Pranayama: Yoga Sutras Of Patanjali Lecture + Guided Meditation

PRANAYAMA the fourth "limb" as described in Patanjali's yoga system. Understand how pranayama works, as well as how we get prana from the sun, our breath, food, water, the environment, and time.

Lecture + meditation from September 17, 2020.

Transcript

Na g Bulk Are you going to till everyone Happy Thursday on the side of the globe.

Happy Friday here in Australia,

Hong Kong,

Singapore.

We get to explore the yoga sutras today and I hope,

I think Sami sent out our newsletter today so I hope you received it if you checked your emails.

If you didn't get the newsletter from Omchandra you can just write me a mail and I will resend it to you.

We have a lot happening next week is the equinox,

The fall equinox.

So we'll do a cleanse again next Saturday.

I have meditation level three coming up and normally I do the Christmas,

New Year tour,

Yoga tour over Belize but because of COVID I'm not going to be touring.

I'll just go to a staycation,

A retreat,

Resort here in Belize in January for one week.

If anyone is,

It's all in the newsletter so you can look at it and get it,

Get all the details there.

So we're continuing with our sutras,

Beautiful breakdown.

So we just finished the third limb Patanjali in mantra 29 explains the eight limbs.

So he spent about 15 mantras after that to describe Yamas and Niyamas.

Then he spent the last three mantras on Asan and he says our Asan should be sukham,

Should be very comfortable,

Stira,

Sthedi,

Right?

That's how he described our Asan for meditation and then when we have our pose then he says we should concentrate the mind on the Ananta,

Yes?

Either the infinity or the yogis,

The record.

Oh,

He's speaking about the prana moving through the spinal column,

The Kundalini energy and now he's going to spend four mantras.

He's going to dedicate to the fourth limb.

The next four mantras is going to describe the fourth limb of yoga which is prana yam.

So as we dive into it we get to understand how important prana yam is.

So let's go to mantra.

He starts off the prana mantra 49 book 2 mantra 49.

That's where we come across.

That's where we are today and he says that firm posture being acquired so whenever you can master sitting still then he says the movements of inhalation and exhalation should be controlled.

This is prana yam.

So he explains that prana yam is the word the word vichadak means another word for to stop or to bring to an end.

So we're going to break the pattern of the inhalation and exhalation.

Every living entity does these two things right all day long inhale and exhale.

So are they practicing prana yam?

Not necessarily.

They're getting prana from the sun moon through the air into the organism and they're releasing used prana.

Definitely everyone is doing that but for prana yam for the yogis he's explaining we're going to bring a cessation to that.

So we're slowing it down and when you slow it down the third aspect of prana yam is developed which is called kumbak.

So we're inhaling and exhaling.

So for Patanjali is right in here that between your inhalation and your exhalation is another layer we call it kumbak.

So kumbak breaks the rhythm of all humans does this in all day.

So now in prana yam we're going to and hold.

So this retention of the breath is actually what all the reaches they recognize is prana yam.

So when we inhale and exhale the toxins are moving in and out of the organism and we come across the understanding that we can extend our life force this way.

So the word prana yam prana means energy yama means to extend it.

So when I travel around the world sometimes I see people that advertise some yoga classes some yoga workshops yoga for longevity has anyone seen that before yoga for longevity or some videos right people move in.

So yes so when you do yoga it will elongate your life force definitely but it's not necessarily the movement of the asana like that it's more about the retention of the breath.

So the reaches they recognize that as you breathe slowly more and more prana comes in and more and more prana stays in the cells and then as you breathe out slowly more and more toxins coming out of your cells and then when you hold the breath in that place in between that's when your mind enters sattva guna when we're inhaling it's called rajas it's with energy you hold the mind can then enter quietness sattva guna and when you're exhaling tamas you're exhaling all the toxins out of your body.

So these three states the three modes of nature are right there with our breath.

Then he says then he says the next one he says that the modifications of the life break I love this mantra the modifications of the life breath are either external or internal or stationary they are regular they are to be regulated by space time and number and are either long or sharp.

So pranayama is either external internal or suppressed yes and he used three Sanskrit words here in this mantra in this mantra of mantra 50 he used three amazing Sanskrit words he says they are your your your your pranayama is by either desha desha means the place kala your time and he says sankya.

Sankya means the number number so three things is amazing is needed for you to prolong the breath.

So place how does how does he break down desha desha he says your environment so it means what does that environment means externally it means you want to be in a place where the air is flowing so your windows are open or right fresh air moving through that's ideal.

