Prana in Initiation and Evolution
Vajranatha
Someone asked me recently ‘what is prana and why does it have a role in
initiation’? This question could take a book to answer, but here are
some comments on the subject.
I like the concept of the "five bodies" (Skt.:pancha-kosha), it's a
model that works well.
One of these 5 "bodies" is the pranic body (Skt.: prana-maya-kosha). In
it resides the channels and chakras, where you can discover the
bioenergetic root or essence of prana, kundalini. Prana is connected to
a number of things. One is breath or breathing. The other is time.
But this is not the body we normally see. The body we see with our
gross eyes is the body-made-of-food (Skt.: anna-maya-kosha). It's our
physical body.
Nestled inside this is the pranic body (Skt.: prana-maya-kosha). Simply
in it’s placement it becomes obvious that the pranic body is a kind of
bridge between the physical and the mental, because huddled inside this
is the mental body (Skt.: mano-maya-kosha). Some call this the astral
body.
Nestled inside this is the Bliss Body (Skt.: ananda-maya-kosha).
And inside this is the Body of Transcendent Wisdom. identical with the
Absolute (Skt. Brahman). This where our individual karmas are stored.
This sheath covers what I will call the Pure Self. It projects karmas
out, through the other bodies. The karmas we share with our families,
clan, race, city, region and country are stored in the Bliss body. As
karmas "ripen", they make there way out of the two inner bodies and
project into the Mental Body. The mind then moves the pranic body which
causes the physical body to move and create good or bad actions.
Practitioners of Inner Tantra use prana to reverse this process by
dividing prana into solar and lunar parts and UNITING them. The mind
stops and karma is eradicated in this way. Karmic prana, becomes Jnanic
(transcendental) prana. This is why it can be used for initiation: it
has the ability to take karmic traces and transform them into the play
of our own wisdom energy.
When other parts of these bodies are damaged by experiences they cannot
digest, it causes problems. Of course we know physical abuse harms the
body. But different types of trauma also damage mind--and even the way
prana flows. Prana tends to flow in ways that parallels the way the
mind flows. Mess with one, you mess with the other. For example someone
who is sexually abused as a child or experiences starvation/neglect,
the mind is greatly disturbed--but so is the pranic body. The pranic
body will try to "re-weave" itself. However if the environment which
created the trauma still exists, as in parental abuse or a country
experiencing mass starvation, the pranic body is not allowed to
re-weave correctly and so the mind remains disturbed. The body tenses
the muscles to hold onto to feelings it doesn't dare express. External
elements (Skt.: bhutas) can superimpose their lifeforces into such
traumatized beings and mental illness can result. This is why
techniques such as Shamanic journeying and "Soul Retrieval" (Tib.:
"Lalu", lit. "buying the soul back") works.
Destroying the flow of life-force/prana will also effect these bodies
from the outside, not only because we are bioenergetically
connected--we karmically incarnated into this same place. Destroy the
lifeforce which brings rain or healthy crops, etc. and it trickles both
down and up: into the environement and into the individual.
There are five forms or aspects of prana which regulate all forms of
life. These are:
1. Udana
2. Prana
3. Samana
4. Vyana
5. Apana
Udana is an upward moving current of prana. It is associated with the
element EARTH which seems a bit odd, but in its actual function, in
moving upward, it activates the senses. Thus it activates our outwardly
going experience of the physical dimension as experienced by the senses
in the head and by the sense of touch. It is also the energy
specifically behind thought energy. Udana is particularly activated
when prana enters the upper chakras. In mundane reality, when udana is
prevalent, the person would be filled with a barrage of thoughts. The
yogin uses it to control thought, memory and to attain the Void and
stillness at the throat chakra--and the intense bliss of the crown
centers. When perfected one can levitate or fly. On the level of dream
one can mentally "fly"--mental projection: you think about it and your
mental body takes you there. Thus you can conquer either gravity or
being stuck to place.
When imbalanced or wrongly directed into the head it can create
different forms of insanity or mental illness.
Prana (as one of the five forms of prana) is life-force which is
centered in the area of the heart. If it is strong, you appear vital;
if weak, you seem drained and fragile. When it goes, life goes. Often
when a person experiences a heart attack, you can very tangibly see
this force leave quickly. The person develops an immediate pallor as
all color and "life" leaves their face. Prana repesents the space
element of all the pranas. Those who master it can leave their bodies
at will and even enter other bodies (as in yogis who "body jump". In
dream one can create other bodies and occupy them all simultaneously.
Samana is the digestive fire and not surprisingly, the element fire. It
is the sun which distributes nutrients, our metabolism throughout our
personal solar system, our microcosm. It is also the inner fire, the
same fire used to generate the blissful fire of gTummo. This gives rise
to a contentment, a deep bliss which is lasting through all change in
life, all of the ups or downs. Since fire is connected to light it is
also connected with the Clear Light, the subtle light which is the
basis of all experience. It also represents the ability to be aware in
dream. When it is out of balance one may have dreams of running away or
if it appears in retreat you may get the sudden desire to get up and
run away.
