by Darren Main
In order to do this, we need to provide a big enough container to hold the life force. In Chapter Three I discussed the 72,000 nadis and the seven major chakras which carry prana throughout the body. I also talked about the idea that these nadis and chakras can get blocked with mental and emotional baggage causing illness, dysfunction and fatigue. Therefore, pranayama is used first to clear these blockages and then to fill our container.
The practice of pranayama does this very effectively because it is specifically designed to clear the nadis and flood them with life force. This improves our physical stamina, our mental focus and our emotional well being. In so doing it opens the path to spiritual evolution.
Durga Pranayama
The first step in creating a deep and rich pranayama practice is to learn to deepen the breath. The primary technique for doing this is durga pranayama. This technique seeks to maximize the capacity of the lungs so that we have a system that is filled with life force.
Most people don’t breathe deeply at all. In fact, many people use only one fifth of their lung capacity. Most of us are aware that we have two lungs, but our awareness of just how big those lungs are, and the anatomy of the lungs, remains very much a mystery. The lungs extend from the bottom edge of the rib cage to just under the clavicle (collarbone). They also reach quite deeply from front to back. This makes for a lot of room for inhalation and exhalation.
Another fact that surprises many people is that the two lungs are not the same. The right lung has three lobes or compartments whereas the left lung has only two. This is to allow space for the heart on the left side of the body. Although we have separate compartments within our lungs, we tend to only use one lobe per lung at a time. This is a very inefficient use of potential.
This is why we start any pranayama practice by learning to use the lungs fully and completely. The primary technique for doing this is durga pranayama, which is frequently called “the complete breath.” In durga pranayama, we very consciously fill all the lobes of the lungs and very purposefully empty them.
In doing this technique, we accomplish two very important things. First, we bring vast amounts of prana into the body, flooding the nadis with life force. This doesn’t remove the blockages in those nadis per se, but it does start things moving again. It is like a good hard rain that fills a dry creek bed. It may not remove all the twigs and brush, but it is an essential first step to moving things through.
The second thing this complete breath does is to exchange apana for prana. Apana is often referred to as the “downward breath” and is associated with the exhalation. Because its function is to evacuate toxins, it is often confused with something that is bad. This is a very unfortunate perception. Apana is the counterpoint to the breath of life. Without the sunset, we could not have the sunrise. Without low tide we could not have high tide, and without apana, we could not have prana.
In addition to prana and apana there are three other breaths in the body collectively known as the five vayus or five breaths. These include samana vayu, udana vayu and vyana vayu. Although there are five vayus total, the prana and apana vayus are the most significant.
Apana is the essential part of the breath that releases emotional, mental and physical toxins from the system and makes room for new life to enter the system. This is why it is essential to exhale completely. When we only half exhale, we don’t release all of that toxic energy, and we don’t make space for the next inhalation to fill the body. This creates a subconscious but very real sense of suffocation and lack.
To try dirga pranayama, exhale completely. As you inhale, bring the breath slowly down to the bottom of the lungs so that the belly puffs out a bit. As the lower part of the lungs fill, bring the breath up into the middle section of the lungs and then to the top of the lungs near the collarbone. When you exhale, do it in reverse order by releasing from the top, then the middle, and finally the bottom of the lungs. Although this is a very deep breath, it is not forceful. Try to make the breath slow and mindful. If you can, close your eyes and do this ten times and notice how much different you feel.
Ujjayi Pranayama
Filling the body with oxygen and prana is only the first step, however. Learning to direct the flow of life force consciously is the next step, and this is most often accomplished through ujjayi pranayama. Ujjayi pranayama is often referred to as the ocean breath or the sounding breath, though I like to refer to it as the “Darth Vader breath” because of the hissing sound that is created.
Ujjayi pranayama is practiced by slightly engaging the throat muscles which enables the yogi to direct that particular breath to any area of the body. This type of breath is frequently used in conjunction with hatha yoga poses. By opening up an area of the body, and related nadis and chakras, in a pose and then directing the ujjayi pranayama to the area being opened, a direct flow of prana is brought to that area. This can be likened to a water pick used on the teeth. The water pick sprays a stream of water onto and between the teeth to remove food and plaque. In ujjayi pranayama we are directing a stream of prana to a given area to help rinse away energetic ‘plaque’. [One of the three basic locks or bandhas is located at the throat and is called jalandhara-bandha. When one practices ujjayi pranayama, jalandhara-bandha is slightly engaged. The other two locks are called mula bandha (the root lock) which is located at perineum, and uddiyana bandha (upward lock) which is located at the abdomen. All three locks are used to support the body in asanas (poses) and to control the flow of prana.]
Kapalabhati Pranayama
While the direct flow of prana is very effective in blasting away some energetic impurities, it is not always enough. This is where kapalabhati pranayama is implemented. This technique is frequently referred to as the breath of fire, or the skull polishing breath.
