Q: Who popularized the term "Nadi Shodhana?" (energy meridian purifying breath)
A: Swami Satchitananda
Q: Why did he give Alternate Nostril Breath a new name?
A: He felt that "Anuloma Viloma" (with the grain, against the grain) did not fully express the importance of the practice. He wanted to stress the slow profound change of the energy body.
Language is important
Language is important. Words Matter. We need new terminology that speaks to us today. “Purifying the naadees” doesn’t inspire most people. It sounds very intellectual.
I propose "Left Right Breath." In the spirit of Swami Satchitananda, I propose we change the label again.
”Alternate Brain Hemisphere Breath” is a good moniker and gives a sense of purpose to modern audiences. It accurately speaks the language of science. Alternate Brain Hemisphere Breath and all its variations, accurately describes this practice in a way that is both medically correct and could possibly inspire and motivate yogis today. However, the phrase “Alternate Brain Hemisphere Breath” is a cumbersome and leaves out the rest of the body.
We inhale through one sinus and it stimulates the olfactory nerves on one side of the brain. Then we stimulate the olfactory nerves on the other side, back and forth for a long time. We set up this long term, ongoing alternating stimulation of left and right hemispheres.
This polarity awakens the corpus callousum, the horizontal axons that connect the left and right hemispheres of the brain. When we set up the alternating current long enough, good things start to happen. If you go far enough with left right breath, you may discover as I have, this is the single most important discovery of the yogis.
The central importance of Left Right Breathing (Alternate Brain Hemisphere Breath) has been lost in history, lost in defective terminology, compounded by pedantry, beleaguered by strict teachers with well meaning, misguided rules. It has been relegated to being a minor, beginner yogi practice. Most every yoga teacher, website and adept tells you to do 10 or 15 minutes, when you feel like it, if you have time. It will calm you down. It’s easy. And that's what yogis have done.
In successive generations, yogis practiced too little and lost the experience of yogis who sat around and did massive amounts of practice.
Yogis frequently debate the terms Anuloma Viloma and Nadi Shodhana. There are endless numbers of useful and spurious ideas out there. Is Anuloma Viloma about holding the breath? Not holding? Using your fingers? Not using your fingers, and ideas go on and on. There are lots of conflicting pedantic distinctions are out there.
Lots of intellectual concepts got heaped on and unfortunately, it became a practice about “controlling the breath.”
What a disaster that turned out to be! Dutiful teachers began teaching what they were taught, prescribing lots of breath ratios, rules and teacherly dictums that are counterproductive, completely unnecessary and detrimental to long term practice.
The practice must be done with total joy and total surrender. Period. It is done with honest curiosity in the spirit of daily experimentation. It is meant to be done with your attention on the "edge of your seat.”
And guess what? When you let go of all the ratios and rules, and alternate the left and right hemispheres of the brain, everything spontaneously arises, without the mental agony and contortions.
Who am “I?” What is the problem with controlling?
It comes down to the fundamental question of “Who am I?”
Who is the one who is controlling? Who is the one who believes they are doing yoga? Am I in charge of my breath or is the Breath in charge of me?
There are many Breath Apps that time your inhale/hold/exhale/hold to any values you want. It becomes obvious very quickly that these ratios will never work for more than a few minutes. Changes start happening in your body. Blood flow increases. Your metabolism is changing. Your metabolism ALWAYS wins.
Those silly ratios might help a panicky person whose breath is racing. Breath apps should be applauded for that. But you will quickly learn, your natural breath will get out of sync with your iPhone’s preordained ratio, usually within 5 minutes. As you practice, blood flow and other markers will change. The phone apps get in the way of any serious long term practitioner.
Ratios are not fun. They really suck. I contend that the majority of American yogis give up on pranayama based on the concept that control and ratios are the purpose of the practice. Yogis were led to believe that if they only controlled better and crammed their breath to fit a ratio, this would lead to something beneficial.
Mantras okay?
