The Necessary Bridge to Concentration

"When cita [mind] comes face to face with the soul the breath stops at once and ecstasy is experienced"

Daily meditation is teaching me lots of things, but the main lesson I am getting is that there is a void, a river of sorts, for me at least, in between the practices of asanas (poses) and the practice of Dharana (concentration), which is what I am attempting in the one hour routine of sitting at the cushion every day following the Vipassana instructions.

My gut is right and surprisingly enough it is not even my gut, it is what I have been hearing since I started practicing yoga. There are two limbs in between: "Pranayama" (breathing and "will power" (Iyengar) extension) and "Prathyahara" (sense withdrawal).

One thing is to think about them and understand them rationally: "oh yes the eight limbs of yoga, they don't specifically go in order but they all have their place".  Another thing is to experience it in the physical form, being in the cushion and noticing the mind going everywhere, and then one day, trying a few alternate nostril breathing pranayama exercises prior to cushion time and noticing the difference.

Today Ramaswami also published his newsletter, which, spooking-ly enough, talks about pranayama... makes me wonder about the coincidences of the universe.

On that note I came back today to the pranayama chapter of Iyengar's AMAZING book "Light on Astanga Yoga" (not found on amazon, but a Donnald told me you can get a copy here). I love Iyengars' flow through the limbs and how he interconnects them with Patanjali's sutras.  The book is a treasure.

In the beginning he talks about how of course, pranayama needs to be approached after "perfection" of poses. He, and Patanjali before him, mean mastery, or at least some level of control.  He goes all out on that:

"There is definitely a step between asana and pranayama" I guess this is limb 3.5?

The chapter is rich in information and, least this post turns into a review, I guess I am focusing today on the beginning of it all, the dawning of pranayama:

Bridge picture source

"We begin to observe the normal breath, we realise how the breath moves un-rhythmically, changing its place in the body by touching the nose or the throat.... we have to observe and learn to do inhalation and exhalation by removing these interrupted movements so that the breath... spreads on the lungs evenly"

So it begins with observation. Just reading that makes me notice how indeed my breath is felt sometimes in my belly, or the chest, or the nostrils, one part of the body active, the other parts resting.

He then brings it to Ujjayi Pranayama, or breathing (the Dark Vader sounding breath we use in Ashtanga Yoga during asana practice), this is what he says:

"One has to observe the motion and very action that are involved in the moods and modes of respiration so we can build a certain discipline to practice it. This is the beginning of pranayama. A normal inhalation and a normal exhalation done with attention and absorption leads one automatically towards deep inhalation and deep exhalation filling the unfilled or empty places of the lungs.  We call this Ujjayi Pranayama the beginning of the pranayama process."

The focus on attention brought about by all that talk on Drishti (eye focus point during asana) from Sharath last month, brings me now again into focusing on it and adding further attention to the breath. Just noticing it.  It is a start.  As per Prathyahara, the next limb, let us say I am taking things one at the time for now.

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