Concentration Breath
Description: A deepening of Ujjayi Breath, bringing more force to the vibration in the throat; forming a direct channel through the throat; a feeling of coolness, opening directly into the area of the heart and central chest, behind the sternum; a discernible hisssss deep in the throat, descending into the esophagus.
Preparation: Feel the coolness of the air as it passes through the first flesh of the nostrils. Open the upper nasal area, to feel the coolness there. Lift the back of the upper mouth where it joins the throat, to feel the coolness there, and to open the upper throat. Force an inhale through the frontal nasal passage, until it vibrates noisily, then accentuate the noisiness as you inhale more strongly and more deeply, continuing louder into the area of the brain. “Ssssnn00000RRRFF”! This is called the ‘snorf’. It is a Stalking maneuver designed to open the personality and relieve inhibitions. The Concentration Breath occurs at a level beyond inhibition.
Execution: Upon first entering into an asana, there is a period of exertion, during which the breath is working to bring the body into alignment with the brain, or Intent. At a certain point, the brain releases its exertion, and the breath is available for a deeper concentration. The body continues to accommodate itself to the details of the posture, the personality re-emerges, and conscious will can focus more deeply into the breathing. This is called 'catching the breath'. When you have caught the breath, force it through the open throat, and direct it first into the tops and bottoms of the lungs. Then open the lower belly, and force the breath directly through the throat into the belly. Use the breath to expand the pelvic bones; then expand he shoulder bones. Then force the breath into the back of the neck, and up into the brain. You'll see how it's done! Opening into the Concentration Breath shifts the energy into a more unified state, with body and brain linked to the will of the person. Vision occurs at this point, and it is possible to See into the workings of the muscles as the breath begins to penetrate and link with the energy fields of the muscles. This vision can extend to all areas of the physical body as the breath penetrates. At that point the Concentration Breath becomes the Penetration Breath. This is where the foundation of the Shamanic begins to coalesce. Spirit begins to take up residence in the flesh in a new way.
Anga Banga
Background: The fundamental aspect of yogasana is the duality of expansion and contraction; flexion and extension; agonist, antagonist; inhale and exhale; tension and relaxation. The attitude and personality of the practitioner is the fulcrum upon which these polarities are balanced. In order to achieve the state of fluidity in mindfulness, these opposites can be controlled to cancel each other out in a state of neutrality, or dynamic tension (“Tensegrity”), where contraction is equal to expansion in the dance of agonist/antagonist engagement and release. At a certain level of intensity, there is a fiery energy which can be moved throughout the physical body like a spotlight searching a crowd. This is the mind. This fire is brought to life by the energy of the Concentration Breath as it penetrates deep into the flesh to the level where flesh is spirit. This is the Shamanic level.
The intensity of this fire was spoken of in an interview in Yoga Journal some years ago as “anga banga”, or ‘not so good’. The spirit teachers, however, insist on it. In the intensity of this burning energy, the spirits are able to fuse themselves into the flesh of the practitioner. This is the Shamanic level.
Chi Mudra
Chi Mudra develops in the fires of Anga Banga. The mind of the body, or of the spirits, replaces the mind of the practitioner, inducing a purely spontaneous motion dictated only by the differential between the energies of adjoining muscle groups. The body is forced into a deliberate, slow flow from engagement to disengagement in response to the needs of the muscles for the energies of the fires. The feeling of the practitioner is one of exhilaration as the mind releases into pure enjoyment. As the energy begins to penetrate and open the subtle energy systems of the chakras and the connectors between them, and spirit opens to participation in the dance, the energies become the energies of Tantra.
ASANAS
Tadasana
Any asana can be a Shamanic Asana, once the practitioner accomplishes the Concentration Breath. Tadasana is a good one to demonstrate several principles of Shamanic engagement in the asanas.
Begin in normal Tadasana, feet hip width apart, body balanced and erect. Once the mind and breath have settled into the asana, shift into the Concentration Breath and begin to focus directly into the breathing. Let the eyes close gently. Concentrate on maintaining balance as you focus the breathing through the various parts of the body. You will see that each part needs to form a fluid alignment with the rest of the body, as the energy begins to swim in and out with the breathing. Let the Concentration Breath force the pelvis into separation, so that the weight settles. Let the feet widen, and toes open to grip the mat. Let spine and shoulders shift and open as they will, letting the neck support the head in different ways. Once you are loose and balanced, bring the feet together so that the skin of each foot feels the skin of the other. This sensation of touch brings the Mental Body into engagement at the level of ‘rasa’, or ‘juice joy’. The sensuality of the body brings the spirits to life! (Tantra)
With the eyes closed, the balance is like music. With the feet together, the entire body must refocus, and realign its relation with the rest of the body in this music. The weight of each part of the skeleton will follow the Concentration Breath, allowing the skeleton to sing along with a moving melody of flowing energies.
