck glands. Bronchial tube troubles will eventually leave and the throat will be in excellent condition. 15. Adam’s Apple Exercise Energizes the entire abdominal region. Speakers and singers will most appreciate this exercise. Renders the voice soft, beautiful, flexible, and powerful. 16. Dog Exercise Excellent for eyesight, thyroid gland, solar plexus, and sex glands. 17. Rejuvenation Exercise A tonic for the entire body. Varicose veins will vanish. All brain congestion is cleared, making the thinking better. 18. Regeneration Exercise For control of sex organs. Sex organs will be divinely strong and under moral control. 19. Plough Posture Strengthens generative and abdominal regions. The Effects of Using These Breathing Exercises The exercises in The Science of Breathing and Glands bring stimulating pressure to bear on important nerve centers, which in turn stimulate and energize the entire nervous system and send an increased flow of nerve-force to all parts of the body. By practicing these exercises as a way of life, the student of breath can increase the circulation in any part of the body by an order from the will, and in the same way he can direct an increased current of nerve-force to any part or organ, stimulating and strengthening it. Practiced devotedly, respirotherapy, or the Science of Breathing and Glands exercises, helps remove all ailments. These exercises are wonderful for developing the lungs, muscles, ligaments, air sacs of the lungs, and all parts of the body, and are especially effective against chronic conditions. These corrective exercises, combined with selective diet, help cure the following conditions: constipation, dyspepsia, sleeplessness, melancholy, nervous exhaustion, headache, piles, heart disease, neuralgia, sinus troubles, diabetes, hysteria, consumption, obesity and underweight, sterility, and impotence. They result in definite improvement of circulation, digestion, assimilation, and elimination. In these ways, complete breathing can even arrest the process of aging itself—the mother of all chronic conditions. Breathing and Other Disciplines Complete breathing enhances all it touches, and it is an invaluable aid to all other health and fitness practices. Rhythmic breathing improves the efficacy of all healing modalities by several hundred percent, in that it increases the flow of nerve- and breath-energy to the site of healing. A knowledge of the Science of Breathing and Glands is a great asset to any health practitioner. Likewise, yoga instructors, fitness professionals, and personal trainers will, through these exercises, become more aware of the truths and myths surrounding the art of breathing, as well as of the related conditions affected by proper or improper breathing. This will allow them to better teach and guide their students and clients. “All life on Earth is breath. All else on Earth is death. Breath is the flywheel of life: its dynaspheric finer forces, sanely used, add years to life and life to years.” —Dr. Bhagat Singh Thind