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3rd key MOVE YOUR DIAPHRAGM

WHAT HAPPENS
WHEN THE DIAPHRAGM MOVES

• Certain areas of the lungs that act as an "air supply reserve" empty and refill themselves. (This occours completely, for example, during a yawn. It is precisely for this reason that yawning is so pleasant).

TRY TO YAWN

• By breathing deeply in a relaxed way, the stomach, intestines, bladder, rectum and various viscera move. This movement helps relax the belly and improves all bodily functions. The flow of more blood endowed with a greater quantity of oxygen galvanizes the pleasure receptors and puts them in a state of Dionysiac exultation.

HOW THE DIAPHRAGM MOVES

Try to yawn. Begin by making fake yawns. After a few attempts, the yawn becomes real and irrepressible. Listen to it. Towards the end of the yawn, you can feel a light sensation of pleasure at the pit of your stomach. This is the diaphragm moving.
Identify this sensation. Photograph it. Continue to yawn until you recognize it well. Now begin to breathe, imagining (as usual) that you feel this pleasant sensation again while you breathe in and breathe out. After a while, you will really feel it. That's it. You are breathing by moving your diaphragm. Filling and emptying your lungs properly, and relaxing your belly as far down as your pubis, will become easier for you.

NOW YOU KNOW HOW TO BREATHE.
NOW TRY SOMETHING CHALLENGING.
A MINUTE OF DEEP BREATHING

BEGIN TO BREATHE DEEPLY
Continue to take long breaths, deep and slow, filling your lungs all the way up, and then emptying them completely.

SHORTLY AFTER,
YOU WILL FEEL A SLIGHT DIZZINESS
It is because deep breathing causes an increase in the oxygenation of the blood, therefore more blood reaches the brain. Do you feel as if you have drunk a glass of wine? Do you feel a slight intoxication?

OBSERVE THIS SENSATION OF DIZZINESS
At times that can bother you, cause worrisome thoughts to enter to your mind. DON'T BE AFRAID
THAT IT CAN MAKE YOU SICK

IN SHORT:
breathing is a natural drug:
curative, legal and free!

Don't do anything.
Just feel the sensation.
Let your thoughts flow without giving much energy to them.
The discomfort will vanish.
The dizziness will remain like a "strange" but not unpleasant state.
As you relax, when you reach a more complete level of abandon,
you will always go through a state of discomfort.
It is a kind of door that you have to get past.
Gradually, as you learn more and reach deeper states of abandon,
you will find other doors, opening to other states of consciousness.
These doors are marked by moments of anxiety,
dizziness and discomfort.

Everything starts in earliest infancy. The majority of us were separated at birth from our mother, and then taken to the nursery together with other newborns that screamed because they wanted their mother.
No other mammal is treated this way. In fact, Nature has provided that in the first half-hour of life, the brain of the newborn registers the mother's traits (the famous "imprinting" described by Lorenz at the beginning of the 20th century).
We are born as perfect wild beings, but a great part of our natural instincts are denied. We are forced to sleep by ourselves; often we are not breast-fed, and then, instead of being nourished directly from the mouth with wonderful pre-chewed food, they teach us to use a little spoon and to choke down disgusting homogenized and preserved baby food.
I know that in this day and age, the idea of prechewed food grosses you out. But when you were a little critter, you thought otherwise. Children were nourished this way up until a few decades ago. But the most normal ways of doing things have been denied to us to such a degree that now we find them revolting.
The way of communicating, the lack of physical contact, baby clothes, diapers, smells... everything seemed shockingly senseless to us then. To us it was an outrage. We could not understand what was happening or communicate our discomfort, and our pleas for help were misunderstood. And this surely caused fear to grow inside us,

OR, BETTER STILL,
T E R R O R.

Thus, the primordial main spring of alarm in the face of danger went off inside us.

The instinct of self-preservation is such a stupid thing that even mosquitos have it.	THE INSTINCT OF SELF-PRESERVATION HAS TAKEN HOLD OF OUR MINDS.   The instinct of self-preservation is very useful. It allows you to understand that there is a difference between you and the train that is about to run you over (and that you better move).
It helps them to tell the difference between themselves and the hand that is about to squash them.

It is with a complex mechanism that regulates our reactions, following a procedure developed over millions of years. Surely the best procedure when there is danger.

THE INSTINCT OF SELF-PRESERVATION ACTS IN A VERY SIMPLE WAY. IT IS CONVINCED THAT IN ORDER FOR YOU TO SAVE YOURSELF, ALL OF YOUR ENERGY WILL BE NEEDED, AND THEREFORE, IT SAYS TO YOU OVER AND OVER:

"IF YOU TRY YOUR HARDEST
YOU CAN SAVE YOURSELF."

It doesn't matter if there isn't any chance of saving yourself from a stampede of 500 wild buffaloes. If by chance you save yourself, it was right. If you die, you would have died anyway. But this way of thinking provoked by the instinct of self-preservation produces disastrous results.
When something terrible happens to you, even if you had no chance of avoiding it, you are nevertheless convinced that "if you had tried your hardest, you could have saved yourself."
Surely, it has happened to you, too. You know very well that you could not have done anything to stop it from happening. You know that you are not responsible; and yet, you continue to feel guilty because inside you, a very stupid and primitive mechanism continues to shout:

(It doesn't do it to be mean. It's an automatic stupidity. Involuntary).

