Talk:Prana

message: Prana is percieved in Yoga as an all prevading force in the material world similiar to the Brahmajoyti which fills the spiritual realms. The prefix "Pra-" in Sanskit refers to the act of creation, and prana is the raw energy of the universe which is the spark of creation. In the spiritual realm nothing is created or destroyed since time isn't a factor. Prana interacts with Kala to stir the Maya energy of the Parahtma, of which perceives that prana appears to move from one point to another. Movement of the prana coherses the Shakti to collect in time, percieved in the moment, which Purusha is symbolic of. The stillness and absoluteness of the Purusha, stimulates the Shakti which draws the Brahmajoyti into manifesting as prana the insubstantial energy, and matter, the condensed energy. These energies formulate to create reality as we know it, percieved by the subjective.
wow. I want what this guy's having.Iṣṭa Devatā (talk) 07:24, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prana and the root prefix

message: Ok, so we know Prana and Qi are the same. What about Prana and the Gnostic Christina idea of Pneuma?
Add: Manna, Mana, Seid, Magic, Orgone, Kraft, Power, Energy, Love, Life-force, Ether.....[unsigned]
:Pneuma is atman.  Prana is bios.--Dchmelik (talk) 07:42, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Prana and Pneuma

message: removed from article:
Science: Some believe that Quantum foam or Quantum vacuum are prana being discovered by the scientific community, due to the similarities of the fact that both are universal energies with vast potential and that both are said to be all-pervading and have potential to be harnessed. But right now this is sheer conjecture until research has shown that quantum foam or vacuum energy can be tapped by a biological entity via the electromagnetic field, bio-photons, or the much debated supposed faculty of psychokinesis.
In addition to being, well, not encyclopedic, and pseudoscientific, that's just bad grammar. Sheer conjecture by not-scientists is not-science. Sheer conjecture by scientists is not science. WP:NOR.Hipocrite 19:54, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Science 

message: I have done a small re-edit. As it stands, the article is informative, but I believe that it needs more reference material from Religious Studies, or parallell fields.--Hawol 12:59, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You said 'Prana equals approx.=~Spirit=~Pneuma=~Yechidah=~[[Chi]'
No, prana is life/ether (not spirit,) bois (not pneuma,) and 'coach ha guf,' or 'zoe,' (not yeshidah, it is at least rauch if the latter terms are not used.)  However, it is chi.--Dchmelik (talk) 07:44, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Re-edit + ref.material

message: This is not an encylopedia entry and the "references" are pseudoscientific tomes with no scholarly or factual basis. The entire entry is phrased as just another pseudoscientific or pseudocultural parade of gibberish and nonsense. Strictly speaking it has no place on Wikipedia, although lord knows Wikipedia is virtually 100% total nonsense as it currently stands.  It needs to be redone by someone who is not earning some or all of his or her living peddling fake "oriental" wisdom.Cokerwr 20:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello angry fellow-men! Your posts are old and many things has happened to the page since 2007. First, prana is definitely deserving a place on Wikipedia. You don't have to believe in the concept of prana, but as it is fundamental to Hindu philosophy and the understanding of yoga for example, it certainly deserves to be explained and described in an Encyclopedia. Secondly I totally agree that the article need much better sourcing. I have just written the new section on "Early references" as I did on Nadis and it appears that many ancient and well-known Hindu texts use the concept of prana. These are sources as solid as they get. Now I hope to find, or that someone can hopefully contribute with, proper scholarly sources that explains and discuss the prana concept from a Hindu philosophical but neutral perspective. RhinoMind (talk) 22:38, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Entry should be deleted or completely rewritten!

message: The "references" on this article are a horror to look at! They contain links to unreliable arbitrary websties and even other wikipedia articles. At best books written by people in the recent past after (supposedly) studying the ancient scriptures. If the concepts described in the article really derive from the Upanishads and other Vedantic texts or Patanjali's writings etc., why are those not included? I am not saying references to prana don't exist, but they need to be directly referenced so that there is some accuracy in the article. Otherwise it's just a bunch of OR. It's better to blank the article immediately and redo it. ReluctantPhilosopher (talk)
:i deleted the section on "Pranashakty", added 19 august 2009, and removed the 'self-published' notice, as the remaining ones seem ok to me. there may have been some valuable info in the removed section, but if so should be re-written with better references. k kisses 21:38, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ewww.... 

