What is the significance of the flow of each swara and why does it change? This is what swara yoga aims to answer. In the swara shastras it says that personal and detailed knowledge of one’s swara can only be had from the guru. But the shastras do give us some hints. They say that swara is prana, the vital energy force. It is the medium for transmission of prana shakti throughout the whole body. Therefore, it affects more than just the gross plane of existence. It is most important in the subtle and spiritual realms.
The Mundaka Upanishad compares, the swara to a bowstring on which the consciousness can be raised to pierce the atman or universal spirit. Breathing not only maintains the physical body, it is a direct medium for the evolution of consciousness. As far as medical science is concerned, it is connected with the purely organic function of the respiratory system. That is correct, but swara yoga offers a deeper insight than this, because man’s existence does not begin and end with the physical body. Beyond I the physical body exists energy; beyond energy, mind; beyond mind, consciousness; beyond consciousness, superconsciousness. Swara yoga, therefore, studies the flow of energy in order to enable us to come closer to realizing the depth and immensity of the mind, consciousness and cosmos.