Prana And The Five Vital Processes

In the morning, I was mentioning that the pranamaya kosha does not mean just inhaling or exhaling.

Five processes of prana happen inside you:

• 1. Inhalation
• 2. The air or prana that has gone inside stays in you. It is called kumbhaka.
• 3. The prana spreads all over the body. The prana shakti life giving energy - is separated from the air and the energy spreads all over the body.
• 4. The prana leaves.
• 5. The cleaning process happens.

So, the five prana processes that happen in you are: inhaling, staying, spreading, exhaling, and cleaning. Prana, vyana, udana, samana, apana - these are the five actions of prana. Going in, staying, spreading all over, leaving the system, and cleaning. All these five processes put together is called the pranic layer. One important thing you need to understand here: the air which goes inside through your nose is not prana. Understand the difference between the words prana and air. Air is the vehicle. It is just the medium to transport. Prana is the energy which is carried by this vehicle. For example, you see many times, a vehicle comes here, unloads something and goes out, is it not? In the same way, air goes inside, unloads the prana shakti and comes out. The problem is, because of your restless, unconscious and shallow way of breathing, separation of prana shakti from air, that is the unloading time, is not much. Your mind and your pranic cycle and the way in which you breathe, are both very closely connected. Because your breathing is so unconscious, the unloading time is very less. With less unloading time, only half of the prana gets unloaded and spreads through the body and the air comes out.

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa saw Vivekananda's breathing and said, 'This boy will not live long.' Ramakrishna said very clearly that he will not see age 40. Vivekananda passed away at 39. His breathing was very shallow. Maybe, he consciously designed it that way. After all, he was an enlightened master. Of course, if he wished, he could have altered the way of breathing. But, he decided to leave the body early. Anyhow, you have not decided to leave the body, so you can change your breathing consciously! You can make it sharp.