There is another very important and interesting point that Patanjali mentions: Ananta-samapattibhyam. This is a term which has been interpreted in many ways by the commentators. 'Ananta-samapatti' is a term which literally means the acquirement of a mood of infinitude. This is a peculiar thing. We do not know what it actually means. What is the mood of infinitude? This is the pure literal translation. There are some orthodox interpreters who say that Ananta means the mythological snake or the cosmic serpent which is supposed to support the whole world with its thousands of hoods, concentrating itself on the fact of there being a huge world on its head in such a way that it maintains its balance without the least movement. I remember an old lady telling me, when I was a small child, that earthquakes were caused by this great serpent changing the globe from one hood to another, whenever it got tired by keeping the whole earth on a particular hood for a long time. So, when a change took place, there was a shake. Well, this is a Puranic and mythological belief, and some commentators on this Sutra of Patanjali tell us that 'Ananta-samapatti' in this Sutra means the feeling of that position of balance and fixity which the Mahasesha, the cosmic serpent, maintains while he supports the world or the earth on his hoods. But, the other meaning of the word 'Ananta' is infinitude or an unending expansion. 'Anta' means limit, 'Ananta' means without limit. So, a limitlessness of attitude or mood is what is expected to be maintained. This seems to be a more rational meaning than the other mythological one. The idea of infinitude immediately brings about a fixity of the system. This seems to be like arguing in a circle sometimes, because the idea of infinitude cannot arise in the mind unless we are in a state of meditation; and we have not yet reached the state of meditation as we are still in the practice of Asana only. The Asana is for the sake of the attainment of that idea of infinitude which is presupposed already in the practice of the Asana.

This is the difficulty in understanding the real meaning of Patanjali's instruction. However, tentatively, we can take it in this way that the infinitude suggested here is not the infinitude in its reality, but, a psychological concept of infinitude which we can entertain even now, even before we enter into the higher stages of meditation and Samyama. We can have a psychological conception of endlessness. That is not a difficult thing for any one of us. Because, to think of a limit to anything is to think of finitude. We think of the vast space or the horizon, beyond which we cannot extend our mind; and we will find that our mind will stop thinking further as it has nothing to think beyond that. We have gone to the farthest extent of the horizon, we think of the vast space, and we go on thinking of the space beyond millions of light-years away, and the mind stops thinking. It has nothing to think. There are no objects outside. This is a kind of psychological assumption of infinitude. When we think in this manner, we are fixed psychically in some way. And the psychic infinitude introduced into the system by the adoption of this method produces a sympathetic vibration in the nerves, a vibration which is communicated to the muscles and the body. So we feel happy. So, these seem to be some of the suggestions given by Patanjali in the Sutra Prayatna-saithilya ananta-samapattibhyam.

Even a mere sitting, without any thought whatsoever, for days, or even months, will help one much. At the very outset, it will be difficult for anyone to concentrate, even to chant a name. The mind will not be agreeable to any kind of concentration in the beginning. So, let there be no thinking. Let the mind think anything it likes. Let it go on wandering in a hundred and one ways. The Yoga student should not bother, but let him be seated, just seated. That itself is a great achievement. Even sitting is a great thing. One cannot sit like that for a long time. One should not imagine that sitting for two hours or three hours is an ordinary thing. It is an achievement by itself. It is a great thing. And, therefore, one can legitimately feel some satisfaction if he is able to sit at least for an hour without changing his posture. Then, gradually, like a good friend speaking to a friend, he may speak to his mind the sense organs and the Pranas about the purpose for which he sits.

Asana, which is the seated posture, is the real beginning of Yoga proper. Here we enter into the true, real, proper court of Yoga, because man is essentially a body and it is this idea that leaves him last. One may be rid of one's connections with human society, but one cannot rid oneself of the idea that one is a body. One may go away from the din and bustle of social life to the top of a mountain, or into a desert area, or inside a cave, but, one can never feel that one is not a body. It is a very difficult imposition upon us, and therefore, the practice of Yoga begins in right earnest, in its proper spirit, from the stage of Asana.

