When asked, many people say they know what the word prana is — that it is the life energy which keeps us alive.
One thing I love about Ayurveda is that it always goes way beyond the superficial meanings, and instead gives us an in-depth understanding of these very deep principles.
While yes, we can say that prana is indeed the life energy that keeps us alive, we can take it one step further and state that it also keeps our cells intelligent — to know what hormone or neurotransmitter to release and when to release it — giving our cells the intelligence to communicate with each other. Like sending hundreds of text messages to all parts of the body so the whole body is aware of what each cell needs at each moment in time.
Did you ever think how these processes occur in the first place? Where does this intelligence come from which oversees all these processes and multiple layers of communication?
These processes are controlled by prana — it’s just that you can’t see it because it is vibrational. So where does prana come from?
We need to go back to the very beginning if we want to understand its true meaning.
From the deepest silence, known as the Aditattwa, it begins to manifest into the Tritattwa — known as Soma, Agni and Marut. Soma is the cooling lunar energy, the water and earth elements. Agni is the hot solar energy, the fire element, and Marut is the space and air element. The space element is what gives our cells the intelligence to perform all their functions and the air element moves the Soma and Agni throughout the body since they can’t move on their own.
In fact, prana is like a battery — it is the bio-electric magnetic power of nature which is running our body’s magnetic power — recharging the organs and systems and contributing to the pacemaker of our heart, which is constantly being recharged with new pranic energy. And like a battery, prana has a minus charge, a plus charge and also includes the flow of the energy. The Soma is like the plus charge, the Agni is like the minus charge and the flow is governed by Marut.
Together, Soma, Agni and Marut are the three aspects of Prana. This prana comes into our bodies through orifices in the head — the top of the head, the ears, and nostrils. It comes into these orifices and goes down the spine and from there branches off to supply the pranic energy to all the organs, glands and systems. Sometimes the flow of the pranic energy can get blocked, so we use several transdermal creams used in specific ways, either down the spine or on specific marma points to open up the flow of prana. Marma points are mysterious points around the body which control all the organs and glands and are the intersection of Soma, Agni and Marut.
For example, if the person is suffering from irregular heartbeats and arrhythmias, one of the first things we do is to open up the flow of prana to the heart, since again, the pranic energy is like a cosmic pacemaker, keeping the heart pumping regularly throughout our whole lives. In fact, it has been stated that all diseases begin with lack of flow of prana to a specific area.
We also get prana from the food we eat, and from the water we drink. This is why we don’t want to corrupt the pranic energy in the food by microwaving it, freezing it, canning it, processing it or having it leftover. In fact, the food we cook today will have both less nutritional value and less pranic energy if it is leftover. And we want to have good alkaline water coming directly from the earth. Once we put chlorine in the water it kills the prana, so even if we filter out the chlorine we can’t bring the prana back to life.
We also get prana by breathing. Of course there is more prana out in nature, at the beach or in the forests, and less in a city such as New York City. Sometimes when I was sitting with my Ayurvedic teacher, Vaidya Rama Kant Mishra, he would tell a person to try to move out of the city and into the country if he felt they were receiving less prana and would overcome their health problems more quickly by living out in nature.
And just think how the electromagnetic frequencies (EMF’s) of the cell phones, cell phone towers, computers, WIFI etc. affect the prana. Since these EMF’s are also found in the space element — they actually pollute the space element and mingle in with the prana as it comes into our bodies, delivering toxic prana to all the organs and glands. We have many treatments and recommendations for people who are working around computers all day to help them mitigate the effects of the polluted prana circulating around in their bodies, causing numerous symptoms and sometimes serious diseases.
I remember one such patient who had acute flare-ups of multiple sclerosis and was being treated by neurologists with regular injections of drugs which were making her sick and weren’t helping anyway. We found that she had too many EMF’s in her pulse — it turned out she was working all day under high tension wires and cables bringing in electricity to her horse farm. We had her move her horses away from the overhead wires and once she did that, her MS totally went away, she got off her medicine and was fine, and still is fine, 20 years later — the MS never came back once we got good quality prana circulating back into her body. This is a good example of how the pranic energy can become polluted by the EMF’s of manmade electricity.
That brings me to another point — if you want to heal yourself, make sure the remedies you use have prana — try to avoid the synthetic pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals. Yes, we know the B Complex was originally found in food when it was discovered, but when we make it in a lab it becomes the toxic version of the real thing, contains no prana, and as a result will have an unintelligent effect somewhere in the body, and be toxic to the liver and kidneys. Yes, it will have some benefit, but it will also have a side effect, just like the pharmaceuticals.
And don’t underestimate the value of pure prana in your life. If the prana is polluted or missing, like with too much EMF exposure or taking food, pharmaceuticals or nutraceuticals that are dumb or dead, then our cells become dumb and less intelligent. And what that translates to is that it could increase the risk of us getting cancer, since cancer is nothing more than the cells not being able to remember what they are supposed to do and as a result multiply out of control.
So you can see how important it is to understand more about the pranic energy and make sure that we get out in nature, breathe fresh air, eat food cooked fresh each day and avoid processed, microwaved and leftover food and try to mitigate the side effects of the computers and cell phones we work with everyday.
By doing so you will go a long way to prolong your life, avoiding serious diseases that might come if the prana becomes depleted or corrupted in your body.
Thank you,