Yoga: What is Time for Pranayama:
According to Yoga, and the latest scientific discoveries prove it,
everything in our Universe is a vibration. One of the characteristics of the
vibration is the rhythm. The rhythm is manifested in everything – the
planets rotate round the Sun, one season changes the other, the day comes
after the night. Human bodies also live according to different rigid
rhythmic cycles. One of the most important of them is breathing. The ancient
yogis worked out a special system of breathing exercises aimed at the
perfection of one’s breathing skills. This system of yogic breathing
techniques is called Pranayama.
The most important in Pranayama is the rhythm of breath – the ratio of
breathing phases. Traditionally the duration of the inhalation, the
retention of breath and the exhalation is measured by mental counting or by
counting the heart beats. But for the beginner and even for the advanced
practitioner it is very difficult to stick to a rigid rhythm – there’s a
tendency to slow down silent counting during the retention of breath. As for
the heart beats, it is not very pleasant to listen to them. One may use an
ordinary clock with the second hand, but another problem appears – if your
breathing pattern is, for example eight seconds for inhalation, thirty-two
seconds for breath retention and sixteen seconds for exhalation, you’ll have
to do a lot of calculating to measure the correct beginning of each
breathing phase.
The computer programme Time for Pranayama lets you engage yourself in the
practice of breathing exercises without worrying when to begin the next
phase of breathing, no matter how complicated the chosen ratio of breathing
phases is – Time for Pranayama will simply tell you what to do at the
moment. Time for Pranayama is an attentive teacher who does all the
measuring for you. Besides it also makes certain adjustments to the pattern
of the breath, as the student of Pranayama progresses in his practice.
