Just before the practices I will say that these few exercises are based on a rhythm. This rhythm is not decided or invented arbitrarily. It is not the fancy of one human being. This is the rhythm that is laid down in our shastras. In the days of “Rig-Veda” – one of the oldest shastra, there is a part of Veda that deals with Swar-Nadi shastra .  Swar  means breath and   Nadi   means pulse and pulse means health. What is the relationship between pulse and health ?   In my seventy-six years never once I have got a headache, never I have got a stomachache, never once I have known a sleepless night, never have I known what is depression! Not because I was  always lucky. I have passed through various vicissitude of life. In my normal material life, I have had very hard days to pass, but there has never been a day when I lost my smile, there has never been a day that I lost my sleep, never have been a day that I lost my health. What is the reason? The reason is a particular rhythm that we introduce in our breathing.

This particular rhythm that I am talking to you is Nature's rhythm. You and I were born with this rhythm. This is the rhythm with which every child is born. The child takes thirty-six breaths a minute at particular rhythm for first nine months of the birth and these are the nine months when the child's progress and growth is fastest. In second nine months the child takes eighteen breaths a minute and in the following nine months that means nineteen to twenty-seven months, the child breathes 12 breaths a minute. Then, after twenty-seven months the child becomes intelligent enough to understand the surroundings, perhaps may be seeing the father and mother fighting or the elder sister or elder brother fighting at school, the teacher develops certain fear. Fear is a very bad emotion, may be punished that stays in the mind of the child ad the child feels depressed even when young. All these negative emotions slowly disturb the breathing and then slowly child begins to breathe irregularly. During these twenty-seven months you have seen that child breathes thirty-six breaths a minute, then eighteen and then twelve. But once the breathing is disturbed what happens? Even today in your case what happens? Your breathing is dependent on the emotions and mental state that you may be breathing fourteen breaths in the morning, eighteen in the afternoon, and twenty in the evening. This everything is depending upon what kind of emotions, what kind of mental disturbances you are passing through.

The purpose of good breath and good health is a steady twelve breaths per minute rate. Therefore, all we are doing is, I am not introducing to you anything new. I am taking back to the same breath you have been breathing from your birth to your twenty-seven months and the rhythm is also the same. Only to help you I have tuned the way you will be breathing, so you are going back to Nature. You are not doing anything new. All you are doing is slowing down your breathing from the average eighteen to twenty breaths a minute, you will go down to a regular twelve breaths a minute.

The brain of a man is the most wonderful creation of God in the whole universe. In the whole universe there is nothing like the brain of man. God has created something very spectacular in giving man a brain – the type of brain each human being is given. Science tells us today that in the vast universe there are sixteen billion galaxies. A billion is thousand million that means sixteen thousand millions galaxies. You will be surprised to know that the human brain, that God has given to man and to woman, has sixteen billion cells that mean sixteen thousand million cells. And what is more, each cell is capable of doing ten functions simultaneously! So, now you multiply sixteen thousand million by ten simultaneous processes that your brain can carry out. Fortunately or unfortunately, of this big mass of our brain cells, we are hardly capable of using a few thousand cells. But I do not give importance how many cells you can make use of. The world's greatest scientist Hawkins – I am told that his entire brain is not able to cover one tea spoon. Only that much brain he has got and yet he is the world's greatest scientist! So, it does not matter that how much brain you have got. What is of very great importance is what use you make of this brain.

This brain that God has given you is capable of communication to the end of the universe. It is able to communicate every other living creature on this earth. It is able to communicate with the divine mind of God. You see your powers? You see where you stand? The whole universe is linked to you. What in the Shastra we call the Chitti – the divine mind of God which encircle the whole universe, not only the physical universe but the Shastra   says Bhu-Bhuvah-Swaha that is the physical, the molecular and the atomic universe. If you can be in the communication with this Divine mind of God, what can you not do? What ill effects can come in your way? What emotions can depress you? Why should you not have perfect health? It is this communication that is missing. In this few exercises, taking not more than seven to ten minutes, I want to give you a simple secret of communication. Communication – one day will take you to communicate with the divine mind of God – the Chitti. Instead of giving you a long talk I would like to start with practices.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          ----- S. N. Tavaria