28 The Classical Pranayamas - ICYER

1 1 THE EIGHT Classical Pranayamas By Kalaimamani Yogacharini Yogamani Smt MEENAKSHI DEVI BHAVANANI Director International Centre for Yoga Education and Research ( ICYER ) Kottakuppam, Tamil Nadu, India - 605 104 Yoga Vidya, the science of Yoga, was traditionally kept secret. This secrecy had a two-fold purpose: to protect the sanctity of the Science from the profane mind and to protect the profane mind from the power of this science. Our sages realised that this knowledge was like a fire, which could, if properly used, transform the practitioner. However, it could also burn and destroy those not skilled or evolved enough to use it wisely. Just as a small child is protected from and warned about the danger of fire till he matures enough to understand its use, so also the immature spiritual seeker is protected from higher knowledge till he has the skill to use it wisely.

2 Classical Yoga Vidya was always taught in an intimate Guru-Chela relationship. From the mouth of the Guru to the ear of the student. Sacred teachings were not written down thousands of years ago. Instead, they were orally transmitted, then memorised, and then, actualized and realised. Rishi Valmiki is acclaimed as the Adhi Kavi, or the First Poet. He wrote the RAMAYANA in a style known as Shlokas. This masterpiece of spiritual instruction, perhaps written seven thousand years ago, was an epic of heroic nature, encompassing the spiritual values of the ancient Sanathana Dharma culture within the story of the life of Lord Rama, King of Ayodhya, and his wife Queen Sita.

3 Rishi Veda Vyasa, who is thought to have lived about five thousand years ago, was the real Codifier of the culture, ethos, life style, spiritual values and spiritual heritage of the race of people now known as the Hindus. He organised, wrote down, and systematized the Vedas, the Puranas, and the Upanishads. He composed the great epic MAHABHARATA, within which the great jewel of sparking spiritual illumination, THE BHAGAVAD GITA, is contained. All these great spiritual heritages are illumined with the spiritual attitudes of Yoga, in the highest definition of the word- Union of the individual soul (Jiva) with the Highest (Paramatma) . However, specific references to Yoga as a methodical, systematic approach to cultivating the spiritual experience occur for the first time in an extensive manner in the Yoga Sutras of Maharishi Patanjali, which is dated about 600-800 by Hindu Scholars.

4 Western Scholars often put Patanjali s date much later. Patanjali used only 196 Sutras (very short, anagrammatic statements) to codify the whole process of the Yoga Science. Yet, his work is not a manual of instructions. It is only a very subtle reminder of principles, which would already have been grasped by those who heard or read his work. Only those already initiated into the concepts and practices of Yoga would be able to understand what he had written. HATHA YOGA PRADIPIKA authored by Swatmarama Suri, is one of the oldest extant written texts of practical instructions on Hatha Yoga and Raja Yoga practices in Sanskrit. 2 Yet, it is dated only about 500 to 800 years ago.

5 Even this text is highly ambiguous in its description and obviously, is not intended to be an instruction manual. It is more or less a compilation of concepts, designed to order the knowledge and to hint at its practice. Swatmarama Suri clearly assumed that those studying this text would be under the guidance of a Guru. In fact he often cautions: These practices should be kept secret .. and These techniques should be practiced only under the guidance of a Guru. His work was definitely no substitute for contact with a living Master. As he says in the first Verse of Chapter Two, which is devoted to pranayama : The Yogi, having perfected himself in the Asanas, should practice pranayama according to the instruction of his Guru, with his senses under control, conforming to a moderate and beneficial diet.

6 After describing general pranayama techniques and the Shat Karmas, the Six Acts of Cleansing (Dhauti, Basti, Neti, Trataka, Nauli and Kapalabhati) he explains the eight Pranayamas . He normally uses the word Kumbhaka to describe pranayama . The eight Kumbhakas according to Swatmarama Suri are: Surya Bhedana, Ujjayi, Sitkari, Sitali, Bhastrika, Brahmari, Murccha and Plavini. Many modern devotees of Yoga, hampered by the lack of contact with a living Guru, forced to pick up bits and pieces of Yogic knowledge whenever they can find it, or gleaning information from modern Yoga books, are severely handicapped in their Sadhana by a misunderstanding of the scope of pranayama .

7 Many modern practitioners believe that there are only eight Classical Pranayamas , and base their arguments on the text HATHA YOGA PRADIPIKA, which is, after all, a recent text in the context of the tens of thousands of years of the Hindu spiritual, cultural and Yogic experience. Yogamaharishi Dr. Swami Gitananda Giri Guru Maharaj, one of the leading authorities of Ashtanga Yoga in the twentieth century, and the lineage holder of the Bengali Tantric Yoga tradition passed to him by his Guru Yogamaharishi Swami Kanakananda Brighu, taught 120 pranayama techniques. Ancient Sanskrit sources proclaim that pranayama is a holy science leading to inner spiritual development.

8 Prana is the fundamental basis of whatever is, was, and will be. (Atharvaveda XI, IV, 10:XI, IV, 15) pranayama is a technique bringing under control all that is connected with Prana (Vital Force). (Vishnu Puranam, VI, VII, 40) Whatever our source, the ancient Rishis all agree that there is a vital energy called Prana , and that it can be controlled, Ayama. The science of this control is pranayama . In Yoga it is demonstrated that man has at least five bodies, the Pancha Kosha, of which the second body is the Pranamaya Kosha. This Pranamaya Kosha is the Vital Body, the dynamic, or the sheath composed of breath-life. pranayama must be understood as a science of more than breath control.

9 This science may begin with techniques regulating the breath, but later, it leads to much more subtle Prakriyas than the simple regulation of air. Ordinary day-to-day breathing by the Jiva, or soul, embodied in an Annamaya Kosha, the physical body, is largely an automatic process governed by the lower brain, the reptilian complex. In Yoga pranayama the breathing function is taken over by the higher brain, the Neo-Cortex, which is used by the conscious mind. Both autonomic and conscious breath have two distinct aspects : one, which is termed as outer respiration and the other, as inner respiration. The terms Bahira for outer , and Antara for inner respiration are used by 3 Yogis to explain the difference between autonomic and conscious breath.

10 In this sense they take on an additional esoteric meaning and value. For the neophyte, the practice of Yoga begins with the control of the breathing mechanism and the crude aspects of respiration or moving air in and out of the lungs, while the inner aspects of pranayama become a concern only for the advanced Yogi. THREE CLASSIFICATIONS OF pranayama According to Yogamaharishi Dr. Swami Gitananda all pranayama may be classified into three divisions. 1. YOGA Pranayamas , the ADHAMAS. These Pranayamas are basically physical breath exercises or controls for correcting breathing difficulties, which may interfere with normal good health and the development of higher phases of Yoga.