Pranayama: Simple Breathing Exercise or a Door to Divine?

Pranayama: Introduction

The word pranayama composes of two Sanskrit words, prana and Yama.  It is said in Indian Yogic System that “Prana is the fundamental basis of whatever is, was and will be”. It is also referred to as “life force” or “life energy”. And “Yama” is often translated as control.

To make it simple pranayama is an exercise of breath.

As simple as that. No complications. As you do physical exercise by twisting and turning your body similarly this is the exercise of your breath. There are various ways in which we can do it. We will learn them one by one in upcoming posts. Today we will focus on what is pranayama and how it can benefit us.

Some of you might ask why so much importance to a simple breathing exercise. How it is going to help us. Rather let’s do some physical activity. We think that health can be achieved only through physical exercise.

But only by breathing properly you can change your health considerably.

 

"If you want to make your mind still, make your breath still”. This is the golden rule of yoga.

Science Behind Pranayama:

In yoga theory, it is said that there are 72000 Nadis.

Nadis are the paths that supply prana to all the cells in the body.

As we grow, these Nadis are blocked due to irregular breathing patterns, wrong thinking habits and bad lifestyles. Due to this blockage of Nadis, our body gets diseases.

So to clear all these Nadis we must regularly do pranayama for at least 5 minutes. These little 5 minutes of investment can make your mind peaceful and if you continue it with consistency you can achieve sound health.

It is said that you can activate your” Kundalini Shakti” by the regular practice of Pranayama.  So Pranayama is not limited to your physical health. Physical health will be just a small byproduct of doing Pranayama. But you can grow spiritually too.