Vital Force
Pranayama is far more than simply breath control, control of the attention and thoughts as well as other vital energies all must fall within your field of self-determinism.
Breath is a vital force and function to organic life; an external respiration as opposed to true respiration (internal cellular) which provides oxygen for the aerobic process of metabolism, breaking down food particles and the release energy in the form of ATP (adenosine triphosphate, a nucleotide molecule which can yield large amounts of energy used to drive many biological processes, including muscle contraction and the synthesis of complex molecules needed by the cell) , but there is far more to know about this than simply how to breathe.
There are many types of breath and breathing which modify states of consciousness; belly breathing or becoming-breath; releasing breath, cleansing breath, revitalizing breath, relaxing breath etc. The word probably has its origins from the Indo-European bhretos ~ burn.
These two basic bodily functions are of vital importance not only to meditation but to healing and our very existence depends on them. Breathing is obviously the most recognized as we all know that if we stop breathing for even a few minutes death is not far behind.
Breathing is far and away the most important biological function and beats drinking by a long shot and eating by miles and miles yet few of us actually learn how to breathe properly or pay much attention to breathing at all until the day we suddenly find it difficult. Smokers don’t even give it a second thought and continue to tie their pleasure centres to the inhalation of poisons. Only now is it even starting to be un-cool but the tobacco companies still have an ignorant public market place in most countries and are growing in third world and developing nations.
Our very culture exhales so many toxins daily into our air - that very stuff we are breathing for dear life. A lot of this is connected to ‘identities’ and the way these make us feel when we believe this is ‘who’ we are. Don’t let anyone fool you that they are smoking deliberately… they are trying to recapture the ‘feelings’ that they have subconsciously associated with smoking.
Interestingly, this isn’t too far removed from those who experience sudden insights that dramatically alter their perceptions of the world and then go about telling everyone about them even though they are largely in ‘mystery’ about what happened and have no way to recapture or reliably repeat the experience. Many who have had near death experiences or psychic phenomena occurring in their vicinity do exactly this. The difference is that believing is seldom likely to kill you unless you rub up against some lunatic who insists that you believe only what they do.
Breath (and life-energies) control is the 4th step of meditation and is traditionally called ‘pranayama‘ meaning deliberate control of the life force or prana. It is often called breath control but that is far from the whole truth of it, though an important part.
In Kriya and many other forms of yoga, students learn minute control of the musculature and breathing apparatus and can suspend both breath and the heart at will. Swami’s such as Hariharananda have been recorded to have totally ceased their body functions and to all intents appeared dead yet resumed them at will. The periods or intervals of time precluded simply holding your breath but this is a questionable ability taken to the extremes.
I will show you in Easy Joy the keys to breath control and suspension that are important to master. You needn’t even consider taking it this far. It is absolutely not necessary and I’m not quite sure what it is supposed to accomplish except confuse some doctors. It’s kind of like me ’shining’ on the inside and the sun coming out in response - the only person going to get a lesson out of it is me. Why bother? I already know where my own capabilities and limitations reside and continually work on aligning them to only the highest ideals. Yet even I miss the point sometimes until after the cat is out of the bag. One thing for certain, no 100% student-master relationship exists. We are all growing and learning especially those trying to lead. Oscar Wilde once said “Ambition is the last refuge of failure” and I certainly agree but we must be careful not to include our dreams within our terms of ambition.
Yoga is a union in harmony with the flow of existence as it is. We can easily learn to enter that flow and even handle its energies and direction and so design our own futures.
Pranayama is more than simply breath - it is breath endowed with living energy; breath instilled with life-forces in harmony. It is you entrained to the vibrancy of life itself and this can not be accomplished simply by breathing or controlling the length of our breath.
These are essential skills which must be acquires as well but the easiest way I know of is Easy Joy’s Mmmm-Ahhh! Breath and Mantras Chants and Songs as practiced on our Art of Easy Joy course.
