Set-ups
All small pranayamas should be done with the Manipura set-
up, i.e. after doing them you should be hot. Doing strengthening
asanas, you should breathe rhythmically with Muladhara set-up —
otherwise your channels can be blocked by some less subtle energy.
In particular you should pay attention on how deep you breath is,
i.e. when you inhale, every breathing zone should be filled to the
maximum. I recommend doing especially strengthening asanas with
Muladhara set-up.
Ajna set-up appears when you feel an exercise like an instrument
of work with your body. For example, when we stretch our legs to sit
into lotus — we do the stretching consciously, not automatically. So we
are thinking how to stretch our leg so that it would be put into lotus.
This is a conscious and sensible work. When we practice yoga Ajna
set-up should always be at the background. Every exercise should be
done not to sit the needed time in it, but to change yourself, clearly
understanding that now with the help of asanas, pranayamas, mudras,
90
General recommendations as for the methodics of independent practice for beginners
meditation and so on I’m working with my physical, etheric and astral
planes. For example, you sit down to do a rhythmical breath. If some
part of your body is not «breathed» enough, it should be breathed per-
sonally. After it is breathed, the warm feeling fills all your body. Lis-
tening to your body and using all known instruments to improve your
state — that’s what we call the Ajna set-up.
In Chinese tradition there is a meditation «just to sit». Just to sit
and not be distracted, while behind you there is a man with a bamboo
stick — walking and beating those who are distracted. It’s not difficult
to see when someone is distracted: his shoulders lift, his head and so
on. In this case the role of the third eye is played by a man with a stick.
It is not in our custom — everyone is his own third eye. Everyone de-
cided for himself either he works in yoga or he is just spending time,
because someone said it’s good for health. It is good for health, if you
know what you do, otherwise it’s not good. It’s not harmful, but with
the same result you could sit and watch TV... Without consciousness
the practice become religion.
How long should yoga session last
I think that a normal person can do yoga for not more than an
hour a day. If you do it right, an hour is enough to fill you with energy.
However there are three levels of training, three types of routines:
• to keep fit;
• to fill yourself with energy and to accomplish some life tasks;
• to change yourself.
The final criterion to define how long your session should be is
filling yourself with the energy in the amount you need.
Natural way in practice
Yoga doesn’t mean you have to force your body. You should come
naturally to every practice. For example, some people ask: «What to do,
if you don’t withstand fasting?» Don’t force it. Do some custom practice
and once you’ll have a need to cleanse your body. This feeling appears
when you get more energy. This energy can’t pass the blocked chan-
nels. Then you get a natural need to fast. If you force yourself, Ajna
energy is used for your intestines.
The goal of yoga is not to do as many asanas as possible, but
to bring harmony to your body. Doing practices, your body becomes
healthier, more stretched, and some asanas become possible to do.
91
. Safronov. Yoga: Physiology, Psychosomatics, Bioenergetics
About lifestyle, or
How to start practicing
How to find time for practice
If someone decides as usual to practice «on Monday», «serious-
ly», «some hours a day», he’ll stand it 2-3 days, not more. The lifestyle
should be changed gradually. Besides even if we do nothing, everyone
is «busy» all day long. People have no free time, and what is worse,
no free energy. That’s why to start practicing, one should ask himself:
what can I sacrifice? Let’s start with 10 minutes, we all are very busy,
but, if you think, you can always find some 10 minutes for something
we can do without, like watching a soap opera or reading a newspaper
or talking to your neighbour. You must clearly understand, what you
are sacrificing. When you understand what you are sacrificing, time
appears from some precise sources, not from nowhere; of course you
should sacrifice things you don’t need. If you decide to sleep less, when
you body is already not sleeping enough, it will be «mad» at you. Sac-
rifice with something you don’t need: a useless conversation, watching
TV, drinking alcohol etc.
Attitude of others and attitude to others
When someone starts practicing yoga, he can be played two
dirty tricks, concerning his closest surrounding. The first trick is to
tell immediately everyone that you started practicing yoga. Dispersing
the energy of your intention and the one for you spiritual develop-
ment. «Gods like mystery», said in ancient time. Your practice will
become efficient, if as less people as possible know about it. Demon-
strating your belonging to yoga is a pride or shows that your chakras
are loose (or both). What is worse, people with whom you share this
news are rarely happy about your good starting. It’s easier to be scep-
tic than altruist.
