Pranayama !!

[Guest guest]

Great saint Vivekananda wrote :

 

Breathing exercises have been very popular in India from the most

ancient times, so much so that they form a part of their religion,

just as going to church and repeating certain prayers. I will try to

bring those ideas before you.

 

I have told you how the Indian philosopher reduces the whole universe

into two parts Akasha and Prana. Prana means force- all that is

manifesting itself as movement or possible movement, force or

attraction. Electricity, magnetism, all the movements in the body,

all the movements in the mind all these are various manifestations of

one thing called Prana. The best form of Prana, however is in the

brain manifesting itself as light of understanding. This light is

under the guidance of thought.

 

The mind ought to control every bit of Prana that has been worked up

in the body. The mind should have entire control of the body. That

is not the case with all. With most of us it is the other way. The

mind should be able to control every part of the body just at will.

That is reason, philosophy; but when we come to matters of fact, it

is not so. For you on the other hand, the cart is before the horse.

It is the body mastering the mind. If my finger gets pinched, I

become sorry. The body works upon the mind. If anything happens

which I do not like to happen, I am worried; my mind is thrown off

its balance. The body is master of the mind. We have become

bodies. We are nothing else but bodies just now.

 

Here comes the philosopher to show us the way out to teach, us what

we really are. You may reason it out and understand it

intellectually, but there is a long way between intellectual

understanding and the practical realisation of it. Between the plan

of the building and the building itself there is quite a long

distance. Therefore there must be various methods to reach the goal

of religion.

 

A little physical help will make the mind comfortable. What would

be more rational than to have the mind itself accomplish the thing?

But it cannot. The physical help is necessary for most of us. The

system of Raja-yoga is to utilise these physical helps, to make use

of the powers and forces in the body to produce certain mental

states, to make the mind stronger and stronger until it regains its

lost empire. By sheer force of will if anyone can attain to that so

much the better, But most of us cannot, so we will use physical means

and help the will on its way.

 

The whole universe is a tremendous case of unity in variety. There

is only one mass of mind. Different states of that mind have

different names. They are different little whirlpool in the ocean of

mind. We are universal and individual at the same time. Thus is the

play going on. In reality this unity is never broken. Matter, mind

and spirit are ONE.

 

All these are but various names. There is but one fact in the

universe, and we look at it from various stand-points. The same fact

looked at from one standpoint becomes matter. The same one from

another standpoint becomes, mind. There are not two things.

Mistaking the rope for the snake, fear came to a man and made him

call somebody else to kill the snake. His nervous system began to

shake; his heart began to beat faster. All these manifestations came

from fear and he discovered it was a rope. What even the senses see-

what we call matter-that too is the Real; only no as we have seen

it. The mind which saw the rope and took it for a snake was not

under a delusion. If it had been it would not have seen anything.

One thing is taken for another, not as something that does not

exist. What we see here is body and we take the infinite as matter.

We are but seeking that Reality. We are never deluded. We always

know truth only our reading of truth is mistaken at times. When I

see the rope the snake has vanished. It must be one thing.

 

When we see the world how can we see god? Think in your own mind.

What is meant by the world is god as seen as all things by our

senses. Here you see the snake; the rope is not. When you know the

spirit, everything else will vanish. When you see the spirit itself,

you see no matter because that which you called matter is the very

thing that is spirit. All these variations are super imposed by our

senses. The same sun reflected by a thousand little wavelets, will

represent to us thousands of little suns. If I am looking at the

universe with my senses, I interpret it as matter and force. It is

one and many at the same time. The manifold does not destroy the

unity. The millions of waves do not destroy the unity of the ocean.

It remains the same ocean. When you look at the universe remember

that we can reduce it to matter or to force. If we increase the

velocity the mass decreases. On the other hand we can increase the

mass and decreased the velocity. We may almost come to a point

where all the mass will entirely disappear.

 

Everything that has motion is included in Prana or force. It is this

prana which is moving the stars, sun moon.

 

All forces of nature, therefore, must be created by the universal

mind. And we as little bits of mind are taking out that prana from

nature working it out again in our own nature moving our bodies and

manufacturing our thoughts. If you think thought cannot be

manufactured stop eating for 24 days and see how you feel. Begin

today and count. Even thought is manufactured by food.

 

Control of this prana that is working everything, control of this

prana in the body is called pranayama. We see with our common sense

that it is the breath that is setting everything in motion. If I

stop breathing, I stop. If the breath begins, the body begins to

move. What we want to get at is not the breath itself; it is

something finer behind the breath.

 

There was once a minister to a great kind. The king displeased with

the minister, ordered him to be confined in the top of a very high

tower. This was done, and the minister was left there to perish.

His wife came to the tower at night and called him. The minister

said," No use weeping. Bring a little honey, a beetle a pack of fine

thread and a ball of twine and a rope. She tied the fine thread to

one of the legs of the beetle and put honey on the top of its nose

and let it go with its head up. The beetle slowly crept onwards in

the hope of reaching the honey, until at last it reached the top of

the tower, when the minister grasped the beetle and got possession of

the silken thread, then the twine, tied to thread and finally the

rope tied to twine. The minister descended from the tower by means

of the rope and made his escape. In this body of ours the breath

motion is the silken thread; by laying hold of it we grasp the pack

thread of the nerve currents and from these the stout twine of our

thoughts and lastly the rope of Prana controlling which we reach

freedom.

 

By the help of things on the material plane, we have to come to finer

and finer perceptions. The universe is one whatever point you

touch. All the points are but variations of that one point.

Throughout the universe is a unity. Even through such a gross thing

as breath I can get hold of the spirit itself.

 

(to continue....)