message: I've proposed that Pranic Heling be merged into this article. --Salimfadhley (talk) 09:33, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you are a bit late, the article was merged / deleted last week some time. We could certainly create a new article if we could find sufficient reliable resources for the subject. --Salimfadhley (talk) 09:56, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge from [[Pranic Healing]] 

message: I know nothing about this topic so cannot even suggest a fix. 
However, the first paragraph ends like this:
"from which all the other vāyus arise.vikas"
Clearly a problem with that dangling "vikas" which is not capitalized so is it the beginning of a new sentence that has disappeared, or just a brain fart?
Can someone please fix this?  Thanks  Zlama (talk) 23:06, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problem at the end of first para 

message: Greetings . I do not understand your removal of cited material for earlier non-cited material. Your accusations of yoga centrism appear to be backwards. The article currently suffers from hindu centrism. 'Pranic theory' (for lack of a better term) is not original research. Prana is not in any way exclusive to hindu philosophy or yoga (although its generally agreed to come from the 'yogic milieu' of non-vedic ascetic traditions before its assimilation into mainstream Brahmanism). Prana is utilized in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, New Age practices, etc and predates the modern notion of 'hinduism' (the Vratyas mentioned in the article are just one example of an early non-vedic group that utilized Prana in 'shamanic ritual'). A more general term should be utilized. Pranic theory just means the worldview that posits the existence of prana. How is that in any way original research? If you have another generic term you would rather use please introduce it as 'hindu philosophy' is simply inaccurate.
Also, the description of Pranayama was too specific and its citations too flimsy (internet articles instead of books or journals). Using pranayama can be for nadi cleaning in many if not most extant traditions, but as is clearly demonstrated in the Eliade and Feuerstein references elsewhere in the article, pranayama was often used just to arrest respiration with no specific conceptions of energy work. We do not replace the broad definition with the specific, especially when there is an actual pranayama page for these detailed descriptions. This is actually you replacing the broader Indic concept with the contemporary yoga-specific concept of Prana that as it was eventually absorbed into mainstream Brahmanism (again, see Eliade for an entire chapter on this subject). Please let me know if you understand these points and why the listed items were altered. If you agree, please take the time to self revert or better defend your changes and accusations (especially as this page desperately needs to be cleaned up and defensive editing can prevent us from achieving any progress).
I would ask for a review by fellow editors    to restore my clean-up efforts and ask user:rhinomind to be less defensive of uncited and poorly sourced material on this page so it may be effectively cleaned. And if you're going to accuse me of yogic centrism, defend that accusation as I was undoing POV and verifiability issues.Iṣṭa Devatā (talk) 16:41, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: and in defending the view of prana not always being used in connection with nadi shuddha, here is a much clearer definition of the mechanism of pranayama "The statement that a connection always exists between respiration and mental states seems to us highly important. It contains far more than mere observation of the bare fact that, for example, the respiration of a man in anger is agitated, while that of one who is concentrating (even if only provisionally and without any yogic purpose) becomes rhythmical and automatically slows down, etc. The relation connecting the rhythm of respiration with the states of consciousness mentioned by Bhoja, which has undoubtedly been observed and experienced by yogins from the earliest times this relation has served them as an instrument for 'unifying' consciousness. The 'unification' here under consideration must be understood in the sense that, by making his respiration rhythmical and progressively slower, the yogin can 'penetrate' that is, he can experience, in perfect lucidity certain states of consciousness that are inaccessible in a waking condition, particularly the states of consciousness that are peculiar to sleep. For there is no doubt that the respiratory rhythm of a man asleep is slower than that of a man awake. By reaching this rhythm of sleep through the practice of pranayama, the yogin, without renouncing his lucidity, penetrates the states of