Move the Concentration Breath to the spine, and bring all your faculties to the Atlas and Medulla Oblongata. This is where the Causal Chakra is located. (See “Thirteen Chakra System”.) From a state of floating relaxation, begin to bring energy up the spine to the Causal Chakra, gradually bringing all the muscle groups into increasingly intense engagement. Use the Concentration Breath to penetrate each area as it engages. This is the beginning of the anga banga process which engages the chi mudra dance. Let the body rearrange itself in a languishing, grinding stretch/compression, extension/flexion, with no goal or program. Enjoy the rasa.
Shamanism is basically Tantra. As the Chi Mudras progress, the rasa will open into a focused sexuality, and the Shamanic Art of Stalking will introduce you into a theatric encounter with the Self and its relationship with the Psyche. This is the equivalent to the Tibetan after-death journey through the Bardo plane, wherein the soul encounters the demons and devas which present the tests of passage. The true nature of the Self will emerge into conscious awareness as the practitioner comes face to face with issues of life and death and morality; fear and inhibition present themselves; each successive journey deepens the engagement with Reality in the world of the Psyche. This is the realm of Shamanic Transformation. The secret of the Bardo journey is to never succumb to these encounters. The clear light of the Self always will emerge at the end, stronger and more focused. The chimeras and dilemmas of the principles of Ordinary Reality always will retreat to ensnare the next practitioner.
The Bear
From Tadasana, bend forward and place the palms on the floor. The front legs of the bear are shorter than the rear, which causes an adjustment of the pelvis in humans. The secret of The Bear is the adjustment it forces in the personality of the practitioner. With palms on the floor, let the head hang straight down between the arms, and dangle loosely. Let the gaze focus on the wall behind you. Notice (Stalk yourself) your feelings and attitudes. How long does it take for your breath to catch up to the asana? Let your face puff up and turn red or purple. Do you lose a little of your dignity? Relax. Move the breath through the body. Let the arms bend as you lower your head toward the floor; go as far as you can, and hold. Adjust the breathing. Move into the Concentration Breath. Let the breath refocus your body into a fluid dynamic, until you push yourself up and arch your back toward the ceiling. As the Concentration Breath brings fluid energy throughout your physique, notice the relaxation and feeling of openness. The Bear is a very loving Power Animal. When he or she comes to you, he will teach you many lessons. This is a good warm-up for Shamanic Sun Salutation.
Advanced Bear:
The Bear Square
Just as the Bear has four feet, so does the Bear Square. The Bear taught me this one! Draw a square at either end of your yoga mat, exactly twenty four inches on each side (two feet); you now have four square feet. As you step onto the mat, carefully align the outer edges of each foot, and each heel, with the very edges of the end and sides of the mat. As you bend forward, carefully align the ends of your middle fingers and the sides of your pinky fingers with the forward line on the mat, and the edges. Precision is one of the Bear’s attributes. Attention to minute detail becomes essential in Shamanic work.
With your hands and feet carefully aligned with the edges of the square, breathe comfortably until you switch into Concentration Breath. Let the Bear communicate with you. Engage the muladhara bandha several times to encourage his presence, and invite him to enter you there. Notice the energies (rasa) as he penetrates (Tantra). Use the Concentration Breath to move the rasa throughout your energy system, igniting the energies of your spirit. Again, the Self and the Psyche become engaged in discourse. The energies of the asana are designed to force resolution of scruples and qualms at a higher level of Consciousness. This is the essence of the Shamanic experience. Let The Bear raise you to the higher levels, so you will be ready for The Tiger.
Tiger Yoga
Depending on the level of your engagement with your Spirit Guides, Tiger Yoga can be an extreme challenge to the Psyche. This yoga was introduced to me by my Ayami, or Spirit Wife, my ‘Ally’, Marilyn Monroe. After more than twenty years together, during which she morphed into several of her previous incarnations (the Virgin Mary, the Goddess Durga, among others), she finally forced me to dissolve her into a non-entity, in order to achieve my liberation. She became “Hoo”, the vocalization of the expulsion of breath in the ecstatic dance of Tiger Yoga. “Hoooooooo” comes involuntarily during Chi Mudra Singing. In the Dance with the Tiger, the anga banga flames are so intense that only singing the pain will bring lubrication to the intensity of the engagement. It can be a terrifying experience! All manner of evils fill the soul on the wings of the pain fed by the breath, fanned by the evil intent of the Ally. The Self, the persona, is destroyed, lost, abandoned (“Relax; abandon yourself; fear nothing”—don Juan, in Castaneda’s works). As the ‘little smoke’ wears off, things return to normal, sort of….
