This is an advanced technique and is not meant for beginners. Svatantra Kriya should be practiced only by those who have been meditating for a minimum of 3 months
Svatantra Kriya
Consciousness contains power and intelligence. This intelligence and power can be directed through attention. Attention is consciousness applied through focus. When consciousness is directed, focused or applied through attention it affects the object. Within you, attention can vibrationally activate and stimulate the life force.
Svatantra should be practiced with easeful attention.
Svatantra is a technique that relaxes the body, calms the mental thought patterns, stimulates life force and resolves and releases blocks or impressions (samskaras) within your subtle nervous system and energy centers.
Svatantra begins with 3 minutes of pranayama, followed by the Svatantra Kriya technique.
Pranayama – Nadi Suddhi (cleansing the subtle channels)
Approximately 3 minutes
Nadi Suddhi, is a simple breathing technique – pranayama – that allows the mind to quiet, the body to relax and the life force to be stimulated. Nadi Suddhi allows an easeful shifting of your attention from outside to inside. It gently activates and cleanses the pranic energy channels in the subtle body.
Simple Alternating Pranayama: Nadi Suddhi
- Sit in a comfortable upright posture with the spine easily erect, eyes closed.
- Close the right nostril with your right thumb.
- Then inhale in a natural way through your left nostril.
- Close the left nostril with your right ring and little finger and open the right nostril by removing the right thumb.
- Exhale naturally through the right nostril.
- Then draw the air through the right nostril comfortably and naturally, then exhale through the left nostril by removing the right ring and little finger.
- Repeat this alternating breathing process easily for 3 minutes
Svatantra Kriya (Energizing the sushumna nadi)
Approximately 10 minutes
Divine Energy can be directed to accelerate the removal of blockages within the subtle body. When focused consciousness – attention – is applied to the central energy channel, naturally the pranic life force within the central energy channel is stimulated. The Divine Energy – Shakti – moves in the central energy channel and releases and purifies blockages.
Close the eyes, sitting in a comfortable but upright seated position.
Beginning at the base of the spine, with easeful attention, allow your focused consciousness – attention – to gently move in a circular motion around the central energy channel, which corresponds to the spine. These circular, coiled movements of attention should follow an upward circular movement in a corkscrew pattern from the base of the spine to the top of the head. This circular movement is from right to left on the front of the spine and from left to right on the back side of the spine. A total of approximately 21 rotations should be made around the central energy channel to make the completed journey from the base of the spine to the top of the head. This journey will take approximately one minute. This journey should be repeated by returning attention to the base of the spine and repeating the circular pattern around the sushumna nadi (corresponding to the spine) rising in a corkscrew pattern from the base of the spine to the top of the head 10 times, taking about 10 minutes.
Advanced Svatantra Kriya – Mantra Chakra
Memorize the 7 mantras and silently repeat the corresponding mantra once as attention reaches the location specific to that mantra.
Sound is a vibration that has the ability to effect energy and objects. Mantras are specific sounds, specific vibrations, that produce the highest, supportive, purifying effects.
There are specific mantras that create alignment, purification and resolution of blockages within each of the seven energy centers within the central energy channel – the sushumna nadi. The central energy channel is the main energy channel in the body. It exists within the subtle, energetic body and aligns with the physical spine, running from the base of the spine to the top of the head. Within the central energy channel are the 7 chakras, or energetic centers.
Repetition of the mantra associated with its specific energy center produces the effect of raising the vibrational frequency of that energy center and creating alignment, purification and resolution of blockages.
These mantras should be repeated once each, in an easeful, silent succession, with your attention directed in a circular, upward movement along the central energy channel, following from the base of the spine to the top of the head.
The mantras and their related locations in the body are:
- Lam: Base of the spine
- Vam: Sacral, upper pelvis between the hips
- Ram: Solar plexus, abdomen
- Yam: Heart
- Ham: Throat
- Aum: Third eye between the eyebrows
- Om: Top of the head