Prana — The Life Force that Moves Us
The breath as the expression of Prana
Watching my young son go under anaesthesia recently was a confronting experience. Slowly his natural functions were shut down. His body was closer to a coma state than a sleep one. Tubes and machines assisted his breathing. Consciousness no longer linked him to his breath — his body had been forced into an artificial state. So it got me thinking about breath…and prana.
Prana is essentially life force. The breath is our expression of prana — the part we can access. The ancient yogis believed we were born with a certain amount of breaths in our life. Therefore extending the breath was of benefit to living a long, healthy life. (prana=life force ayama= to extend).
Have you stopped to think about your breath today?
If prana is weak or not functioning well it will show in breath capacity and rhythm. Far from being a mystical concept prana is a necessity for wellbeing.
There is a wonderful Indian story from the Upanishads highlighting how breath is linked to consciousness…
A dispute broke out between the senses, the mind and the breath as to who was more important. They went to a master who informed them that the most important part was the one without which the whole could not survive. They agreed to each leave the body for a short period of time to see what would happen.
Each of the senses left the body but life carried on without them…
The mind disappeared and even though things were dull, life still continued…
However when the breath started to leave, the mind and the senses felt themselves being pulled out of the body too. They all recognised who was the most important!*
We take our breath for granted yet without it we wouldn’t be alive!
It can be a great indicator of our health… short breath can indicate anxiety, illness in the body, or a lack of fitness. (Like most things in our life we only notice it when it becomes a problem!)
The opposite of this is a long, smooth and steady breath — a state indicating a calm mind, capable body and the goal of anyone who wants to sustain their energy! In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali this breath is described as dirgha and suksma (long and smooth) and is a prerequisite to starting a pranayama practice and moving deeper to meditation.
The ancient yogis believed we are all born with prana within us — but it’s capacity or strength will change depending on what we do, think, and feel. Although prana may be ‘unseen’ it shows in the ability to complete simple functions — moving our body, having that thought, digesting our food etc.
Its flow in our system is via many energetic channels or nadis, one or more of which can become ‘blocked’ perhaps as a result of fatigue, poor health, inappropriate diet etc.
Which is why working with our breath is such a valuable tool…
Where the mind moves, so too does prana. When we link our mind to our breath we are affecting prana.
Conscious breath enables yoga to become a multidimensional practice.
Are you just moving the body through a series of asana or postures or bringing mindfulness to breath at the same time? If the breath can become dirgha and sukshma we begin to affect our health at a much more subtle level.
The breath used this way is termed ujjayi — a subtle awareness as it moves softly through our nostrils and down the throat. This breath demands you to be present — not just going through the motions. Tapping into this adds another layer to the quality of a yoga practice.
Beyond this there are other, more specific pranayama techniques used in yoga to affect the quality of our breath.
In fact, pranayama alone can assist in bringing wellness to the body — which is why even people who may be paralysed or with physical restriction can do yoga. As a colleague of mine likes to say ‘If you can breathe you can do yoga!’
So far from being an esoteric concept that may have little relevance for us, prana is actually very logical and can be accessed so simply. We all have the capacity to ‘exercise’ our breath if we can just take our mind to it. Yet yoga is relatively new to the Western world and it sometimes seems we have grabbed the most obvious tool and run with it — the body. To move deeper into yoga, the body is the starting point — like the tip of the iceberg. The real depth to the practice sits deeper beneath the surface, where prana lies…
- Story from the Upanishads taken from ‘What Are We Seeking?’ by TKV Desikachar with Martyn Neal.
Jill Harris is a Senior Teacher with Yoga Australia and teacher trainer in the lineage of T. Krishnamacharya. She has been teaching for 14 years and is currently undertaking Yoga Therapy training with her mentor Barbara Brian. She conducts group and individual classes at Kyo Yoga in Ocean Grove, Victoria.
