Integrating Ancient Wisdom in Modern Life: Breath and Prana
- Pranayam means: to breathe with the whole. To breathe with the whole, to become the breath of the eternal and the whole is pranayam. Then you expand. Then your life energy goes on expanding with trees and mountains and sky and stars.
- Through pranayama this potential energy within you is systematically awakened. It can also be tapped through asanas, yogic postures, because your body is connected at every point to the source of energy. So every posture has a corresponding effect on the energy source.
- Yama and Niyama focus on the mind. Asana focuses on the body. Pranayama focuses on breath and Prana. Yoga says you are not only breathing air; you are also breathing prana. In fact air is just a vehicle for prana, just a medium. Prana is the basic unit of the whole of life.
- This word prana is very significant, very meaningful, pregnant with meaning. It is made out of two Sanskrit roots. One is pra; pra means the basic unit of energy, the most fundamental unit of energy. And na means energy. Prana means: the most fundamental unit is energy. Matter is just the surface. Prana is the real thing there is – and it is not a thing at all.
- Prana is life force and very subtle it moves through nadis. Prana exists in everything in existence. Prana is present in each and every manifestation and un-manifestation. Modification of Prana is called Supreme Consciousness.
- Breath is the vehicle for Prana to move in the body. Prana is the vehicle for Supreme Consciousness to move in the Universe. There are two types of Prana: Cosmic Prana and Individual Prana.
- Individual Prana is an incoming and outgoing phenomenon of all seven bodies: Physical,Etheric, Astral, Mental, Spiritual, Cosmic, and Nirvanic. When one realises breathing in all the seven bodies, he knows beyond the seventh there is a bodilessness. At this moment energy is going inward, your breath will begin to have a different quality. It will be relaxed, rhythmic, and harmonious. One becomes pure. Then one is not divided; then there are no more polarities. Then it is adwait, not two: then it is oneness.
- Cosmic Prana gives momentum to the whole existence. With Cosmic Prana the whole universe is an organic unity – The entire cosmos is a body. Nothing in it stands apart, all things are joined and inter connected. So any changes anywhere in the Universe will affect everything in the Universe.
- Individual Prana enters the body and subdivides into energetic components, they are called Vayu/Prana. They are Prana, Apana, Samana, Udana and Vyana. Each vayu/prana, through the vehicle of the breath, controls a specific area of the body and ideally functions in harmony with each other under the control of the Individual Prana.
