Morning
The five of phase one · line walking first
Line walking first: heel to toe, the eyes ahead, fifty out and fifty back. It asks for attention, not strength.
Then the other four, in order, as far as the body lets you today. On a day with little in it, line walking alone is enough; on a day with more, the running and the jumps too. No kapālabhāti in these days.
OpenThe subtle series · head to foot
One joint at a time, slowly, the breath with each: the throat, the eyes, the cheeks, the ears, the neck, the shoulders, the elbows, the wrists and fingers, the chest, the belly, the waist, the knees, the ankles and the feet. In the module's own counts, as far as is easy today.
Kapola, Karṇa, Skandha, Pūrṇa-bhuja, the fifth of Udara, Jaṅghā and Piṇḍalī hold the breath. While any opium is still being taken, keep the hold short, to comfort; and after it never let the breath out with a jerk.
The first time in the camp, with a teacher. There are no photographs of it yet; it is in words, from the module's own description.
Śavāsana · until the heart settles
On the back, the feet a little apart, the arms by the sides, the palms up, the eyes closed.
Let the feet go heavy, then the calves, then the thighs, the back, the shoulders, the face. Let the breath slow by itself; do not count it.
No clock: until the breath and the heartbeat have settled. When the heartbeat has come down out of the ears and into the chest, get up, by way of the right side.
Evening
The subtle series · only this, and slower
The same order as the morning, head to foot, but slower, and in smaller counts. No effort: the evening is not for spending the push but for gathering it.
Leave out the practices that hold the breath in the evening, or keep them very short.
After the evening meal
Silence, the slow walk, bed in silence
The evening meal in silence, slowly, and light. Then a slow walk, without talk, slow enough that the breath does not climb.
Then bed in silence: no argument, no phone. Do not chase sleep; only add nothing more to the alarm.
If the legs will not keep still in the night, get up and walk the line again, slowly, and then śavāsana. Give the push a road.
At home
At home, the first days
The same order: in the morning line walking and as much as the body gives, then śavāsana; in the evening the subtle series; after food, silence.
Tell one person at home what these days are: heaviest from the second day to the fourth, then lower. Water, a little at a time, all day.
The doctor, and when
Pain in the chest, fainting, or a heart that will not settle even at rest: a doctor first.
Vomiting or diarrhoea all day, and water will not stay down; or confusion, or things seen that are not there: a doctor the same day.
If a doctor has given a medicine for these days, keep taking it as given. This practice goes alongside it. Taking help is not losing.
Why this order
In withdrawal the alarm was found high and the nerve that calms the heart low, and in men coming off opioids yoga helped that nerve return. Movement eased the restlessness and the irritability, and the withdrawal itself most with hard effort; in śavāsana the heart came back sooner after effort; and kapālabhāti was found not feasible in the days of the sickness, so it waits for phase two.
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 a disciple; the letter does not say who, or what was asked. The editors place it under the heading Intoxicants.
It is the habit in the subconscient material that feels an artificial need created by the past and does not care whether it is harmful or disturbing to the nerves or not. That is the nature of all intoxications (wine, tobacco, cocaine etc.), people go on even after the deleterious effects have shown themselves and even after all real pleasure in it has ceased because of this artificial need (it is not real). The will has to get hold of this subconscient persistence and dissolve it.
Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga IV (Complete Works, vol. 31), p. 435
Why it is here
It is the one place he writes about intoxicants as such. The need, he says, is a habit of the body made by the past, and not real; he names no enemy, only a persistence that the will dissolves. The first days give that persistence somewhere to go. That reading is ours.