Pranayama is a system of sexual transmutation for bachelors and bachelorettes. We already know that the two ganglionic cords, entwined along the spinal medulla in the form of an eight, ascend from the male’s testicles and from the woman’s ovaries towards the brain. These two ganglionic cords are the Two Witnesses mentioned in the book of Revelation (Apocalypse); likewise, “these are also the two olive branches… and the two anointed ones, that stand by the LORD of the whole earth,” mentioned in Zachariah 4:12, 14. These are two hollow nerves, two fine canals through which the sexual energies ascend to the brain.

The student inhales the air through the left nostril and exhales it through the right, and vice-versa. With the thumb and index fingers, one controls the nostrils in an alternating manner. When inhaling through Pingala, the solar nostril, we intensely imagine the radiant and sublime solar atoms rising through the solar cord to the brain; then hold the breath and carry that solar force to the area between the eyebrows, and the throat, successively. When exhaling the air, one focuses (with imagination and willpower) on the energy being placed within the heart.  Now, when inhaling through Ida, the lunar nostril, we imagine the lunar atoms, like the pure water of life, rising through the lunar cord and by taking the same route, namely, to the area between the eyebrows and the throat, successively. We then exhale with profound faith and fix this lunar energy within the heart. So, this is how bachelors and bachelorettes can transmute their sexual energies.

Bachelors and bachelorettes must find a spouse if they want to Christify themselves, because the Gnostic esotericists can only perform sexual contact when they are married. The fires cannot be awakened without sexual magic: yes, without chastity, nothing is achieved in these studies. Kill desire, kill the “I,” and its thoughts: this is how you will become a liberated one.

Remember, true marriage has nothing to do with the social or religious formulas of this barbaric humanity. The authentic marriage is performed when a couple unites in spirit, soul, and sex; the true marriage must be pure like a lotus flower.

Excerpted from The Major Mysteries (1956) by Samael Aun Weor.