 Namaste, welcome to the 16th session of our course Yog and Positive Psychology for Managing Career and Life. Today's session is focused on Pranayama as the intervention for managing self and we have already discussed that managing self is deeply connected to managing career as well. You can recall that we are looking at the interventions according to the different layers of self. So in the previous sessions we looked at ahar that is food and asanas that is postures yogic postures as the interventions at Annamayakosh as the physical aspect of self. Today in the same sequence we are going to look at Pranayama which is intervention at Pranamayakosh as the pranic level of self. And in the sessions to come we will look at the interventions at Manamayakosh and Vigyanamayakosh. In the last session you might recall that we talked about ahasanas for the people with the different Ayurvedic constitution ah there are different asanas suitable for people with the Vata constitution, people with the Pitta, Pitta predominant constitution or Kaffa predominant constitution. Those who are registered for the NPTEL course they must have received ah assessment link most of the registered participants I hope would have taken that ah assessment and must have got some idea what is their predominant prakriti or vikrti in terms of Vata, Pitta and Kaffa. What is the suitable food for them and ah looking at this session they can also figure out ah what are what are the asanas most suitable for their prakriti. Today we are talking about Pranayama. Let us look at some of the basic the most fundamental aspects of Pranayama. Why we are studying Pranayama as the ah intervention we are studying Pranayama as an intervention because it promotes emotional stability at the spiritual level it prepares us ah for the higher levels of yoga and positivity in life. Pranayama has a very unique ah position in the astang yoga yam niyam asan. They are clearly ah Bahir yoga means you can ah observe them very clearly. Pranayama is also Bahir yoga but it is deeply connected with the Antar yoga ah which is Pranayama Pratyahar, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi. It is linked to breath it is linked to breath and breath is a very interesting activity very intriguing activity in our body. You may say that what is so intriguing about breath that is probably the most fundamental aspect of life yes that is very fundamental aspect of life but you know it is not involuntary activity though we cannot live without breathing but it is not involuntary activity it is actually a voluntary activity. So ah ah we know that nervous system has autonomous nervous system ah which has ah sympathetic and parasympathetic part and there is a voluntary aspect of the of the nervous system. This activity the call breathing it connects voluntary and involuntary aspect of ah nervous system. So, it sits in the middle it is ah a kind of a linkage of the human self or for that matter any organism ah with the outside world. So, Pranayama also is a science which deals with the physical breath and it also ah deals with it is also about the subtle energy which flows with this breath ah we all know what is breath now there is another ah variable in the equation that is Prana what is Prana. So, if you ask what is Prana to a yoga teacher or you look at the answer in the science of yoga ah it is said to be a life energy. So, Prana is the life energy that is carried within our breath and it is the bridge between mind and the body. So, Prana is that which connects subject to an object to mind and body and Pranaayama is a regulation of that Prana. So, Prana is ah can be ah loosely translated as the vital force or vital energy and that connects subject to an objective aspect of life that connects ah body and mind and we all know that definition of mind which we have looked at in the previous sessions does not identify mind as a localized phenomena. It is ah it is an information it is a regulation system and it is embodied system not localized to one part of the body that which connects mind and body is called Prana and regulation of that Prana is called Pranayama. The earliest references of breath and Prana ah are found in Upanishad in the Hatha Yoga Deepika and in our very old text ah Swara Sarvodaya. In the Tatri Upanishad it is said conflict between the Gyanamayakosh and Manomayakosh that is intellect and the instinct causes disturbance in the subtle life energy or Prana and by consciously breathing by observing our breathing we can regulate Prana and in this way we can resolve the conflict ah between the intellect and ah instinct that is ah a teaching in the Tatri Upanishad. Hatha Yoga Pradipika being the text of Yoga itself ah elaborates this idea in much greater depth. So, what it says that it is a solution for the imbalance in Prana ah it also recognizes that imbalance causes imbalance happens ah in the Pranic level and the solution to address that imbalance is through slow and