Working with your breath
Do you know how to breathe? Just hearing this question, people are shocked! All your life, since the moment you were born, the one thing that you have done without a break is breathing! Till the moment you die, the one thing you cannot put aside is breathing.
But you will be shocked to hear, 99% of us do not know how to breathe!
Understand: there are two types of actions in our body – voluntary and involuntary.
Voluntary action is action which is under our control – like walking, moving our limbs and soon. These kinds of actions always take place with our awareness and intention.
Involuntary actions are those which are not under our control – like digestion, brain function and the beating of the heart. Usually, we are not even aware of these actions.
But breathing is one activity which can be both voluntary and involuntary. Breathing can go on smoothly even if we are not aware of it. We don't stop breathing even when we focus our attention on something else. Imagine, if we had to continuously remember to breathe, what a calamity it would be!
At the same time, we can also control our breathing.
We can hold our breath for a few minutes, or control its duration. We can breathe deeply or shallowly, slowly or rapidly, as we wish.
Because breath is a powerful link between the body and mind, we can alter our breathing pattern to transform ourselves physically, mentally and emotionally. Our breath is closely linked to our body and its functions.
But while our physical body creates a boundary between us and the world around us, our breath flow freely in and out.
It is our point of contact with the universe.
It is also the key to understanding our emotions and thoughts.
When we infuse awareness into our breathing, it can become a tremendous meditation.
Right now, what we think of as breathing is not breathing.
We have reduced our breathing to a purely unconscious activity.
We don't know the science of right breathing. That is why I say, we don't know how to breathe!
All we are doing now is, we are simply letting breathing happen to us.
The whole science of working with breath is based on controlling and transforming our breathing pattern with awareness.
Your breathing is the movement of universal life-energy
In Sanskrit, the word we use for breath is prana (from the root prā , 'to fill'). Strictly speaking, prana is not breath.
It is the life-energy that is contained in the breath.
The air you breathe is just a vehicle in which the prana comes in and goes out of your body. When you inhale, the air comes in carrying prana, and when you exhale, the 'empty' air goes out .
We usually use the word prana in two ways: one, as prana-shakti or the universal life-force; two, as the vital force carried by the breath and performing various physiological functions in the body.
HARNESSING THE UNIVERSAL LIFE-FORCE
Based on the physiological function it performs in the body, prana is classified into five types: prana (respiration), apana (elimination), udana (meditation), samana (digestion) and vyana (circulation)
- Prana : Responsible for the beating of the heart and breathing. Prana enters the body through the breath and is sent to every cell through the circulatory system.
- Apana: Responsible for the elimination of waste products from the body through the lungs and excretory systems.
- Udana : Responsible for producing sounds through the vocal apparatus, as in speaking, singing, laughing, and crying. It also represents the conscious energy required to produce the vocal sounds corresponding to the intent of the being. Hence the prolonged focus (samyama) on udana gives the higher centers total control over the body.
- Samana : Responsible for the digestion of food and cell metabolism (ie. the repair and manufacture of new cells and growth). Samana also includes the heat regulating processes of the body. The aura that can be seen or experienced around the body is a projection of this current. With training, one can see the auras of light around every being.
- Vyana: Responsible for the expansion and contraction processes of the body, eg. the voluntary muscular system.
This life energy is universal. Your breathing is not just an internal process. The breath does not flow in an internal circuit as you think. It is a moment-to-moment exchange of energy with the universe.
Understand, if it wasn't for the universal life energy flowing through your body, you cannot be alive for more than a few minutes. Your very survival depends on the flow of the cosmic life-force through your body.
Do you know, our body has the capacity to take in prana directly from the cosmos? In Bharat, during the Kumbh Mela (the world's largest spiritual gathering), you can see yogis who bury themselves completely in the earth for three days. They know the technique to take in prana directly from the cosmos without the help of air.
As long as you take prana through air, you need to breathe through your nose. You need to inhale and exhale. But when you can take the prana directly without the help of air, you don't need to inhale or exhale through the nose. You don't need to breathe!
As long as the incoming breath is bringing in more prana and going out as an empty vehicle, your life will be strengthened. If the reverse starts happening, if the air comes with less prana and goes out with more prana, it means death is nearing or the life energy is going towards death. When death nears, just the empty air will enter but when it goes out, it will go with the prana.
There is a concept in Ayurveda (the traditional Hindu system of medicine) known as 'peak age,' which is based on this science of prana. Till a particular age, a person receives more prana through the incoming breath and loses less prana through the outgoing breath. After that age, the amount of prana carried into the body with the incoming breath starts reducing. When the outgoing breath starts carrying more prana than the incoming breath, we know the person is moving towards death.
That is the reason all the great Masters, such as Buddha, Sankara, Guru Nanak and Mahavira could predict their own death. Six months before their passing away, they were able to see very clearly the prana moving out of their body.