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Ayurvedic Insight
Issue #19, April 2003
In This Issue
"To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in
order; to put the nation in order, we must put the family in order;
to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and
to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right."
--Confucius
"Cultivating Prana"
By Robert E. Svoboda
Whoever you may be, and wherever you may live, you live your life
well when you live it at the right rate. Plow your way through life
and life will wear you out; poke your way along and your life will
grind to a halt. Find a pace that suits you, though, and amble along
it accordingly, and your world will spontaneously level a path for
you.
Life requires of each of us a judicious stride, a step that causes
every particle of our being to reverberate with rapport. Some of us
find our stride without much effort; a few of us are even born ready
to canter. But lots of us stumble along from day to day like we had
two left feet, trying in vain to intellectualize our way through life
when what all that life asks of us is that we let our prana do our
walking for us.
Prana is the energy that drives life, the power that animates the
body, enlivens the mind, spurs the soul. Prana is life's inspiration,
its foundation, its tenacity; it is the sure hand on the tiller, the
wise voice of good counsel, the urge to health and harmony that craves
to turn our bodies into havens where we can take shelter from the
storms of the hectic modern world. Prana is at work at every instant
in every cell of every living organism, seeking ever to deliver us
from disease and confirm us in health, but only in those few people
who are genetically fated to be healthy does prana automatically regulate
its momentum. The rest of us must learn how to cultivate our prana.
Pranayama, the "control" or "regulation" of prana,
is a central principle of many of the varieties of yoga that ancient
India produced. Good prana management is essential for those who seek
to follow the path of Ashtanga Yoga, the"eight-limbed" yoga
of personal development that the ancient seer Patanjali systematized.
Patanjali, who taught that"yoga is restraint of the fluctuations
of the mind" sought to restrain those fluctuations by restraining
the breath, which can when performed with care cultivate prana admirably.
Unfortunately, ever since Patanjali many unwary students and teachers
of yoga have equated pranayama with prolonged, forcible holding of
the breath, which can actually ruin the body.
Wise pranayama begins with observation. When moving your body, how
often do you ponder what causes your body to move? When exercising,
do you exercise your muscles alone, or also the force that drives
them? Do you limit yourself to the physical posture when you perform
an asana, or do you perform it energetically as well? A good first
step to effective prana stewardship is to alert yourself to your energy
posture, your habits of holding and utilizing your energy.
Understand your natural affinity with prana and you gain insight
into which method of prana cultivation will work most efficiently
and effortlessly for you. Sound prana handling is methodical, and
the rishis, India's seers who spent their long lives poring over the
many facets of the paradox that is life, proposed a variety of methods
to encourage prana to adopt a suitable pace. They advised at the outset
that we use the principles of Ayurveda, India's life-science, to balance
vata, pitta and kapha, the three energy strategies of embodied beings.
These Three Doshas encourage ailments when they are permitted to struggle
with one another, and work to support the organism when taught to
cooperate. When the Three Doshas strive toward amity they serve to
strengthen agni, or tejas, the fire of transformation that permits
us to feed and nourish ourselves. Strong fire digests cleanly the
prana that we consume through our breath and through our food, and
strong agni and prana facilitate the development of ojas, the pure"juice"
that makes living worthwhile by cementing together body, mind and
spirit and fueling immunity from illness.
Strong tejas and ojas in a body provide prana a good seat (asana)
there. Well-seated prana provides us the visceral resolve we need
to perform our every action precisely, rightly, with great resolve
and enthusiasm. Such a body moves not from obligation but from the
joy of movement that is prana's nature. Well-seated prana enhances
immeasurably our ability to perform any yoga posture (asana). As prana
becomes carefully settled through the practice of asana our bodies
become fit for pranayama, which can promote control of the senses
and the mind. Breath, prana and mind are mutually and inherently related;
cultivate one well and the other two will fall into line. While many
yogis do use breathing exercises to cultivate prana and mind, others
use meditation to regulate the breath and prana. Some practice Svara
Yoga, control of prana and mind by means of song, and some align breath,
prana and mind by means of undiluted devotion to Divinity.
Devotion may be the supreme method for prana control, just as faith
is the supreme remedy for disease. Strong faith can turn any placebo
into an effective medicine as surely as doubt can render ineffectual
the most powerful of remedies. While implicit devotion to Reality
can compensate for misalignments in yoga practice, no quantum of technical
proficiency in asana will suffice to restrain the mind's fluctuations
when that mind is plagued by doubt. Devote yourself to knowing and
cultivating your prana, and your every capillary will soon swell with
the exhilaration of genuine vitality. Learn to pace your prana, and
your body and mind will automatically fall into step. Dedicate your
yoga practice to facilitating and enhancing prana's glide through
your being, and gradually your own prana will start to direct your
yoga practice. Treat prana with due respect, and you will find yourself
squarely in the center of life's flow.
Copyright © 2000
Robert Edwin Svoboda
To read more from Dr. Robert Svoboda, please visit http://www.drsvoboda.com
or visit http://www.banyanbotanicals.com
to purchase books authored by him.
" The greatest battles we shall ever face are with ourselves
- overcoming desire is a far greater achievement than overcoming foes."
-- Author unknown
Recipe: Spinach and Potato Curry
- 3 medium potatoes
- 1 large bunch fresh spinach (1.5 pounds)
- 1.5 tablespoons sunflower oil
- 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
- pinch of asafoetida
- 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
- 2 cups water
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 2 teaspoons coriander powder
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1/4 green pepper, chopped
- 2 cloves fresh garlic, minced
Wash spinach and potatoes. Cut potatoes into 1/2 inch cubes; chop
spinach. Heat oil in a heavy saucepan or skillet and add mustard seeds
and asafoetida. When seeds pop, add turmeric, potatoes and water.
Stir. Cover and cook on medium heat for 5 to 7 minutes. Then add spinach
and all other ingredients. Mix well. Cook covered for an additional
10 to 15 minutes. Serve.
Recipe reprinted with permission from The Ayurvedic Cookbook by
Amadea Morningstar with Urmila Desai, Lotus Press, P.O. Box 325, Twin
Lakes, WI 53181. ©1990 All Rights Reserved.
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