Sky breath meditation workshop - Day 1 - 7 levels of existence

Today, I attended day 1 of the Sky Breath meditation workshop by the Art Of Living, also known as Sudarshan Kriya. This was scheduled from 4:00 to 6:30 PM.

I learned a LOT in this single session! To make it easier, I will break down all I've learned into separate blog posts

The workshop began with introductions by each of the attendees, including why they were there and a little bit about themselves.

He introduced the concept of Prana, which is the life force within us. It is much more than just the breath or the physical body.

Then, the instructor told us about the 7 levels of existence in the human body, and how Sudarshan Kriya can help us observe these levels of existence and achieve happiness from within. Let me try to summarize it in the best way I can -

The body

this is the physical body we are born with. When we meditate, we increase the level of Prana in the body, our cells get rejuvenated, and at a physical level, we generate energy from our inner source.

The breath

Breath is critical to Prana. Have you ever seen how your breath is when you're angry, versus when you're happy? When you're angry your breathing is shallow and short, when you're happy it is longer and relaxed. This impacts the Prana as well, the more relaxed your breath, the more stable your prana and the happier and healthier you will be.

The mind

This helps us to experience the outside world with all the 5 senses we know of - sound, taste, touch, smell, and sight. It is also the thinking faculty that constantly has thoughts running through it. These days, stress and tension have caused people to become very negative and focus on the bad things. Through meditation, we can learn to let go of judgment and observe the thoughts as they go and thus our mind becomes fresh and energetic.

The intellect

This is the part of the mind which makes decisions. Remember any time where you said "Yes" to something or "No" to another? That was the intellect playing its role. Sometimes, you would notice we tend to get too argumentative or judgemental. Meditation helps to let go of these negative emotions and live happily.

The memory

This is the part that stores all our memories. Our mind has a tendency to highlight the negative memories more than the positives. The best way to explain this is if someone gives you 10 compliments but says one negative thing, wouldn't your mind anchor on the negative? Meditation comes in here to focus on the present moment, ignore judging past memories and move to a more positive frame of mind.

The ego and emotions

This is your sense of self, which differentiates you from the others. Whenever you say "I'm awesome", "I'm rich" or "I'm no good", it is the ego that is speaking. However, this can often lead to one becoming self-centered, and having arguments with others just because your ideas differ from theirs. Meditation teaches us that this is ok. You cannot control your outside world, what you can change are the internal rhythms between your thoughts and emotions.

Through meditation, one can help to relax and calm the mind and let go of the judgemental nature of the human mind. This in turn, helps you achieve inner harmony which will help you create a positive and endearing external self, and even though the outer world is in chaos you are happy since you've learned to be happy and achieved harmony from within.

Now, of course, all this is easier said than done! But my idea here is to gradually introduce these new ways of thinking to my readers, as I get introduced to them myself.

Again, do not feel like you need to implement all this right now. Mastering the inner mind can take months or even years of training, but once we start thinking in these directions we are in a better position to take proactive steps and reclaim our lives, and become better human beings.

I'm more of a video guy, is there a video or something?

Sure! Here you go -

References -

https://www.artofliving.org/us-en/levels-existence