Yoga has been practiced in India from ancient times, but the credit for organizing its diverse concepts and giving it a scientific base goes to sage Patanjali. His yoga focuses primarily on the mind, but no human personality dimension has remained untouched by him. Physical body and expansion of pranic energy find a suitable place in his yoga too. In fact, working upon these is the right preparation before starting work on the mind. Asanas for the body and purification and enhancement of prana using pranayama find a place to prepare an aspirant to a higher level of experiments in yoga.
In Ashtanga yoga of Patanjali, beyond yama, niyama, and asana, pranayama appears as the fourth step. Its purpose is establishing a stillness in prana to make it suitable for the higher practices of dharana-dhyana. This is because prana is directly connected with the mind. If the prana is fickle and unstill, then so is the behavior of the mind. If prana becomes sturdy, the mind be-comes sturdy too. Impurity in prana is regarded as a great obstacle in spiritual progress. Pranayama helps in cleansing prana, which helps make the mind well suited for the practice of meditation.
Prana is a subtle element whose presence is experienced in inhalation and exhalation and is also called prana-vayu. Just like the earth, fire, water, air, and space are considered the physical elements, prana, thoughts, intellect, soul, and supreme soul are regarded as the subtle elements. Of these, prana is the closest to physical existence and plays a vital role in all living beings. The yogic method of pranayama focuses on purifying and strengthening prana.
Prana is what keeps a living being alive, and its dissociation with the body is death. All activities of the body are possible because of the flow of a definite amount of prana in it. Any distortion or disruption of its flow in the body causes different forms of diseases and imbalances. Prana flows through subtle channels in the body, and pranayama helps purify and expand the prana that flows through them. The rising sun is regarded as the source of pranic energy on the earth. Pranayama is a process of connecting with this great source, which makes a person healthy, energetic, and bright.
In Patanjali yoga sutras, after gaining expertise in asana, the stable rhythm of inhalation and exhalation that is attained is termed as pranayama. Its essential processes are called rechaka, pooraka, and kumbhaka. In pooraka, a person fills the lungs with fresh air by inhalation. In kumbhaka, he holds the air in for some time. In rechaka, he exhales it fully and again stops the flow in external kumbhaka. Pranayama techniques are classified into different categories depending on the breathing sequences.
Deep breathing methods help in exercising the lungs as well. Like a honeycomb, lungs have millions of microscopic air sacs known as alveoli. When the breathing is not proper and if not exercised well, these air sacs become weak. Their in-activity over long periods leads to microbial infections and make the lungs a house of diseases. A lack of proper breathing also causes weak lungs and diseases like tuberculosis. Deep breaths taken during pranayama activate and exercise these alveoli, infuse life into them, and strengthen the lungs. They massage not just all the organs in the abdomen but also the subtle solar plexus, which activates numerous endocrine glands in the body. As a result, overall health improves.During pranayama, prana flows through subtle channels called Ida and Pingala, and this improved flow through them activates another subtle channel, Sushumna, which benefits a person both mentally and spiritually. According to Patanjali Yogasutra, pranayama’s eventual outcome is lifting off the veil cast on our inner brilliance or true knowledge. In the words of Acharyaji, as the daily practice of pranayama becomes deeper and gets perfected, the impression of different types of veils like accumulated karmas, intrinsic tendencies, and various distortions and distresses arising out of lack of true knowledge begin to weaken. Just as all the impurities of gold get cleansed when it is melted by heat, all the veils of impurities of a yogi get destroyed by the practice of pranayama. The prolonged regular practice of pranayama makes the mind ready to enter the next higher phase of yoga, which is dharana.Considering these benefits, our sages have included pranayama in the practice of worship (sandhya) that must be performed three times a day. This ensures that a spiritualYogasanas have often been thought of as a form of exercise. They are not exercises but techniques that place the physical body in positions that cultivate awareness, relaxation, concentration and meditation. Part of this process is developing good physical health by stretching, massaging, and stimulating the pranic channels and internal organs.
When yogasanas are performed, respiration and metabolic rates slow down, the consumption of oxygen and the body temperature drop. During exercise, however, the breath and metabolism speed up, oxygen consumption rises, and the body gets hot. Besides, asanas are designed to have specific effects on the glands and internal organs and to alter electrochemical activity in the nervous system.– Swami Satyananda Saraswati
“The practice of ‘asanas’ and ‘pranayama’ wards off diseases and helps to maintain alertness. – Swami Sivananda”
Source: Akhand Jyoti Magazine Jan-Feb 2021