Spirituality in yoga has fascinated me for a while. I have often wondered what we actually mean when we talk about spirituality. The word itself seems to contain the root spiritus, which, among other things, means breath. In the last few years, it has dawned on me that one of the best ways to look at spirituality is to look at it from this angle of breath.
“What do you mean?”, you may ask. “Why should breath have anything to do with spirituality?” That is a justified question. Normally, we think of spirituality as something that has to do with religion, transcendence and enlightenment. None of these deal directly with breathing. In the yogic context though, transcendence is achieved by certain means. These include body control, control of the mind and the careful observation and regulation of the breath. The underlying assumption, here, is that the life force in our ordinary existence is scattered and disbursed. Through the practice of yoga, we can bring this life force back together and streamline it. The integration and focusing of prana then affects our physical, mental and emotional levels. When the different dimensions of our Being have been integrated by the smooth flow of prana, we may find that a deeper transformation is beginning to take place.
How do we then achieve the streamlining of prana? The first important point to realize is that our life force is indeed scattered. When we come home from work, we often feel exhausted. Things are asked of us by our work environment, by others, by our superiors and later also by our family. We rarely have a moment to take a breath. Then, when we have time to relax, we just want to hear music, read a book or watch a movie. It rarely dawns on us that we are still focusing all our senses outward, even when we try to relax. In yogic parlance, being outward-oriented means scattering one’s energies. That means that in both our work and in our leisure we are losing life force.
To reverse this process and to integrate prana we have to look inward. Most of us know this intuitively because that is the reason why we do yoga. In our practices, we have found that our empty shell begins to feel alive when we do some slow stretching, some mindful breathing and some focused meditation. We find that our sensing of the inner world actually gives us more recuperation than any entertainment or external diversion. This happens because we begin to streamline the flow of prana through our inward orientation.
Our work with yoga teaches us that the smoothing of the life force can be enhanced by certain practices. One of these is the use of conscious, mindful breathing. Most of us are familiar with the regulated breathing during asana practice, and some may have achieved a certain degree of proficiency in pranayama. Both practices can be used to enhance the flow of prana. If we add to this a regular practice of meditation, we find that the body and the mind become quieter, more relaxed and more intensely alive. That in turn is a sure sign that the life force is flowing more smoothly. Breathing and meditation are therefore not only good ways to focus one’s mind, they also bring scattered energies together and integrate the flow of prana.
In the last few years, I have learned to enliven the flow of prana through an additional practice. This practice is based on an old text from the Vasistha”s Yoga (and also appears in the Yogayajnavalkya Samhita). It deals with the use of vital energy points. These points are called marma (plural: marmani). Marmani can be defined in different ways. My favourite definitions are:
- “bridges that span mind, soul and body”; and
- “vital energy points, infused with prana, where consciousness is most expressive”.
In the traditional practice of marma work, you move through the 107 points, beginning with the feet and ending at the crown of the head. Each point is touched with the mind and then breathed into. The breath is smooth, relaxed and flowing. By focusing and breathing into each marma, you can begin to touch the energy flow directly and remove blockages while focusing on all five dimensions (the koshas).
This practice has proved to be one of the most gentle and yet most effective practices I have done in the last couple of years. I’m no judge of any progress or transformations but this work has clearly connected me to a more spiritual level in yoga. If spirituality means something to me, I would say it is this: the breath can open up worlds. The simple act of focusing the mind and breathing softly can change the fabric of our existence on a very subtle level. So obviously I am hooked. I now use the marmani in my daily practice and often weave them into my asana practice as well. I use them for inner alignment and for focusing my breath in movement and meditation. It is surprising to see that, after years of pranayama, it turned out to be this simple, smooth-flowing breath that is the most effective. For me, breathing has become a direct connection to the life force as it touches each marma and expands my awareness and being.
In the end, this kind of marma work has led me deeper into the subtle dimensions of yoga because the breath has quite literally become the spiritus that is at the root of spirituality.
Oda Lindner