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anillsinha
India
9 Posts |
 Posted - Jan 09 2013 : 02:08:33 AM
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Dr. K.P.Buteyko in his famous lecture titled 'From spasmodic disease to super-endurance of yogi' delivered in 1969 declared that CO2 is the prana. Here is the excerpt
(http://www.normalbreathing.com/yoga....UOvloW-R_sE)
Quote
We declassified the major miracles of yogi. Their major miracles are in the reduction of respiration and accumulation of carbon dioxide. For thousands of years the yogi were looking for “prana”, which is somewhere in food, air, etc. It turned out that carbon dioxide is prana. Here is the main source of life - carbon dioxide. If you accumulate it, you become a “superhuman”; if you lose it, you suffer....
Unquote
In the paragraph just preceding the above he says "physiologically, yogi instinctively selected almost everything that decreases respiration: the majority of their postures (*asanas) lead to the decrease in respiration, and the respiratory gymnastics itself is called, in Indian, Pranayama. The literal translation means “slowing breath”. Whatever the yogi did with their breathing, their final goal was to restrain [breathing], to harness it, to reach breathlessness and deathlessness. But those, who misinterpreted and badly understood it all, introduced this confusion that allegedly deep breathing is the breathing of yogi..."
[Note: In the above pages there is difference in the terminology. They use the term 'deep breathing' for heavy breathing (breathing is heavy if volume of air breathed in per minute is above the norm) and 'shallow breathing' for the breathing having less volume of air breathed in per minute. Deep breathing in the sense of abdominal / diaphragmatic breathing is good. ]
I have dwelt on the subject of role of CO2 in proper oxygenation of cells and the why of efficacy of pranayam in my forum post:
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....=4130#105933
Now the above is really a great discovery. But the question arises whether CO2 is really the prana.
The Bhagvad Gita says:
APANE’ JUHYATI PRANAM PRANE-PANAM TATHAPARE
PRANAPANA-GATI RUDDHVA PRANAYAMA-PARAYANAHA.
Others offer as sacrifice the out-going breath in the incoming, and the incoming in outgoing, restraining the sources of the outgoing and incoming breaths, solely absorbed in the restraint of breath.
Whether the role of CO2 in body and brain oxygenation can shed some light on the above? |
Edited by - anillsinha on Jan 09 2013 08:46:43 AM |
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Yogaman
USA
295 Posts |
Posted - Jan 24 2013 : 3:15:59 PM
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| I actually found AYP while doing some Google search that also led me to the normalbreathing.com site. Interesting stuff for the science-minded like myself. |
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Omsat
Belgium
267 Posts |
Posted - Jan 25 2013 : 12:48:25 PM
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Interesting..
I had related prana to oxygen rather than CO2:
Increased oxygen corresponding to increased prana but prana being different from oxygen.
If increased oxygen means increased CO2, Dr. Buteyko's perspective matches the above.
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Edited by - Omsat on Jan 26 2013 08:14:13 AM |
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anillsinha
India
9 Posts |
Posted - Jan 29 2013 : 08:35:58 AM
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Overbreathing / Hyperventilation results in loss of precious CO2 beyond the normal level and reduced breathing means preservation of CO2 in the blood and retaining it to slightly higher level thereby making the delivery of oxygen to body cells more efficient. If you observe a sick person, his breathing is heavy (18 breaths ventilating around 15 litres of air per minute). The breathing of a severely sick person is heavier (30 breaths ventilating more than 25 litres of air in a minute) and the breathing of a dying person is the heaviest. In India they call it reverse breath before death. So the heavier the breathing the closer is the person to his death.
As against this a healthy person has 12 breaths ventilating around 6 litres of air in a minute. And a yogi's breath is imperceptible (3 breaths ventilating 1.5-2 litres of air in a minute).
Lao-Tzu said, "The perfect man breathes as if he is not breathing."
SBP is practiced for a short interval of time. But if at other times the person is hyperventilating, most of the benefits of SBP will be lost. So one has to take care of his basal breathing which goes on 24x7 for a good health and spiritual advancement as well. |
Edited by - anillsinha on Jan 29 2013 09:15:22 AM |
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anillsinha
India
9 Posts |
Posted - Feb 06 2013 : 05:51:02 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by anillsinha
As against this a healthy person has 12 breaths ventilating around 6 litres of air in a minute. And a yogi's breath is imperceptible (3 breaths ventilating 1.5-2 litres of air in a minute).
Lao-Tzu said, "The perfect man breathes as if he is not breathing."
I request the advanced ones on this forum to enlighten us with their number of breaths per minute while at rest so that the veracity of the above quoted statement may be ascertained. |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4513 Posts |
Posted - Feb 06 2013 : 06:24:28 AM
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Hi Anillsinha,
20 breaths a minute at rest here. I must be very unhealthy. 
Seriously though, prana is not CO2, or oxygen. It is much more than either of those. When the body is calm and the mind focussed, prana can be felt and seen rising from the root chakra up the spine to the crown chakra and then flowing down the front of the body ending at the root chakra again. It flows up as we breathe in, following the breath a second or two later, and flows down with the out-breath, again following the breath a second or 2 later.
Neither oxygen or carbon dioxide behave in this way in the human body. When we talk about prana, we are talking about something beyond what scientists are currently aware of, or are able to measure. The flow that I described above is just one of several flows of prana in the body. Another one goes up and out of the top of the head.
I am sure that oxygen and CO2 play important roles in maintaining good health, but when it comes to prana we are dealing with something much more subtle, and much more powerful.
Christi |
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NJL
31 Posts |
Posted - Feb 09 2013 : 12:14:53 PM
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As Christi says, prana is beyond carbon dioxide, or any other one thing.
My current understanding of prana in the body is that it is related to the chemical ATP, and that it travels through muscles and myofascial tissue.
But this is only the highway of prana in the body, not the vehicle it travels in, nor the essential substance, if there is one. |
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avatar186
USA
146 Posts |
Posted - Feb 13 2013 : 9:48:43 PM
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Pranayama is not gross breathing, it is the energy of breathing. As it has been said.
Control of cellular respiration is true mastery of cellular respiration.
Co2 levels controls cellular respiration not o2.
O2 is prana. When it is oxidized,the energy released from this fire is captured and used by the body.
Agni or the transforming heat can be had through increased cellular respiration.
Breathlessness and magnitization of the body is had by slowing it down. Ida and pingala.
The energy released from oxidization of o2 becomes numerouse other energies. Mental emotional. Etc. Once something is transformed its energy is given new form. Shakti has many forms. The prana from breathing is o2.
You are always hyperventilating or hypo ventilating. You fluctuate uncontrollably until control is learned.
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Is Carbon Dioxide the Prana?