Now beyond that external environment desha also represents pranayama as a understanding the life force that's around you so that means our life force that we're breathing in through the air and also the type of food you're eating because the food you're eating is going to bring prana or energy into yourselves so as we're practicing pranayama advanced pranayama we want to also refine our eating so the yogas we eat food that gives prana we don't eat deep fried food overcooked food where they all the food all the energy the enzyme has been destroyed so I like to remind students when you hear someone is on a pranayama sadhana in yogic culture normally that means they are eating like a raw diet or a vegan diet I mean I never heard the word vegan before until I got to Hong Kong before I said nobody said vegan it just meant no animal product that means we were also refraining from milk products as well for that time so we would so when we were on our pranayama sadhana we would be understanding what we're eating desha the place certain type of food gives us life and because a lot of the food when they're overcooked it's no longer life force anymore people are really just eating it because it tastes the taste buds it tastes good on the tongue but it's not giving you prana anymore so as we evolve naturally you start to question the type of food you put in so the food and then the water that we drink we want the water to give us prana life force yes so these three things are how we when I when this when the yoga say we are practicing pranayama it's not just some breathing exercises with breath and nose control no it's a lifestyle so the lifestyle is your drink should give you prana right your food should give you prana and then your environment that you're living in yes so there's a aspect of yoga called vastu how you I think in the west in Chinese culture it's called feng shui and Vedic culture it's called vastu it's uh how you build your house according to which part of the planet you are how to face the kitchen face certain way the living room face certain way according to how the planets move so if you don't have that knowledge subconsciously if you go build a house fine tune you'll know oh the sun comes up the east we'll put this room there subconsciously the wisdom is already within us and if it's if their house is not built like that you know it you walk when you go to rent a house so when you go on to buy a house you walk in the place and you're you're talking into your intuition this no this doesn't feel good to me you know you you feel the space the energetics around it and if it's not conducive you walk out no I don't like it until you walk wow this place feel you can feel the prana the vast of the energy is moving in there properly so for pranayama we wanted to at least have ventilation where the air is moving freely in and out and uh so desha your food your drink your your uh your your environment that you're living in so then the next one he says I like this other one he says your color your time so color he says is how long can you hold your breath yes so on an average why do we see animals like turtles elephant snakes why do they live a long life because they breed very slowly and from time to time they perform comeback whales right they live long they I when I go swim here in uh Hawaii I used to live on Ala Moana area and I go so I always run into a couple turtles and how do you notice them because they come up they take a breath of air and they go right back down hold their breath come they can live for a long time because they're performing comeback amazingly so yoga for longevity means we can then increase how long we can hold the breath in and it should develop over a period of time when I was learning my advanced prana arms we would spend two three hours just breaking down how to hold the breath increase it increase increase increase comeback you know went from five seconds 10 seconds wow 10 seconds felt easy then I got to one minute well then I got to two minutes but I can't I got to five minutes 10 minutes it's amazing how long we can go so when I saw the Guinness World Record for the free divers I think it's a guy from Sweden he can hold his breath for 29 minutes underwater I was like ah come on yogis can do triple that easily but of course the yogis don't do it so going to Guinness World Record but I've trained my lungs where I could hold it for such a long time so and what happens when you're when you're retaining the breath it's not so much your lungs is getting affected it is your whole system your brain is changing your brain stem is changing this when you hold the breath it's like uh like when you put on a switch I think that's the next mantra he describes he explains your you're unlocking tension within you when you retain the prana and the mind enters such a quiet place as your neurological system change your endocrine system change your digestive system all of these gets purified from the retention of prana because more prana is within and it's staying there for a long time so it's bringing in more and more energy to the whole organism so this is uh increase it so today we'll just have a little fun we'll see how easy it is to hold it for five seconds then we'll build 10 seconds and we will and I'll time it and I'll show you how you can increase it increase it increase it it's so beautiful when you can slow the breath down most of us as human in average health takes around 15 breaths per minute if you're running around the city you might go up to 20 25 but we can slow it down to such a degree where you can do it in one minute you can bring it to two breaths in one minute you can sometimes bring it down to one breath in one minute so that's when we know we're bringing a deep transformation in the brain that brain stem and all the all the energies in our system so we'll try today and we'll see if we can do it in two in one breath build two breaths so and the breathing pattern so you're going to inhale slowly and we'll take about 10 15 seconds just on the inhalation and then you hold for another 10 15 20 seconds and then you exit and that's one in one minute one breath one respiration in and of unbelievable we just slow it down and then when you slow it down your mind is forced to be in the present moment the purification so after you have your comfortable pose after very sitting still comfortable then we work on the pranayama so this then the next the third one your third uh is dirga he said so the prolongation of it as i was explaining so you're going to try and elongate so in a color place the time dish at a place and some kind of number and there you go how to prolong it so he describes what pranayama is with these adjectives we want to prolong as long as we can before i was before i was getting together i used to i grew up in the caribbean so i would go swimming and free dive no one taught us properly but just hold the breath and then go down and then stay as long as you can so but now i can do it when i got to europe i started to retain the breath like oh wow so the first time i ever experienced a quiet mind was i was maybe 12 or 13 years old under the ocean i remember being under the ocean so down about maybe like 25 feet down and it was so quiet and still so quiet and i came back up but i didn't understand that was a place of uh internal kumbak i didn't know the terminology when i got to yoga there oh i can do the same thing without going under the water just do it on land kumbak the next uh mantra he used he says so those were the three things right three types of inhalation retention exhale exhalation then he says there is a fort he says there's a fourth kind