Brian Kest mas­ter class at Thrive Yoga, 2010

breath, energy, life, spirit = self-​​discovery through yoga was my orig­i­nal tag line for this blog, but it’s changed, as noted above.

Prana Jour­nal has existed since April 2004, but I have been around a lot longer, more than 60 years. But this blog really rep­re­sents the cul­mi­na­tion of a life-​​long search: Prana Jour­nal is a run­ning account of my learn­ing process using yoga, medi­a­tion and related dis­ci­plines as tools for per­sonal ful­fill­ment. I don’t write as an expert, but rather as an engaged stu­dent who gains bet­ter under­stand­ing by describ­ing what he has learned and shar­ing it with oth­ers.
Prana is a San­skrit word that has mul­ti­ple mean­ings. It lit­er­ally means “to breathe forth.” It can also mean “breath of life, breath, res­pi­ra­tion, vital­ity, vigor, energy, power and spirit,”  (a nod to Richard Rosen’s excel­lent book,  The Yoga of Breath: A Step-​​by-​​Step Guide to Pranayama. It is the all-​​pervading vital energy or life force of the uni­verse, equiv­a­lent to the con­cept of chi in Chinese.

One of my entry points to this explo­ration was the Art of Liv­ing Foun­da­tion and its spir­i­tual leader, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and that is prob­a­bly why most vis­i­tors come to this site. The kriya prac­tice was my access point to yoga. I’ve been less active with the local AoL groups in the DC area in recent years.

I prac­tice in the Wash­ing­ton, DC met­ro­pol­i­tan area, and I try to com­ment on the yoga scene in the area, though not as much as I’d like. I have set up an incom­plete direc­tory of yoga stu­dios.

Michael L. Smith: I no longer have the beard

A Per­sonal Story

But the most impor­tant aspect of a yoga prac­tice is the dynamic flow as it affects spirit, mind and body. It’s a per­sonal story.  It starts with a sim­ple question:

• Can yoga change your life?
• A con­fes­sion
• Trans­form
• The mean­ing of namaste -
• What my body has taught me:
  • at 16 months
  • Oth­ers to come as I locate the appro­pri­ate entries.

I am also part of a broader social, cul­tural trend in which yoga has con­verged with the Amer­i­can main­stream. I will be com­ment­ing on how yoga is per­ceived both inside and out­side the mind-​​body community.