consciousness that accompany sleep." Pulled from http://www.adolphus.nl/xcrpts/xceliade.html, but on page 56 of Eliade's Yoga Immortality and Freedom. While most accounts from the Upanishads onward refer to at least sushumna, it is often to do with conscious projection of the soul at the time of death. Pranic practices are often concerned with directing and controlling the mind with little concern for the health of the body. Early breath control efforts are described as a technique of arresting all fluctuations of the mind (based on the connection of prana and manas or later Pranamaya and Manomaya kosha, the energetic and mental bodies). Hence Vivekananda, Iyengar and many others' descriptions of Prana and Citta as intimately connected. This is described in the Tibetan (and non-hindu) image of Citta as the crippled rider and Prana as the blind horse (The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep By Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, p. 49). Vivekananda also describes prana work as universal, not Hindu: "We see sects in every country who have attempted this control of Prana. In this country there are Mind-healers, Faith-healers, Spiritualists, Christian Scientists, Hypnotists, etc., and if we examine these different bodies, we shall find at the back of each this control of the Prana, whether they know it or not. If you boil all their theories down, the residuum will be that. It is the one and the same force they are manipulating, only unknowingly. They have stumbled on the discovery of a force and are using it unconsciously without knowing its nature, but it is the same as the Yogi uses, and which comes from Prana." (http://hermetic.com/vivekananda/raja-yoga/prana.html, quoting from Raja Yoga chapter 3). This clearly demonstrates the diversity of pranic practices by Hindus and others with a multiplicity of different aims.Iṣṭa Devatā (talk) 17:24, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  I took a look at the diffs; looks like the two of you must be able to work this out. I'll keep an eye on it, so when you don't manage to discuss, I'll try to mediate. Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:11, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah. It is all becoming clearer.
*Regarding the term hindu philosophy, it feels like an inadequate term since we cannot be certain if Prana came first from Vedic, Shramanic, Dravidian or even Indoaryan Shamanic origin. All we know is it was utilized by the ascetics of ancient India outside the fold of Brahmanism and according to Eliade and Feuerstein (among others) was absorbed into Brahmanism at a later point. This is my point with the vratyas who are an extra-vedic group that would not be considered part of the astik or nastik traditions. So really if it developed outside of Hinduism and was used by many people who would not identify as Hindu, it seems like Hindu Philosophy is only one of its homes in the larger field of Indic Philosophy. That said, I may be failing to grasp your argument fully.
*The term 'pranic theory' is an attempt at an etic term that felt about as objective as 'the theory of gravity' -- both phenomenons where we can see the effect but only theorize about the underlying mechanism. But you are right, I did not pull that term from the literature and I'm open to other ideas. I just worry hindu philosophy is an inadequate retronym for something that may or may not have shared origins with Hinduism.
*As for removing the idea of prana outside of the human body, it was not my intent to undermine that concept. A lot of what I removed was for wording and readability. You're absolutely right that prana must be construed as a cosmic force rather than merely a human force, especially within Jainism that ascribes life to otherwise inanimate objects, ayurveda that describes the pranic and gunic qualities of plants and minerals, or those ontologies like Trika that use...um...'pranic theory'. Which reminds me: we might add some mention of spanda and shakti concepts of energy in Hinduism as well.
*And lastly, I hope you see why I revised the overly simplified pranayama explanation which was perhaps too emic from the tantric and hatha (hathic?) perspective with goals of nadi cleansing. It is just one of many ways pranayama is utilized and possibly not its original use.
I agree that we should be able to make some great progress on this page together and get that pesky issue box removed. These pages seem to get a higher proportion of eagerly opinionated yoga neophytes making poorly worded and uncited claims, so I apologize if my editing feels a little destructive. I'd often rather remove bad information temporarily than leave it until it can be reworded. ॐ Iṣṭa Devatā (talk) 00:28, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Complete Reversion of important edits 