of pranayama that occurs during concentration on an internal or external object so what is he saying here he just told us he broke he broke down the pronoun for us in three steps but then he says there's a fourth type so what is this fourth type referring to it's referring to the practice of concentrating your mind on the breath moving in with ujjayi pranayama out with ujjayi pranayama and adding the practice of the song with the breath it's called i i i introduced you to it already it's called a japa japa where the yogis they practice slow the breath down in slow the breath down out and they add mantra to the breath so that's the fourth is a fourth kind of pranayama that occurs during concentration of an internal or an external object so those are how he described the practices of pranayama now when we start to hold the breath and different things also i just remember desha when it's colder it's a desha place if it's cold normally we would then increase the number of repetition of pranayama like say if it's cold and i do a hundred rounds of kapala batir in the summertime i will do 50 you comment so different play different time of the seasons as well so if you're doing say i'm doing uh i'm retaining my breath for five minutes in winter if i can develop five minutes in winter summer i will do it for half that time so as you as you go through the seasons and you're practicing your pranayama you start to see oh it's a little harder to do some of these kumbaks in summer they're a little easier to do in the cooler temperatures and one of the reason why the yogis they live in cold temperatures right is they're able to really harness the heat from inside through their practices of pranayama retaining the prana the more you retain it the body warms up but in the summertime you don't need that much heat so you normally do half the half the time of the kumbaks so yes so for the yogis pranayama doesn't mean the in and out it means the retention we have four parts of the breath and we also do come back outside we call that shunya retention of the breath outside but retention of the breath outside doesn't give a deep purification of the cells it's only when we're bringing fresh prana in and you hold then you can actually start to purify the cells because more toxins are able to circulate the prana is circulating around the heart the lungs the blood the veins the arteries so when you exhale more toxins come up so that's in a nutshell that's how he breaks down the fourth limb of yoga pranayama so out of the eight limbs this fourth limb is the most important limb because you cannot do asana you cannot do the yama nayama if you're not breathing and you cannot do the next limb is dharan consent pratyahara concentrate the mind or allow the mind to enter meditation without your breath so this fourth limb is the most important thing and as we start to retain more and more then you start the it's a it's a holistic transformation that will take place you will naturally want to eat food that gives you life you'll naturally want to drink uh water that brings prana gives life force then as the mind gets purified and you start to hold it still what will happen because when you hold the breath it's the mode of goodness what will happen is you will be elevated in your consciousness to have more and more positive thoughts in the mind because thoughts positive thoughts bring prana into the cells raise the prana negative thoughts drains the prana in the cells so as you perform kumbha it's natural it gets so quiet that when you come out the issues that were traveling your mind fades away it's amazing how just from your breath you can heal the mind of all the crazy thoughts and crazy emotions that come with the thought pattern so that's our exploration of the sutras let's do some practices see if we can bring it down to two breaths per minute from 15 to two maybe some of you already already have a pranayama practice you can do maybe one breath but there's no need to strain the lungs it's not a competition it's just every one of us have different lung capacity already and every one of us can hold the breath a little bit longer a little shorter if you want to be very comfortable if you see you're starting to panic in the mind i need a breath i need a breath that means that's the false ego that involved just take it here come to oh logi charu is going longer but i can't hold it that long i'll take my breath now so at your pace let's uh stretch the legs out and bring the kick the legs and then cross the legs to where you're extremely comfortable and bring the palms onto the knees touch the tip of the thumbs tip of the index fingers use the power of your legs push the legs down lift the spine a little taller close the eyes softly kaya styram the body must be steady styram still and also sukham comfortable in your whole body is like a statue immovable and stable this amazing body is made up of amazing powerful elements earth water fire air eater these elements mutate and form organs these organs form and make systems you have so many amazing systems and these systems and organs and cells and elements they are only vibrant because prana is flowing through one subset of prana is coming through your breath as you inhale and another subset of prana is coming from you the spiritual being the atma is sharing prana from your heart space spreading energy from the heart throughout the whole body because the sun is the primary source of all energy in our universe here the soul the atma is the primary source of prana spreading throughout the whole body and when we inhaling we're uniting the prana it's one coming from the external sun of the universe and one from the internal sun the atma and these keep the whole elements these powerful elements vibrant I want you to bring your awareness to the entrance of the nostrils and just witness the breath moving in and out sensitize the mind a little bit more and identify the four parts of your breath there is the inhalation followed by a split second retention inside followed by an exhalation followed by a split second retention outside followed by the inhalation again keep witnessing the four parts of the breath and as you witness your four parts of the breath have this beautiful understanding that every other human every other animal every fish every plant is doing the same thing four parts of the breath and as you which you're just witnessing you the atma the spiritual being is just witnessing the breath moving in and out and you recognize naturally that your split second retention inside split second retention outside are only a split second but your inhalation and exhalation are naturally longer now we're going to change the frequency in the systems the nervous system the end-of-crime system the limbic system all the system by performing kumbak and we'll start off we'll just hold the breath for five seconds first I want you to inhale slowly move with me my pace um one um two um three and four hold the breath um one um two um three and four and five exhale slowly um one um two and three and four then inhale um one um two and three um four hold the breath this time for six seconds um one um two um three um four um five um six exhale um one um two um three um four inhale um one um two and three um four hold the breath in this time for 10 seconds um one um two and three and four and five and six and seven and eight and nine and ten exhale on one and two and three and four inhale um one two um three um four hold for 10 seconds um one um two um three um four um five um six um seven eight um nine and ten exhale slowly um one um two um three um four continue this ratio for 10 for your pace now you.

