The Mirror of Yoga

by Richard Freeman

  Through a well-aligned āsana practice we begin to recognize that feelings and sensations are integrally connected to the breath. It is said that the mind and the inner breath move together like two fish swimming in tandem; when the mind moves in a particular pattern, the fish of the inner breath moves along with it through the core of the body, hitting deep sensations and feelings as it moves. Likewise, if that inner fish of the breath moves in a certain way, it stimulates or wakes up associated patterns of thought or imagination within the mind. The connection between these two fish forms a basic axiom that we use for yoga practice: the joining of opposites. One fish is called prāṇa, the inner breath. Prāṇa is the way we pattern sensations and feelings into recognizable forms. The other fish is called citta, or the mind. It is said that when either prāṇa or citta vibrates, the other does so equally. If we are able to become aware of the vibrations of either prāṇa or citta, or better yet if we can control one of them, then we have a handle on the other one. This relation between the mind and the breath is the most elemental trick, the “secret,” of the deep, bodily oriented practice called haṭha yoga because by shaping and stretching and thereby freeing the breath we can liberate the mind. Through haṭha yoga practices we can actually begin to identify the physiological processes that are at the root of our mind. Of course it is the mind that causes suffering, but the very same mind allows for liberation and freedom. By unlinking the physical patterns of breath that lie within our body from the antics of our mind, we can allow both body and mind to work more intelligently, and eventually, rather than perpetuating our own suffering, we can begin to make inroads into our release from suffering.

  The Triangle Pose (2)

  The triangle pose, trikoṇāsana, has many opposing structural movements and forces that come together to wake up a toned intelligence in the pelvic floor, the center of which is represented as a triangle in the tantric tradition. The internally rotating spiraling patterns radiate outward and are involved with prāṇa, which controls the inhaling breath. The externally rotating spiraling patterns contract back in toward the core and are associated with the apāna, which controls the exhaling breath. The prāṇa and the apāna are balanced, interfaced, and squeezed together to form the internal, meditative movement of the posture. The eyes become steady in soft gazing (dṛṣṭi) and the ears open to give space to all of the elements of the body. When the alignment of the posture is well tuned, it is easy to trace the central axis of the body on through the crown of the head, and the posture and its residue are conducive to deep meditation.

  The inner breath, the prāṇa, is considered to be the substratum of all sensation, feeling, and thought, the medium through which all experience within the body presents itself. There are many subdivisions of prāṇa that describe the wide range of its movements and patterns inside the body, but two are most important for our yoga practice: prāṇa and apāna. Prāṇa is the physical pattern of rising up, blossoming, and spreading out. Prāṇa’s direct opposite is the pattern of apāna, a downward, contracting, rooting movement. (Note that the word prāṇa is used to describe both the pattern of the inhaling breath as well as the general idea of inner breath, which can sometimes cause confusion.) If you imagine a tree, you can envision a similar system, with a joining of an expansive pattern (associated with prāṇa) and a grounding pattern (associated with apāna). The roots that reach down into the earth find the nutrients necessary for the growth and survival of the tree. Because of this rooting, this nourishment from the earth, the top of the tree has the capacity for expansion as the leaves and flowers of the tree are exposed to air, sunlight, and open sky. Without the stability and nutrients that the roots provide, the expansion at the top of the tree is not possible, and without the expression of life in the upper part of the tree, there is no point to the rooting; with no inspiration to grow, the desire to push through the soil and root is not stimulated. The two patterns need each other intimately. It is said that in the heart of prāṇa is apāna, and in the heart of apāna is prāṇa. They are like two lovers—yin and yang in the Chinese Taoist system—each in the heart of the other. Actually, they are inseparable. Similarly, we may separate the concepts of prāṇa and apāna in our mind in order to be able to think about them, to talk about them, and to experience them, but just as the roots and the top of a tree are divided only in order for our minds to be able to comprehend the different functions they serve, so too the prāṇa and the apāna are never truly separate.

  The apāna is believed to reside in the mūlādhāra cakra, which is located at the perineum, and it is said to wind itself up into a coil to be stored like a kernel or a seed at this central point of the pelvic floor. The prāṇa is thought to dwell at the core of the heart, or the anāhata cakra. It is possible to determine the character of the two aspects of breath and to feel their resting points within your own body by tracing the flow of your breath. The expansive, upward rising and spreading pattern of prāṇa, is experienced physically when we inhale. If you simply observe internally and watch the flow of the prāṇa as you take a full, slow, conscious in-breath, you will notice that the pattern begins down around the navel. Continuing the inhalation, there is a sense of rising and spreading that becomes full and wide as the expansion of the breath moves along the edges of the diaphragm. This spacious pattern increases, spreading and blossoming as it rises into the heart area, where it often stimulates the mind, causing us to wander off into the realm of thinking. There is a moment when the tree of the breath comes to full bloom at the top of the inhale, and then all of a sudden everything changes and the apanic pattern takes over. There is a gradual releasing of the breath, and the expansive sensations associated with prāṇa are replaced by feelings of drawing in to the core of the body, dropping, stability, and of being grounded as the exhale squeezes down and roots into the base of the pelvic floor, tethering body and mind to the earth. One helpful method of understanding the relationship between prāṇa and apāna is to think about the seasons. The beginning of the in-breath is like the start of spring, filled with the potential for new life and with plants budding and flowering trees filled with delicate leaves. As the blossoms or trees come to full bloom they are surrounded by excited bumblebees, and there is a great sense of optimism and potential for life. Then the season begins to shift: summer arrives and passes. As the fruit ripens and fall approaches, sap in the tree begins to come back into the trunk, and plants secure themselves into the earth, signaling the transition to a time when dropping roots deep down is of paramount importance. Leaves and flowers begin to fall off until by the dead of winter there are no leaves left, and all of the life force is buried deep in the ground. After some time, with the first signs of spring, bulbs break through frozen ground, the trees begin to wake up, and the first signs of sprouts appear at the end of the branches. This cyclical pattern of expansion into full bloom, followed by a rooting into the ground of what could be considered our awareness, is characteristic of the relation of the prāṇa and the apāna within our own bodies.

