Morning
Phase one's five · breathing through the nose
Phase one's page, the five doors in order. Breathing through the nose the whole time.
Wherever the mouth has to open, slower. Tiring out is not the aim; moderate effort sends the watchmen on their round, exhausting effort does not.
OpenThe third group · Evenness, in Laya
Straight after phase one, in place of sitting down to rest. Every step on a breath: on the out-breath the knee to the chest, on the in-breath the leg long and the chest open.
Out on one leg, home on the other. Muscle and breath both carry the lymph along.
Begin the group · LayaEvening
The Mahāmṛtyuñjaya
One line, one breath. Aloud, or in a whisper, whichever is easy; then sit a while in the quiet after it.
OpenAt night, before sleep
The complete breath, in śavāsana
On the back, one hand on the belly, one on the chest.
Fill from the bottom: belly, chest, collarbones. Empty from the top, and let the out-breath be longer. Hold nowhere.
Ten breaths, then simply lie there.
Yoga Nidra
Lying down, the attention travelling the body, into sleep. Taught in the camp; its guidance will be added later.
taught in the camp · its guidance is comingWhen a cold comes
Lighter above the neck, only the breath with fever
If the cold is only above the neck (nose, throat, sneezing): the practice goes on, lighter. The third group in laya, and the breath; not the jumps of phase one.
With fever, the body aching, or the cold gone down to the chest: only the complete breath lying down, until the fever has gone. Then back, slowly.
High fever, breathlessness, or a cough that will not go: a doctor.
Why this order
In men steady for years, the killer cells were found as sharp as healthy men's. With regular moderate effort the days of colds were fewer, yoga after effort kept the killer cells' work from falling, with meditation colds stayed short, and with short sleep colds came more often.
Before you begin
Stay well within what is comfortable. If anything hurts, stop. This supports treatment and does not replace it; anybody on buprenorphine or methadone stays on it.
While opium is still being taken, keep every breath hold short.
पत्र · a letter of Sri Aurobindo
To someone who asked whether too little sleep leaves the body open to illness; the letter begins by answering, Yes. The words in square brackets are the editors'.
Yes. If you don't sleep enough the physical system becomes more open to these attacks [of illness]. If it is kept in good condition, then usually it repels them automatically and one does not notice even that there has been an attack.
Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga IV (Complete Works, vol. 31), p. 572
Why it is here
This page is the round by day and the post by night, and it ends in sleep. His letter says the same in two sentences. By attacks he means illness here, as the editors' bracket says. That reading is ours.