message: Do any of the books listed in further reading have anything directly to do with Prana? None of their titles suggest so. Recommend removing or replacing with more appropriate titles like Vivekananda, Prasna Upanishad, Sivananda or Satyananda's books on kriya, et cetera... Iṣṭa Devatā (talk) 20:27, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Quick reply. It appears that some earlier version of the page was written by someone knowledgeable about prana in a Kundalini yoga context and the "further reading" sources are about the modern forms of Kundalini yoga. If we should uphold the goal to make the description much more universal, it would be a good idea with more broadly founded sources. On top of that, I suggest to build a (small) pool of relevant literature. If a solid backbone of fundamental literature about prana can be build, it will be much easier to write up a balanced page on the subject, instead of the other way round. RhinoMind (talk) 00:48, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I absolutely agree that Kundalini needs to be represented and Sivananda, for example, would meet that criteria. I definitely want to add a kundalini section as well as a marma section, though I'm wary to use the Feuerstein references I've been finding since I've cited him so many times here already. I think that the books in the further reading section appear to be etic works from a psychological perspective and, to make an educated guess, may not address the ideas of kundalini, near-death-experiences or the yoga sutras from the perspective of prana, yoga or hinduism. It almost seems like all of these titles would be too rationalist to engage the subject fairly as self described psychology texts. Additionally for the book on the yoga sutras, the sutras themselves only address pranayama (and not in much detail) but do not really explore prana in any serious way besides a poorly understood line about the 'kurma nadi'. A book about the psychology of the yoga sutras would undoubtedly make very little reference to prana. At any rate, they all come from a western view which we should at least broaden to include emic works by practioners. To begin a new pool of relevant literature is definitely part of what I've been working on here. Note I've added Georg Feuerstein, Mircea Eliade, A. G. Mohan, Swami Sivananda, Swami Yogananda, Gerwhal, the Mahabharata, Mallinson and I think Avalon to this page so far, all of whom would seem to be more appropriate to the further reading section. Iṣṭa Devatā (talk) 06:47, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Further Reading 

message: I'm just wondering if this page needs another disambiguation option for the clothing brand PrAna (which could direct to Columbia Sportswear). I'm not sure about how to do this or what the criteria are for needing disambiguation, so if this is too commercial or not significant enough, let me know. (I was just looking for more information on the company, "PrAna," and came to Wikipedia to look for it.Bjtplett (talk) 20:08, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguation 

message: A lot is said in Wikipedia's voice like if it was fact.  For instance, section "Source of Prana" claims: "because they appear as small spheres or globules of light when seen clairvoyantly or by a person with slightly more sensitive eyes".  The blue field entoptic phenomenon is not necessarily Prana.  There may also be an issue with sources, this will require further review.  —PaleoNeonate – 09:57, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Many of these sections were sourced to extremely obscure fringe pseudo-academic journals. I have removed the rhetorically dubious text for the most part, but much remains. A better article would reach for sources from a more religious studies or anthropological perspective. jps (talk) 12:47, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

text: Nature of the beast, sadly. If you have any sources you think might be of use to us, feel free to drop them here where they can be archived. jps (talk) 03:26, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality 

message: Samāna	The heat of digestion, which resides in the belly between prāṇa above and uḍāna below : how can be uḍāna located in the throat and under the "central" prana ?..
Contradiction is carrying a lot of doubts Papalain (talk) 03:23, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  It was a muddle. I've reworked it completely from Mallinson & Singleton 2017's version of the Nisvasattvasamhita Nayasutra. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:34, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incpnstancies in subtle body présentation 

message: Merriam-Webster states that "Prana" entered English in 1785. It is therefore an English word, not a foreign one. It may help to realise that the English word differs from the Sanskrit prāṇa, from which it was "borrowed" (as Merriam-Webster writes). The Sanskrit word is foreign and should be in italics; the English word is not and should not.
This is one of the terms in Yoga and Hinduism that have been widely used in English for many years, and can be found in the major English dictionaries (such as Oxford, Merriam-Webster). When a term is widely used in English, it is no longer "foreign" whatever its etymology, and should not be marked up in italics: the MoS policy on foreign words does not apply to terms adopted into English. 
I do hope this is clear; there is no justification for treating it as foreign. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:13, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  Since the same applies to many terms adopted from Sanskrit, it will make more sense to discuss this centrally at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Yoga where a discussion is now under way. All colleagues are invited to contribute over there. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:37, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Terms in wide use accepted into English are not foreign and must not be italicised