The Importance of Managing Your Prana
From the Ayurvedic standpoint, Vata, the element of Air (and Akash), is the main cause for decay, accelerated aging, and cellular deterioration.
Kapha, the predominance of Water and Earth, brings balance and moisture to the drying properties of Vata. Pitta, which is Fire and Water, brings warmth and illumination.
Vata moves through the 7 Dhatus of plasma, blood, muscle, fat, bone, marrow, and reproductive fluid — but settles most in the bones, where the integrity begins to erode with time. After the age of 50, as one enters the Vata stages of the human life, this deterioration is irreversible.
Vata like the element of Air governs thoughts, ideas, mental processes, and information. Most importantly: the nervous system. Vata-dominant individuals are often fast learners and keen communicators. They make great scholars and researchers. Yet, when Vata is not balanced by sufficient Kapha or Pitta, thoughts can easily become anxiety.
Over time, ungrounded thoughts escalate beyond anxiety to become presumptions, projections, many-voices-in-the-head, and delusions. Unbalanced Vata blurs the line between physical reality and mental constructs. Vata when not warmed by some healthy Pitta, loses its clarity and becomes ignorance and self-sabotaging beliefs.
Sadly, these dysfunctions are often celebrated in the new age today as ‘channeling’ or ‘downloading’ spiritual information.
We are living in a time where Vata is at a new ‘high’.
Information is everywhere, at the tip of everyone’s fingertips. Our senses are constantly bombarded and overloaded to the point of numbness. Attention-span and the ability to focus is deteriorating in the current generation. Very soon, the health challenges will reveal themselves, just as the mental ones are already being seen. It’s all the Vata in the head, seeping into the bones.
Silent Meditation is not recommended for those who are Vata predominant.
The mind will fly away from the bodily presence, and one will start to ‘see things’ from within their own inner projections. The objective of stillness will not be attained. With each meditation Vata brings you further and further away from stillness, self-awareness, or healing.
(It doesn’t help that Vata-type students are excellent at using information to justify their actions and choices, even when they are being counterproductive!)
If you are struggling with Vata, here’s what I have prescribed to many of my clients and seen the gradual results:
* Quality over Quantity.
Our Mental-ego loves to hit all the numbers, or do all the ‘sophisticated’ yoga poses. Go back to Sun Salutations or Vinyasa. Go slow, it is not a race. Use Asana for healing and grounding, and not just another ‘list to check-off’
* Focus on building strength (you most likely already have hyper-flexibility).
* Use Mantras that are warming and grounding, such as Ganesha’s beeja mantra. Even if you know a hundred and one mantras — but can you maintain ONE key mantra as sadhana?
* Pranayama is a must, again with focus on balancing and grounding, such as Anulom Vilom.
* Basic Ayurvedic herbs such as Ashwagandha.
And consider this question: “Would you rather be correct — or lead a meaningful, productive life?”
(And no, I know what you’re gonna say. The two cannot coexist)
One of the goals of Tantric practices is to transform or ‘alchemize’ Vata into vital Prana to nourish the body, just as how Kapha yields Ojas and Pitta is transformed into Tejas. However, until Vata is tamed to a manageable degree, the Tantric path may be fraught with dangers and the risk of Vata destroying your mind before it even reaches your bones.
Under such cases, only the Grace of Kali, who rules over these times of Kali Yuga — where we have so much information but no real self-knowledge — may lift one up from the dark labyrinth of the mind, and hopefully into the light.
Om Hrim Krim Kalikaye Namah!
O Great Mother of Time. Guide us!
S.
4/1/2024
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