Many of India's greatest sages, including Manu, Yajnavalkya, Vyasa, and Shankaracharya, have previously affirmed that pranayama is the most essential aspect of yoga.
In his Manu Smrti, Manu, the ancient Indian lawgiver, declared that any accumulated demerit (i.e. negative karma) had to be purged and cleansed via pranayama.
- This is because ancient Indian law was built around the most essential aim of human existence, which is to achieve spiritual liberation, or mukti. Any word, thought, or action left a subliminal impression, according to the sages.
- When the deed that created the impression was wicked rather than good, it was especially harmful to spiritual freedom.
- Pranayama, according to Manu, is the greatest tapas, or spiritually cleansing exercise of all.
- The most efficient method of removing undesirable subconscious imprints was and is pranayama, according to generations of sages.
As a result, pranayama is an excellent technique for eradicating negative conditioning and retraining the subconscious mind to promote spiritual liberation.
- This same view is corroborated in the ardent text Brhadyogi Yajnavalkya Smrti, where sage Yajnvalkya proclaims that practicing 100 rounds of pranayama will delete all karmic demerit.
- Both Vedic and tantric texts confirm that pranayama has the ability to eliminate demerit.
- The Yoga Chudamani Upanishad says that karmic demerit is destroyed by pranayama, and the siddha Goraksha Natha made the same assertion, in identical words, in his text Goraksha Shataka.
You may also want to read more about Pranayama and Holistic Healing here.
