fascinating, but it offers less variety than asana, and as I have just said,
it is an introverted practice. However ardent a practitioner you are, as
I was and am myself, do not, however, try to retain the breath by force
of will. The moment the brain becomes tense, the inner ears hard, and
if the eyes are heavy or irritated throughout, you are forcing beyond
your capacity. Be aware of the skin on your trunk that moves toward
the inner body. If you know the extension and expansion of the body,
you know the extension and expansion of the mind. If the nerves of the
body are overloaded, the brain contracts. The sensitivity, the grips, and
the stretch of the skin should be like a disciplined child who is both
bold and cautious. Let the breath and the intelligence move simultane
ously. If the intelligence moves first, you are using force.
Physically, the movements of pranayama involve a vertical ascen
sion, a horizontal expansion, and a circumferential extension of the rib
cage, chest wall, and lungs. During inhalation, if the skin over the
center of the breastbone can move vertically up and down, and it can
expand from side to side circumferentially, it shows that the lungs are
being filled to their maximum capacity.
Our normal movement of breath is not rhythmic. Each voluntary
inhalation is a stressful action, and each exhalation is nonstressful.
Normal involuntary inhalation is not done by the lungs, but by the
brain as well as the entire body. One can easily notice that a normal in
halation causes movement in the whole body. The muscles get puffed
up, and while exhaling the compression of the muscles can be felt very
clearly. In other words, during normal breathing, the entire body in
hales, the entire body exhales. In yogic breathing the brain and the ex
tremities of the body remain passive, and only the lungs are activated.
The role of the thorax, diaphragm, ribs, intercostal muscles, abdomen,
and lungs is therefore different as the breath is received but not sucked
in. Because it is the physiological or organic sheath that links and in
tegrates body and mind, it needs to be cultivated with the proper blood
II K � IV 1'. N l; I\ ll