PRANA(control of pran with breath)

Pranayam(controlof pran with breath)

Prana is the subtle energy that flows in the body ,which maintains all activities in the body. Inthe west it is wrongly interpreted as the brething exercise.

Ayam means restrain or control .Therfore pranayam is a discipline to control th evitual life force through various breathing techniques . Its importance in yog is the prana and the mind are intimately connected .By controlling prana constantly weavering mind can be controlled. thus pranayam prepares mind for darshan ,dhyan and samadhi.

aftering mastering pranayama,the effects can be amazing .The Bengali poet and mystic, ShriAurobindo,practised pranayamfor upto six hour per day. He then observed, 'pranayam makes one's intellect sharper andone's brain quicker'.Initially he could write about 200 lines poetry a month . After mastering pranayam ,he composed 200 lines in only half an hour . He commented ,'.....poetry came like a river and prose like a flood..'(Diwarkar 1976:111-112).

PRATYAHAR(withdrawing senses from their object)

This is the controlofthe senses (eyes,ears,nose,tounge and skin )by the mind,and diverting them inwards from their respective objects.-yogdarshan2/54

In essence pratyahar is a technique in which the mind withdraws into itself. The indriyas cease to function independently. It is similar to an inventer who is so engrossedin a problem that his mind is completely shutoff from the external world ,involuntarily .However in pratyahar , he mind remains within itself and the external world is shut out by sheer power,in Raj yog. In Bhakti Yog ,this occurs by th esupreme attractive power of an object of devotionallove within - paramatma.


The first five limb of the ashtang Yog is called Bahirang -external limbs of yog. The remainig three -Dharana,Dhyana and Samadhi are Antarang -internal.

DHARANA(concentration)

This is the process of confining the mind within a limited mentalfield or object of concentration.

The word 'concentration' has a different meaning inyog philosophy compared to that inWestern psychology . The latter believes that the mind cannot be made toremain focused on any object foe any considerableperiod oftime.

It is just a controlled movement of the mind within a limited field . It is just a controlled movement of the mind within alimited field . In Yog,Concentration begins with the contrilled movement of the mind and it can reach a state in which the object concentrated upon and can move no further