The Breath Is The King Of The Mind

This morning I woke up, made some tea and committed to doing at least 15 minutes of restorative pranayama. My mother is a devout Iyengar yoga devotee and has been for almost 40 years. After I was done, I had the urge to look up the word "pranayama" on the internet. What did it mean to my mom's guru, BKS Iyengar? Among other things I found this: "Pranayama" is a Sanskrit word meaning "restraint of the prana or breath". The word is composed of two Sanskrit words, Prāna, life force, or vital energy, particularly, the breath, and "āyāma", to suspend or restrain. It is often translated as control of the life force (prana).

My search also pulled up some videos of Iyengar himself. The first is his take on pranayama, the other is him practicing in his ashram in Pune, India, a place my mother has visited numerous times. Make sure to realize in the first video that the weird whooshing sound you are hearing while he is standing still is actually him breathing once in and once out. I also have to note that in the second video, he is 73!