The Zipper
Looking for a way to strengthen my back muscles in preparation for returning to Head Stand (“getting back to yoga” is one of the most important asanas, as any oldster can tell you!), I came across an article in Yoga Journal online. It recommended strengthening the ‘serratus anterior’ muscles, at the front of the rib cage, adjacent to the abs. By raising the back above the level of the shoulders during Plank and Staff, as you move through the Sun Salutation, you engage the serratus anterior along the front of your torso. You can tell right away that it works on your back as well.
During Tiger Yoga, I found myself into an impossible backbend twist, on the verge of serious injury, and I thought to engage the serratus anterior as a buttress to support the twist. Marilyn Monroe mentioned I should engage the ‘serratus posterior’ (Is there such a thing? I thought…). In an instant, I found the muscles along either side of the spine, along the tailbone, up the neck, and down to the heels, all engaging together as my heels clicked together in a military salute. The process felt exactly like zipping up a zipper. I was able to engage both front and back simultaneously, and went into a marvelous arching backbend, with grace and ease (at 68 years old!).
Later I discovered that Sun Salutation was greatly augmented through what I had learned in The Zipper. By focusing on the heel click, I began to be able to bring a whole new dimension to The Plank, The Staff, and even to forward bends and back bends.
Smoker’s Cough
There is an abysmal downside to working with the Allies. As don Juan Matus told Carlos, they are like our cousins in a way; they are not our friends! The good thing about this is that it forces the apprentice to be impeccable. (I say impeccable with a slur—there is such a thing as being too tight! This work needs impeccability with a lot of slack, and a large dose of humor, not to mention courage, and the delight of controlled folly.) And I should mention that conventional yoga-thought errs hideously on the ‘too tight’ side.
The powers of the Allies are beyond imagining. The Boxer Day tsunami of 2004, which inundated Indonesia and Phuket Island, was caused by an earthquake which occurred as a result of Marilyn Monroe’s reaching deep into the universe to grab a blob of color for the face of God in a painting she helped me execute on the 14th anniversary of our first meeting (the day after Xmas, 1990). That blob of color later appeared on television as ‘the brightest event ever recorded in the universe’. Which is remarkable in itself, but the point is that after everybody died there, Jesus took me with him to harvest the souls of the departed.
I was aghast. Jesus swooped like a shark in a shoal of sardines, scarfing up the souls ravenously, greedily, rudely, ruthlessly. I just couldn’t believe it! But the journey was rough on me, as well. A few days later, I came down with a lung infection. I was pissed!
I have to say that what I have learned about Jesus is not good. But a few years later, after I had lived with diminished lung function, he volunteered some relief during a yoga session. Since I’ve smoked marijuana since 1967 on a daily basis, my lungs are not pristine, but they have never given me any trouble, until that infection. Sometimes, during intense forward bends or chest compression asanas, the stress on the lung compartment forces a cough to clear the passages. During one of these moments, Jesus showed me a way to spread the cough to far corners of the lungs, so that I could reach the congestion remaining after that infection. He is called the Great Healer, but this is the only time he ever did anything remotely in line with his reputation!
Now that I’m doing Tiger Yoga more than Hatha Yoga, I find that compression of the chest much more frequently. It is very helpful and therapeutic to employ the Smokers’ Cough during intense moments. The intensity helps to reach more deeply into the lungs, and I have learned to work the cough into the melody of the Chi Mudra Singing.
Armadillo
Begin in Child's Pose (Balasana): Drop to vajrasana, knees on floor, sitting on heels; bend forward to prayer position, forehead on floor, arms outstretched in front of you. Position and reposition any part of your body which doesn't feel perfectly comfortable. As you 'catch your breath' (begin to enter into conscious breathing), you will notice an easing in various parts of the body --(see CONCENTRATION BREATH). As you follow the breathing, you will enter into your body, and your mind will relax as it deals with the aches and pains within you. Just keep repositioning any part of the body which doesn't feel right, and keep breathing directly into the stiffness. You'll get the hang of it quickly. After a time, you will notice the entire body feels great. You can get up. Do this any time you get depressed or uptight!
