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measure it. But in yoga texts and especially in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the sublime text on hatha yoga by Swatmarama, it is clearly stated that if you want to affect the mind, you must work on the body, you must work on your prana, because when your prana is stabilized, then only can you start to deal with the mind.
That is why, as yoga practitioners, we begin with asana to tone down, to control the major fluctuations of the gross physical structure, because it is this structure that is the most noisy. This is the gross part that we have to deal with first. If you don't get rid of the outside noise, then you can't hear the subtle noise. You can't hear your mind, because you are distracted. You cannot practise mental techniques if you have a toothache, if you have a stomach ache.or if you are hungry.
Only when you have dealt with the physical body can you go into the more subtle realm of pranayama. Pranayama is designed to calm your nervous system, to allow your nerves to find a rhythm. A fast rhythm is necessary if you want to think or if you want to cross the street. But a slow rhythm is necessary when you have reached your destination and you want to relax.
Pranayama allows you to develop a broad range of experience, not always relaxed. Relaxation is only one half. Sometimes you must be tense, you must be alert. But that tension must be in balance with your need, with your relationship with yourself and with your environment. Pranayama allows you to move between a fast rhythm and a slow rhythm and to keep the brain under conscious control, to use the switches in the brain. You can speed your mind up if you want to. You can slow your mind down if you want to. You can slow your breath. Your breath is linked directly to the center of your brain. As you breathe slowly in ujjayi or bhramari, your brain waves become calm.
If you want to increase your force, bhastrika or bandhas increase the energy. First there is relaxation and on top of the relaxation we add this strength, this energy. A relaxed base and a strong mind comes from the practice of pranayama. Pranayama gives you dynamic peace. Only when your physical prana is within your control do you enter into the subtle realms of mudra and dhyana (meditation).
In this way you allow the mind to evolve towards a onepointed state, a state that is free from fear, not in the sense that
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