The Secret of the Yoga Sutra by Ph. Rajmani D. Tigunait

Author:Ph. Rajmani D. Tigunait
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780893894030
Publisher: Himalayan Institute

SUTRA 1:34

प्रच्छर्दनविधारणाभ्यां वा प्राणस्य ।।३४।।

pracchardanavidhāraṇābhyāṁ vā prāṇasya ।। 34।।

pracchardana, forceful exhalation; vidhāraṇa, retention; vā, or; prāṇasya, of the breath

Transparency of mind also comes by practicing pranayama that involves forceful exhalation and breath retention.

Transparency is the foundation of a stable mind. A mind drowning in the darkness of the five kleshas—ignorance, distorted self-identity, attachment, aversion, and fear—is bound to be anxious and fearful. Such a mind loses touch with its natural inner joy. The attitudes of friendliness, compassion, happiness, and non-judgment described in the previous sutra illumine the mind and shield it from ignorance. But this illumination is not powerful enough to dispel the principle of darkness itself. The practice described here picks up where sutra 1:33 left off, taking us directly to the brilliance inherent in us—the brilliance of our essential life force (prana shakti).

The body is the repository of the limitless wealth of Primordial Nature. Although the body’s innate wisdom gives us complete access to this wealth, to a large extent this wisdom is buried under thick layers of darkness and so has become dormant. The pranayama technique referred to in this sutra peels those layers away, awakening the body’s innate wisdom and illuminating our mind. It drives away stupefaction, instills the mind with clarity and tranquility, and reinfuses it with the ability to flow peacefully toward the center of Consciousness. To understand the unique potential of this pranayama, we need to examine the design of our body, the powers inherent in our organs, the privileges these powers grant us, and the sustaining role of prana shakti.

The human body is nature’s finest creation. It is superior to the bodies of other creatures in that it contains the most highly evolved brain and nervous system and is endowed with the most expressive intelligence. Our limbs and sense organs have developed in response to the irresistible desire of our intrinsic intelligence to express itself and experience its vast grandeur. This irresistible desire caused the body to evolve in a manner that allows us to feel and respond to an extremely wide range of emotions, a phenomenon unique to humans. For example, every human being has a sensitive endocrine system—even a slight change in emotion alters our body chemistry, enabling us to recognize our feelings and respond to them in a tangible way. At various intersections of energy within us, the body assigns cells and tissues to monitor and guide the currents and crosscurrents of our thoughts and feelings. In yogic literature, the most prominent of these intersecting energies and the cells emerging from them are called chakras.

In addition to a powerful drive to feel and express itself, our intrinsic intelligence also has a limitless appetite to explore the external world; thus, our highly refined limbs and sense organs evolved. With their help, we perceive and experience objects in the world around us. Were it not for our innate intelligence, neither the world outside us nor the world inside us would have come into existence. Every aspect of creation, including our mind,

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