Many days in a Shaman’s life are not normal. I am frequently called to journey to dank, dark, ugly places in the universe of the psyche, to perform debilitating and disgusting tasks. I often confront massive doses of ‘ama’ (Shamanic ama is a vibrational evil, like soot; compared to conventional yogic ama, which is undigested food in the intestines.), and am called on to transform vaporous, cosmic situations with nothing but the goodness of my humanity. These journeys come on me as a feeling; call it ‘bi-polar’. I’m feeling down, got the blues, can’t move, have to lie down on the yoga floor for hours or days at a time, while the situation works itself into something I can identify. Sometimes I have to go into Child’s Pose as a protection. But my body tightens up like an armadillo rolled into a ball. My back becomes a shell, but more importantly, my vitals are protected inside me; the compression forces the ama out of my guts, and the agni generated by my clenched fists pressed into my solar plexus serves to recharge my ayni, or ‘right relation’.
Many times I use the Armadillo to begin my evening asana sessions. It serves to collect my energies from the stresses of the Rolling Force of the day. Combined with the Concentration Breath, the Armadillo can often become a complete workout, if you define workout as the total unification of the energies into a harmoniously free flux within the entire psycho-physical-spiritual system.
Stalking
Not all Shamanic Asanas are physical postures. Since the Shaman’s world is the world infused with Spirit, many things occur on a non-physical level. Castaneda’s practice of Stalking (paired with Dreaming) is an absolutely vital skill. It’s one of those things that become second nature. Waking and sleeping form a continuity which is an act of Stalking. The Shaman is perpetually in this asana. It is held in the awareness at the point where normal asana breathing becomes the Concentration Breath. Through Stalking practice, this moment becomes prolonged in perpetuity, as a habitual way of life. The first lesson in Stalking, as I teach it, is to follow the energies of the phases of the moon. These energies are with us at all moments, forever in time. Holding the attention on these energies lengthens the sine wave of our awareness. In this expanded mode, many subtle things become discernable. Many things can be achieved by seizing that “cubic centimeter of chance”, as don Juan calls it.
If you need to ‘get back to yoga’, it is much easier to choose a moment at the beginning or end of a lunar cycle, when the energies can support a change in your daily routine.
“Drinking The Blues Away”
Please—please banish that attitude about alcohol! Hypocritical idiots want to control your mind! If you are serious about your path, you will realize that you have the ability to control what happens to you, and that nothing the idiots say, think or feel is of any importance whatsoever, except as a potent source of that ama which plagues the world. Once you know the world of Spirit, truly, in the way a Shaman knows the world of Spirit, you know that alcoholism is a disease of a broken spirit. Strengthen your spirit.
In those down times when I am entering that amorphous realm of ambiguity which houses some evil as yet unrevealed, there is no yogic technique that does what a couple of beers will do. Sometimes I go through six packs daily for weeks on end, just sitting with a beer and some chips. In Ayurveda, the three doshas are treated in a certain way, dictated by the yogic view of reality. A Shaman uses the doshas in a different way. Slouched in my chair with beer and chips and sausage, I am generating high levels of kapha. Shamanic concentration burns kapha. A couple of brews will put me into ‘First Gear’; downshifting from normal puts you into a place of Power. Things become very clear in a way that nothing else can approximate. Sometimes it is necessary to hold this pose for days or weeks. The fuel of my kapha diet is the only thing that will sustain me through this work. When the work culminates, usually with a change of the moon, I move effortlessly to my normal, more yogic fare. (Following the lunar energies through their changes month to month is a very good training for following the flux of the changes of events in the world of Spirit.)
A Shaman’s quarters provide a home for The Medicine. My work has been to build the Medicine Energies in and around my apartment in Yakima’s barrio since I moved in five years ago. The Medicine Energies are an intelligence formed of the sacred energies of the planet, augmented by an enhanced natural environment charged with the Power of the Shaman’s Way. Five years ago these energies were dead; the place was home to Devil Worshipers. Now the Medicine houses a number of Gods from the world’s religions, and often speaks directly to me with advice or information. It is through my osmosis with The Medicine that I gain the knowledge of what is causing me to drink so much beer. In this manner, I am able to bring healing to the entire Yakima Valley. Vortexes open in response to my drumming. Major karmic changes occur in response to my Shamanic Interventions. While other Shamans are using ayahuasca or peyote, my beer and marijuana are busy making changes all around me. The energies and concentration I have developed through my decades of yoga practice and Shamanic integration with the Universe have helped to uncover and break up a number of unseemly ploys of the spirits. One recent ploy, dating from pre-Sphinx Egypt, involved the human sacrifice behind the shooting in Tucson of Representative Gabby Giffords. (see my blog “Human Sacrifice” on Blogger)
