The word prana – there is no equivalent word in English, but we can say it’s a ‘vital energy’. That which we call as the life energy, is Prana. Prana has ten different manifestations in the body. But for the sake of understanding we’ll bring it down to five. These five are referred to as five vayus, or panchavayus. This is pranavayu, samanavayu, udhanavayu, apana, and vyana. They’re in charge of different dimensions of what happens in this human mechanism.
This [panchvayus] is pranavayu, samanavayu, udhanavayu, apana, and vyana
This is an endless subject, if I speak like this. I’m just trying to abridge it, in a sensible manner. Taking charge of this – yama means to control or to take charge. Pranayama means, a method with which you want to take charge [of] this bunch of vayus. Because how your body functions, how your mind functions, how the whole physiological framework – this human mechanism, how it functions is determined by this energy. This is an energy, it is an intelligent energy. In the sense, it carries a certain amount of memory. The karmic memory of the individual person is imprinted on this energy. So in each person, the prana functions in a different manner. It is unique to each individual.
It is not like electricity. Electricity is not smart. It can light up the, you know, the light bulb, it can run the camera, it can, you know, run the air conditioning, it can do million things – but not because of its intelligence. It does the same thing, always. Because of a particular device, a certain thing happens. But now I am talking about – this will happen in future that you may have smart electricity. It is not far away. In the next 50 years you may have smart energy. That the energy behaves in a particular way, you can make it behave in a certain way, because you can imprint certain memory upon it.
So this is an intelligent energy where a certain amount of imprint is there, because of that it functions in a specific manner, in an individual person. That is, going into an extremely refined form of pranayama where we particularly design something for an individual person, because he’s in a certain way. For that to come to that level, it will need a general level of pranayam, where it takes care of these five vayus.
Psychological balance is 100% guaranteed for a person who takes charge of his prana
If one has a certain mastery over these five vayus, there is no such thing as physical ailment, or particularly psychological ailment is out of question. If somebody takes charge of their prana, whatever may be the external atmosphere, whatever influences in terms of reverberations, waves, emotions, other kinds of pressures, doesn’t matter what – psychological balance is 100% guaranteed for a person who takes charge of his prana. Always.
