Prāna, apāna, etc.
by Sylvianne Guilina
Sylvianne will be a guest tutor at St Andrews in June. Here she writes
about her teaching.
With these few words I would like to introduce the topic I will cover in more
depth and invite participants to experiment with during the Seminar.
Breath is life. Our life starts with an inhalation and ends
with an exhalation one could say that between birth and death life is nothing
but a single long breath. Breathing is so essential to survival that being
deprived of it for more than a few minutes is fatal. For beginners, as well as
experienced yoga practitioners, breath will always be the core of our practice.
Why pay breathing so much attention? Breath and mind mirror
each other and by focussing on the breath we can learn about the mind. The way
we breath reflects our state of mind; When the breath wanders, the mind is
unsteady, but when the breath is still, so is the mind still and the yogin
obtains the power of stillness. Therefore the breath should be restrained.
(Hatha Yoga Pradīpikā II-2)
In day to day activities breathing is mostly unconscious and
we only notice our breath when it becomes shallow or laboured or when we get
breathless. A jogger or a flautist will have a greater awareness of their breath
than most, but they are likely not to focus on it when they watch a movie. Their
breath will simply be calmer than half an hour earlier as they were anxious that
their delayed train could cause them to miss the beginning of the screening. But
when the jogger decides to train for the next London marathon and the flautist
rehearses before her next public performance, breath plays a central part in
what they are doing. That is where yoga begins; whether we are doing āsana
and carefully coordinating breath and movement, or experimenting with
lengthening breath in prānāyāma, or practising breath mindfulness in
dhyāna, our attempt will always be to maintain a constant awareness of our
breath throughout the practice.
Breath is so fundamental to body work that Patanjali suggests
that we completely merge with the breath and
allow it to support the posture (ananta samāpatti, YS II-47). Working
with breath consciously has infinite possibilities; we can stretch it in various
ways to meet specific goals. To give but a few examples, we can
lengthen the out breath to help the mind slow down, or hold our breath on empty
lungs (BK) to do uddiyāna
bandha, or equalise all parts of the breath (1:1:1:1) to enhance mental
focus and clarity. An appropriate use of
ratios according to individual breathing capacity will gradually make the breath
longer and more refined
(dīrgha sūkshma, YS II-50), which are necessary conditions for the mind
to focus. But there is more to
breathing: when body and mind stay completely still, the breath reveals
transcending states of consciousness.
There are many ways of handling breath in yoga. Directional
breathing, in which the in breath moves down from the chest to abdomen and the
out breath goes up from the abdomen to the chest is an interesting model, as it
brings together the naturally opposing energies of the inhalation, prāna
and of the exhalation, apāna. This is beneficial for both body and mind:
directional breathing increases digestive fire and improves metabolism, whilst
harmonising the often conflicting powers of instinct and reason. This way of
breathing gives āsana a solid foundation. It also deepens and intensifies
the prānāyāma techniques. And the union of prāna and āsana is called a
sacrifice or an offering to the Self in the Bhagavad Gītā (BhG IV-29),
which emphasises a more devotional practice.
Whatever we use the breath for in our practice, when prāna
and apāna meet, they stimulate samāna, the
energy in between which results in generating heat, glow or radiance (jvalanam,
YS III-40). The other two
dimensions of life energy in the human system, i.e. vyāna and udāna,
will benefit from applying directional
breathing too and enable us to positively respond to the challenges of āsana
or daily life and pursue a spiritual
quest as well.
From Yoga Scotland Issue 23 Page 21 - Reformatted to suite the web page.
