Beyond the Body: Why We Meditate When Breathwork Feels Better

A profound exchange about balancing different spiritual practices when breath work starts feeling more appealing than meditation. We explore how to navigate when kriyas provide an immediate high while meditation requires more discipline but offers deeper transformative effects.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:53

When I was in India a few months ago, I did a lot of practice with a teacher there and I learned a lot and I've been doing them a lot every day, but I'm finding I'm almost getting like an aversion to my meditation practice.

Bad is Relative

Speaker 1 1:24

I'm still meditating every day, twice a day, but I'm finding that I'm being very drawn towards the breath work and the Kriya and maybe I'm almost getting like a little bit addicted to it or something and I'm noticing like I'm just like I've started to kind of um slack off a little bit in the afternoon practice and maybe do more breath work and stuff like that and yeah, just your thoughts, I guess, when other things come in and other practices come in and if maybe it can kind of change your meditation practice, if it's a bad thing, that I kind of yeah.

Understanding Pranayama and Kriyas

Speaker 2 2:07

Well, you know, bad is a relative thing. It all depends on what your goal is. If your goal is to as swiftly as possible recover from life and replenish the nervous system, I wouldn't abandon this particular practice, no, or even forgo it. I would just include the Kriya before and use it as like a turbo boost of pranayama, which is essentially what it is, because one's a system of excitation, stirring up the system to remove stresses through excitation. But what we know is that that the, the whole body, all the way down to, you know, molecular level, is able to repair through de-excitation and there's nothing that gives us that level of rest in the system as this particular technique. So I'd say that there is great value in having a rigorous pranayama practice. Pranayama, for any of you who don't know what that is, is a breathing technique. It's a general term for breath exercises. Another term is also referred to as kriyas, and the kriyas are like a preparatory process to enable consciousness to naturally de-excite.

Meditation's True Purpose

Speaker 2 3:52

Why are we doing the kriyas? It's to alter its condition so that we may access a deeper, subtler state of awareness. The practice of meditation is actually going there and having that direct experience. Yeah, so the aversion I mean, you know know, meditation can be quite ungratifying. In kriyas is like you know, you, you you're, you're oxygenating the system, you get lightheaded, it's like it's kind of more in the body and it's kind of like you get a bit woozy, a little bit high. It can be subtly or grossly more gratifying, and we just need to be reminded that we're not practicing meditation for a gratifying meditation experience. We're practicing meditation for a gratifying eyes-open experience.

Speaker 2 4:49

Why do we meditate? Why do we do any sadhana, any spiritual practice? It's so that our eyes open experience, we are able to detect our spirit and the spirit of everything, everyone and you know, actualizing the spirit, which is what spirituality is. So it's in the name of a bigger picture, a longer game, and it requires a little bit of you know. No, I know this is good, I'm going to do it. That's my recommendation, yeah.

Balancing Uplift and Regulation

Speaker 1 5:26

Yeah, I think for me it's. I've been very committed to my practice for four years. I think it is now now, and it's the first time I've ever strayed a little bit and gone into something else and yeah, and I think it's like what you said, that feeling of it's very like uplifting, I think, for me, the careers and the practices you do almost like get a bit high or something.

Speaker 2 5:50

Yeah, you do, yeah it's. It's kind of like a, you know, a kind of hyperventilation. You know where you, you know a lot of oxygen in the system can can have that effect.

Speaker 1 6:03

Yeah, yeah I know, I kind of noticed that, like it's, it's, I need both. I need the uplift but then also the regulation to notice like, oh, I feel like I'm almost getting a bit addicted or something.

Small Windows, Powerful Results

Speaker 2 6:17

It's like getting addicted to the high and the uplift, yeah, yeah and all of this is operating on the gross level of the body. You know, in this practice where we close our eyes and move quietly into ourself, we're transcending the condition of the body completely. It's our only window of opportunity to gain access to ourself without having to think about it, without having to use our minds to lead ourself into that experience. Yeah, so you know, and it's only for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the afternoon. There's small windows and luckily, there it's only for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the afternoon. They're small windows and luckily it's a very powerful process that yields results quickly.

Speaker 2 7:02

So you know, it's great that we can achieve that in that small amount of time.