The vital life force acts as a catalyst in all our activities, and yoga, through the enhancement of this energy, attempts to help achieve optimal health and healing. Pranayama may thus be defined as the art and science of controlled, conscious expansion of such vital energy through managing the breath. Masters of ancient (Vedic) times placed great importance on pranayama and advocated its practice in order to unleash the inner potential energy (kundalini). Indian culture lays great emphasis on prana and pranayama—ancient Vedic literature says, “God is breath” as well as “Breath is life and life is breath.”11 Atharvana Veda even goes on to state, “prana is the fundamental basis of whatever is, was and will be.”

In the Prasnopanishad we can find the following statement: “All that exists in all the three worlds is under the governance of prana.” It is said in the Shiva Swarodaya, “The life force (prana) verily is one’s greatest friend, companion and there is no greater kinsman than the life force.”12 In the Yoga Vashista, sage Vashistha says that when the energy of the life force (prana) is restricted, then the mind dissolves, like a shadow of a thing when the thing is absent.13