We intend to leave the matter of the choice of food an open question with our students. While, personally, we prefer certain kinds of food, believing that the best results are obtained from the use thereof, we recognize the fact that it is impossible to change the habits of a lifetime (yes, of many generations) […]
One of the cardinal principles of the Hatha Yoga Philosophy of Health is the intelligent use of Nature’s great gift to living things—Water. It should not be necessary to even call the attention of men to the fact that Water is one of the great means of maintaining normal health, but man has become so […]
This will not be a pleasant chapter to those of you who are still bound with the old notions of the impurity of the body, or any part of it—if there chance to be such among our students. Those of you who prefer to ignore the existence of certain important functions of the physical body, […]
Life is absolutely dependent upon the act of breathing. “Breath is Life.” Differ as they may upon details of theory and terminology, the Oriental and the Occidental agree upon these fundamental principles. To breathe is to live, and without breath there is no life. Not only are the higher animals dependent upon breath for life […]
High Breathing. This form of breathing is known to the Western world as Cavicular Breathing, or Collarbone Breathing. One breathing in this way elevates the ribs and raises the collarbone and shoulders, at the same time drawing in the abdomen and pushing its contents up against the diaphragm, which in turn is raised. The upper […]
Yogi Complete Breathing includes all the good points of High Breathing, Mid Breathing and Low Breathing, with the objectionable features of each eliminated. It brings into play the entire respiratory apparatus, every part of the lungs, every air-cell, every respiratory muscle. The entire respiratory organism responds to this method of breathing, and the maximum amount […]
Scarcely too much can be said of the advantages attending the practice of the Complete Breath. And yet the student who has carefully read the foregoing pages should scarcely need to have pointed out to him such advantages. The practice of the Complete Breath will make any man or woman immune to Consumption and other […]
We give below three forms of breath, quite popular among the Yogis. The first is the well-known Yogi Cleansing Breath, to which is attributed much of the great lung endurance found among the Yogis. They usually finish up a breathing exercise with this Cleansing Breath, and we have followed this plan in this book. We […]
One of the first lessons in the Yogi Science of Breath, is to learn how to breathe through the nostrils, and to overcome the common practice of mouth-breathing. The breathing mechanism of man is so constructed that he may breathe either through the mouth or nasal tubes, but it is a matter of vital importance […]
Hatha Yoga teaches that the physical body is built up of cells, each cell containing within it a miniature “life” which controls its action. These “lives” are really bits of intelligent mind of a certain degree of development, which enable the cells to do their work properly. These bits of intelligence are, of course, subordinate […]