Donna Quesada: And so, do you feel that Yoga and meditation are necessary for this awakening process?
Gurudhan khalsa: Absolutely because this whole awakening process starts with the inner. We are spiritual beings. Where we are going to connect with our spirit is through the inner… and use that to deal with the outer.
DONNA: I suppose. And I’ll just put it in the form of a question. Does that mean that meditation has to look a certain way? Or, from a certain tradition?
GURUDHAN: Absolutely not. Here is my blanket statement. All meditation is… is changing your breath from automatic breathing to conscious breathing. Which means, slowing your breath down. Automatic Breathing… and I just finished this book called Summary of Breath by James Nestor. Automatic breathing is just surface breathing. And the sympathetic nervous system… all the nerves in your lungs that are associated with the sympathetic nervous system… most all of them are in the top part. So, if you breath shallowly, you are just amping up your sympathetic nervous system all the time… with no pause and no stop to reach all the way down to your lungs to reach the parasympathetic nervous system.
And your parasympathetic nervous system is your pause/stop button. It’s your parasympathetic nervous system that gives you creativity. It gives you reflections. It gives you insights. It gives you proper perspectives. And that goes back to my definition of just change your breath. Automatic breathing is about 18 times per minute, per day. Once you slow that down to eight or less… your metabolism changes, your nerves get massaged. All of a sudden, brain cells start operating differently. And that is when your spirit starts to rise.
DONNA: So just to recap. On average, via automatic breathing, we breathe about 18 to 20 times per minute, but when we begin to slow that down via meditation, we cut that in half?
GURUDHAN: Correct. The average human breaths 25,000 times per day, which is about 18 times per minute. The Yoga practice is about 13,000 or less. In fact, in the book, they found an old stone tablet in China. And the philosopher in that said, “for a healthy life, breath 13,000 times a day, or less.” And there is science proving all the physiological benefits… the psychological benefits of slowing your breath down.
DONNA: What about Breath of Fire?
GURUDHAN: Breath of Fire is breath of strokes. Any time you breathe in strokes, it’s one breath.
DONNA: What is your personal practice? I suppose it has to do with this breathing style?
GURUDHAN: Oh, my goodness, I thought you’d never ask. I’ve been doing this one kundalini meditation every day, for 25 years. It’s my go-to because literally, in 30 seconds, my breath changes.
DONNA: After only thirty seconds?
GURUDHAN: Yes, your breath changes. So, your right arm is out. Hands cupped. You are pulling down your ring finger here (left hand). Your eyes are closed. Looking down at the cleft of your chin. There are no instructions, but the way your left and right arm are… you keep your right arm straight. It is going to start changing your metabolism. Your right arm here, you’ve got your heart meridian, lung meridian, your pericardium meridian… Your breath is going to move through all of those. It’s going to change your heart rate. Do it 11 minutes. Don’t do it any more than 11 minutes. And don’t do it any less than 11 minutes.
DONNA: Why 11 minutes, Gurudhan?
GURUDHAN: I’m going to tell you in a second. And there is a little added kicker thing to this meditation. If you put the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth, that will put a pressure there that will stimulate your hypothalamus gland, which is on the other side of the roof of your mouth. And the hypothalamus gland is your brain’s brain.
So why 11 minutes? Here is why… You’ve got three minds. It takes five or six minutes for your negative mind, which is your survival mechanism. You start off with your negative, then you move on to your positive. You finally get into your meditative, neutral mind because your breath is slowing down. That takes five or six minutes. The rest of the time to 11, is to lock in that meditative mind. And the meditative mind is the coordinator of your negative/positive mind.
But even beyond that, you get to understand that you are really not your mind and you are really not your body. And you are not your spirit. You are all encompassing that, but you get to understand through a Yoga practice, we are the commander of our body, mental processes and spirit. That’s what slowing the breath down will give you… command over you.
And Yogically, was supposed to deliver that command, which is our heavenly self. That’s the commander. Our heavenly self. We are supposed to deliver this to our human self. And what happens when that depth happens? You have two friends that go with you wherever you go on planet Earth. And those two friends are presence, depth and projection. Reach for the heavens.
DONNA: Those are three friends.
GURUDHAN: No, presence equals depth. Presence and projection are your two friends.
DONNA: Not three friends.
GURUDHAN: The third friend is yourself. You are the commander. You’ve got three. The commander, your presence and your projection. Those are your three friends. And then you understand what your identity is.
DONNA: What is your identity?
GURUDHAN: Our identity is our spirit. Your spiritual self. We come from the heavens.
DONNA: So, why eleven minutes? Because it allows us to penetrate these different facets of ourselves? Which are actually considered different bodies? So, this idea that I am just this body is erroneous? How many bodies do we have?
GURUDHAN: You know that common phrase, body, mind, spirit? You have one body… physical body. You have three minds… negative, positive, neutral. And then you’ve got six esoteric bodies. You have the soul body. You have the subtle body. And they go like this (together) because the subtle body is attached at the hip to the soul body. Because it’s the subtle body that manifests the soul on Earth. So, anything we do of a subtle nature… kindness, compassion, tolerance… those are all manifestations of the soul. You’ve got those two, esoteric.
