Daily Duration of the Step One "Conscious Breathing" Exercise
© 2003
>> Can you please advise me on this problem? I am practising every morning the exercise described on p74-75 of IIH, conscious breathing, where one impregnates the air one breathes with a strong wish. I increase this daily by one breath. Somewhere I was advised (I think on the other site, but I can't get on today as it is overloaded) to increase until I was doing half an hour a morning. Is this right, or should I just do ten minutes? If the former, I need to get up earlier! <<
On page 75 (Merkur edition), the last two sentences of Bardon's instructions concerning the "Mystery of Breathing" state:
"When you practice these breathing exercises, do not exceed thirty minutes. Later, ten minutes in the morning and ten in the evening should suffice."
In other words, your practice gets quicker over time, even though you are increasing the number of breaths. The factor that changes with practice, is the speed of your impregnation and visualization. So, while it might take as much as 30 minutes in the beginning to take in 7 breaths of carefully impregnated air and visualize each one circulating throughout your body and having its intended effect, after a few weeks of practice, it would likely take only 10 minutes to inhale, for example, 20 breaths of thoroughly impregnated air.
Bardon didn't mean that you should increase your magical inhalations until you fill 30 minutes straight with hundreds of inhalations. It's the *quality* that's important here, not the specific quantity or number of inhalations. At first it takes more time to achieve the proper *quality*.
Perhaps this excerpt from my "Commentary Upon IIH" will help clarify:
"With practice, the building of the idea and the circulation of it throughout the body, can be accomplished in a nanosecond. The trick to learning the exercises without altering the breathing cycle is to disassociate the ideation from the breath. For example, establish your normal, comfortable breathing rhythm and breathe normally as you build up the idea in the air surrounding you. Then, when the idea is well established, inhale a normal breath of the impregnated air. Do not hold your breath at this point, but instead resume your normal breathing while holding the idea in your body and circulating it. Let your exhale be just of air and not of your idea.
"In other words, it is your mind which does the work, not your breath. The breath is only the carrier of the idea and it is not necessary to alter your breathing cycle to accommodate the speed of your thinking. With practice though, you will get used to the mental work and it will become fast enough for you to not have to insert extra "empty" breaths while you think. Eventually, your rate of thinking and visualization will match the rate at which you breathe."
>> Secondly, the same article, I think, said I should spend an hour in the morning and an hour at night. I don't take that long, so am I missing something? <<
This discipline will enable the greatest rate of progress. However, less time than this will suffice for slower, yet still consistent, progress. Factored into this approximate figure of one hour, twice a day (that's less than 10% of your day) are your practice of the mental, astral and physical exercises as well as your meditation upon the Theory section of IIH.
One hour, twice a day, is a good standard to aim for but an even better one is to spend as much time as is needed. Say, for example, that you're having difficulty with a specific exercise and spending extra time with it is what you need to do -- do you quit when the one hour is up because you have fulfilled your duty of exercising for exactly one hour? ;) Eventually, your "practice" becomes fully integrated into your entire life and it's no longer a matter of spending just 8.3% of your day! Eventually, 100% of your *life* becomes magical.
My best to you,
:) Rawn Clark
28 Jul 2003