Know your rhythm? - 1

Everything in this universe is subject to a rhythm. This rhythm in every hebeing is linked to the primordial rhythm of the universe. When the universe is formed it is told there are five things which are linked to primordial rhythm.

• Vibration of the Space (விண்ணும்)
• Vibration of the Earth (மண்ணும்)
• Vibration of the Letters (Music) (பண்ணும்)
• Vibration of the Eyes (Eyelids) (கண்ணும்)
• Vibration of the Mind (Thoughts) (எண்ணம்)

It is also told that whoever can control any one of these, can control over the elements. Since the first two are beyond the control of an individual it is always told that if you control the vibration of Letters (Words, Music, Mantras - Sound) or the vibration of Eyes (Eyelids - Light) or the vibration of the Mind (Thoughts), then you can gain control over the elements. Most of the meditative techniques revolve around these aspects.

Vibration of mind can be controlled through the breath control techniques and the vibration of eyelid is controlled through meditation on light. Let’s understand that if we want to control our breath then we should know its rhythm. So lets explore more about our breathing rhythm now. So far we have seen that breath has an overall count, it has a periodicity and there are 2 important types of breathe viz. Solar and Lunar.

Let us understand how a rhythm is established in nature between the 2 types of breath and the time of the day and more importantly with the positions of the sun and moon. Most of us are not aware that our breath has a very rhythmic pattern unless it is disturbed by a physical activity or emotion and management of this rhythm has been linked to physical well-being, mental health, wealth, long life, spirituality etc.

The breathing rhythm within us is as follows...

• This right and left breath alternates every 2 hours between the nostrils depending on the time of the day and day of the week and linked closely to the Sun and moon cycles. This is the rhythm we need to be aware of.
• Lunar Cycle (moon’s cycle) alters every 15 days as we know - new moon to full moon and vice versa. The period when the moon is growing / waxing / between new moon to full moon is called as Shukla Paksha (in Indian Calendar). Shukla means white. Obviously the other 15 days is called as Krishna Paksha which means black / dark.
• The 2 hours rhythm between right and left nostril based on the time of day and day of the week and lunar cycle is given in this chart below. This breathing rhythm is universal and we can check just by placing our back of the palms under the nose and breathe little forcefully. We will see more details on this tomorrow.

Reference

Know thy Nature by Raguram Gopalan, http://ragsgopalan.blogspot.com