  The underlying process of haṭha yoga is to explore deeply this relationship of the inhale and the exhale; to discover the root of apāna in the prāṇa, and the expansion of prāṇa in the apāna. We do this initially by observing and cultivating opposite physiological patterns within the body. When we inhale and the expansive, blossoming pattern naturally manifests, we allow the awareness of mind to drop down to the root of the body and the breath, to the perineum, and beyond that to the legs and feet, which are extensions of the pelvic floor keeping us connected to the earth. Rather than becoming distracted by one of the metaphorical branches of the “tree” that is manifesting through the inhaling breath, we focus on the roots of the breath. Then as we exhale, when the pranic rooting pattern is naturally dominant and we may tend to become distracted by the serious quality of the exhale, we allow our mind to remain in the center of the heart so that we relish and maintain awareness of the essence of the flowering pranic pattern that is still within th
e body, until we reach the end of the exhale and begin the inhaling pattern anew. When we do not consciously experience the unity of the inhale and exhale we lose touch with the essential qualities of the pattern of each: as we exhale, we ignore the basic qualities of the inhaling pattern, and conversely as we inhale we lose touch with the characteristics of the exhaling pattern. The result is that at some point during the out-breath we close our heart, or during the in-breath we become overwhelmed by its expansive feeling so that we become completely ungrounded. This happens as a result of an attachment to or a repulsion for something we associate with one of the inherent patterns of the breath: a saṁskāra that is stirred by the feelings of either the flowering or the rooting pattern of breath. For this reason it is perfectly normal that as we exhale, a feeling of anxiety—an overwhelming sense that is akin to the fear of death—arises because the apanic pattern stimulates physical sensations associated with change and dissolution. At some point during the exhale it is quite common that the heart closes and all the physiological patterns of prāṇa within the body disappear. Conversely, when we inhale, at some point as the rising and spreading pattern extends out through the body, we may become overwhelmed by an aspect of the expansion so that we lose connection to our roots and the pranic pattern, and we float away. We become lost in our imagination because it is so stimulating at the top of the inhale. In yoga practice, whenever we are inhaling, we remain focused on staying grounded so as not to project a sense of essence and “thingness” out into the tips of the sensation tree of prāṇa. When we exhale we realize that the essence is in the core of the heart, so we allow the leaves and flowers of the tree of our breath to fall away without experiencing anxiety or fear in response to the apānic pattern of dissolution. Of course this is very simply said and much more difficult to actually do, but it sums up the essence of what we are cultivating within the study of haṭha yoga even as we practice the āsana.

  The uniting of the ends of the breath is also the underlying process of a prāṇāyāma practice, which, along with āsana, is a foundational form of practice within haṭha yoga. Prāṇāyāma could be explained as various techniques for breathing that consciously join prāṇa and apāna as a means of freeing the inner breath so that it can unfold into its true liberated state. Bringing awareness to the breath through a prāṇāyāma practice, consciously working to maintain awareness within the transitions of the inhale and the exhale, and learning to stretch the breath, is essential within the haṭha yoga tradition. It is said that the severing of prāṇa and apāna is the experience of death and that yoga is the opposite of death; it is the conscious joining of prāṇa and apāna. With a great deal of practice, in particular while doing the yoga postures, we learn to observe the in-breath as an integral part of the out-breath, and the exhale as inherent to the inhale, so that through consistent practice we eventually experience physically how the intertwining and the interplay of these two breathing patterns affect the entire structure of the body and the mind.

