Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 21-6. Swami Krishnananda.
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Wednesday, June 08, 2022. 21:00
Chapter 21.The Two Ways of Yoga -6.
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Prāṇāpānau samau kṛtvā is also mentioned. In this act of bringing consciousness back, we have also to take into consideration the role that is played by our pranas. The prana is the battery. It is the electrical cell which generates force. It is the powerhouse, the dynamo that pumps energy outward continuously and never allows the mind or consciousness to rest in itself. The prana is outwardly motivated always; therefore, in our attempt at bringing the mind back to the Self, the subdual of the impulse of the prana also is necessary.
It is a controversy in yoga practice whether the prana is to be controlled first or the mind is to be controlled first. Hatha yogins especially feel that the prana should be restrained, and then the mind automatically gets restrained. But raja yogins and more philosophically minded people think that if the mind is controlled, the prana also gets subdued.
The prana is vehemently moving due to the desires and the distractions of the mind. The mind is agitated, and therefore it imparts this agitation to the prana, the vital force. So it heaves up and down. The equidistribution of the prana, which is otherwise necessary for the health of the body, is prevented by distractions of mind. A person with externally motivated passions and desires cannot maintain even good physical health, because physical health has something to do with the equidistribution of vital force, the energy of the prana throughout. A child is very healthy, and looks beautiful because it has no desires. It is all beauty. Every child is beautiful. Whether it is a beggar's child or a king's child, it makes no difference. All are beautiful. Very, very attractive are children, small babies, but they become different when they grow older due to the particular centralisation of psychic and vital energy in objects of sense, in objects of greed and passion, hatred and liking and other things, and particular sense organs. And when a particular sense organ becomes very strong, the prana is actively operating there. It will be very sensitive. A very sensitive sense organ which is craving for a particular object of its satisfaction will draw all the energy to itself, and other parts of the body will be deprived of that force. This is sickness. So a person filled with unholy desires, passions which are concentrated in located finite objects, will be physically sick. And in yoga, of course, we need not mention that the tendency of the mind to cast the prana in the mould of objects outside should be prevented.
The Yoga Vasishtha mentions that both practices are permissible. “O Rama,” says Vasishtha, “there are two ways of yoga. One is control of the prana; another is control of the mind. For the destruction of this propelling, externalising activity of the chitta, two ways can be adopted. Yoga and jnana are the two ways.” By yoga here Vasishtha means yogaś-citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ: the subdual of the vrittis of the mind together with the uneven activity of the pranas – prana, apana, samana, udana, vyana. That is yoga. According to this verse, yoga means the restraining of the vrittis. Vritti means the activity of the mind in terms of some external object. Thinking some object is called vritti, and this has to be withdrawn. That is yoga. This is also the yoga of Patanjali. But jnana is equally perceiving the same thing everywhere. You do not see many things; you are seeing the same thing. Wherever you cast your eyes, one thing only is seen. That is jnana.
Now, we can control these impulses either by pranayama or by mental concentration. It is sometimes compared to the action of stopping the movement of a clock. If I want to stop the movement of a clock, I will go and hold that pointer. The needle must be held, and then it will not move. Then inside, the mechanism also stops. That ticking will stop immediately when we go and touch the hand of the clock and do not allow it to move. That is one way of stopping the mechanism from inside. Otherwise, we will catch hold of the cog inside, the central wheel, and not allow it to move. Then the outer pointer also will not move. So we can stop the inner working of the vrittis of the mind either by catching hold of the external activity of the prana, which is something like catching the pointer here outside, or by stopping the cog inside, the central wheel which is the mind itself. Either way it is permissible. The best way, according to Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj and such uniformly altitudinous yogis is that we must have a proportionate distribution of attitude to both. Both are necessary. Take advantage of both the values: a little bit of exercise of the prana by normal breathing, and also at the same time, a simultaneous wish to withdraw one's desires.
So prāṇāpānau samau kṛtvā nāsābhyantaracāriṇau. This is a technical subject here again. The breath flows through the right nostril and through the left nostril, sometimes through the right and sometimes through the left. I do not want to go into the details of all this. The intention is to harmonise them in such a way that the breath does not flow through any particular nostril, either the right or the left, but gets distributed evenly in such a way that it looks as if it has stopped. That is called kumbhaka. With this I close today. This subject will continue tomorrow.
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Next- Chapter 22: The Integration of Sannyasa and Yoga
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