That is what the second dirty trick is about — people surround-
ing you don’t accept your practice. It is inevitable not just because of
our mentality and the wrong understanding of yoga by average per-
son. People always start spiritual practices with the disapproval of oth-
ers. This is a manifestation of a principle of environmental resistance,
implying that the environment resists a person going up, growing.
The same principle is true for social conditions: try to evaluate, how
the attitude of others changes, when, for example, you are promoted;
it is equally true for the personal growth. The environmental resistance
should be overcome — it is the way the World tries you on your right
to raise your status.
92
General recommendations as for the methodics of independent practice for beginners
On the higher level the resistance can be even used to your good,
as a source of personal growth. For instance when you do yoga, your
family «comments» it, irritating you — try to figure out which energy
you don’t accept. Why? Which chakra is not integral? So much work to
do.
People attract situations that hurt even more their not integral
chakras (see the book «Theory and practice of psychological aikido»).
Can yoga be harmful?
Yes.
Practicing the wrong way a person can cause himself a big dam-
age. The main and the most dangerous mistakes are:
1. Practicing wrong asanas and pranayamas. There was a lot
said about defects and their consequences, but we’ll remind you that
regularly doing exercises the wrong way can lead to problems with the
backbone (enforcing osteochondrosis) and with the cardio-vascular sys-
tem (when you breathe wrong, you can strain your breath even worse).
2. A yoga complex built wrong, first of all uncompensated one,
can lead to a significant changes in blood pressure (which you don’t
need), states of ANS and so on. Most often this happens when a person
wants to do only the thing he does well and not those he really needs.
The pride...
3. Traumas. Graduality — in everything.
REMEMBER, yoga is a way for wise people, it brooks no un-
thinking and fanaticism.
The contrary is also possible. A person does yoga for some time
(or comes some times to a group session, which is more often) and
starts believing that all his problems are caused by yoga. «At a sight
of diseases a yogin who fears them, says: the cause of my illness is in
yoga. This is the first obstacle in yoga», — writes «Yoga kundalini upa-
nishada». It is obvious that yoga has nothing to do with this, it is just
the way to take away the responsibility for your health. This is how the
so-called defence mechanisms of our psyche act, but the discussion of
them lies beyond the scope of this book.
93
PSYCHOLOGICAL WORK
IN ASANAS
Physical moves don’t help by themselves; concentration is neither
the only clue to success. The one who does both physical control
and concentration achieves a success and becomes immortal
Isha Upanishada
Human psyche structure
As it was said above, asanas are not an end in itself of yoga, but
an instrument of work with one’s psyche. The clue to such work is a
system of psychosomatic correspondence, i.e. the projection of psycho-
logical problems on certain parts of the body in the form of muscle
contractions, strains, in extreme case of diseases in respective organs.
However unlike our psyche, our physical body can be seen. Looking
at it and analysing certain parameters, we come to conclusion about
the general and current psychic state of a person. There is one more
aspect: it’s difficult to see and become aware of one’s own psychologi-
cal problems, because of the «defensive mechanisms» — special psy-
chological obstacles, keeping a person from adequately evaluating his
own state. A physical body can always be seen. It can’t be hidden,
so looking in the mirror, applying certain schemes, we can conclude
about our real psychological state. And vice versa, activating certain
parts of our body, working out our muscle contractions, we stimulate
respective psychic functions and as a result — stimulate the develop-
ment and opening of chakras.
From the esoteric point of view unconsciousness is a whole of ex-
perience that a soul received during all its existence, which influence a
person in the form of needs and aspirations. Besides unconsciously we
are keeping a pseudoexperience — memories about some situations, we
didn’t pass the right way, which as emotions and attachments continue
influencing on our life, actually representing our Carma. Main charac-
ters of pseudoexperience are an emotional pomposity and its ability to
«hitch up» people’s attention. Indeed emotional reaction inhere animals,
not people, but a layer-like structure of experience results in the fact
that, if a person doesn’t have his own experience of behaviour in some
94
Psychological work in asanas
situation, he reacts according to his experience from previous levels; i.e.
the violent reaction proves that he has no human’s experience in similar
situations and that he’s accumulated a pseudoexperience of behaviour
in these situations.
