#51. Breath Is The Access To Life Energies | Yoga Sutras Of Patanjali

Namaste and a very warm welcome to all of you in this daily life meditation session with me the answer.

Are you breathing right now?

Let me check if the breath is flowing in and the breath is flowing out.

Such an important process involuntary,

Is not left in our control,

Is not left in our consciousness.

This breath flowing in and out,

If it stops,

The game is over.

As long as it is running,

All the world is available to you,

All your ego,

Your desires,

Your wishes,

Your miseries,

Your pains,

Your pleasures,

All this world that is available to you that you claim as life.

It stops if this involuntary process of breathing stops.

It happens on its own,

It is happening since the moment you are born and you have never appreciated what an amazing process this is.

What is the significance of this process of breathing?

What has to do with life,

With breathing?

What is the connect between breathing life and this entire experience that we have?

It is almost like I am reminded of that toy we were playing as children where you wind the toy,

You give a few winds,

A few screws and then for a few minutes the toy keeps moving,

The toy keeps clapping and you can see the toy is alive,

It is having a permanent smile,

Clapping and you as a child play along,

Clap along,

Are happy along with the toy and there comes a point where that winding is over,

The toy stops,

The energy stops and you will have to do that again all over again.

Same is with breathing.

Why explains Patanjali in his sutras where he talks about pranayama.

It is interesting that you come here for inner peace,

You come here for some moments of presence,

Of stillness,

Of silence and Patanjali gives you the whole science.

He says you come for one drop,

I give you the whole ocean.

He gives you the whole wisdom so that you are not just caught up in solving one problem of your life,

You have the answer for your entire life.

You understand your own mechanisms,

You understand what is this life that you are put into,

How does this life function,

Which controls are given to you and which controls are taken away from you momentarily because you do not understand them.

And if you see the controls that are given to us,

What is the control that is given to us in our life?

A few body movements,

A few moments of thoughts to say I want this and I want that.

Even in this small control,

Small voluntary aspects,

What sort of mess we have created for ourselves,

What sort of mess we have created for everybody else.

Imagine if the rest,

The involuntary part,

If this was also given to you under your control,

Under your functioning without understanding what it is,

Without the knowledge of it,

Without the purity of it,

How much bigger mess we would have created for ourselves and for everybody else.

Therefore,

Patanjali gives this entire package saying if you are looking for a point solution,

Do not worry about that little thing that you are having,

That little pain that you are having,

That little problem that you are trying to solve,

Gather knowledge,

Gather holistic knowledge,

Understand the whole mechanism because by understanding the whole mechanism,

When the control expands,

When what you have in your hands expands,

Not just this body,

Few movements of the body and few movements of the mind where we call ourselves as intellectuals and the greatest intelligence on this planet and the rulers of this planet and wanting to go beyond this planet and rule the whole universe and so on.

If the rest of the knowledge has to be imparted,

There has to be more understanding,

More wisdom established first in oneself.

Therefore,

Patanjali comes along with the full package.

He says in his sutras in the Ashtanga yoga where he is first of all establishing the principles then the rules and he comes to a point where he is now talking about the breath control or pranayama or the relation between the breath,

The prana and life.

What is that and how does that impact our own life?

Let us hear what Patanjali has to say.

Kasman Sati,

Shvasa,

Prashvasa,

Gati Vicchada,

Pranayama,

That being acquired,

That posture,

The movements of inhalation and exhalation should be controlled.

This is pranayama.

So the prerequisites are the values,

The roots which we have been talking in the previous sessions and also the steadiness,

The stability in the posture.

We talked about the posture,

The asana yesterday that a posture which is steady,

Still,

Natural,

Comfortable to you,

That posture is a requirement.

You have to build yourself a posture.

It can be the lotus posture,

It can be any other posture.

It does not matter how,

It does not matter what,

The condition is that it has to be steady,

It has to be still,

It has to allow your energies to move beyond the body,

Your awareness beyond the body and not get caught up in it all the time.

So once you have that steadiness in the body established,

Then is the time to access this far more greater access to one's own energies,

The pranayama.

Through the breath,

You have to see that prana,

That is the vital energy,

We do not have direct access to prana.

So if this vital energy that we call as life,

That we call as prana,

There is only one access to it which is through your breathing on the basic level.

There are advances as well,

But for the purpose of what we are establishing for ourselves,

There is only one access and that one access is breathing.

Through breathing,

We access the pranic energy,

We control the pranic energy,

Through the control of pranic energy,

We control life.

Not only the functioning of the body,

Not only the mind,

The peace of the mind or the craziness of the mind,

But the entire life.

The scope of control,

The scope of mastery by mastering pranayama,

By understanding breathing and prana put together,

You have control over your body,

You have control over your mind,

The state of your mind,

And you have control over the entire system.

What is life,

What is death,

You have control over your life.

Right now,

There is the control over life,

The control over death is all involuntary,

Is all accidental,

Is all a natural process.

So these life energies for the ignorant ones,

For the childish ones,

For the ones who are not developed yet,

That control is left as involuntary.

And for the ones,

The yogis,

The ones who want to expand consciousness,

The ones who want to have that awareness,

That consciousness which can contain the energy of the prana,

The wisdom of how to maneuver it,

This bigger aspect of life,

For them,

There is everything available through pranayama.

