A Brief History of Physics of Pranayama
The series of talks on the Physics of Pranayama began with one question:
How does it all work?
Following advice from my favorite movie character, I’ll back up a bit.
Let’s start at the very beginning… A very good place to start! When you read, you begin with a b c, when you sing …
Pranayama, specifically, three-stage-Pranayama is a breathing technique taught on Art of Living Foundation’s Happiness Program. This is a powerful Yogic Breathing practice with foundations in the ancient Vedic Wisdom from India. Pranayama is a technique described in the Foundational Text for the discipline of Yoga: The Yoga Sutras by Maharishi Patanjali.
/Aside [Sorry to burst your bubble that Yoga, defined in the West as the Art of Twisting Your Body into a Pretzel, is. not. that. Yoga is a discipline. A lifestyle. It has Eight Limbs. It is a precise daily routine that touches ALL walks of life.] /Aside
So, back to the question, How does it all work? I was asked this question during one of the Happiness Program that I was facilitating in Exton, PA:
23 November 2015
That is the day #physicsofpranayama was cognized. It was a rough idea. But it was there. All of it. Just somehow. The idea downloaded.
Then the research started. Literature papers were read and re-read. And I started finding some pearls. And I kept digging and more pearls kept showing up. Over the next one year, these pearls were woven into a necklace and version 1.0 of the talk was opened to the public.
Well, I say grandly, opened to the public, but it was a small group of people in Exton, PA.
Over the years the content got refined. The presentation got fact checked by my TTC buddy Dr. Aditi Dave. Aditi edited out some words, more importantly, added some key words and the talk flowed a bit smoother.
This was version 2.0
Version 2.0 was set to launch in Bayonne, NJ. Except, as fate would have it, New York City, NY cut in front of the line by ONE DAY!
Within a short time of the Bayonne and NYC event, #physicsofpranayama arrived in Boston, specifically, Northeastern University. Latika Menon pulled off a flash organization event at literally one day notice.
The Northeastern University talk was the one that prompted the Bring A Notebook instruction for future sessions! One of the professors who attended this talk mentioned to me after the session:
If I had known this [scientific] detail when I took the program, I would not have stopped doing my practice!
This comment was a lightbulb moment for me! That is when I realized that taking #physicsofpranayama to a wider audience had become the need of the hour! People were dropping off their daily Pranayama practices because they did not understand
the method behind the (apparent) madness!
Later in 2018, #physicsofpranayama went on online!
Physics of Pranayama was Zooming even before people could spell Zoom!
From the suburbs of Philadelphia, #physicsofpranayama came to South Mumbai:
In 2018, #physicsofpranayama arrived in several local cities across the US East Coast for in-person sessions.
In our second Zoom session, #physicsofpranayama arrived in Bengaluru in September 2018:
A couple of days later, #physicsofpranayama Zoom’d into Sri Sri University:
The students at Sri Sri University braved a tropical typhoon to come to this session! And they asked some insightful questions as well.
Later in 2018, we did a session for the graduates of the Project Welcome Home Troops Power Breath Workshop (PWHT) via Zoom streaming from Jersey City, NJ.
Right after this session was an in-person session in the Art of Living center in Jersey City, NJ:
In November of 2018, a second session in Bengaluru via Zoom:
2019 started off with a session in Atlanta, GA
The next session was a game changer for #physicsofpranayama. This was in Mumbai (Dadar, East). The challenge was that the method of writing on flip-charts & white boards would not work for the 150+ people who were expected in the audience in Dadar.
The talk morphed into version 3.0 with the slides moving to Powerpoint.
Later in 2019, we arrived in Dallas, TX.
The move to the big leagues happened in the session in Ahmedabad:
At the Ahmedabad talk, the content morphed into version 4.0.
The next big step in the History of Physics of Pranayama was the COVID-19 induced lockdown. #physicsofpranayama took responsibility to make a difference in the life of underprivileged children and to lend a helping hand to the daily wage worker affected by the COVID-19 crisis.
A series of talks were offered on Zoom. We started on March 20, 2020 with our first online Zoom talk on the Physics of Pranayama.
Slowly we grew the team. I moved from being the lone ranger to others offering to help. People were motivated to facilitate the change that #physicsofpranayama had made to their daily Pranayama practice!
Today we have a group of nine. I am the ninth one.
We work smart. Not hard, smart.
In these past 30 days, we have touched more than 1200 people by empowering them with refinements to their daily Pranayama practice.
What you understand, that you can Master.
In these past 30 days, we have raised INR 336,300 + USD 4,662 in support of Care for Children (USA) and Gift a Smile (India) + Daily Workers fund (IAHV-India).
We’re just getting STARTED!
We now have our Facebook Page: fb.me/physicsofpranayama where all our Events (worldwide) are posted. On that same page you will find Testimonials, Feedback, Words of Praise which the participants shared after attending our sessions.
It is simply stunning what a clear idea and proper implementation can do!
Are you motivated to bring Physics of Pranayama to your city/region/country?
Reach out to us. We are at fb.me/physicsofpranayama or on Instagram (@physicsofpranayama).
<div class=”thinkific-product-card” data-btn-txt=”Enroll Now” data-btn-txt-color=”#ffffff” data-btn-bg-color=”#1b9eea” data-card-type=”card” data-link-type=”checkout” data-product=”948109" data-embed-version=”0.0.2" data-card-txt-color=”#7d7d7d” data-card-bg-color=”#ffffff” data-store-url=”https://pranayama.thinkific.com/embeds/products/show"><div class=”iframe-container”></div><script type=”text/javascript”>document.getElementById(“thinkific-product-embed”) || document.write(‘<script id=”thinkific-product-embed” type=”text/javascript” src=”https://assets.thinkific.com/js/embeds/product-cards-client.min.js"><\/script>');</script><noscript><a href=”https://pranayama.thinkific.com/enroll/948109?et=free" target=”_blank”>Enroll Now</a></noscript></div>
