To Start The Day
(Meditation as Medicine, Dr. Dharma Singh Khalsa, pp. 146-147)
“Stretch Pose.” Laying on your back, stretch your arms at your sides with the fingers straight. Raise your feet, head and hands off the floor and hold the position for the length of the exercise. Make sure your back is flat on the floor. Push out your transverse abdominal muscles, i.e., push out your belly to be sure your waist touches the floor. If your waist does not touch the floor, you could place your hands beneath your hips for support. Alternatively, support your legs (underneath your calves) and back (underneath your thoracic spine) with pillows. Your eyes should look at your big toes. Do Breath of Fire while holding the position. Concentrate on the navel center. There is no mantra with this posture. Start with as little as 30 seconds and gradually build up to 3 minutes. If you need to, you can take a 5 second break, and then resume the exercise. This exercise energizes the navel center. It strengthens the entire nervous system.
“Nose to Knees.” Still lying on your back, bend your knees and clasp your legs with your arms. Bring your nose to your knees (or as close to your knees as you can get!). The eyes are closed and focused at the third-eye point. Do breath of fire in this position for 1 to 2 minutes. There is no mantra with this posture. This exercise stretches and relaxes the neck muscles, the area where we store the most psychic tension.
Still lying on your back with your knees clasped to your chest, nose between the knees, roll back and forth on the spine from neck to tailbone for 1 minute. Eyes are closed and focused at the third-eye point. Coordinate the breath with the movement. There is no mantra with this posture. This exercise distributes pranic energy throughout your body and relaxes your back muscles.
“Ego Eradicator.” Sit in easy pose or in a chair with your spine straight. The eyes are closed and focused at the third-eye point. There is no mantra with this exercise. Raise your arms up to 60 degrees to the sides, fingertips curled in, thumbs extended out and pointed straight up. Do breath of fire holding this position for 2 minutes. At the end, inhale deeply and hold your breath while you move / raise your arms above your head until your thumbs touch. Strongly press the thumb pads together until you cannot hold your breath any longer. Exhale and flatten your hands, slowly arc them down, sweeping the aura with the palms, collecting any darkness, negativity or sickness. Release it into the earth to clean and energize your aura. Feel the light around you and meditate on that light that you’ve just created.