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| Running and Pranayama.
Pranayama is a method in yoga to control the breath to control the mind. The goal is to clear the mind to see the self or clear the self to see the mind.
Yoga teaches that meditation can help clear the mind to see the self and be one with god. Allowing him to flow from your heart to your mind.
I am new to yoga and the concepts terms and philosophy.
I am not new to running and the control you get of your mind while running.
Most runs are forced at first and sometimes never elevate above that. However many times when running you ease into a flow and feel comfortable. I believe I have been in a meditative state when running like this.
I am not saying that I can think about what’s for dinner later like when you are driving and not paying attention to how you are driving. There is the feeling of being disconnected from your body but acknowledging and knowing what is going on.
Answers come to thoughts so complete and quickly it is almost difficult to recall much of it. Like trying to remember a dream but only having the feeling left behind. Or having a song in your head keeping you awake all night and not being able to remember what it was. Thoughts or feelings without detailing them are what I feel only remembering that they are right.
I started this entry days ago after having one of these experiences but lost the original premise of what I remembered. So I could only write about how I had it but not what it actually was.
Today I was riding my bike on a stationary trainer with music on headphones when it came back to me like having a dream again. It may not be the same but the feeling. Inspiration comes in an instant but this time I focused more on remembering and recognizing.
Again the clarity seems to diminish quickly but by digesting it I have the premise.
For a moment I feel that I have felt the self. It is realization of God the spirit in me and around me. Not in any physical way that you can see or feel all the time but a way that the feeling can be remembered a feeling of immortality.
Maybe the discipline of running helps to unit with the spirit or maybe overloading the senses detaches from them.
The more I learn about yoga the more I felt it parallels running or in this case riding the bike but I could not explain it past general similarities. I think that you do both as an offering to God because it has to be done and gains a spiritual benefit.
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
    
| I have never been much of a runner, but I have done enough and been around enough runners to be familiar with the claim of a meditative state. I don't feel that meditation is the correct term here because you can not practice pratyahara or sense withdrawal while running. If anything, the senses go into some sort of awareness hyperdrive, so that the eyes in particular take everything in and process it with supranormal speed and efficiency. It feels like you don't have to process it, but somehow the body/mind takes over the process for a bit. There certainly is a sense of dhyana, concentration or single pointed focus, that goes on in this state. you go to the place that some call "flow" where everything is a peak efficiency and the mind becomes very free. And for some, I think that state is more correctly called trance than meditation. I don't want to discount this state in any way or deny the value of it. I know many runners and have lived with one. I know the desire to keep going into this state as often as possible and I have lived with a runner denied - I don't know what it is like to live with an addict, but I have seen people withdraw from nicotine and withdrawing from running was significantly worse!
And to reply to the thread title, breath is controlled while running but it is not pranayama. |
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| Sorry to be slightly brief, as otherwise, it will take too long!
Dear Mystic Writer: I am very happy to know your experience and the bliss you received from running. You may continue with it, but I just wanted to add some more info only from Yoga Point of view.
Dear Tourist: In the classical Yoga Practice, Pratyaahaara is a step which is prior to Meditation. And, it is not that Meditation is occuring while sense withdrawl is not. (dhaaranaasu cha yogyataa manasah... Patanjali , Ch2, last Sutra). Only after sense withdrawl is done, one is doing the mediation.
In the Running example above, Runnig is used as a focus of concentration. That is one has to do one thing that is running. While doing this senses are withdrawn from other attractions such as that of eating, sex, name and fame (!!!, ???, if running is done for running sake only!). By this the concentration on running is happening. But, the mind is used for the Running Action as without mind body can not function and without body function running is impossible. Thus, here the object of focus is running and the objective of the foucss is to run. This way, mind is more focussed that without running, in a particular context. When mind is focussed, a bliss is received to some extent. And, that is not a problem.
The same thing happens when one tries to use mind to achieve perfection of a pose. Mind is used for the perfection of a pose.
However, all the activities necessary to achieve the runnning and perfection of pose are NOT one single activity of focussing. And, therefore, many vrittis of chitta take place. And, samadhi is NOT achieved.
Samadhi is achieved only in a steady and comfortable pose initially. This is the case with a Yogi. However, when samadhi is matured, that is the case of a Saint, Samadhi comes at any place and everywhere. That is turiyaavasthaa.
Similarly, in case of ordinary runner like me, running occurs with great effort. But, in case of MysticWriter, running occurs without effort. But, running is not a steady and comfortable pose. And, samadhi is not possible in it. However, bliss is possible.
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
| Right Neel. I mostly meant to point out that meditation can't happen while running, though it can be very pleasant and even blissful  |
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| tourist - 2006-12-11 7:10 PM
Right Neel. I mostly meant to point out that meditation can't happen while running, though it can be very pleasant and even blissful
===> And, same is true with any perfected Yoga Pose which requires effort. |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
| Yes, and to address the subject line as well, although the breath is controlled in running, it is not pranayama. |
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| tourist - 2006-12-12 9:13 PM
Yes, and to address the subject line as well, although the breath is controlled in running, it is not pranayama.