In kapalabhati breathing, the diaphragm muscle at the base of the lungs is willfully pulled toward the spine, forcing all the air from the lungs. As the diaphragm relaxes, the lungs are naturally filled with air. This is generally repeated in fairly rapid succession, creating little puffs of air by an action similar to a bellows. The effect is to push prana throughout the entire energy body. The technique can be likened to the use of a plunger on a clogged drain. Within the plumbing of our energy body, there can be large blockages that will not move easily. Using kapalabhati pranayama is like taking a plunger to those clogs and using the pumping action to free the blockages.
A second benefit of kapalabhati pranayama is that it helps to waken the kundalini energy at the base of the spine. It is like gently nudging the sleeping serpent, encouraging her to wake up and begin her ascent up the spine.
While most of the early stages of yoga focus on teaching us to deepen the breath as much as possible, the more advanced pranayama techniques often include regulating the breath in some way. The practice of regulating the breath is called kumbhaka or breath retention. This breath retention involves regulating the pace of the breath, and at times holding the breath in or out. Given the amount of attention I have just paid to breathing deep and slow, this may seem like a contradiction, but it is the next logical step in the pranayama practice. The breath is much more than a physical act. It is the core of who we are, and it is the place where spirit and matter come together.
When we really uncover all our judgments, ego projections and energetic blocks, we find that they all spring from one basic delusion: the delusion that we are separate and finite. Our natural response to this belief is fear—both the fear of death and the fear of life. These fears are encompassed in the breath, and as a result, we most often breathe from the ego.
By learning to regulate the breath and hold it peacefully, we free the mind from the constant control of the ego and create space for the Sadguru to take over. Of course, this means we walk headfirst into our deepest fears and most cherished judgments. This is why preparation is recommended before we are taught more advanced techniques, such as analome valome [see glossary] and kumbhaka. Breaking through that primal fear is a big undertaking and o
ne that should only be taken in a safe environment and with an experienced teacher. Nevertheless, these advanced techniques offer the urban mystic very real tools for finding liberation.
More than any other technique offered in yoga, our learning how to use the breath consciously gets us in touch with our spiritual nature. It is the key that unlocks the door to the hidden realm of the soul. Cultivating a rich pranayama practice provides the urban mystic with a major stepping-stone on the journey through the eight limbs.
Chapter Nine
Pratyahara • Sense Withdrawal
Pleasures conceived in the world of the senses have a beginning and an end and give birth to misery. . . The wise do not look for happiness in them.
—The Bhagavad Gita 5:22
The World We See
The yogi in samadhi knows neither heat nor cold, misery nor happiness, honor nor dishonor.
—Hatha Yoga Pradipika 4:111
Most of us look out at our lives and see a world that seems cruel sometimes and kind at other times. We see a world filled with pain and joy. Sometimes this world seems fair, and at other times very unfair, and, depending on what we see in our world, we decide what our experiences are going to be. In fact, most of the time we are searching outside ourselves for a situation that will improve our mood or enhance our attitude.
The problem with all this searching is that the seeds of unhappiness and discontent are not planted in an external garden. They are planted in the field of our individual and collective minds. All suffering begins at the level of the mind; therefore the only logical place where we can alleviate suffering is in the mind. Seeking outside for a solution to suffering is a guarantee that peace and contentment will remain elusive because the problem does not lie within the external circumstances.
Allowing yourself to continue to search outside your mind for the right set of circumstances is like planting an apple seed and hoping to see a banana tree grow. The seeds that are planted in our consciousness are the seeds that will bear fruit in our lives. Yet most people new to the spiritual path look around them and see all sorts of reasons why they cannot be content and at peace.
It seems to be the money, the relationship, the family, or the state of affairs in the world that prevent a person from finding peace. The ego would have us cling to these external things which it holds up as proof that happiness can only be experienced in brief glimpses. Still the search goes on and on in an endless pursuit.
Yoga seeks to completely invert this way of thinking. This may seem like an extreme statement, but actually it is quite logical. All our suffering originates in the mind, and gets projected outward. Logically then, it is the mind that needs to be changed. The only way to do this is to bring our attention inward. This inward focus is completely opposite to what the ego would have us do.
Pratyahara, the fifth limb of yoga, is where we begin to do this. Pratyahara is the practice of withdrawing the senses and pulling our attention inward. Most of us have been projecting outward for so long, we don’t even know we’re doing it. Our eyes, ears, nose, mouth and hands seem like peepholes that report what is on the outside, but they are really the ego’s tools for projecting everything outward.
This outward projection is the primary way that the ego ensures we remain deluded. Only the truly numb can deny that we are all searching for something. As long as we deny our true nature, we will feel within us an emptiness that is intolerable. This desire to search is the most natural thing, and it is the unavoidable result of believing that we are not whole. If there must be a search, the ego compromises it has us search where we will never find what we are looking for.
