What Is Pranayama? The State Of Existence
In western society, the expression, pranayama has become synonymous with the breathing exercises taken during the physical practice of yoga. In Indian philosophy, pranayama is the art of breathing and the practice of training the superconscious mind.
According to the yogis of India, by using the exercise of pranayama to train the will, it is possible to connect to higher vibrations of energy and light that appear in the mind as thought. The yogi tells us that we all have this power within us, but because we are not aware of the inherent powers in prana we do not breathe wisely.
The fundamental meaning of pranayama taught by yoga teachers is the control of the breath. The correct meaning of pranayama taught by qualified yogis is the ability to expand your energy and connect with the creative forces of cosmic energy.
The word pranayama derives from the ancient Sanskrit words, Prana, meaning energy, and ayam or ayama, which means expansion. The expansion of the individual into the All. Breath is energy, and so is everything else – including Mind.
Quantum physicists are beginning to understand, Mind has the ability to influence matter. The double-slit experiment determined that wave functions can be altered by thought. The suggestion rocked the scientific community and it remains divided and undecided more than 60 years later.
There are some schools of thought, especially among yogis who have known this secret for thousands of years, that consciousness has an intelligence which interacts with fine energies around it. Prana is composed of the finest energies and essentially our minds creates the experiences we have.
Prana – the creative vibration
Swami Vivekananda wrote: “the name of the energy in the universe is Prana, which is the force residing in these [primal] elements. Mind is the great instrument for using Prana.”
In other words, prana is the energy that creates everything in the Universe. But how does prana know what to create. That says Vivekananda is determined by consciousness. In man, consciousness, or soul, is called the atman and has a limited intelligence to direct prana.
The natural beauty we see all around is energy and consciousness working without limitations. Most things in nature does not have a subconscious mind programmed to distort experiences in the way man does. In nature, beauty ensues.
Man also has the capacity to create beauty when focusing on thoughts and feelings of love. But all too often our destructive tendencies rise to the surface and we feel hate, resentment, jealousy and other fear-based emotions that create destructive forces.
Nature that is simply being is automatically connected to Brahman, considered by ancient Sanskrit writers as the absolute consciousness from which all life is formed. Brahman is the superconscious mind to which the human mind can also be connected with through learning the sacred science of pranayama.
Social psychology tells us that all knowledge is learned from experience. They totally dismiss intuition as a supernatural power and come to the conclusion that whatever is beyond the five senses must also be learned.
But what about the times when you think of someone just before they phone. Or you get a feeling something is going to happen right before it happens. That is an experience that is not learned. That is intuition.
Intuition is a faculty of Mind that works on a higher level and connects the three planes of subconscious, conscious, and superconscious.
The three planes of consciousness
The plane of conscious does not need any explanation. This is the thoughts we have on a daily basis and are (mostly) aware of. The subconscious mind records our experiences and remind us of them from time to time or when we need them. This is as far as social psychology goes.
The superconscious mind is what is known in Hinduism as Akasa. The American “mystic” Edgar Cayce, known as the sleeping prophet, used a similar term which he called the Akashic Library.
The Akasa is essentially the store of energy in the electromagnetic field to which everything is connected. It has been called in various fields of science as the ‘Collective Unconscious’ (Carl G Jung), and the Morphogenetic field (Rupert Sheldrake).
Everything that happens is recorded by the Mind of the Cosmic Intelligence and floats in the ether for anybody to tap into it. But energy works like a radio transmitter or smartphone. You have to be connected to the right frequency to connect to it.
People that vibrant on a low frequency will only connect to energies that were produced by equals throughout time that were also vibrating on low vibrational wavelengths. The same rule applies to higher vibrations.
Thus if you have a philosophical question about life, the answer will come to you automatically as a thought if you are vibrating on the same frequency philosophers from the past. Otherwise you will happen upon it in a book, notice the answer there and comprehend it. This is the slow process of learning.
Conscious control of pranayama is the direct way to transcend the mortal mind and disconnect from the sensory perceptions that bind us to the material plane. The process of breathing correctly, rhythmically, attunes the body to automatically adjust itself to thought; thought is clarified and the ability to concentrate is mastered.
Concentration is another faculty of mind we must master in order to create. Everything we do, including thinking, channels energy. If you are easily distracted and throwing thoughts all over the place, you are spreading jewels without choosing one to cherish and keep.
Where your focus goes, energy flows.
Vivekananda said mental healing is a proof of the superconscious state. Thought which heals is a vibration that can only be learned by practicing pranayama. During meditation, focusing on the breathe is a proven technique for practitioners to focus on the body. But it is the will of conscious thinking that directs prana that is the cure.
Prana is the fabric of creation and breath, awareness and existence are the tools that bind these finest of energies together. When the flow of breath is unimpeded, when your awareness is not distracted and when your existence has an intention, you create whatever the mind can perceive. You can love. You can heal. Pranayama, at its highest state of existence is love.