Mantras are a good thing. I have yogi friend who used a mantra for breath practice. He used to feel guilty when his body needed to speed up or slow down the mantra to fit his breath! Even though he used a mantra, he still had this underlying idea, that control and breath ratios are what it is about.
Mantras are great, powerful and a useful part of breath practice. Allow the mantra to change speed if necessary. “A priori” conceptual ratios are the problem. The changing field of mind and body defies clock based ratios.
Linguistic Problems with “Holding the breath”
Then there is the problem with the word “hold.” It is a problematic word. Who is the one who is holding? “I” am holding. Who is this “I?” It’s my personality, my self image, my ego holding the breath. It’s that little me!
Holding your breath to a count is dangerous because it puts the little personality in charge. If it was just the ego, that would be one thing. The situation is worse. Now it is your “spiritual ego” that is in charge! Heaven help us! When we set up the spiritual ego to do battle with the breath, it is game everyone loses.
One of the WORST standard cues that yoga teachers have said for many decades now:
“Hold to your capacity!”
This is a damaging ubiquitous instruction for two reasons.
First of all, the word “hold,” is a problematic word. Words matter. Language matters. “Holding the breath” is an ego engaging, ego stimulating phrase. It gets implied is that the more “I hold,” the better. Synonyms to “hold” are “grasping and grabbing.” These unfortunate phrases excite the small personality into action.
There are much better phrases and language. In these classes we change the language to “float the breath” “pause” and many phrases that changes the entire quality of the practice. Changing the language changes the experience.
Second problem with “hold to your capacity,” is the word “your.”
Does anyone really know, ahead of time, what their capacity is? The only way to find “your” capacity, is to hold the breath too long. Once you over hold, then you know. That is what most people do. “Holding” the breath too long creates disorders in the breath rhythm.
Much better results come from the more “feminine” language of surrendering, listening, non-doing and responding.
Relax, my controlling yogi friends. Everything is going to be alright.
Just relax. Let the breath be in charge. Let the breath decide. You will always be safe when you do that. No “holding” is necessary. Just float, fly and be suspended. When you are floating, just let go into inhales and exhales when the breath energy starts to sink. We let go early.
Here is the paradox of all paradoxes. When one “surrenders to the Breath,” when the mental and emotional state during practice is full of love, gratitude and forgiveness, guess what happens? …. a breathless state, arises on its own. It is what the yogis have always talked about. It happens on its own, without our intervention.
As long as we “hold,” the resistance of “me holding my breath” stands in the way of the breathless state. You may say I am quibbling over words, but I don’t think so. The phrase “Hold to your capacity” has been a major stumbling block and the reason many yogis give up on control style pranayama. It is so stressful when you are taught to engage your spiritual ego to grab onto the breath for dear life.
Maybe this clutching the breath has some intermediate usefulness and certainly EVERYONE has done it, tried it, but now is the time to give up. Keep practicing without interruption, but let go of controlling.
Cross the Ocean
Traditionally we are taught: it is the utmost of importance “which nostril you start on and which you end on.” In a very limited way, that is true. If you are just starting out and do a teensy weensy practice, “start on the left and finish on the left” is a good suggestion. However, that teacher’s rule comes from the perspective of doing 10 minutes. It views the practice like swimming one lap in a pool.
A bigger view is that we are swimming across the ocean of existence with alternate left right breath. We need to build up to massive amount of time. The practice flourishes with hundreds and hundreds of rounds of alternating left and right hemispheres of the breath everyday. I practice 2 hours a day, which nostril I start on makes no difference at all anymore. With that said, I do start, and end on the left out of habit.
Alternating Brain Hemispheres is only one dimension of the practice. Physiologically, it dilates the lung tissue, dilates the blood vessels, increases athletic prowess, kills the viruses entering the nostrils, repairs the heart muscle, speeds up synaptic transmissions, cleans the liver and kidneys and gut.
Clean out the nadis?
“Naadees Schmaadees” I say. Alternate Brain Hemisphere Breath does so much more than those nadis.
