Yoga is so valuable
and the science of Kriya yoga is so effective
because it deals with that subtle prana
– that subtle life force –
that is the actual animating force,
the animating energy in the nervous system,
in the whole body.
Emotions — today's world we look around,
I'm sure we experience ourselves
too often our emotional state is one of anxiety
or one of insecurity, perhaps one of even fear or worry
or even more toxic emotions
such as resentment and irritation and
other things like that, negative qualities.
But when you think about it, what is an emotion?
What is “emotions”; how do they work in the nervous system?
Emotion is simply this:
Emotion is simply currents of energy
generated by the brain and transmitted into the body by the brain
— currents of energy.
Pranayama, as you know from practice of meditation,
prana means life energy,
pranayama means control of life energy.
Therefore, by pranayama we also gain the ability
to control emotions.
Paramahansaji said actually that control of the emotions
is the key to health and happiness.
It helps our ability to be a God-conscious individual in the material world
to be, as he said, "In the world but not of the world".
That comes from the control of emotions,
control of the nervous system.
Let's practice one aspect of that now.
You know, Prana, working in the nervous system,
is that subtle life energy;
breath is one of the main vehicles of Prana.
By using this technique, which is in one of the Lessons – Lesson 7 I think –
we can have an actual experience of how to use prana
to get a handle, to get a grip,
to get control over emotions whenever we need them.
It's almost like a spiritual first aid.
So shall we practice this together?
Sit up in meditation posture.
Now, this technique is to be used
when there's an unwanted emotional state
that you're trying to free your consciousness from.
And basing it on the understanding that, again, emotions are currents of energy,
we use the breath, we use the consciousness
to pull those currents of life energy,
those currents of emotional energy,
into the breath and then expel them from the body.
So now this has to be a little bit theoretical
because we're going to be practicing how to get rid of a negative emotion
and I don't really feel too many negative emotions in this hall here today,
so you'll just have to pretend, all right?
for when you do need it.
You go like this: first of all,
you infuse life energy into the muscles by contracting all the muscles.
Exert tension through the body as we've been taught in the Lessons.
Inhale and hold the breath
and feel that that breath in the lungs is like a magnet
like it's pulling all of those currents
away from that emotion that we're trying to get rid of.
And then we expel the breath, we exhale the breath,
release the tension from the body
and feel that with the outflowing of life energy from the muscles
and specially from the breath,
that that emotion is being dispelled from the body.
Let's try that together. So sit upright,
inhale and while inhaling contract all the muscles
feel the life energy permeating the body
and feel that concentration of prana in the lungs
and now feel that the lungs, the breath in the lungs, is like a magnet
pulling any unwanted emotion – fear, anxiety, restlessness –
into that breath, into the air in the lungs.
And now release the tension from the muscles
and throw the breath out.
That feeling that was troubling us,
we do this two or three times, we can feel
that that literally, being psycho-physiologically expelled
from the body and the mind and the consciousness.
So this is again, just one little illustration
of the power that we can gain over the nervous system
by the practice of the techniques of meditation,
by the practice of the how-to-live principles,
that give us the ability to protect ourselves
and live in spiritual consciousness rather than to be helpless
and passive victims
of whatever the world throws at us.