Breathing Prana

As the sun began rising and the ocean waves lapped gently against the shoreline, my body curved into a backbend, creating a shadow in the sand. Sweat dripped down my face in crooked streams. Suddenly an ocean wave crashed against a nearby rock, breaking the rhythm of silence. I fell into the warm sand, salty water gushed into my pores, and my eyes squinted against the sting. I felt so alive. As my energy flowed into the ocean, its waves gave back a cool, refreshing embrace. The sun was now half awake, stretching its golden rays with a slow and thoughtful yawn. Yoga on the beach with the rising sun is like no other experience.

I began practicing yoga near the end of law school because I heard it was supposed to be a great stress reliever. I could honestly say that I felt exhilarated after my first yoga session and wished that the feeling would last throughout the day. Everything seemed possible and not as daunting as before and my head cleared of all the clutter. While all forms of exercise release endorphins, the difference I have experienced with yoga as opposed to running or aerobics is the concentration of my mind on the rhythmic flow of my body in harmony with my breath. For several minutes throughout a single yoga session, I find myself truly living in the present moment and there is something inexplicably amazing about this simple achievement. After continuing with my yoga practice for a few more weeks, I began to think about its larger purpose other than to release stress.

There have been several articles recently, for example in the New York Times and the Guardian, which explain how living in the present moment impacts our overall state of happiness. Without regretting or reliving the past or worrying about or planning for the future, we find ourselves simply content with what is right now. Echart Tolle, in The Power of Now, elaborates on this idea. He articulates that by being present in the here and now, we can release ourselves from all the anxiety and stress that blocks our life force, our prana. He describes the million worries we carry with us from the moment we awake to the final seconds before we fall asleep, but he asks an interesting question. “What percent of our list of worries and stresses are responsibilities that we actually need to address right now at this moment?” Usually, not a huge percent. By concentrating on this present moment, we can be content, or at least feel less weighed down than just five minutes ago.

Now imagine repeating these five minute cycles for only twenty to thirty minutes a day, just focusing on your breath in seated meditation, through pranayama, or with the flow of your body during yoga. These cycles of concentrated breathing in the present moment have the power of creating ripples of positive energy that radiate from your core into the universe you live in. It’s these positive ripples that flow from within us and around us that have more impact on helping us to fulfill our responsibilities than all the precious time lost in worrying and fretting. Just twenty minutes after one yoga or meditation session, makes me feel infinitely times better than before I started. It’s an amazing response that I can feel and see.

Having grown up in the Jain tradition, I began observing the meditative postures of Bhagavan Mahavir and the other great Jinas and asking myself about the significance of yoga in Jainism. Ahimsa is more than being vegetarian and living in peace; it’s also about controlling our unproductive and counterproductive thoughts in order to prevent the creation and attraction of negative energy to our souls. Sending negative energy out into the world and attracting it to our being is another form of violence, and sometimes an even more powerful force because our thoughts and resulting vibrations ripple around us, impacting our friends, family, co-workers, and even people we pass on the sidewalk. There is a domino effect and through yoga, I feel like I am able to control the force I release into the universe, at least for a few hours a day. Contemplating on this peace of mind through meditation is even more powerful.

I remember when I first began learning pranayama in order to complement my yoga and meditation practice. I was asked, “Imagine how your breathing changes with your emotions. For example, it becomes fast when you’re nervous and heavy when you’re sad. Now, imagine utilizing your breathing to control your emotions, and ultimately, to control your life.”