samāna-jayāj jvalanam
samāna-jayāt jvalanam

“With artful practice of samāna vāyu, radiance.”

Chapter Three is the Book of Marvels, and today’s sūtra concerns the marvel of radiance.  We often describe people as radiant, glowing, lit from within. This glow often seems to come from youth, from health, or from happiness.

But Patañjali speaks here of radiance that comes not from circumstance but from practice. Samāna-jayāt jvalanam, he says. With artful practice (jayāt), of the vital connecting breath (samāna), comes radiance (jvalanam, from ji, “to blaze”). There is no mistake that this is a personal, physical radiance: “The yogi glows like fire and his [her] aura shines,” says B.K.S. Iyengar in Light on the Yoga Sūtras.

The samāna vāyu, as mentioned in III.40, is one of the five vital winds (or breaths) of the body that govern essential functions. Samāna (from sam, “together,” + an, “to breathe”) is the connecting breath. It resides between the area of the navel and the chest, the territory of the nabhi cakra (see III.30), which is the center of ego, identity, personal power. The samāna vāyu is associated with the element of fire, and it governs digestive processes.

I first learned of the samāna vāyu in a workshop given by Iyengar Yoga teacher Patricia Walden, and she emphasized the role samāna plays in connecting the body–coordinating the legs with the arms, the lower body with the upper, the tail to the head. She taught that by locating this area in each āsana, one can spread awareness and integrate movement, embody more fully. I remember her demonstration of utthita pārśvakoṇāsana–she showed how the reach to the back heel from the samāna supports the twist that allows an extension of the top arm and the turn of the ribs and head.  Utthita pārśvakoṇāsana, a big, expansive pose, challenges connection. By accessing the central connecting breath, the practitioner can find the back heel, thread through from the center–unfold.

By the way, my own experience of āsana and prāṇāyāma has led me to translate jaya as artful practice, rather than mastery or conquest. Jaya  derives from ji, “to win,” and so carries with it a sense of accomplishment, even victory. It has a jubilant feel, a sparkle, which mastery and conquest do not convey. I am tempted to use victory, but the martial and competitive aspect of that also seems wrong.

At any rate, a marvel of yoga practice is that it brings vitality, and this sūtra teaches that key to that marvel is connection–the mind to the body to the spirit, energy to matter to energy. The samāna vāyu  governs digestion as well, helps us process, in other words, what we ingest–not just food but events and experience.

Trauma and a sense of powerlessness can bring a disruption in the body–a break or a disconnect. A Somatic Therapy technique for panic attacks is to locate physical objects in the room–the door, the chair, a lamp. Locating oneself in relation to simple things can bring the startled awareness, the skittering attention, back to what is happening now.  Yoga practice, likewise, brings us in, helps us locate ourselves in ourselves and in space. Yoga practice teaches us to ground ourselves in ourselves.

In some sense, saṁyama, the threefold process of dhāraṇā-dhyāna-samādhi (see III.4), the theme of Chapter Three, is presence. Presence brings transformation. The word jaya, that artful practice, suggests how active the alchemy is. Physical elements are shifted energetically.

Does our inner transformation take us toward greater integrity and authenticity?

There is disruption in the body politic today, as the world has failed to prevent a genocide in Gaza, and as the United States, which has supported that genocide, brings militarization to local city streets. Peaceful workers, longtime residents and loving family members, are being arrested, deemed “illegal” and “criminal.” Our national government is terrorizing immigrants, people of color, and political protestors.

Why do I bring this up here? The personal is political. My fate depends on yours. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed his Letter from a Birmingham Jail to white clergymen critical of the disturbances of civil disobedience. Why take action? Because we are connected.

In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be…

This is the inter-related structure of reality.

–Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963

Can I perform the alchemy of being part of the change our society needs? What attitudes of privilege, or exceptionalism, white supremacy, affluence, and individualism play out in me? Do they stop me from envisioning and helping me bring about systemic change, build a future that is more just for more people, not a select few.

Can I help make the glow of a profound transformation–one in which I know that “I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.”

We are tied in a single garment of destiny. May it be radiant.

—–

“Samāna being the element of tejas (fire), it makes life shine and flow with spiritual light. The presence of samāna in abundance gives the appearance of lustre, or a glowing sheen. With the help of this vāyu, he may even begin to perceive a special glow, or ‘spiritual aura,’ in others also.” –B.K.S. Iyengar, Core of the Yoga Sūtras, p. 161

“By control over Samāna, the vital breath covering the region between the heart and the navel area, the body becomes fiery and effulgent. …There are many Yogis whose bodies look greatly effulgent and do not show signs of age. It may be due to this control over the movement of the vital breath in this particular region.” –Rohit Mehta, Yoga the Art of Integration, p. 360

Questions:
• How does the breath help you center yourself? Where do you feel the connecting breath in your body?
• What poses help you find balance between the upper body and lower? What poses help you connect?
• How well do you digest your food? How well do you digest experience?
• What might a radiant society look like?