Once you gain mastery over unholy desires, you may gain concentration for as long as you please.
Do not starve and do not overfeed; both are to be avoided. Fasting often comes naturally, for instincts are to be followed whether the instinct is to eat or to fast. Slavery is to be avoided. Be Master.
You see the demands of life and the different claims on your physical and mental powers are likely to keep you all the time strained and in tension. If you allow these outside circumstances to keep you all the time strained and in tension, you are making an early grave with your own hands and your own muscles.
First of all as to the name, Socialism, Rama would prefer to call it Individualism. The word Socialism gives prominence to the idea of the rule of society, but Rama says the right spirit of Truth is to assert the supremacy of the individual against all the world, all the universe. Then there is no worry, no anxiety. This is what Rama calls Individualism, let people call it Socialism, if they wish. This is Vedantic teaching from the stand – point of the individual.
There is a very useful Mantram which should be familiar to everyone. It is SOHAM. The meaning of ‘So’ in the English language is such, but in the Sanskrit language ‘So’ means that, and ‘That’ always means God or Divinity. So the word ‘So’ means God.
Those who think that this Pranayama has got something mystical, some divine meaning in it, are mistaken. Those who think that the highest realization culminates in it and that there is nothing higher than it, are mistaken. Pranayama or this control of breath has nothing supernatural in it. It is an ordinary exercise. Just as you go out and take physical exercise, so is this a kind of exercise of the lungs. There is no real significance in it, nothing mystic about it.