Art of breathing

Breathing is a natural but essential phenomenon in animals designed to supply a fresh dose of oxygen to the body and the mind and at the same time, remove the carbon dioxide accumulated inside the body. However, it is such a simple process that in the course of our routine life, with its usual dosage of ups and downs, we often tend to take the importance of this natural process for granted.

Breathing is absolutely an art and it should not only be cultivated properly and practiced regularly but also be remembered again and again when we tend to disregard or forget it.

India has a long history of civilization and along this path there has been number of sages who analysed and codified scientific attitudes of life, long before the modern, systematic science was formulated. Pathanjali, who lived ca.3^rd century BC, is credited with showing the path and codifying the principles of Yoga and Pranayama.

Pranayama is a systematic approach to the process of breathing. The oxygen we intake with breathing in is credited with the title of praaNa, the life. Thus, it defines and explains the importance of breathing in a nutshell.

The art of breathing is divided into two parts: Uchvasa, the breathing in and Nishvasa, the breathing out. The pranayama regulates you to breathe in slowly and steadily till your lungs are filled with the fresh air. You are supposed to keep that inhaled quantity of fresh air for some comfortable duration of time. This ensures that the fresh air you sucked in is distributed to various parts of your body including the brain; and simultaneously all the stale air (carbon dioxide) is collected back to the lungs. And then, when you slowly breathe out, the accumulated carbon dioxide is released to the outer world, the atmosphere. The breathing exercise is repeated for several cycles of inhaling and exhaling.

Thus, the art of pranayama is a systematized method to regulate distribution of (oxygen rich) fresh air to various parts of the body and at the same time extricate (carbon dioxide rich) stale air out of the body. The supply of fresh air to the body and mind ensures a fresh lease of energy that invigorates your actions. Similarly, the removal of stale air from the body increases your comfort levels and soothes your reactions.The art of breathing simply changes the way you live and react to the world.

Well, there is nothing new, we all know it, you may say! Yes. It is true that we all, or at least most of us, know about the pranayama, thanks to the teachings of various Swamis and Rishis in our society from time to time.

But, the fact is that the art of breathing is such a simple unassuming natural exercise that we tend to disregard it with passage of time and preoccupation with our joys or miseries. We neglect the art leading to lack of energy, motivation or direction and above all poor status of physical and mental health.

Therefore the message is reactivate yourself if you are down in energy, proper spirits or health. Remember the ancient art of breathing and start practicing it.

And if you had taken quite a long break from the art of breathing, start with cleaning your internal system: begin with exhaling the stale air accumulated in your body and mind. Then continue with systematic breathing in and out comfortably. See the physiological and psychological changes for yourself.

Vegetarianism

It has been generally considered that the early prehistoric man was a meat eater. He learnt from carnivorous animals that meat of other animals can be consumed as food. He must have eaten raw meat in the beginning like animals. Sooner he also found that some animals also survive on grass, leaves, fruits and tubers. He must have realized that this is a more sober way of quenching the hunger than hunting and eating other animals. After he learnt the art of cooking food, as well as the agriculture, he had ample choices among meat and vegetarian food and combination of the two types.

In the last million years, the man has evolved in several directions. As far as the preference of food is concerned, I think the basic attitude of the individual mattered most. Those societies with ebullient, rash and raw habits went after the meats and those with considerate attitudes who felt humane towards other animals preferred and adopted vegetarian way of life. According to many opinions, even the Vedic communities, considered to be about 1700 BC old, were a meat eating groups by general choice.

Thus, vegetarianism is a way of life by choice, like Mahatma Gandhi’s ahimsa or nonviolence. And with hundreds of years of practice of vegetarianism we have found that it is better and safer way of living style than that of meat eaters who are generally more prone towards cholesterol related problems.

But human attitude is a peculiar thing. It can often be biased, chauvinistic or partisan. It can conveniently forget the original principle driving behind a life style.

I read an interesting article on vegetarianism today. The author cautioned vegetarians about foreign chocolates and sweet meats that may contain, obviously, very small amounts of non-vegetarian material. Cakes should be avoided, he advised because they may contain products of egg. He said that even the unfertilized farm eggs, which many people advocate as vegetarian food should be classified as non-vegetarian food. Some scientist has reported that these eggs require oxygen for growth. Since it consumes oxygen while growing, it should be treated as living animal and should be shunned by vegetarians!

At this point I stopped here, to breathe my quota of oxygen! What a great thought! The gentleman thinks that a farm egg should be classified as non-vegetarian food since it consumes oxygen for growth!

I felt shocked at his discrimination but consoled myself that he may not be aware of the fact that all plants, the basic stuff of vegetarians, are also living beings which breathe and grow like animals. He thinks that a farm egg is a living being but is ignorant that all those vegetables, fruits and potatoes also contain living and breathing cells!

But this is nothing; I consoled myself, compared to certain individuals who carry vegetarianism to the extremes. These vegetarian extremists avoid onion, garlic and some other vegetables, possibly under the pretext that they were introduced by foreigners! Probably these extremists are not aware that most of our vegetables including the ubiquitous chili are introduced by the Portuguese only five decades ago.