August 2020 Newsletter from Srivatsa Ramaswami--Breadth of Breath

[Srivatsa Ramaswami]

August 2020 Newsletter from Srivatsa Ramaswami-- Breadth of Breath

Confined to home, I decided to try teaching 'On Line". I had three programs hosted by Yoga Vahini on three Sundays during July. One was complete (132 paras) chanting of Suryanamaskatra/Arunam as the participants performed 32 namaskaras one each at the end of each Anuvaka or section. The following Sunday was teaching Vinyasakrama through the Tadasana sequence. On 26th Sunday all tried to do 10 different pranayamas-- Chandra bheda, surya bheda, nadishodhana, sitali, ujjayi, anulma ujjayi, pratiloma ujjayi, viloma ujjayi, bhastrika and samantra pranayama.  

On 30th I started an eight-day total 20 hr program on Yoga Yagnyavalkya, a text taught by Sri Krishnamacharya. This on line program is hosted by

Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

In August another on line program on Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is scheduled. It starts on August 19th for 8 days. It is being hosted by     Anantayoga & Ayurveda Wicklow  in Ireland. More than 130 people had marked "interested" for the program on the facebook announcement. Where are they? ff some are still interested,  please contact Liz Richards at        anantayo...@gmail.com. 

For more details of the program, here is the link

https://www.anantayogastudio.com/workshops/yoga-sutras-of-patanjali-online-course-with-srivatsa-ramaswami-aug-19-27th/

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Breadth of Breath

We many times talk of depth of breathing. Take a deep breath and then proceed, it is said. The yogis have long been fascinated by breath control. Many contemporary yogis talk about pranayama as deep breathing. Here let us consider breadth of breath as an aspect of pranayama or pranayama itself. 

prANAyAma is a samasa made up of two words prAna and AyAma.

What is PrANa?  Sri Krishnamacharya would define it as follows

प्रकर्षेण अनति गच्छति इति प्राण (paraksrshena anati gacchati iti prANa). Prana is the innate force that makes the body act or move. Without prana the body can do nothing as we all know So it amounts to saying that prana is the lifeforce. There is an interesting episode in prasna upanishad

Once the gods of the senses started arguing among themselves who among them was great--the eyes ears or any of the other indriyas. Prana attempted to intervene but the others subbed it and continued with their fight  They expressed their powers and proclaimed that they are the ones who protect and support the body.

The life-force, the praana, told them (the above referred deities) thus: “do not get carried away. Indeed, it is me, having divided myself into the five controlling forces, who supports and protects the body.”

To illustrate and drive home its point, the life-force, the praana, started to move out of the body. As it started out, the other five sensory forces started moving out of the body. And they all returned with their power and potency as soon as the praana entered the body again.  Having learnt by experience and understood the importance of the praana over themselves, the five sensory forces started accepting, appreciating and praising the praana. The samkhyas consider the prana which divides into five functional entitis like prna apana vyana udana and samana call them as the innate activity ( samanya karana vrittih) of  the citta or brain. Vachaspati Misra while commenting on the Vyasa Bhasya of the Yoga sutra refers to innate life activity as prayatna . He calls the innate activity of the life force as prayatna or effort and calls it the sustainer of the body as without it the body would collapse. साम्सिद्धिका हिि प्रयत्नः शरोर धारकः। (samsiddhika hi prayatnaH shariradharakaH)

The life force, prana divides itself into five smaller forces and the one that is associated with respiration is also known as prana as the root 'ana' also means to breathe (ana svAse). By bringing this prana under control through pranayama the yogi is able to bring the other aspects of life foce of prana as apana vyana udana and saman vayus as well. 
 

What is meant by AyAma (आयाम). It is yAma (याम) with a prefix Aw (आ). yAma comes from the root yam to control like in yama, one of the eight aspects of yoga. yAma would mean something confined or in a span, a time span. Actually, the word yAma is used to indicate a certain limited amount of time. In the context of pranayama it would refer to the breadth of the breath. Then the prefix would mean extending or in fact extending to its limit (Aw samanthat or Aw would mean up to the end. So pranayama is an activity and state in which the prana is extending to the maximum limit consistent with one's capacity. It would also mean extending one's span or breadth of breath

What is the breadth of breath. Take the case of someone under respiratory stress say like bronchial asthma. The person has almost no control over the breath. Normally, Breath is both under voluntary and involuntary control. In the case of breathing distress (prana avastha) ,  there is no voluntary control and the patient helplessly puts up with the uncontrolled respiratory distress. The breath span is very low. Then let us take the case of someone at rest, a couch potato. The person will be breathing at the rate of about 15 to 18 times per minute, taking in and out about 500 ccs of air as against the capacity of about 5 liters. When exercising, the breath rate may increase and with vigorous exercise the span may come down considerably. Now Yoga comes in. Let us take the case of someone who practices yogasanas following vinyasakrama. Here the abhyasi brings the breath under some voluntary control. Usually in vinyasaktama the yogi coordinates the movements with the breath--langhanakriya during contraction of the limbs and brahmanakriya during expansion or stretching of the limbs. The breath may be extended to about 5 seconds for more for each inhalation and exhalation and breadth of breath extends from the usual 4 seconds span to about 5 or 6 breaths per minute or 10 to 12 seconds span. This becomes possible by bringing the mind to closely coordinate the movements with the breath a significant voluntary control of breath. 

Then there are those who practice pranayama by including stopping the breath after inhalation and exhalation. True to the yoga they practice, Hatayoga, they try to bring the prana more and more under voluntary control by practicing well-structured pranayama. By bringing the kumbhakas to play and also making their inhalations longer and smoother they increase the breadth of their breath to easily half a minute. Many yogis easily increase the breath span to even one per minute for a number of breaths, say 10 times to even 80 times. Yogis like my guru Krishnamacharya would make use of pranayama to access all the internal organs like the heart. and with associated bandhas and mudras, also the abdominal and visceral organs thereby bringing the whole body under control. He says in his book "Nathamuni's Yoga Rahasya that one's health is maintained by maintaining the health of the important 6 kosas or internal organs. And the key is pranayama.

Now let us get to some stories about yogis achieving extra ordinary feats with breath control. There are yogis -it is said- that can hold the breath to be under water or a closed pit for a long period of time. But the yogi according to Yagnyavalkya would, when he/she realizes that it is time to leave the body collects the pranas, arouses Kundalini, directs prana through the sushmna nadi and chanting Om in the mind directs the prana to leave the body through the brahma randhra and merge the individual prana with the jagat prana or universal life force. With that the breadth of prana attains infinity never to be associated with birth and death. Breath and its breadth management have been a fascinating subject for the yogis.