Absolutely! Thanks for that correction, Tourist. |
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| Thank you for commenting on my thoughts.
I understand that you don’t understand. I understand what you are saying if you have never seen or felt the self. Once you have you may.
My thoughts were left as is while I tried to understand what or why I was feeling then it became clear. Having recognized it once it has been repeated in other states besides running and before this. I always felt it but maybe did not understand.
I am not one of those addicted to running people you have described but I do run with some. Running is a thing I do not the thing I do. I can miss days and feel fine I only do it for the enjoyment and benefits (maybe it is a selfless act) which I thought, was my interest in yoga. Maybe it was karma or is it my dharma? I think I started because it was my time. I have run for over 25 years I am very disciplined and I am very relaxed and use to it. I still think that no matter how still or quiet you are you still need to shut out your senses and once you can find that place place does not matter only you. I think when you are too into the mechanics of something you can not free yourself from it.
Always Love
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| Mystic Writer - 2006-12-12 11:18 PM
Thank you for commenting on my thoughts.
I understand that you don’t understand. I understand what you are saying if you have never seen or felt the self. Once you have you may.
My thoughts were left as is while I tried to understand what or why I was feeling then it became clear. Having recognized it once it has been repeated in other states besides running and before this. I always felt it but maybe did not understand.
I am not one of those addicted to running people you have described but I do run with some. Running is a thing I do not the thing I do. I can miss days and feel fine I only do it for the enjoyment and benefits (maybe it is a selfless act) which I thought, was my interest in yoga. Maybe it was karma or is it my dharma? I think I started because it was my time. I have run for over 25 years I am very disciplined and I am very relaxed and use to it. I still think that no matter how still or quiet you are you still need to shut out your senses and once you can find that place place does not matter only you. I think when you are too into the mechanics of something you can not free yourself from it.
Always Love
Dear Mystic: Which posting above you are responding to, that of mine or Sister Tourist? |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
| Mystic - I don't quite understand your reply. All I can say is that while running may be blissful, may be a transformative experience and even perhaps take the runner to a different plane of existance, the only people I have heard call running "meditative" are people who do not understand the meaning and experience of meditation. |
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| “He who has merely heard of fire is ajnana, ignorance. He who has actually seen fire has jnana. But he who has actually built a fire and cooked on it is vijnana.”
I am just getting introduced to yoga. I am interested not only in hatha the poses but learning the spirituality as well. My wife and I are mixed religions I am Jewish and she is Catholic and we have a 6 month old son. I want to use Yoga to teach him spirituality discipline and proper motivation without going into religion.
As I learn about yoga I am finding a lot of familiarity in what I read and hear to things I have experienced.
From what I read you are right about meditation and samabuddhi sada and moksha and I need to meditate on that.
Always Love
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| Mystic Writer - 2006-12-13 9:55 PM
“He who has merely heard of fire is ajnana, ignorance. He who has actually seen fire has jnana. But he who has actually built a fire and cooked on it is vijnana.”
I am just getting introduced to yoga. I am interested not only in hatha the poses but learning the spirituality as well. My wife and I are mixed religions I am Jewish and she is Catholic and we have a 6 month old son. I want to use Yoga to teach him spirituality discipline and proper motivation without going into religion.
As I learn about yoga I am finding a lot of familiarity in what I read and hear to things I have experienced.
From what I read you are right about meditation and samabuddhi sada and moksha and I need to meditate on that.
Always Love
I am impressed by your situation and I wish all the best for your son. He is truely lucky. |
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| No mention of the anthropological ties between running and the human body?
It's not a question of whether "writer" is an addict or not. It is not a question of what sort of runner he is. It is not a question of the bliss he does or does not feel when running.
Rather it is the activation of the sympathetic nervous system.
Blood pressure increases, heart beats faster, digestion slows. Pupils dialate, saliva and mucus production are reduced, and urine secretion is decreased. Norepinephrine and epinephrine are secreted and there's an increased conversion of glycogen to glucose.
Now here's the thing. Running by choice sort of violates our antropology. Trace back and look at the running of early man (we'll surmise since we were not there). Running from danger and chasing down food. Both survival insticts and therefore sympathetic. When you run by choice rather than necessity the body reacts as though it were in those other two scenarios. (and yes human being have and do adapt).
I think people start to run for two reasons. One is to escape something in their lives they are not facing. The other is to get fit or lose weight (and you could make a case that number two here is really number one). Now some people really take to running, learn to love it. And that's fine. But while it's possible to have deeper connection with the self anywhere you are, it is difficult to call the chemical responses in the body during "flight", meditation.
Edited by purnayoga 2006-12-20 12:31 PM
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Running and Pranayama
