History of Medicine

Yoda using the force in Star Wars After randomly linking the qi/prana concept with the Force in Star Wars in my previous post, it got me thinking about the parallels between the two, so I decided to explore it a little more. It turns out I wasn’t the first one to find similarities between the two concepts; there are many folks who have explored the parallels, particularly those who practice yoga. In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker explains the Force as “an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.” In Indian culture, specifically in yoga, prana (literal definition: breath or life force) is defined as exactly that! Prana is an energy that surrounds all living things and binds us together.  Yoga is a means to channel the prana or life force. The literal meaning of the word “yoga” is union. According to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs: “The word ‘Yoga’ is derived from the Sanskrit root ‘Yuj’, meaning ‘to