But from all the above said we mustn’t conclude that people
should suppress their emotions. On the contrary, suppressed emotions
are a typical mistake done by people under the influence of supercon-
scious directives. As a result, emotional energies excreted from the
body don’t come out of the aura, are not realized in a reaction, causing
discomfort and stress in this situation and in future ones.
The fact that human consciousness «sticks» in the situations that
we didn’t work out, is also explained from the point of view of evo-
lution, representing so to say an instinctive wish to «come back» and
«replay» the situation, to get from it all needed experience, but, if this
wish isn’t actualised and is not consciously realised, what this chapter
is dedicated to, such touching leads only to energy loss and its blocking
in the past.
At first glance it may seem that the problem of cleansing our sub-
conscious appeared with psychoanalysis and has nothing to do with the
classical yoga, but to prove the contrary, we can just open «Yoga sutra
Patanjali» and read its first lines.
«Yoga is liberation of Chitta from Vritti..»
What is that «vritti», preventing a Seeing person from «con-
templating true images»? Psychologists perfectly know the effect of
distorted perception under the influence of directives, emotional re-
actions and subconscious complexes. That is why there are enough
reasons to claim that the process of «liberation of Chitta from Vritti»
has a lot in common with what nowadays is called «the cleansing of
consciousness».
Before speaking about precise methods of studying the subcon-
sciousness, let’s study the objects we can meet there.
1. Non-reacted situations.
2. Complexes.
3. Neuroses.
Non-reacted situations is a memory about situations, feelings and
emotions that were not reacted as needed, i.e. for some reasons were
suppressed and are hidden in the subconsciousness. In everyone’s life
such situations are numerous: starting from parents’ inhibits like «don’t
you dare to laugh», «stop crying» (while a child needs it!), up to tragic
life events we preferred to forget. From the energy point of view non-
reacted situations can be imagined as some clots of energy, stuck in
95
. Safronov. Yoga: Physiology, Psychosomatics, Bioenergetics
the inner part of aura. When we relieve the non-reacted situations, we
unblock these clots and release the energy, they contained.
Complexes are a form of reacting, realized or not, on an external
stimulus (restimulator) well defined in advance. Such a stimulus can be
a person, an object or an event. The reason why complexes appear, usu-
ally has to do with the existence of non-reacted situations. An object,
which becomes a restimulator could be presented or related to such
situation; facing it, a person partly remembers some unpleasant experi-
ence, related to this situation, energetically comes back to it. It becomes
the vice circle: an object provokes again unpleasant feelings, proving
even more the negative reaction on it.
Neuroses are a constantly presented psychological trauma, related
to contradictions between person’s wishes and his superconscious di-
rectives, which he can’t destroy consciously.
The biggest damage from them is that they keep a certain part of
our psychical energy «frozen», in addition to that a certain amount of
energy is used by our inner censorship to keep these objects in our sub-
consciousness. Naturally it lower the energy potential of our conscious-
ness. Besides occasional breakthroughs of unconscious complexes to the
conscious level cause neuroses, symptomatically becoming apparent on
our health.
The contaminated mind is especially dangerous for those, who do
spiritual practices, because for such work you must change your world-
view, which in its turn destroys our mechanism of censorship. Besides
new directives can overlap the old ones, being in our unconsciousness,
and cause additional inner conflicts. Without proper knowledge and
critical attitude to one’s experience a person risks to get some severe
neuroses and even mental disorders. The most common is a situation
where unconscious complexes of the practitioner are percept by his
consciousness in a form of images and symbols, which he mistaken-
ly interprets as a result of his «entering to astral plane» (of his Forces,
God, opening channels and so on)...
All the said considered, I will emphasize again, that a work over
cleansing of the subconsciousness must precede more complicated
spiritual practices.
To work out the described physical constrains, we’ll use certain
meditations, which are given below.
96
Psychological work in asanas
Relaxation
meditations
The principle of this meditation is based on the fact, we recall once
more: human’s psyche, his consciousness and subconsciousness are pro-
jected on his physical body, that’s why all mental disorders have their
physical embodiment. However unlike the subconsciousness, protected
from the consciousness by the mechanism of censorship, the physical
body is open to study and can be used as a bridge to enter the world of
subconsciousness.