Vyana is the "pervasive prana" and represents the life-force which
connects everything in the body. It is like the element air and airy
Mercury. When one sees great scenery and has a sense of oneness and joy
throughout the body this is the prana vyana. The sense of being in a
group of people and sharing a deep sense of comraderie, love and
sharing is vyana connecting together people. A feeling of joy or
sadness which expresses itself in our faces is vyana communicating what
is in our hearts to our faces. The subtle network of communication in
the body is run by vyana and the external net of ley lines, the "dakini
net", the net of Indra is the outer expression. Vyana helps the
benefits of your spiritual practices "spread" throughout your life and
experience. It is also the bridge of time and space, esp. that
connecting lifetimes.
Apana is the downward flowing prana which is responsible for
defecation, ejaculation, orgasm, birth delivery, etc. It is watery and
like water seeks its own lowest level. Since Apana is the opposite of
upward moving forms of prana, it is often used to merge with these
opposites. Certain asanas or bodily positions may place the heel at the
perineum to block the downward flow and to force it to combine with
prana. This annihilation allows to mind to pierce the chakras and find
the calm center of the central channel (Skt.: avadhuti). When it does
all the chakras collapse and perfect interiorization is the result.
Consequently it is an important prana for the Hatha yogin or the
Tsa-Lung practitioner but also for anyone learning to "center" their
awareness into the calm state. Apana is the great eliminator, it allows
us to not only eliminate physical waste but remove things we don't want
in our life.
For the yogin or yogini the idea is to unify these pranas and head back
to the source of everything through absorption (Skt.: samadhi). In
tantric terminology one can find words like sama-dhi joined together in
one word to symbolize this state of union, this state of silence (sama
= "silent" dhi = "mind"). Often these are hidden in word games that
only initiates will recognize. One such word is Candali (Kandali). It
conceals the two letters Ka and A and the words for 'consonant' and
'vowel' (kali and ali). Candali literally means "a women of low caste".
But in this case it refers to an actual practice of generating bliss by
merging the solar and lunar channels to cause a flame to ignite in the
gut, causing the amrita of the lunar centers in the brain to melt and
flow down over the chakras, generating intense bliss and sensation.
Staring directly into this sensation of bliss riding on top of
emptiness, one can "jump" into the Void.
This teaching appears in Tibet where the technique of Candali was
manifested as "tummo" (Tib.: gTummo), the yoga of the mystic heat.
The two Sankrit letters "A" and "Ha" represent the 'phonic bookends' of
sonic creation: they are the first and last letters of the Sanskrit
alphabet. As with many of these words (or letters) when they are joined
they make a third word indicative of the state of union or two-in-one.
"A", when added to "Ha" and the mantric terminator "m" spells "aham" or
the word for self-identification or the "ego", "I-ness": "I am". This
is particularly revealing in what it can tell us. By dividing the ego
into its two constituent opposites and uniting them in silence ("M",
the "single-point" or bindu) one can transcend the habit of
self-identification.
A+Ha+M is also unique in the way it describes the play of opposites in
the creation of mental silence and the creation of the Sound of
Twilight, the sandhyaya-shabda. "A" is the primordial letter not only
because it is the "first" letter in the sequence of Sanskrit letters
but also because it is the only letter pronounced unmodified by the
tongue. Most letters somehow use the tongue to shape the sound it
creates. The sound "A" (as in "open wide and say "Ahhhhh"") comes
straight from the lungs, through the throat and out the lips. The Bindu
or terminator of Aham, "M" is the end result of fusing "A" with "Ha":
silence. The humming "mmmmmmmm..." sound is the sound symbolic of the
two-in-one state. It is emblematic of silence as it is the sound that
is produced when the lips are completely closed. For this reason it is
used in many mantras as a terminator, an ending sound. It is that which
takes you into silence and the imperishable Void (Skt.: akshara)
present behind all time-spatiality.
Some of the other words often used for opposite forms of prana and the
third state are actually rivers. The Sanskrit word for the subtle
pranic channels nadi actually means river. To those who can see these
energy streams, this is also how they appear to the subtle vision.
The end result of all of these methods are similar: silence, heat and
bliss. Their great variety points to an interesting insight: all the
different yogins who revealed many different tantras revealed a direct
manifestation of the Sambhogakaya/Energy dimension as a way to attain
complete enlightenment. They were almost all revealed by a single
person and fleshed out and expounded by the direct in-group of the
yogis surrounding the revealer. And we should expect to see wider and
wilder variety as tantras begin to manifest in the west: the
manifestation of enlightened energy knows no limitation. The only
question that remains is "what is the expression these new tantras will
take, esp. in the west?" "In what way will the twilight language, the
code-words of duality leading to the non-dual state show their poetry?"
"How will all the true manifestations of tantra appear?"
Directed skillfully by the minds of a new generation of practitioners
these new methods will represent the ultimate doorway to the wonderful
way of life in the west.
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