I often compare the practice of pratyahara to fly-fishing. In fly-fishing, the angler casts the line out and then reels it back in almost as soon as it touches the water. This ongoing process of casting out and reeling back is like the practice of pratyahara, in that the ego is always casting the mind out and the spirit is always reeling it back in.
Once we realize that allowing the mind to be distracted by outside things is the way the ego keeps us in bondage, it is tempting to get caught up in judgment. It is the nature of the ego to cast the mind out, just as the angler casts out his or her line. There is no doubt that this casting out of the mind will happen. Rather than judge this process, it is far more useful to return the mind within. Just as the angler understands that the process of casting out and reeling back is an ongoing process that will continue until the fishing is over, the spiritual seeker needs to understand that this process of constantly withdrawing the mind is a life-long process.
The Sense Organs and Spiritual Vision
When consciousness interiorize by uncoupling from external objects, the sense do likewise; this is called withdrawal of the senses.
—The Yoga Sutras 2:54
The other day I saw a billboard aimed at dispelling some of the myths about HIV and AIDS. Its caption simply read, “How do you know what you know?” The whole idea was that people make certain assumptions about HIV based on unproven facts and hearsay.
It occurred to me that this very simple question would make a great mantra to accompany the practice of pratyahara. So many times we see, hear or feel something, then filter that sensation through our perception and call it truth. The question, “How do you know what you know?” becomes very important when we realize that most of what we think we know is tainted by the ego and is therefore very delusional.
There is a Buddhist story of three blind men who are asked to describe an elephant. The first one feels the tail and says, “An elephant is like a snake.” The second one feels the elephant’s leg and says, “An elephant is like the trunk of a great tree.” The third one feels the ear and says, “An elephant is like a giant palm tree with large leaves.”
This is how the ego uses our senses. It allows us to cast the senses out and use them to take in half-truths and partial images. It then reconstructs these images to form a reality that proves its core belief in separateness. This process causes us to walk through life thinking we have a clear picture, but really we have a very deluded perception that keeps us holding fast to our individual and collective illusions.
In order to do this, the ego uses the sense organs. The sense organs are our eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin. They function as scanning devices that bring information about the outside world into the brain, where we can interpret and act on it. When used properly, these sense organs are very useful, and can be a great tool as we travel through the world. Far too often though, they become tools of the ego and actually work to keep us in bondage.
In the early stages of our yoga practice one of the primary functions of the practice of pratyahara is to gain a deeper awareness of the sense organs. It is not until we do this that we can begin to transcend them. Many of us have turned the sense organs over to the ego to such an extent that we have deadened them. We have built up such a tolerance for pain in our lives that we hardly realize just how much abuse the ego has been inflicting.
This is why the first step in a hatha yoga practice is to get people back into their bodies and into feeling what is happening there. A lot of times the early part of a new yoga practice is simply assessing the damage. Even though this can be a very exciting time in a person’s practice, it can also be overwhelming because all the sensations that the ego has been talking circles around come into full awareness.
For example, each time I eat greasy fried foods, my body responds with a stomachache, indigestion and lethargy. My sense organs are telling me something very important: namely that fried food is not good for me. But for a long time I ignored those messages. As I have learned to listen to my body, I find that I am happier and healthier without all that heavy food, and I choose to eat a healthier diet most of the time. Luckily, I learned to listen before that indigestion turned into heart disease, ulcers, cancer, or something similar.
The ego will use the sense organs (our natural body signals) to its own advantage. This is why so many people feel that eating ‘he
althy food’ is a sacrifice and ‘unhealthy food’ is a treat. Of course, it is not just food the way we drive, the air we breathe, and the way we feel when we spend too much time in front of the TV, are all examples of the ego at work.
Once we bring awareness back to our senses we can begin to transcend them and tap more and more into our spiritual vision. Transcending the sense organs is not about calling them bad. The sense organs are designed to bring us information about the physical universe, but they are not there to guide us spiritually. Transcending the sense organs is more about knowing what to use and when.
I sometimes compare spiritual vision to the Global Positioning System (GPS). The satellites that orbit our planet are far above the Earth and can therefore pinpoint our exact locations and construct maps to help us navigate. Communication is improved because the satellites are above the fray. Our spiritual vision works in much the same way. Using just the sense organs, we have a limited view of what lies ahead and where we are in relation to the bigger picture.
Many times, the sense organs and spiritual vision will agree. Once, when a friend and I were working on a project together, we had very different ways of making decisions. She is a very analytical person. If we were faced with a decision, she would do some market research or crunch some numbers. I, on the other hand, was more likely to pray and meditate and try to tap into my spiritual vision. She and I didn’t always agree on what direction to take, but a surprising amount of the time we did.