The physical position maintained in the form of the Asana is coupled with the activity of the senses. We must know a little bit of what we are inside, apart from the mere fact that we appear to be bodies. We are bodies as we appear to be on the surface, but the body itself is a very complicated structure. It is made up of little bits of many things, like a building which has layers of bricks placed one over the other, and many other things besides, like plastering and girders. Likewise, the body is not one whole, indivisible being. It is a complex structure of bits of matter and forces which pump in energy to move it in a particular direction for a specified purpose. The sense organs, such as the eyes and the ears, are inseparable from the body. We see with the eyes, we hear with the ears, we smell with the nose and so on. In fact, the body seems to be a kind of vehicle employed or utilised by the senses for their activities. The senses cannot work except through the body. Now, the whole of what we call the body may be said to be a bundle of sensations. What is the body but sensations? The idea of the body, the notion that one is the body, is nothing but a bundle of sensations grouped together into a heap in a concentrated form which goes by the name of the body. The sensations of colour, of sound, of smell, of taste and of touch, blending together in a concentrated focussing fashion, become body consciousness.

So, body consciousness is a very difficult thing again to understand. We sometimes may doubt whether we have a body at all except a heap of sensations. Minus these sensations, there cannot be a body. There are thinkers who believe that there is no solidity of the body, that it is only an illusion presented before us in a powerful manner, that we are deluded into the belief that the body is a solid substance which we touch and feel, while it is only a bundle of electric energy. This is a very hard thing for us to understand and to accept, because we live in a very gross, prosaic world, where we have been brainwashed by the mind into the belief that the body is a hard substance, though theorists in physics, science and philosophy tell us that the so-called hardness is nothing but a sensation of touch. So, Yoga takes us further inwardly into a subtler realm of practice and concentration, whereby we accommodate ourselves to the doctrine of our being bundles of sensations, rather than heaps of physical matter or even chemical substances. We are not astronomical pieces of matter, we are not bundles of chemical compounds. We are forces inside which jet themselves outward with a vehemence unspeakable, and this velocity of the forces is what makes us unconscious of our relationship to the internal layers of our system. The force with which the energy within us moves outward in the direction of space and time is so uncontrollable and impetuous that we are made unconscious of the connectedness of our personality to the higher layers of our being. We are like people caught in the current of a flooded river, or a river that has burst the bounds and is rushing forth with a tremendous speed, like the Ganga in spate. It damages everything, breaks villages, brings down houses and destroys people. It can go anywhere and do anything because of the speed with which it moves. The speed with which the energies of our system move outwardly in terms of objects in space and in time is such that we are unconscious of what is happening. We are given a blow on our head by the velocity of the forces with such intensity that we become unconscious of what we are, and of our relationship to the higher levels of our being, and we are helplessly driven in any direction in which the energies move. So, Yoga tells us that there is a necessity to restrain the force of these sensations, the powers of the senses which project themselves outwardly and drag the body in any, direction they like. This practice which follows the seatedness of our body in a posture, an Asana, is known as Pranayama and Pratyahara. To some extent, Pranayama and Pratyahara go together. The bringing of the energies back to their source is the purpose of Pranayama and Pratyahara so-called. Just as we have varieties of Asana in the Hatha Yoga system, we have varieties of Pranayama also. Hatha Yoga concerns itself principally with the practice of Asanas and Pranayama, and secondarily with meditation.

Pranayama is the harmonisation of the breath or the vital force. Prana is the vital energy and the process of the subduing of its activities is known as Pranayama. The Pranas are the energies that propel themselves outwardly in terms of objects through the vehicle of the body, and they have a say of their own in the activity in which they are involved. They do not seek our permission. They do not ask us, "Where shall we move tomorrow?" They have already decided what to do and we have to accept the way in which they move. Thus, we carry on our activities in daily life as a matter of routine, helplessly driven, as it were, by the current of habit. But, to be subjected to a habit would be to be a slave of that habit. And Yoga is the mastery of the Pranas, the senses and the mind, and the gaining of a freedom from the slavish subjection of ourselves to their activities. These are the technicalities of the discipline of the Prana, and Patanjali has something to say about all these things. Here again, as in the case of the Asanas, he does not go into the complicated technicalities of Hatha Yoga. He has some simple prescriptions, very psychological rather than physical, in their intention. The expulsion of the breath, the inhalation of the breath, and the retention of the breath are the three processes of breathing. We exhale, we inhale, or we retain. Nothing else can be done with the Pranas. Here, one has to say something as to what Prana is. Prana is not breath in its gross form. The air that we feel moving in and out through the nostrils cannot be identified with what is called the Prana. While the air that is pumped out or sucked in by force in exhalation and inhalation is inseparably connected with what we regard as the Prana, the two are not identical with each other, just as an effect produced by electricity cannot be regarded as electricity itself, though one cannot be separated from the other. A particular activity in a given direction made possible by the power of electricity is not the same as electricity. Likewise is the Prana different from what we call the breathing process. The breathing process, the breath that one can feel in the form of air moving through the nostrils and working through the lungs, is an outward indication of the internal movement of the forces of vitality called the Pranas. Prana is vital energy. It is superior to air, superior even to the oxygen which activates the lungs. Therefore, the physiological activity of the body, the respiration, is to be regarded as an outward symptom of an internal activity of the Prana and not as the activity of the Prana itself. Because, in the system of psychological analysis conducted by Yoga, Prana is situated in the astral body and not in the physical body.

