The technique is recommended for both beginners and advanced practitioners. In order to understand this technique, we need to consider the human being as a transformer of energy, or prana.
An uninterrupted flux of particles, molecules, and atoms traverses the body, not just as solid or liquid form, but also as gas, and subtle energies.
Air that brings us oxygen is also charged with water vapours, and subtle smells, such as the smells of nature. These play an important role in preserving health as shown by aromatherapy.
Life means changes and transformations, the more active our changes and interactions with the environment are, the more we are alive, in the most dynamic sense of the word.
Our body is a whirlpool of energy in the universal pranic ocean. The yogis distinctly perceive these exchanges of energy with the environment. They even managed to discover the differences between each type of energy, and they named them vayu – subtle energy.
The basic translation of vayu is sky, which would make someone think of the sky, with its chemical components – oxygen, azoth, rare gases.
However, the yogis understanding of vayu is the energies that circulate through the air, in the process of breathing, they absorb pranic energy from the surroundings through prana vayu.
Once the energies are absorbed in the microcircuit of our organism, they have to be personalized and assimilated – this is the function of samana vayu.
Once the body has assimilated them, they need to circulate throughout the organism, which is the function of prana vayu. Udana vayu allows the direction and the expression of the energies. The final stage is the elimination, when these energies return to their previous environment. All the functions that occur in this process belong to apana vayu.
THE FUNCTIONS OF PRANA AND APANA VAYU
- The two main vayus are prana vayu, which regulates the “intake” of particles and energy, adjusting it to the particular necessities of our organism, and apana vayu, responsible for the elimination of the unabsorbed residues.
- We live or we should live balancing these two functions. If apana fails to work properly, the organism is charged with toxins, and lacks vitality and suppleness. One of the main objectives of Hatha Yoga is that of stimulating all the vayus in a harmonious manner.
- If we stimulate prana vayu we also need to stimulate apana vayu. An important objective in Hatha Yoga is to obtain control over these vayus. This conscious control is obtained through the control of our breath, the one function that is alternatively the expression of prana vayu and apana vayu.
- While inhaling, the breath is the instrument of prana vayu because it brings us energy.
- While exhaling, the breath is the expression of apana vayu, which eliminates the used gases (for instance CO2). The balance of the breath, of the inhalation and exhalation determines the balance of prana vayu and apana vayu.
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