Beyond the significance and breadth of pranayama, we must turn our attention to prana. Prana, like many other words, may have many meanings depending on the situation.
- Some yogic texts, for example, say that you should take prana in via your left nostril and expel it through your right nose, and vice versa.
- Prana simply means breath in this context.
- We often come across texts that urge us not to let prana enter the brain, or to deliberately drive it into the arms to acquire strength, or to direct it towards disease-prone regions of the body.
- The scriptural instruction to transfer prana into the center energy channel (sushumna), which creates the mystical experience, is also quite frequent.
In all of these cases, prana clearly does not refer to breath but rather to 'vital energy.'
The gross manifestation of the subtle life force is breath.
In its cosmic form, prana is also a manifestation of the Great Goddess, and it is often characterized in a personalized form as Shakti or Kundalini, depending on whether it is descending or rising.
Again, depending on the context, these two words are often interchangeable. The Brahman is associated with prana according to the Brhad Aranyaka Upanishad (infinite consciousness I deep reality).
The Brahma Sutra says the same thing.
How can the Brahman, which is pure, limitless awareness, and the subtle life force, which pervades and moves the whole world but is still a long way from pure consciousness, be the same thing?
The solution may be found in the Taittiriya Upanishad's shanti chant 'Sham no mitra.'
'Namo brahmane namaste vayo tvameva pratyaksham bhrahmasi tvameva pratyaksham brahma vadishyami' is a significant section in this prayer, which translates 'I salute you, oh Brahman, I salute you, oh Prana.'
- Prana, you are, after all, the immediately perceptible Brahman.
- I will refer to you as the immediately perceptible Brahman.'
- The importance of comprehending this paragraph cannot be overstated. God's transcendent nature is known as the Brahman.
- The term "transcendent" refers to anything that is not immediately visible (other than through an act of grace).
- However, its immanent component, in this instance the prana, may be recognized.
- Prana is referred to be the immanent element of Brahman in this shanti mantra.
Panentheism is a philosophy that holds that God is both immanent and transcendent at the same time.
- Panentheistic ideas may be found in all major faiths.
- For example, in Christianity, the Father is God transcendent, while Jesus and the Holy Spirit are God immanent.
- Spirit is, interestingly enough, the Greek New Testament's translation of the original pneuma.
The term pneuma is derived from the Sanskrit word prana, and it still has the meaning of inhalation and therefore breath in English. Prana and awareness were also connected by T. Krishnamacharya.
- In the waking state, he said, prana is pushed out to both the body and the mind.
- It withdraws from the body in the dream state and only extends to the mind.
- Prana, on the other hand, is removed from both the body and the mind in the deep-sleep stage and remains aware.
- As a result, dreaming is neither relaxing nor beneficial to one's health. It also explains why certain languages have proverbs stating that one returns home to God or does not sin when sleeping.
- It reflects the reality that prana has been absorbed into our spiritual essence and there is no action.
Some texts identify prana as the Samkhya philosophy's prakrti (nature, material cause), but in this instance, we're only looking at the cosmic impersonal expression of what manifests in the human as breath and life force.
Prana is described as the elixir of immortality in the Shatapatha Brahmana (amrita).
- Amrita is most often associated with a creeper-derived medicine, but in yoga, amrita refers to the reservoir of prana located in the third ventricle of the brain. Immortality is achieved when the prana is stopped there.
- However, this immortality does not always imply bodily immortality; other schools understand it as the attainment of divine awareness. Prana and apana must be joined in the navel chak:ra, according to other scriptural passages (Manipura).
In these cases, prana refers to just one of the vital airs (vayus), which are subsets of the larger life force, prana. In the body, Prana has two storehouses:
- a lunar, mental storehouse in the center of the brain (Ajna Chakra)
- and a solar/physical storehouse in the navel region (Manipura Chak:ra).
In certain ancient writings, the word vayu is used instead of prana (as the Taittiriya Upanishad above).
- If prana is employed with the meaning of life energy, it will stand alone in this text.
- The complex prana vayu is used instead of the simple prana vayu to indicate the vital up-breath prana vayu, a subdivision of the life-force prana.
The efferent (outgoing) function of the nadi system, i.e. the capacity of people to actively express themselves via the body, such as moving it in place and having it execute activities, is also referred to as prana Shakti.
- Because Prana Shakti is believed to operate via the right nostril, breathing techniques that mainly use the right nostril make one extraverted and active.
- Manas Shakti, the collective name for afferent (incoming) nadi signals, which are triggered via the left nostril, is in opposition to this.
- Breathing via the left nostril makes one more passive, introspective, and contemplative, since manas Shakti rather than prana Shakti is involved.
- The on nadi balancing goes into more depth on this. Swami Ramdev says that prana is not just breath but also invisible heavenly force to people who think of it as just "breath."
Summarizing, prana is therefore the Great Goddess's body and deeds, by which she creates, generates, maintains, and destroys not just the whole realm of manifestation, but also each and every person.
- The two directional manifestations of prana are the downward-moving process of individual manifestation (Shakti) and the upward-surging process of spiritual liberation (Kundalini).
- Prana is the immanent God who pervades and maintains the whole world as well as all living things. Furthermore, the word prana is used to describe both the vital upward current and the efferent (outgoing) currents of the nadi system.
When attempting to comprehend the meaning of the word prana, it is necessary to throw a broad net in order to capture all of these potential interpretations; otherwise, some literary sections will remain ambiguous.
You may also want to read more about Pranayama and Holistic Healing here.
