Pranayama and another parable
Jul. 27th, 2018 01:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dfr1973 Also from chapter two, The First Steps, Swami Vivekananda introduces the topic of pranayama - usually translated as "breath control" - and tells an interesting little parable that likely applies to more than just pranayama.
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Returning to our subject, we come next to Prâṇâyâma, controlling the breathing. What has that to do with concentrating the powers of the mind? Breath is like the fly‑wheel of this machine. In a big engine you find the fly‑wheel first moving, and that motion is conveyed to finer and finer machinery, until the most delicate and finest mechanism in the machine is in motion in accordance. This breath is that fly‑wheel, supplying and regulating the motive power to everything in this body.
There was once a minister to a great king. He fell into disgrace, and the king as a punishment, ordered him to be shut up in the top of a very high tower. This was done, and the minister was left there to perish. He had a faithful wife, however, and at night she came to the tower and called to her husband at the top to know what she could do to help him. He told her to return to the tower the following night and bring with her a long rope, a stout twine, a pack thread, a silken thread, a beetle, and a little honey. Wondering much, the good wife obeyed her husband, and brought him the desired articles. The husband directed her to attach the silken thread firmly to the beetle, then to smear his horns with a drop of honey, and to set him free on the wall of the tower, with his head pointing upwards. She obeyed all these instructions, and the beetle started on his long journey. Smelling the honey before him he slowly crept onwards and onwards, in the hope of reaching it, until at last he reached the top of the tower, when the minister grasped the beetle, and got possession of the silken thread. He told his wife to tie the other end to the pack thread, and after he had drawn up the pack thread, he repeated the process with the stout twine, and lastly with the rope. Then the rest was easy. The minister descended from the tower by means of the rope, and made his escape. In this body of ours the breath motion is the “silken thread,” and laying hold of that, and learning to control it we grasp the pack thread of the nerve currents, and from these the stout twine of our thoughts, and lastly the rope of Prâṇa, controlling which we reach freedom.
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I like Swami Vivekananda's illustrative metaphors - then again, I have replaced a transmission and helped attach it to the flywheel.
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Returning to our subject, we come next to Prâṇâyâma, controlling the breathing. What has that to do with concentrating the powers of the mind? Breath is like the fly‑wheel of this machine. In a big engine you find the fly‑wheel first moving, and that motion is conveyed to finer and finer machinery, until the most delicate and finest mechanism in the machine is in motion in accordance. This breath is that fly‑wheel, supplying and regulating the motive power to everything in this body.
There was once a minister to a great king. He fell into disgrace, and the king as a punishment, ordered him to be shut up in the top of a very high tower. This was done, and the minister was left there to perish. He had a faithful wife, however, and at night she came to the tower and called to her husband at the top to know what she could do to help him. He told her to return to the tower the following night and bring with her a long rope, a stout twine, a pack thread, a silken thread, a beetle, and a little honey. Wondering much, the good wife obeyed her husband, and brought him the desired articles. The husband directed her to attach the silken thread firmly to the beetle, then to smear his horns with a drop of honey, and to set him free on the wall of the tower, with his head pointing upwards. She obeyed all these instructions, and the beetle started on his long journey. Smelling the honey before him he slowly crept onwards and onwards, in the hope of reaching it, until at last he reached the top of the tower, when the minister grasped the beetle, and got possession of the silken thread. He told his wife to tie the other end to the pack thread, and after he had drawn up the pack thread, he repeated the process with the stout twine, and lastly with the rope. Then the rest was easy. The minister descended from the tower by means of the rope, and made his escape. In this body of ours the breath motion is the “silken thread,” and laying hold of that, and learning to control it we grasp the pack thread of the nerve currents, and from these the stout twine of our thoughts, and lastly the rope of Prâṇa, controlling which we reach freedom.
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I like Swami Vivekananda's illustrative metaphors - then again, I have replaced a transmission and helped attach it to the flywheel.