T-Ph26 explores prana as life force and energy and examines how this single vital force manifests within the human system as the five vayus: prana, apana, samana, udana and vyana.
Prana is commonly associated with breath, but breath is only one expression of it. BKS Iyengar describes prana as the energy that permeates existence at every level: physical, mental, intellectual and spiritual. Heat, light, vitality, movement and life itself are expressions of this underlying force. Prana therefore precedes our study of pranayama. Before asking how the breath is regulated, we need to enquire into what it is that is being regulated.
Iyengar writes:
“Prana is usually translated as breath, yet this is only one of its many manifestations in the human body.”
He goes on to describe the five prana-vayus as “specific aspects of one vital cosmic force”. Light on Pranayama, Chapter 3.
This subject begins with prana as a universal and individual life force and gradually differentiates its movements within us. Prana receives and sustains; apana releases and stabilises; samana digests and integrates; udana raises and expresses; vyana pervades and distributes. These are not five separate energies. They are five functions or directions of one energy.
The subject then considers the close relationship between prana and citta. The condition of our energy affects the condition of consciousness, just as agitation in the mind alters the breath. Pranayama becomes significant not because it teaches us simply to breathe more deeply, but because it gives us a means to encounter, regulate and refine the life force.
The subject is presented in five parts and includes readings, extracts and quotations from BKS Iyengar and other material within the Iyengar tradition. Students are encouraged not simply to consume the material but to return to it repeatedly. Read before practice, practise, then return to the reading and see whether experience changes your understanding.
