Yoga for Health, Happiness and World Peace-6. Sri Swami Chidananda

07/03/2018

So, on one side, it is connected with the body because it dwells in the body, pervades the entire body, and so changing conditions of the body affect the Prana. On the other side, it is connected with the mind. It is the movement of Prana that brings about the movement of the thought process in the mind. If you can arrest Prana, your mind also becomes arrested for the time being.

For example, if you want to avoid distraction when you are intently working upon some problem, or you want to have your hand very steady when you are engaged in doing some very minute work, such as repairing a switchboard or some electronic device, you want all concentration; you will find that your breathing automatically stops.

Breathing is arrested when one wants total focussing of attention, or wants absolute steadiness in the concentrated work to be done. Breathing becomes subtle first and at the exact point when you are about to do that very subtle thing, automatically unconscious stopping of one’s breath occurs.

In this way, the breathing is the outer manifestation of the inner subtle Prana within our body and therefore it is, remotely, indirectly connected to the inner Prana. The breath in the nostrils is not Prana. It is the resulting effect of Prana. It is called Svasa. Breath is Svasa.

The inner triggering factor is Prana. And we may liken their relationship to the relationship between a hairspring of a watch or a time piece or a clock in the pre-quartz days and the minute hand on the face of the clock or the dial of the watch or time piece. It is the movement of the hairspring that makes the minute hand go round once in every sixty minutes of the dial.

So, the minute hand is like the breath in the nostril and the hairspring is like the Prana. If the hairspring stops, the minute-hand stops. But, vice-versa, if you put your hand and arrest the movement of the minute hand, after a little while, gradually, the movement of the hairspring will start stopping. Ultimately it will stop. The ticking will stop and the whole clock will come to a standstill.

Yo be continued ...