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rock candy, honey, dried ginger, cucumbers, vegetables, and fresh water.
(63) The yogi should eat nourishing, sweet foods mixed with milk. They should benefit the senses
and stimulate the functions.
(64) Anyone who actively practices yoga, be he young, old, or even very old, sickly or weak, can
become a siddha.
(65) Anyone who practices can acquire siddhis, but not he who is lazy. Yoga siddhil are not obtained
by merely reading textbooks.
(66) Nor are they reached by wearing yoga garments or by conversation about yoga, but only
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Yoga Swami Svatmarama. Hatha yoga pradipika
through tireless practice. This is the secret of success. There is no doubt about it.
(67) The various asanas, kumbhakas, and mudras of hatha yoga should be practiced as long as raja
yoga has not been attained.
And when will that have been attained? When human existence no longer holds any problems.
PART TWO
THE WAY OF LIFE OF A YOGI 42
THE RIVER OF LIFE
CHAPTER 5
THE PURIFICATION OF THE NADIS
after the broad outline of the evolution of the whole organism through asanas given in Part One, we
come to the vata element in all its aspects. Only he can grasp the deepest sense of pranayama who is
open-minded enough to view each concept in three dimensions: gross (physical), subtle (mental),
and abstract (spiritual); or dynamic, static, and abstract. When he recognizes the interrelation of these
aspects, he may come to that cognition which converts the wisdom of yoga into revelation.
(1 ) When the yogi has perfected his asanas he should practice pranayama according to the
instructions of his master. With controlled senses he should nourish himself with moderation.
At a higher level of instruction things begin to change in many ways. The guru is not as lenient as in
the beginning. He gives higher initiation and a new mantra (more about this later), speaks less,
expects more. Perhaps not yet in achievement, but in terms of understanding. Nor does he like to
refer back to the first level of practice. We too will find that recapitulation is seldom needed.
(2) When the breath "wanders"
[i.e., is irregular] the mind also is unsteady. But when the breath is calmed, the mind too will be still,
and the yogi achieves long life. Therefore, one should team to control the breath.
Have you ever noticed how the breath becomes irregular on certain occasions? Certainly, if you try
to catch a bus you breathe irregularly afterwards and are fully aware of the fact that you are"out of
breath." But that is not what I mean.
Take for example two other occasions: in the theater, and at an important interview. How was your
breathing in the first instance and how in the second? When was it slower, when faster? When was it
regular? And how was it when it was irregular? Thus one could ask a thousand questions on a
thousand occasions and receive a thousand different replies--if the interviewed person knew
anything about his breath. But he knows nothing about his breath and therefore knows nothing about
his mind. This conclusion is incontrovertible.
Certainly we may know this or that about our thoughts--for instance, what we have been thinking
of--but do we know why we thought just about this and not about anything else? We know that
suddenly another thought arose, but do not know the relationship between the two thoughts. We
know that we remember certain things easily and forget others quite readily, but why? It is just the
thing behind this "why" that is the most important part of our mind. It is the source of our mental
existence.
Still the question of the relationship of mind with breath remains unresolved. Here we could marshal
many formulas which have physiological foundations, such as oxygen supply, heart rhythm, blood
circulation, blood supply to the brain cells. But all these are not decisive factors. What is decisive is
what is only imperfectly understood: the significance of the lifestream or prana as power source of
our thought creator, "mind." All these areponderous and complicated problems, but let us
THE RIVER OF LIFE 43
Yoga Swami Svatmarama. Hatha yoga pradipika
simply mention them here. Later slokas will lead us closer to a solution, at least as close as it is
necessary for a yogi at the second stage of training. So let us advance cautiously on this shaky
ground.
(3) Man lives only as long as he has breath in his body. If he lacks breath [prana] he dies. Therefore
we should practice prana-yama.
We know, of course, that breath is life; we even know the chemical process that proves it. But how is
it that we cannot keep a dying man alive by attaching him to an oxygen tank? So it is not just oxygen
that matters. Is the decisive element the lifestream, prana?
(4) When the nadis are impure, breath cannot penetrate into the sushumna. Then the yogi achieves
nothing, nor can he reach the state of deep concentration [unmani avastha].
We know that 72,000 nadis in our body arethe conveyors of the life current, and that we live our
everyday lives by this current. The higher life of a yogi is achieved by creating an additional supply
of current to send through the otherwise weakly supplied main channel (sushumna). This causes
heightened activities in the chakras and brain centers, resulting in the yogi's higher state of
consciousness. It is well known that a rusty conductor uses more power than a clean one. Similarly,
if the nadis are impure, pranayama is a waste of energy.
(5) Only when all the nadis which are still impure are purified can the yogi practice pranayama
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