Then you’ve got your arc-line, which is your lifeline. You’ve got your electromagnetic field body which is your protective shield. That’s four. Then you have your energy body. And then you have your radiance. Your radiant body. So, there are six esoteric, three mental, one physical. So, you’ve got ten.
DONNA: Ten bodies. And so, the time specification allows us to penetrate through different aspects of our self?
GURUDHAN: And it all starts with doing something. I go back to this. Changing your breath. There are so many meditations that will change your breath. I just like this one. Because it also works on the nervous system, as well as changing your metabolism. So, I just like that. I just resonated with that. To me, it doesn’t make a difference. Do whatever. It doesn’t make a difference to me. Just do something that is going to change your breath.
DONNA: And it’s more than that. It is the space between breaths. Can you speak to that?
GURUDHAN: Yes, I can. So, there are actually four components to a breath. You have an inhale. You have an exhale. But there are also pauses after an inhale. And there are pauses after an exhale. So, every time you take a breath in, it massages the sympathetic nervous system. Every time you take a breath out, it massages the parasympathetic nervous system. But if you get into a practice, a Yogic practice, where you take an inhale and you hold it… that old tale, before you say anything that you might regret… take a deep inhale and count to ten. That is the pause in. What happens when you pause the breath in? All of that breath goes into your electromagnetic field. And every time you pause the breath out, your energy goes down, but pulling down actually releases your pituitary gland. And it starts secreting. Additionally, the mind’s intellect only works on inhales and exhales.
DONNA: Not during the pauses…
GURUDHAN: Not during the pauses. So, I’ve been teaching enough Yoga over the years that I probably observed 20,000 relaxations of people. And this is what happens. Invariably, it happens. Everybody takes an inhale. Then they exhale. Then they pause. They stop breathing. What’s happening during these pauses? This is where the recalibration goes. The recharge. The refresh. Because the mind is taking a time out from the intellect. And the mind is binary. See, it’s either going to the Earth or it’s going to the heavens.
So, if you stop the mind’s intellect… the Earth intellect, then the mind is going to go to the heavens and you get all these messages. And then you can just relax. But you need to be doing it almost unconsciously. That’s why in deep relaxation, if you let yourself go… that’s going to happen. You get into a meditation. Oh, I forgot to breathe. Well, that forgetting to breathe is the pause that you consciously do when you do certain techniques. And it is going to do certain things with your energy. Certain things with your mind and all of a sudden you are getting messages from the heavens rather than getting messages from your mind’s intellect.
DONNA: So, during the pause, we touch the heavens… We touch the divine. So beautiful.
GURUDHAN: And how we do that? It’s because once you start doing this slower breath, you are actually increasing the usage of your brain’s capacity. Normal humans, and this is again science… 10 to 12 Percent of your brain is being used when you are automatically breathing. You start slowing your breath… all these metabolic changes start happening. All these switches get turned on in your brain. So, now you are using 30% of your brain. 50% of your brain. 70% of your brain. And all of this extra sensory perception is kicking in. And all that extra sensory perception… that comes from the electromagnetic field of the universe.
DONNA: It’s so rich. This is why so many scientists and musicians report getting their best ideas during dreams.
GURUDHAN: There you go. My best ideas come right after I finish meditating.
DONNA: Is there anything else you’d like to say, Gurudhan? What are you up to? You are teaching a workshop, I saw.
GURUDHAN: I’m teaching a workshop tomorrow. One of the places I teach Yoga is Shuniya Yoga Collective, here in Austin. I live in Austin. I teach one class a week there, but I’m doing one on restoring and balancing the metabolism in a world turned upside down. These accelerating changes are certainly affecting our electromagnetic fields, which is affecting our clarity… our thought… our sleep patterns… our digestion… these various things.
So, the workshop tomorrow is with a fruit. It’s either a pear, a peach or a plum. Because they are rich in antioxidants, fiber, minerals and vitamins. And we are going to have that fruit with us as we do the exercise set and then we are going to do a prayer over it for a minute or so. And we are going to eat it. Because all of the vibration from the breathing mantra is going to get into that rich antioxidant fruit. And it’s going to amp up its power to restore ourselves.
So, Shuniya Yoga Collective. Go online. I also teach at Flow Yogatx, where most of my classes are taught. I also teach on Zoom, personally. And Flow Yoga (Texas)… Go to their website. You can see my schedule. And Zoom… I’m teaching three or four classes a week there.
You can reach out to me on either Facebook Messenger or my e-mail. GuruDahnk@gmail.com for any information you want. You want to chat with me, great, let’s do that. So anyway, I’m teaching a lot of Yoga classes. Again, my main thing is just to consciously breathe. And try to be as open as possible to whatever I have to be exposed to.
DONNA: Thank you.
GURUDHAN: You are welcome. Thank you!
Read and Watch Part I Here: Awaken Interviews Kundalini Master Gurudhan Pt 1 – We Should Be Human First – Yogis Second – Teachers Third
Read And Watch Part II Here: Awaken Interviews Kundalini Master Gurudhan Pt 2 – Balance Ourselves To Bring The Planet Back Into Balance