It is now clear that you might never enter into a state of deep abandon, but you may find joy in life if you decide within yourself that you are not at fault for something that is not your fault. Explain that to your Instinct of Self-Preservation. Tell it that it has made a mistake and forgive yourself.
Are you really guilty of something? Have you committed horrendous crimes?
Then look at what you have done. Relive the pain that you have caused. The pain that you pretended not to see. Think about the life that you denied and lost. Mourn for what you have destroyed. But then forgive yourself and turn over a new leaf. To deny yourself the present is a crime against humanity and life that will not erase your past.

LET GO OF YOUR SENSE OF GUILT

You really must go somewhere peaceful. Look inside yourself and say to yourself in a loud voice that you forgive yourself. It is absolutely necessary that you do this. You have to feel that you forgive yourself and project a smile towards your entire being. Only in this way, will the message of forgiveness reach your subconscious as well (If you don't tell your whole self that you forgive yourself, you risk going around with a killer hidden in your subconscious. It has received a contract to kill you and it will not rest until you are dead).

THE INSTINCT OF SURVIVAL
DOES SOMETHING ELSE TOO:

IT IS CONVINCED THAT,
IN ORDER TO SURVIVE,
YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO BE READY
TO DEFEND YOURSELF

You could be under a bunker
with food to last you 100 years
and with someone who loves you
and the Instinct of Survival keeps telling you:
"There are buffaloes, look out!"
"There are buffaloes, look out!"
and you feel that there is something wrong
and perhaps you blame yourself or the other person.
You have to learn to recognize
these reactions and to observe them.
They are the source of continuous mental,
muscular and emotional tensions.
The Instinct of Survival's foolish behaviour
is also the primary force behind the difficulty to feel pleasure.

In fact The Instinct of Survival is convinced that in order to survive, it always needs all the energy you have available. Therefore, it switches off all biological systems which are not strictly necessary in a moment of danger. The first to get switched off are the

PLEASURE RECEPTORS.

This is the fourth disaster caused by the Instinct of Survival

1st disaster:
LOSS OF A SENSE OF COMMUNION WITH THE UNIVERSE.
YOU EXPERIENCE THE WORLD AS A THREAT
AND END UP FEELING ALONE.

2nd disaster:
SENSE OF GUILT

3rd disaster:
PERMANENT STATE OF ALARM.
MUSCULAR AND EMOTIONAL TENSION.

4th disaster:
BLOCKAGE OF THE PLEASURE RECEPTORS

All the mechanisms provoked by the Instinct of Survival act simultaneously when you pass into a state of deeper relaxation.
- the sense of communion with the world
- the renouncing of the sense of guilt
- the abandoning of mental tension
- the reopening of the pleasure receptors
- the relaxing of the muscles

THROW THE INSTINCT
OF SURVIVAL INTO A PANIC

"We are in deep shit.
We are surrounding by buffaloes
and this idiot does yoga exercises!"

He's not mean or bad, just stupid. You have to be calm and explain things to him. Tell him:
"Listen, you, flea brain, do you know that there are other gentler and more intelligent Instincts of Survival than you that are less troublesome? Do you know that you give me stomach pains, and then I'm so tense that I risk killing myself by falling out of bed? And anyway everybody knows that the great karate master strikes in the calm void of his mind. Buffaloes - come on! There aren't even any more buffaloes. Get with it! You dickhead!"
He feels very badly about it and stops ruining your life. Now that we have solved this problem of unconscious fears, let's get back to our discussion on breathing.

BREATHING IS
THE SIMPLEST WAY
OF MAKING THE BUFFALOES FLEE.

Breathing opens
the pleasure receptors.

Now try doing the deep breathing exercise again, but this time continuing for three minutes. You will notice right away:

• Your ability to see increases and everything becomes more luminous.
• The sounds you hear are clearer.
• Try to taste something. You will see that flavours are stronger.
• Try to touch a surface. You will perceive it more distinctly.

If you breathe deeply, even lovemaking becomes different. You will feel your partner more.

In films, you always see people making love panting. They take short, superficial breaths. Wrong, wrong, wrong!
If you breathe deeply while you are experiencing pleasure, you will feel that this pleasant sensation expands within you and lasts longer. Breathe deeply, keeping your mind and muscles relaxed. You will feel that even your orgasm becomes stronger and lasts longer.

By breathing, you let yourself go with the flow, and everything slides by more smoothly, and you feel more satisfaction. Breathing also helps you face difficulties. It gives you strength, renders fear manageable, and reawakens unconscious abilities. Finally, to breathe out a good sigh of relief alleviates sadness because it loosens the instinct of survivals pessimistic and paranoiac grip.

Breathing helps you to switch off the rational mind by passing into the unconscious mental circuit. Breathing stimulates good humour and predisposes you to laughter. And, as we have seen, laughter brings out a hyperoxygenation of the lungs.

• Breathe.
• Recognize that certain states of anxiety are caused by an error of the instinct of survival and do not fear the fits of distress that accompany certain stages of relaxation.
• Use breathing to calm anxiety and to increase pleasure.

By doing this consciously for a few days, you will master the third key. This will also develop over time. In fact, it will come natural and habitual for you to influence your way of being and of feeling yourself breathe. This habit is sufficient to make you feel that you aren't just a passive receptor of sensations provoked by whatever happens to you.
No! If you want, you can turn up the volume. You have an instrument to modify your sensations and your mood.
You will be curious to prove how much power over yourself this will give you, and this way, by practicing casually, your breathing will improve and you will obtain more and more gratifying results.

(Continue)

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