Patanjali Yoga Sutras: Ashtanga Yoga - Pranayama 1 - Patanjali Yoga Sutra 100
Title
Ashtanga Yoga: Pranayama 1 - Patanjali Yoga Sutra 100
Description:
All orthodox translations say Pranayama is control of breathing. Living incarnation Paramahamsa Nithyananda translated it as cessation of breathing. Breathing which you experience every day - the movement of air with thoughts - should be stopped. The thoughts being awakened with the breathing should b stopped. Prana is air movement without thoughts.
Cessation of air movements without thoughts is what Paramahamsa Nithyananda calls Pranayama.
After achieving the firm posture (as described in yesterday's discourse), you should learn the practice of breathing without thinking, that is the science of pranayama. Along with the air movement, if the thoughts are awakened, you are not inhaling life energy.
Air is not energy. Air is like a truck; life energy is the cargo carried by the truck. Life energy gets unloaded into the body and air comes out. If there is less thought, more life energy will go inside. The truck should be of less weight and more products should go in.
All of us are doing this, too much air is going in and no life energy is coming inside. Only life energy, not air, is the ideal situation. Breathing without thinking.
After mastering sitting in a sturdy comfortable posture through the balancing technique, you should now learn the science of exhaling and inhaling without thoughts. It's not just controlling the exhalation and inhalation. That is what I call cessation of breathing: Pranayama.