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Pranayama Controlling the Breath
Breathing is a very basic phenomenon concerning life.
It is intimately concerned with the biochemical process of obtaining
energy from digested food materials.
Every cell and tissue of an
organism's body depends continually for its life activity on the energy
derived from oxidation of the digested food materials, and as this
process cannot go on without a continued supply of oxygen to the cells
and tissues, almost all forms of life seem to depend very largely on
the process of breathing. For the sake of description, this process may
be conveniently divided into two parts, one connected with the external
environment, the other with the internal environment. Taking oxygen
from the external environment into the body constitutes the first part
of breathing, while making the oxygen available to every cell and
tissue, is a function of what may be called internal breathing. In
human beings, as we have noted earlier, the first part is played by the
respiratory system, and the second by the circulatory system. We
do not know if our ancient masters of yoga were aware of the fact that
the air we breathe in is a mixture mainly of three gases, namely,
nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide. They knew it fully well however,
that life activity depends fundamentally upon the vital air which they
called "Prana".They distinguished ten different forms of this vital
air. These were supposed to be responsible for performing different
functions in the body. Five of these ten vayus were supposed to be more
important. They are: Prana, Apana, Vyana, Udana and Samana. As declared
by the great Shankaracharya "one and the same prana becomes known as
the five vayus due to diversity of functions." The location and
functions of the ten vayus are found described in many yoga texts,
(e.g. Trishikhi-brahmanopanishad, mantra ; Yoga Yajnyavalkya ;
Chhandogya Upanishad,; Amritanado-panishad and so on). We do not have
space here to go into the details of these. We should note one fact,
however, namely, that the word prana was in use in the Sanskrit
language since very ancient times, and has been referred to at several
places in the Vedic literature. It is said in the Atharvaveda that the
activities in the body are based on prana and apana. The same text at
another place has compared the relation of prana with the world of
living beings to that of a father with his son,declaring that "prana is
the fundamental basis of whatever is, was, and will be". The word
"Pranayama", however seems to be of a later origin. Read more on Yoga classes. Check out for home remedies and pilates workouts. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Robin_Brain |
