The Equinox (Volume I, Number IV)

THE EQUINOX He should perform Kumbhakas four times a day—in the early morning, midday, evening, and midnight—till he increases the number to eighty.* This will make 320 Kumbhakas a day. In the early stages the Prana should be restrained for 12 matras (seconds) in- creasing as progress is made to 24 and to 36. In the first stage, the body perspires; in the second, a tremor is felt throughout the body; and in the highest stage, the Prana goes to the Brahma- randhra.t This exercise may also be practised with an additional meditation on the Pranava OM. 3. Close with the thumb of your right hand the right ear, and with that of the left hand the left ear. Close with the two index fingers the two eyes, place the two middle fingers upon the two nostrils, and let the remaining fingers press upon the upper and the lower lips. Draw a deep breath, close both the nostrils at once, and swallow the breath. . . . Keep the breath inside as long as you conveniently can; then expire it slowly.t * “Hatha Yoga Pradipika,” p. 28; the “Svetasvatara Upanishad;” and the “Shiva Sanhita,” chap. iii, 25. + “Hatha Yoga Pradipika,” p. 28. { “Shiva Sanhita,” p. xlix. This in the “Hatha Yoga Pradipika,” p. 91, is called the Shanmukhi Mudra. Enormous concentration is needed in all these Pranayd4ma exercises, and, if the aspirant wishes to succeed, he must inflame himself with a will to carry them out to their utmost, just as in the Ceremonial Exercises of Abramelin he inflamed himself to attain to the Holy Vision through Prayer. The mere act of restraining the breath, breathing it in and out in a given time, so occupies the mind that it has “no time” to think of any external object. For this reason the periods of Kumbhaka should always be increased in length, so that, by making the exercise little by little more difficult, greater concentration may be gained. Fra. P. writes: “If Kumbhaka be properly performed, the body and mind become suddenly ‘frozen.’ The will is for a moment free, and can hurl itself toward Adonai perhaps with success, before memory again draws back the attention to the second-hand of the watch.” 102