There are three bodies - the physical, the astral, and the causal. The physical body is what we study in physiology, but the astral body is not a part of the physiological system; anatomy and physiology do not touch the astral body. The astral body is also known as the subtle body, and in Sanskrit, we call it the Sukshma Sarira, sometimes as the Linga Sarira. The Sukshma Sarira or the subtle body has many details within itself. The Pranas, the senses, the mind, the intellect are all in the subtle body. We may say that the subtle body is only a name that we give to a conglomeration of all these things - intellect, mind, senses and Pranas.

The Prana is energy movement. It is activity of the vital force and it works in many fashions. There are several functions of the Prana, and because it has several functions to perform, it is given different names in accordance with the nature of its activity. Just as we can have different designations to a person in terms of the work that he performs, and just as the designation may change when the function changes, but the person remains the same irrespective of the changes in designation, the Prana remains the same irrespective of its activities. But it has various activities. Among the many functions of Prana, five are important. Prana, Apana, Vyana, Udana and Samana are the Sanskrit terms for the fivefold function of a single-bodied energy called the Prana. Prana is a general term for the total energy of the system, and it is called by five different names when it performs five different functions. As the tradition goes, Prana is seated in the heart - Hridi Pranah. Gude Apanah: The Apana is situated in the anus or the anal region. Samano nabhimandale: Samana is situated in the region of the navel. Udanah kanthadesesyat: The Udana is situated in the area, or the region, of the throat. Vyanah sarvasarirangah: Vyana is an energy which moves throughout the body. Now, these activities of the Prana are connected with the functions of the body so-called. The expulsion of the breath, or the exhalation of the breathing process, is conducted by the Prana. When we breathe out, the Prana comes out with force in some way. When we breathe in, the Apana works. When functions such as digestion of the food that we eat are carried on, the Samana works in the centre of the navel. The deglutition or swallowing of anything that we eat is helped by the functions of the Udana in the throat; Udana is also said to be responsible for the final isolation or separation of the astral body from the physical body at the time of death. It is also said to be responsible for taking us to sleep when we are tired or exhausted. Vyana is that force which circulates throughout the body and is responsible for the movement of the blood-stream through the arteries and the veins, and also it is the power that moves the oxygen that we take in through the capillaries of the lungs. These names of the single Prana, therefore, refer to the functions of the Prana. Though, in the principal sense, we may say that it is one whole energy which ramifies itself like rays emanating from the sun in diverse directions, there are other functions of the Prana which are of a minor character, and according to the nature of these minor functions, apart from the ones mentioned already, the Prana assumes other names such as Naga, Kurma, Krikara, Devadatta and Dhananjaya.

To summarise: Prana is an energy, something like an electric force, we may say, but situated in the astral system, in the Sukshma Sarira. The whole Prana, in its totality, urges itself outwardly in space and time in the direction of objects of sense, and stimulates the sense objects. Even as we have the activities of the Prana in five major forms, the activities of the mind are carried on through the five senses in terms of objects outside. Sight, hearing smelling, tasting and touching are the five sensations. These are called the organs of sensation or the Jnanendriyas, because they bring some information to us, they give us knowledge. We gain conscious information from these five senses. Therefore we call them the Jnanendriyas or the senses of knowledge. There are senses of activity which are called the Karmendriyas. They are not identical with the senses of knowledge, because they are only functions in the form of a mere activity so-called, but they do not give us any additional knowledge. Grasping by the hand, locomotion by the feet, speaking through the tongue, and ejection through the genitals and through the anus are mainly the five activities of the set of organs called the Karmendriyas or senses of action. So, we have ten senses in all, five of knowledge, and five of activity. We have the five forms of the functions of the Prana, and the senses and the Pranas work together in the daily activities of our life. The Pranayama process has a particular reference to the process of breathing - exhalation, inhalation and retention known as Rechaka, Puraka and Kumbhaka. We breathe out, breathe in, and retain the breath sometimes. Now, actually, by Pranayama in its essential meaning, what we are expected to understand is retention, and not merely breathing out or breathing in. The purpose of Pranayama is to retain the breath, and it can be retained after the exhalation or after the inhalation or suddenly without any consideration of the process of either exhalation or inhalation.