And in between,

For us,

Ordinary people,

For us,

Who just want to manage our life,

Manage our mind,

There are still some clues,

And as we move from this complete ignorance about breathing,

Complete ignorance about life,

Prana,

To slightly more awareness about breathing,

Slightly more awareness about prana,

We gain tremendous control,

And lots of problems are solved by themselves.

He says the movement of inhalation and exhalation should be controlled.

This is pranayama.

There are three aspects of the breathing as a movement.

One is the inhalation,

Second is the exhalation,

And the third is in between those pauses,

That retention,

Where your breath is no more,

It is not in any movement,

It is not a process,

Part of inhalation,

It is not a part of exhalation.

So pranayama starts with,

First of all,

Getting the control over inhalation and exhalation.

Just as simple as that.

When we say control,

Don't jump onto your inhalation and exhalation and try to hold onto it.

Control does not mean that you are now grabbing it and you are not letting it happen.

The first step of control is to understand,

Is to become aware,

What is this?

How do I reach to it?

What do I do as an input and what output happens with that?

So what do I change in the breath?

What is the outcome of the breath?

To understand,

To experiment,

That is the real science,

That is the real knowledge,

Not what happens outside with a few instruments.

So the beginning of pranayama is to first of all learn to observe the inhalation,

Learn to observe the exhalation and see what is this inhalation bringing in me?

Is something changing in me?

Am I totally dead that I have absolutely nothing changing when the inhalation happens?

What changes when the breath flows in?

Am I feeling more alive?

Am I feeling more energetic?

Am I feeling more positive?

Suddenly am I awake?

When I exhale,

What happens?

Do I relax?

Do I let go?

Am I still holding on to everything on my body,

On my mind when I exhale?

What happens in my awareness as I exhale?

What is this exhalation?

What is this inhalation?

Such a magical process that is put into us in an involuntary way.

We have no understanding,

No control.

We just think that there is some physical mechanism,

Some lungs that is just blowing in the air and blowing out the air.

We can go on carrying with our life,

With our problems,

With our ideas,

With what we want and achievements and so on while this stupid lungs are just inhaling and exhaling the air.

No see,

Become aware,

Observe this amazing mechanism which is built into us because it is not just a physical mechanism.

It is what controls the entire life energies.

When someone is dead,

We say that the prana has left the body.

The death is not defined by the stopping of the heart or anything else.

The sole variable of life and death is whether prana is there or prana is not there.

Whether breath is flowing or the breath has completely stopped for a certain period of time and will never come back.

Such an important variable,

The breath,

The prana.

So it must be understood not only as a subject of breath and of prana but also its correlation to the rest,

The correlation to the entire experience of our life.

Because as you become aware of yourself,

As you become aware of your breath,

You will see that it is not just one pattern.

It is multiple patterns that are going on in different time,

Different place and so on which Patanjali will talk about in the upcoming sutras.

But what must establish in one's own being is that this inhalation and exhalation don't underestimate that.

You no matter in which situation you are in life,

In which pain you are in life,

In whichever development you are in life,

The more you are aware and have an understanding of your breath,

The inhalation and the exhalation,

The more you gather mastery over life and if you are the master of your life,

You design the experience that you want in your life.

With that wisdom,

Let us be in silence.

Let us become aware of inhalation and exhalation,

The foundation of pranayama and in the upcoming sessions we will build on top of that.

Please close your eyes and take a posture which is comfortable for you which is not too tight,

Not too loose,

Having a balance of the right and the left,

The front and the back,

The top and the bottom,

Which is light,

Easy and you can let your body rest at its own weight.

Even the attention required to maintain that posture is minimal,

Is negligible.

Once the stability arises,

Let that stillness be,

Don't try to move or change anything for the next minute.

Then observe your breath,

Bringing awareness to inhalation and exhalation.

In whichever state your breath is flowing nicely,

Naturally or disturbed,

Agitated,

Whichever state your breath is,

Simply observe your inhalation and exhalation.

That observing will put your breath to rest,

Allowing it to flow more and more naturally,

Easily.

Observe the inhalation,

The rise of your breath and the exhalation,

The fall of your breath.

Don't control your breath.

Only observe the inhalation and the exhalation.

Observe as if you're observing for the very first time,

What is this inhalation,

What is this exhalation.

As the breath flows in,

What does it do to your body?

Feel the energy arising and as you exhale,

What experience is that?

No thought needed,

Only awareness of inhalation and exhalation.

Right.

Feel the breath flowing in,

Changing something in you.

And flowing out,

Once again changing something in you.

All along this silence,

Notice the change in your inner state,

As you observe your inhalation and exhalation.

Let go of all focus,

Let go of all effort,

Let go of the breath.

And move in silence,

In the stillness,

With awareness.

Let go of all focus,

Let go of the breath.

Let go of all focus,

Let go of the breath.

These are the moments to let go,

Disappear,

Be in this pure awareness,

In silence,

As long as you like.

So if you wish to continue,

You may stay in this state.

Or very gently and slowly,

You may open your eyes with me.

Maintaining the awareness,

This ease in your breath,

This silence in the moment,

And taking these to your daily life.

Please pass on this message,

This wisdom of breath,

Prana,

Yoga,

Meditation to your friends and family.

Thank you very much.

Namaste.