PART 2
REBIRTH BREATHING
Rebirth or rebirth breathing is a type of breathing that allows the practitioner, through perseverant practice, to live the experience of the original breath and, sometimes, the so called “intrauterine breath”.
This technique can offer the experience of abandonment that opens the gates of Tantra. From a tantric point of view, this technique intensifies the circulation of the vital energy in the subtle force centers.
REBIRTH TECHNIQUE
In the beginning of the rebirth technique the practitioner lies down on his back, with his eyes closed, breathing naturally through the mouth, exploring its different rhythms without any violence.
Then, start to breathe deeply, filling the thorax up to the throat. The exhalation is made naturally, lowering the thorax without any voluntary effort.
In this process, the breathing consciousness must be developed by breathing with the whole body: legs, arms, ankles, etc., which prevents you from remaining inside your mind.
The practitioner should try to explore breathing into areas where he does not usually breathe, in order to gradually overcome the abdomen and thorax blockages, manifested through tingling and paralyzing sensations generated by the high degree of ventilation (the increase of the oxygen share in the blood).
Gradually, the breathing rhythm is accelerated, increasing the tension of the nervous system to “paroxysm”. Then, breathing relaxes naturally. The parasympathetic system takes charge. Breathing becomes slow and very deep.
Breath release can offer the experience of reliving the moment of birth when you took your first pulmonary breath. From now on, you can go as far as to experience other states of consciousness, like the intrauterine experience or astral projection.
The rebirth process stresses the eternal play between contraction and expansion, the continuous change between the past that would not die, symbolized by an incomplete exhalation, and the inhalation that brings change (the present).
This is the play of the possible symbolical relationship between the masculine pole, “the father”, as an institutional principle similar to the permanent definitions of the self in name, family, customs and blockages (attachments to the past); and the feminine pole, “the mother”, that symbolizes the principle of life, the new change possibilities, and manifests through abandonment and deep energetic pulsations.
THE STAGES
In some cases, the Rebirth process is a descend in the profound “night” of the being – and this is what makes it so powerful and attractive. Breathing, the individual will confront his blockages, his fears and repressed memories.
If he is conscious of his breath and finds a rhythm that helps him overcome his inhibitions, he will reach the “black hole”: this little death actually represents the birth. At this point there is nothing. He experiences the dimension of destruction, a total non-existence.
If he keeps on breathing, he passes to the other side, in abandonment, in the complete breath release phase. Now he experiences a general ecstatic feeling, similar to that of an orgasm. He passed the threshold, met death and discovered in its center a place that is beyond life and death.
There it is a new breath connected to a profound, organic rhythm. Abandoning himself to this movement, he encounters a new state of consciousness. This opening makes the Rebirth technique a profound and original experience.
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