Usually the most of psychological problems lead to muscle
contractions and to the distortion and inhibition of different reflex-
es. In our case muscle contractions will be used as a clue to intro-
spection.
Basic technique of meditation
First step
Take a comfortable and stable position (at this stage it’s better to
lie down on your back). Try to relax in the following order: toes, feet,
ankles, shanks, knees, hips, fingers, hands, wrists, elbows, forearms,
shoulders, shoulder girdle, abdomens, back, neck, face, head. After
ending this cycle of relaxation, come back to your physical body and
let your thought pass through the same zones, thoroughly checking, if
these muscles are really relaxed.
If you find a not relaxed muscle, try to relax it by the power of
your will. If you fail, concentrate your consciousness on this muscle,
focus on it, watching all appearing images and emotional states. You
have found some non-reacted emotions. Try to understand and to
feel the situation or the emotion you’re seeing as deep as possible,
but remaining calm as an inside observer. After this try again to re-
lax this muscle. If you succeed, continue the examination of your
body, repeating the cycle of eliciting with every not relaxed mus-
cle. You can help yourself, asking questions like «what prevents me
from relaxing» or «what emotion is blocking this muscle» and so on.
If after understanding the situation you still can’t relax the muscle,
try one of the techniques given below or pass to the next muscle,
consciously noting that you have an unsolved situation.
Pay special attention to those parts of your body that your
mind tries to skip or «not to notice». It’s the true sign that the most
serious problems lie there and you see the defensive mechanism
97
. Safronov. Yoga: Physiology, Psychosomatics, Bioenergetics
in action. Another most frequent defensive mechanism is a sudden ir-
ritation, anger, a wish to stop the meditation immediately or at least to
change the pose. Actualise this feeling and note, when it appeared —
the corresponding part of your body also has big problems.
The first step is done when you succeeded in relaxing all muscles.
Usually muscle contractions reflect rather shallow levels of our subcon-
sciousness and contain emotions and feelings we have without realizing
it in. That’s why a good way to relieve them is to actualise the respec-
tive feelings (see the previous chapter), which results in liberation of
the energy of this feeling.
People usually have typical projections. For example, a tension in
the knees is related to some hurry, extruded for the time of yoga ses-
sion; in abdominal muscles — to a fear, in the neck — to some respon-
sibilities not fulfilled or oppressed and so on.
NOTE. During meditation after having achieved a deep relaxation, you can
experience some abrupt convulsive movements of the body, scaring both
practitioners and their teachers. 2-5 seconds after they are over, new muscle
contractions appear. It’s nothing bad, in this moment there is just an «open-
ing» of a deeper still not cleansed level of subconsciousness and its projec-
tion on the body. Start meditation from the beginning.
Second step
Face relaxation. This step is harder than the previous one, because
up to 70% of emotions are projected on our face, moreover these emo-
tions are much more defined than those controlled by our body. The
principle of this meditation is the same: one by one relax your facial
muscles, actualise your emotions, feelings and situations, hindering it.
You should also understand that at each effort of your will your fore-
head muscles strain, so at a certain point you should switch off your
will. Approximate correlation is this: set jaw — anger, tension in upper
part of cheeks — non-acceptance, in the throat — non-realised wishes to
say something etc.
Third step
Viscera relaxation. You should pass to this step only after you
mastered previous ones, because here you’ll deal not with physical re-
laxation, but with the feeling of relaxation of every internal, tracing sit-
uations, hindering it. This meditation leads us to some even deeper lay-
ers of subconsciousness and often opens some situations, which were
the reasons of our physical diseases of respective organs.
NOTE. Different parts of the same organ often correspond to different situ-
ations.
98
Psychological work in asanas
Forth step
Bones relaxation can lead us to a subpersonal experience, that’s
why, if you are a beginner in meditation, you’d better skip it. Of course,
in our bones there are no muscles, but there are etheric and astral
planes, so some energy can also be stocked there, as well as the feeling
of tension and relaxation.
Fifth step
Chakras and petals relaxation can be used to open respective
chakras and to trace blocks.
Meditating in asana
If you reached the third step, try to complicate your meditation,
doing it in one of asanas. In this case the weight is redistributed and
some muscles