What is Pranayama?
Pranayama is not, as many think, something about breath; breath indeed has very little to do with it, if anything. Pranayama really means controlling the motion of the lungs, and this motion is associated with the breath. Not that breath is producing it; on the contrary, it is producing breath. This motion draws in the air by pump action. The prana is moving the lungs, the movement of the lungs draws in the air. So Pranayama is not breathing, but controlling that muscular power that moves the lungs. That muscular power that goes out through the nerves to the muscles and from them to the lungs, making them move in a certain manner is the Prana, which we have to control in the practice of Pranayama. Breathing is only one of the many exercises through which we get to the real Pranayama. Pranayama means the control of Prana. Just as Akasha is the infinite, omnipresent material of this universe, so is this Prana the infinite, omnipresent manifesting power of this universe. It is