deep breathing. It has been said that when the mental state is disturbed the life energy or Prana gets unbalanced and this leads to irregular breath. Hence, to regulate the mental state the Yoga practitioner should regulate the breath. So, Hatha Yoga Pradipika as it is said to be the text of about 11th century it is much more sophisticated much more elaborate in terms of what practice to be followed. We also ah remember that Hatha Yoga Pradipika enumerate 84 asanas so very elaborate description of the practices ah is given in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. There is another very old text ah there is one similar text called Swara Siddhant and this text which is being referred here is called Swara Sarvodayam that gives most elaborate explanation of breath and how it is connected to our life energies and how it is connected to the different types of activities of life. So, it explains that Swara system uses awareness of the nasal cycle. So, ah the distinction between the Chandranadi, Suryanadi, ah right nostril breathing and left nostril breathing that distinction is the basis that is a one of the fundamental tenets and ah it it it explains things in great detail what it says that a Swara system uses the awareness of the nasal cycle ah and rhythm in the subtle body to help us understand when our mind feel is suitable to particular activities. It actually explains that right nadi or the right nostril breathing increases or ah energizes our sympathetic nervous system it does not use the word sympathetic nervous system, but it it explains that right nostril breathing or right ah is responsible for enhancing our blood pressure enhancing our temperature and ah the bodily activities within ah left nostril breathing reduces the temperature reduces the speed of the breathing and has a calming effect. Since this has a calming effect and Chandra moon is connected to and it is ah it symbolizes the calming aspect of self it is called Chandranadi and ah Suryanadi which is ah ah which is connected to the right nostril and right nostril breathing it is related to the sympathetic system as as as mentioned earlier that is called Suryanadi when Chandranadi is on when Chandranadi is active activities related to imagination working with the space meditation those things are ah useful when the Chandranadi is active. When a Suryanadi is active more active engagements some action ah outside work ah solving some ah mathematical problems these are best done whenever ah Suryanadi is active likewise it explains so many activities in great detail. So, very interesting science ah is there behind the ah breathing itself behind the nasal cycle ah and that is deeply connected to pranayama or we can also say it is a bad rock of the pranayama. So, there is a chapter in the ah fundamentals of the alternative and complementary medicine in the fourth edition currently the sixth edition is running this chapter on the vital energy starts with a quote by Carl Jung what it says that physical events can be looked at in two ways from the mechanistic and from the energy point of view and from this quote ah this chapter starts and elaborate on the idea of vitality idea of life energies ah in various cultures ah it gives the example for if I remember correctly at least 17 18 cultures ah and what are the correlates of pran exist in those cultures ah these are few example for example ah like in the ancient Egypt there is a concept of ka which is very similar to ah notion of prana ah in the Judaism ah rock is the ah notion which is very similar to prana ah in Japan there is a notion of key that is ah reflection of the vital energy which is similar to prana ah in ah Maori culture the name of prana is also Maori. So, you can say you can see the similarity of the Maori and Maori which is ah which is the culture developed in contemporary place called New Zealand ah that is also there this this concept is also there in that culture then there are some cultures which have much more sophisticated understanding about this life energy. So, they not only talk about the life energy they also talk about the channels through which ah life this life energy flows. So, in the Tibetan tradition it is called lung and sta lung is the energy sta is the channel through which this energy flows ah in the Chinese culture very old culture it ah mentions about kui and jinglo that is ah again the synonymous of energy life energy and the channel through which it flows and in the Greece also there are terms like Numa and ah Flebe. Numa is a reflection of energy and Flebe is the channel through which it runs within our body. So, you can see that notion of pran may look illusive or ah very subtle, but it exist in almost all cultures there are many other examples ah on this slide we ah we have mentioned only these 5, 6 examples, but this chapter anyone who is interested to look at the ah cross cultural aspect of ah life energy and or pranayama they must look at this chapter.