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The prana principle of yoga

YOGI ASHWINI.

Yoga is a subject of energy or prana, which manifests in various permutations and combinations to form every aspect of creation. Prana is ‘the force’ in the universe and permeates all; it’s also the life force in a human body. When Swami Nada Brahmananda smeared his body with wax and sustained himself in glass enclosure without air, food and water, it was proved that it is not oxygen on which the body thrives. There exists a force beyond.
The exchange of prana takes place through four major sources — food, breath, touch and sight. While the first two have been explored at length by modern science, Vedic rishis were not unaware of the importance of the others. Every time you touch someone or something there occurs an exchange of prana, altering an individual’s composition. Similarly, sight is a major source of prana exchange. In fact, ninety five per cent of the prana you receive flows out from the eyes; hence the importance of drishti of guru.
Many thousand years ago Vedic rishis had harnessed this energy to decipher the mysteries of creation, only to be rediscovered and reinvented by modern science. In 1905, Albert Einstein revealed to the world ‘e=mc²,’ that everything in this creation is nothing but energy. The law of conservation of energy, the basis of thermodynamics states energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it can only be transformed from one form to the other. In this sense, everything in creation is energy and the only dynamics involved is its transformation, what rishis termed as prana.
The only distinguishing factor is the frequency at which prana vibrates. This difference in frequency is what distinguishes, for instance, two colours — Black from White; an inanimate object from an animate one, or for that matter anything and everything that we see around us. And so is the case with human beings. We often experience that we get irritated just by being in the presence of certain people. This simply indicates a mismatch in the pranic frequencies. What distinguishes any two individuals—one who has that attraction, that glow and someone who does not; a healthy individual and the one suffering from a disease — is simply this pranic frequency. Thus, in order to bring about any desired change—to get that health or beauty and glow—all one needs to do is bring a change in that frequency. One way of doing that is the practice of Sanatan Kriya. Sanatan Kriya is an encapsulation of the Ashtang Yog, documented by Rishi Patanjali 5,000 years ago. Its practice changes the frequency of an individual from gross to subtle, gradually bringing about natural glow, health and vitality.
Sun is a storehouse of radiance, glow and attraction. It is in fact the ultimate source of prana in the manifest creation. Our rishis, having realised the importance of the sun, used to do samyam on the sun. This involves drawing prana from specific shades of sun by looking at it at a specific time, while offering water to it and chanting certain mantras. Sun is a powerful source of energy and it is important that this energy is channelised in a controlled manner as per individual capacity. It is therefore important to practice the samyam under supervision of a guru. Any overzealous attempts to practice on your own can have serious implications. The Vedic Rishis were real masters, they had deciphered the techniques to bring about a change in pranic frequencies. However, they also knew that every being was unique and hence never prescribed yoga as a mass exercise.
Yogi Ashwini is the spiritual head of Dhyan Ashram and the author of
Sanatan Kriya, The Ageless Dimension, a book on anti ageing. E-mail:
dhyan@dhyanfoundation.com.

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