  Eventually we are able to take the essence of the apānic pattern, that of grounding, and draw it up along the central axis of the body into the roots of our navel. At the same time we are able to connect with the prāṇic pattern, the flowering centered at the core of the heart, and we can press that pattern down into the roots of the navel. We learn to consciously join prāṇa and apāna where they meet, causing an ignition of awareness in the plane of the navel, which then creates an experience of intense inner heat and ecstasy. Some consider this to be the primary initiation into the inner world of yoga practice. This is why the patron saint of haṭha yoga, Gaṇeśa, the elephant-headed god who symbolizes the awakened kuṇḍalinī, has a big belly. In fact, as can be seen in illustrations of Gaṇeśa, his entire body represents the processes of haṭha yoga. He has a huge belly, and wrapped around his navel is a cobra, and right at that navel point the heads of the multiheaded cobra are opening and lifting, symbolizing the joining of prāṇa with apāna. Gaṇeśa’s lower belly is scooped out, way down underneath the cobra, in order to pull the apāna up into the roots of the navel, and his belly has expanded so much that it is as if a flower—the pranic pattern—had initiated its bloom at the base of his navel as well. Gaṇeśa’s hips are extremely open, and he is extraordinarily grounded and solid, indicating that the rooting apānic pattern is well established. His elephant head has an exceptionally long nose—for the practice of prāṇāyāma—and his large ears facilitate listening so that he can hear pure sound in the deepest meditation, the most profound samādhi. Gaṇeśa is also known to have a fantastic sense of humor and is considered to be the intelligence itself. His extreme bodily form is a lesson in not taking the metaphors that describe the yogic process too literally. After all, who really has an elephant head? So Gaṇeśa is laughing with us at the silliness of our own minds: that we grasp onto images and onto myths, that we hold on to as idols our very means of understanding. He laughs along with us that we take these symbols literally when their metaphorical value is so much more profound and rich than their literal representations could ever be.

  When we open and unfold both body and mind through haṭha yoga we connect with our “yogic body,” which can take on many forms and which is actually quite imaginary. In fact, contemplating imagery within the body or even thinking about what a subtle state of body might feel like is a great way to begin working into the more subtle, internal aspects of yoga. For instance, you can imagine channels of breath like bright tubes opening up from one central channel into branches that then return into a single central tube within the core of your body. This is a common image, taught to help practitioners connect with the flow of the inner breath. In haṭha yoga these imagined tubes are usually referred to as nāḍīs. Nāḍī means “little river.” For most of us, our small rivers of breath and energy are all clogged up. Some of the rivers flow just a little bit, others not at all, and some are flooding our system the entire time. In other words, the subtle flow of the breath throughout the body is not balanced. The nāḍīs become blocked by our saṁskāras, our old abstractions, thoughts, feelings, and desires. The physical patterning associated with these experiences—our habits of observation, the tapes that keep playing themselves over and over again within our mind—cause imbalanced flow and obstructions within the nāḍīs. These blockages are patterns of separation and of fear that serve to deaden the connection between the body and mind, and which cause the mind to become dull. This is a root cause of suffering. The goal of the process of haṭha yoga is simply to clean out whatever is impinging the currents of movement within the nāḍīs so that we can get an even and complete flow of breath and energy throughout the entire body, thus automatically awakening the natural intelligence that lies within.

  Different classical yogic texts refer to different numbers of nāḍīs; some say 72,000, others 100,000, and some even 300,000. It does not really matter how many there are (or whether, in fact, they are real or imagined), the point is that there are innumerable small rivers of breath throughout the body. All texts that mention nāḍīs give special importance to three of them in the practice of yoga: the iḍā, the piṅgalā and the suṣumnā nāḍīs. The iḍā is considered to be the moon channel, which is said to be cooling and calming and is accessible through the sensations in your left nostril. The piṅgalā, which is accessed through feelings in your right nostril, is considered to be the sun channel and is thought to be heating and energizing. From a yogic perspective, these two channels of the prāṇa are also associated with different states of mind, with the iḍā considered to be feminine, and the piṅgalā masculine. It is said that when you stimulate one of these two primary nāḍīs you experience characteristic moods and modes of thinking associated with the temperament of that side. The suṣumnā nāḍī is the empty channel, the hollow reed, right in the core of the body, and it can be accessed through what is called the “root of the palate.” Physiologically, the root of the palate begins in the soft palate located in the back of th
e roof of the mouth where the uvula hangs down. The root is like a cup immediately under the pituitary gland. To access the root of your palate you must first tune into and become aware of the roof of your mouth. If you could slide the tip of the tongue up along the back edge of the nasal septum, you would come to the area of this “root.” Sometimes, if you eat really fine food and fully experience the merging of flavor and aroma within the mouth, you automatically connect to the root of the palate. The connection also happens naturally when you have an experience of profound beauty, which can automatically connect you to the seed of aestheticism deep within, reflexively awakening the root of the palate. The link to this seed point within the body causes you to spontaneously smile in a very soft and subtle way—like the Mona Lisa. Yogic texts describe a beautiful, bright, endlessly extending flower called the sahasrāra, or the “thousand-petaled lotus,” originating at the roor of the palate and opening through and beyond the crown of the head. From the soft palate, back and up into the base of the sahasrāra is the gateway into the central channel. Here the three nāḍīs, the central staff of the suṣumnā, the iḍā (the moon channel), and the piṅgalā (the sun channel), form an image that is somewhat like the caduceus, the wand of Hermes in Greek mythology, which is entwined by serpents. Just as the snakes wrap around the caduceus of life and work their way around the staff in subtle, smooth motion, so too the opposing qualities of the breath and subtle body intertwine and have their resolution in the central axis.

  Kundalini-Chakra (3)