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After you finish the second exhalation,

Again,

Just witness your mind space.

Be alert.

What type of thoughts come in or is it quiet?

What type of thoughts come in or is it quiet?

What type of thoughts come in or is it quiet?

What type of thoughts come in or is it quiet?

What type of thoughts come in or is it quiet?

What type of thoughts come in or is it quiet?

What type of thoughts come in or is it quiet?

Inhale slowly.

One,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five,

Six.

Call the breath.

One,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five,

Six.

Seven,

Eight.

Nine.

Ten.

Eleven.

Ten.

Ten.

One,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five,

Six.

Once again.

Your pace.

One,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five,

Six.

One,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five,

Six.

Once again,

Breath back to normal and just witness your breath again in your lungs and just feel it with your communication and your spirit.

Sit in stillness.

For the next couple minutes,

Let's practice the fourth type of pranayama Patanjali explains.

Japa,

Japa concentrating the mind on the breath moving in and out as you inhale mentally chant oh as you exhale mentally chant chanting the um mantra with the breath the o part on the inhalation the m part on the exhalation keeping the mind in the present For the next minute,

We will practice a japa japa with the natural mantra of the breath as you inhale mentally repeat so as you exhale slowly hum so on the inhalation hum on the exhalation so how mantra means I am that excellent after a while the mantra flips start off with the hum and so I am that hamster swan like spiritual being let's start with the exhalation as you exhale mentally chant um inhale so continue with the hum mantra the hums of I am that swan like spiritual being.

Very good.

Repeat the last inhalation.

Bring the breath back to normal,

Breathing.

Recognizing the breath brings in the prana from the sun,

Grateful for the sun.

The breath takes out the used prana,

The mode of tamas with the exhalation.

And then there's also the beautiful swan-like being,

Whom you are in the heart space.

You're spreading prana from your heart,

Throughout the whole body as well.

Recognize from time to time,

We can be like the turtles.

We can be like the elephants,

The whales,

Take a few breaths,

Whole transform the whole neurological system from our retention of breath.

And see if you can do it tomorrow morning when you get up.

And sit still and then try and do the rhythm and try and take two breaths for one minute.

And if you feel comfortable,

Increase it,

But no strain whatsoever.

Grateful for the breath.

Take a deep inhalation.

Exhale slowly.

Let's stand on mantra together once.

Om.

Bring the palms to the heart.

Lower the head towards your higher self,

The hamsa swan-like being.

Namaste.

Lift the head and open the eyes.

Thank you all so much.

Hope you all eat food that gives prana today,

Drink that gives prana today.

You know,

It's a lifestyle of prana.

Of the meditation mat.

Thank you so much,

Michelle.

Thank you,

Wan.

Thank you,

Susan.

Thank you,

Nan.

Thank you,

Helen and Celine.

Thank you,

Margaret.

Thank you,

Susan.

Thank you,

Amani.

Thank you,

Karina.

Thank you,

Jenny.

Mahalo Kai.

Thank you,

Maggie.

Thank you,

Miriam.

Thank you,

Noel.

Thank you,

Matilda.

Thank you,

Sammy.

Thank you,

Vivian.

Thank you,

Vanessa.

Thank you,

Yumiko.

Mahalo,

Greg.

Mahalo,

Greg.

Reviews

That was beautifully calming & wonderously energising, I opened my eyes grateful, blessed & smiling 💗 Thank you & Namaste Wonderful Teacher 🙏 😊