Soul's Code

Devotion and the love of yoga isn’t the only aspect of practice that keeps you in the yoga studio, but it is also the understanding of the force that is found during a yoga practice. Prana, like love gets you through relationships ups and downs, and it is prana what brings you through asana practice, and keeps you coming back for more.

Prana another misunderstood word is generally described as energy, a life force, a fire in the pit of your belly, however it is much more, and like love, is almost indescribable, a term of which words often do not suffice.

In Light on Pranayama, Iyengar gives a compelling and thorough explanation of Prana.

It is as difficult to explain Prana as it is to explain God. Prana is the energy permeating the universe at all levels. It is physical, mental intellectual, sexual, spiritual and cosmic energy. All liberating energies are prana. All physical energies such as heat, light, gravity, magnetism and electricity are also prana. It is the hidden or potential energy in all beings released to the fullest extent in times of danger. It is the prime mover of all activity. It is energy, which creates, protects and destroys. Vigor, power, vitality, life and spirit are all forms of prana.

With a consistent yoga practice you begin to feel and understand Prana. Like love pierces the energetic layers of being, Prana begins to pierce your Koshas and direct your vayus (subtle energies) in directions you never thought possible. Your daily practice begins to take flight. The tight and untouchable parts of your physical body break down and the posture becomes less of a chore and more of a blessing. Prana permeates not only your practice, but also your life, and benefit your external relationship with your surroundings.

This subtle change can take days, years, months or lifetimes and occurs only if you are open, aware and ready to surrender to it. You can imagine prana as the light that cracks through under your door. As the nostalgia that rakes up memories of childhoods, and past loves, it is so analogous to love that you can call prana a love force. Something that takes you through the toughest of days when without if you feel as if you have not hope.

If you teach others the art of yoga your prana will literally move into another person’s soul through touch and adjustment, creating and intimacy between two people that if not for a yoga practice, would never exist. This love and compassion between a teacher and her/his pupil is the art and practice of Ahimsa.

While teaching, Ahimsa or non-violence, is exercised in the physical adjustment of asana. While the topic of 'to adjust or not to adjust' is quite an issue in many yogic communities, it seems to be the most generous and material expression of the term Ahimsa.

Adjustments are physical bonds and connections that require thorough knowledge, love and respect of an individual. When you understand this, then, can you practice 'adjustment with ahimsa' — non-violent, compassionate, physical adjustments, based on the understanding of an individual’s personality, practice, and emotional availability during a given day.

By showing them ahimsa through the art of adjustment, they learn how to achieve a posture without being violent to their bodies. This idea of first being non-violent on the physical level transcends to the deeper levels of consciousness and through practice on non-violence to the self you gradually learn to be non-violent to others. Weather it is by practicing Satya (Truth) to others, by restraining in physical violence to others, or to the planet, the student will comprehend ahimsa in its material, energetic and spiritual levels —this understanding is Love. Ghandi once said:

'In its positive form, ahimsa means the largest love, the greatest charity. If I am a follower of ahimsa, I…love my enemy. This active ahimsa necessarily includes truth and fearlessness. A man cannot then practice ahimsa and be a coward at the same time, the practice of ahimsa calls forth the greatest courage.'