Pranayama can be dangerous, if done incorrectly. Breath is fire. If we don’t know what we are doing when practicing pranayama, we can burn our nervous system and screw up our glands and chakra system and entire physical, emotional and mental health. When we do exercises that stimulate our centers, it naturally has an effect on our health since the chakras relay their energy via the glands. So it eventually leads to over- or under-development of the glands which show as health lessons in our physical mechanism, and in our mental and emotional mechanism as well since the etheric centers are also linked with their astral and mental counterparts as well.
Breathing exercises or pranayama training should never be undertaken without expert guidance and only after years of spiritual application, devotion and service; concentration upon the centres in the force body (with a view to their awakening) is ever to be avoided; it will cause overstimulation and the opening of doors on to the astral plane which the student may have difficulty in closing. I cannot impress too strongly upon aspirants in all occult schools that the yoga for this transition period is the yoga of one-pointed intent, of directed purpose, of a constant practice of the Presence of God, and of ordered regular meditation carried forward systematically and steadily over years of effort. – Djwhal Khul
Hatha, in Sanskrit, also signifies force. We are dealing with real, tangible forces, and unless we know how to handle them, we can create real problems for ourselves.
Lately, the (hatha) yogic lifestyle has become fashionable so to speak. Part of the reason why we are becoming interested in hatha yoga is because it focuses on the body, and as a human family, we are body-focused. However, our goal should be to focus on the development of our consciousness. When we develop our consciousness, the body will naturally adjust itself to the indwelling consciousness. Just compare the human body of the 21st century with the human body back in the Middle Ages. Our bodies today are much finer because the consciousness within the body has grown more subtle. The consciousness (if developed) transforms the matter, not the other way around. Hatha yoga focuses on the matter aspect. So it does not help us to evolve, it helps us to involve. However, we don’t want to involve, we want to evolve.
Involution is the journey towards matter. Evolution is the journey towards Spirit. We speak of the so-called Spiritual path – and not of the material path – because we are traveling towards Spirit. To evolve means to become less matter and more Spirit. That’s why our goal is evolution and not involution. Hatha yoga, when practiced in the 21st century, leads to involution, to densification. Hatha yoga practices distract the attention away from Spirit and direct it to the lower parts of the constitution.
Hatha yoga was created millions of years ago to fulfill a need we had back in Lemuria. Why should we do something today, in the 21st century, that was given to humanity millions of years ago to reach an evolutionary goal we no longer pursue today? We have evolved since then, and along with us, our evolutionary goal.
