Patanjali Yoga Sutra III.43 When you focus on the relationship between the body and the space around the body, the lightness of cotton fiber is attained and allows one to travel through the sky.
We use the word focus here, but it is about Samayama, restraint of the qualities of attention. When our casual attention, our intermittent attention and our constant attention are all resting in one concept, we become that concept. We lose our identity in that something. It’s just something that human minds do. We slip into falling in love and we become the other’s partner instead of being ourselves. We become our role, instead of inhabiting the role for a time. Patanjali, the great yoga psychologist teaches how we can master this tendency and use it intentionally. This sutra is one of the many where he describes a practice one can do, here focusing on the body and the space around the body, where the qualities of lightness is revealed. We focus on the edge of our density and the air around us and our own spaciousness is revealed. In Yoga the intention is to identify with the unlimited aspect of consciousness, and then operate from that vantage point. In order to do this we must develop our awareness of the subtle. We developed this awareness by learning about prana – the subtle energy. Learning to work with prana transforms our relationship with the body and with the asanas.
Asanas work powerfully on the gross level, developing muscles and balancing bone structure. Squeezing out the internal organs and changing the blood flow. Working with prana impacts the subtle fluid energies of the body and their conduits – the veins and nervous system – purifying blood and lymph and plasma. In the traditional Chinese system, chi, a relative of prana (it appears to function differently), is associated with the spirit in its function in blood. We can understand then that the finer the substance the closer it is to spirit. To understand our prana is to come to understand ourselves.
A primary yogic technique for working with the prana is pranayama, or restraint of the prana. We practice consciously controlling, restricting and releasing the prana. The result is energy, wakefulness and creativity.
Don’t be surprised if you go through a period of transition before you feel that. The heavier elements of consciousness formed by lifestyle factors may present obstacles to clarity. But that’s part of the gift. Like dropping sandbags out of a balloon we may decide to let things go. It’s important to note that it’s not necessarily the object of attention that we let go of, it could be how we relate to it. We see things differently when we take a few steps back. When we release the obstacle and gather our attention on what lifts us up we float, like a cloud, or a helium balloon when what weighs it down is released. In the case of this sutra, the we learn that what weighs us down is the compartmentalization that there is space and there is body,we are the body, and not space. And they are separate. The deeper our intimacy with breath and space through the practice of pranayama, the more we develop discernment of the subtle in our practice, and find our way to lightening up.
Natalie Ullmann 