The Next Step After The Perfection of Posture is Breath Control

Patanjali says the outer posture is of the body, the inner posture is of the mind; both are connected. When the body is in the middle -- restful, steady -- the mind is also in the middle -- restful & steady.

When the body is in rest, body-feeling disappears; when the mind is in rest, mind feeling disappears. Then you are only the soul, the transcendental, which is neither the body nor the mind.

Between body and mind, breath is the bridge -- these three things have to be understood. Body posture, mind merging into the infinite, and the bridge that joins them together have to be in a right rhythm. Have you observed? If not, then observe that whenever your mind changes, the breathing changes. The reverse is also true: change your breathing, and mind changes.

When you are deep in sexual passion have you watched how you breathe? -- very nonrhythmic, feverish, excited. If you continue breathing that way you will be tired soon, exhausted. It will not give you life; in fact, in that way you are losing some life. When you are calm and quiet, feeling happy, suddenly one morning or evening looking at the stars, nothing to do, a holiday, just resting -- look, watch the breathing. The breathing is so peaceful. You cannot even feel it, whether it is moving or not. When you are angry, watch. The breathing changes immediately. When you feel love, watch. When you are sad, watch. With every mood the breathing has a different rhythm: it is a bridge.

When your body is healthy, breathing has a different quality. When your body is ill the breathing is ill. When you are perfectly in health you completely forget about breathing. When you are not in perfect health the breathing comes again and again to your notice; something is wrong.

"The next step after the perfection of posture is breath control...." This word "breath control" is not good; it is not a right rendering of the word "pranayam." Pranayam never means breath control. It simply means the expansion of the vital energy. Prana-ayam: prana means the vital energy hidden in breath, and ayam means infinite expansion. It is not "breath control." The very word "control" is a little ugly, because the very word "control" gives you a feeling of the controller -- the will enters. Pranayam is totally different: expansion of vitality breathing in such a way that you become one with the whole's breathing; breathing in such a way that you are not breathing in your own individual way, you are breathing with the whole.

Try this, sometimes it happens: two lovers sitting by each other's side holding hands -- if they are really in love they will suddenly become aware that they are breathing simultaneously, they are breathing together. They are not breathing separately. When the woman inhales, the man inhales. When the man exhales, the woman exhales. Try it. Sometime, suddenly become aware. If you are sitting with a friend, you will be breathing together. If the enemy is sitting there and you want to get rid of him, or some bore is there and you want to get rid of him, you will be breathing separately; you will never breathe in rhythm.

Sit with a tree. If you are silent, enjoying, delighting, suddenly you will become aware that the tree, somehow, is breathing the same way you are breathing. And there comes a moment when one feels that one is breathing together with the whole, one becomes the breath of the whole, one is no longer fighting, struggling, one is surrendered. One is with the whole -- so much so, that there is no need to breathe separately.

In deep love people breathe together; in hatred never. I have a feeling that if you are inimical to somebody, he may be a thousand miles away.... This is just a feeling because no scientific research exists for it, but someday the scientific research is possible. But I have a very deep feeling that if you are inimical to somebody, he may be in America and you may be in India, you will breathe separately, you cannot breathe together. And your lover may be in China, you may be here in Poona -- you may not even have the address with you where your lover is -- but you will breathe together. This is how it should be, and I know it is that way, but no scientific proof exists. That's why I say this is just my feeling. Someday, somebody will prove the scientific thing also.

There are a few proofs which suggest.... For example, in Russia there have been a few experiments about telepathy. Two persons, separate, far away, hundreds of miles away: one person is the broadcaster, another is the receiver in telepathy. At a fixed time, twelve in the afternoon, one starts sending messages. He makes a copy of a triangle, concentrates on it, and sends the message that "I have made a triangle." And the other person tries to receive, just remains open, feeling, groping -- what message is coming. And scientists have observed that if he receives the triangle then they both are breathing in the same way; if he misses the triangle then they are not breathing in the same way.

In deep breathing together, something of deep empathy arises; you become one -- because breath is life. Then feeling can be transferred, thoughts can be transferred.

Pranayam means: to breathe with the whole. That is my translation, not "control of breath": to breathe with the whole. It is absolutely uncontrolled! If you control how can you breathe with the whole? So to translate pranayam as "breath control" is a misnomer. It is not only incorrect, inadequate, it is certainly wrong.

Just the opposite is the case.

To breathe with the whole, to become the breath of the eternal and the whole is pranayam. Then you expand. Then your life energy goes on expanding with trees and mountains and sky and stars. Then a moment comes, the day you become Buddha... you have completely disappeared. Now you no longer breathe, the whole breathes in you. Now your breathing and the whole's breathing are never apart; they are always together. So much so that it is now useless to say that "this is my breath."

"The next step after the perfection of posture is breath control -- PRANAYAM -- WHICH IS ACCOMPLISHED THROUGH HOLDING THE BREATH ON INHALATION AND EXHALATION, OR STOPPING THE BREATH SUDDENLY."

When you breathe in, there comes a moment when the breath has completely gone in -- for a certain second breathing stops. The same happens when you exhale. You breathe out: when the breath is completely released, for a certain second, again, breathing stops. In those moments you face death, and to face death is to face God. To face death is to face God -- I repeat it -- because when you die, God lives in you. Only after the crucifixion is there resurrection. That's why I say Patanjali is teaching the art of dying.

When the breathing stops, when there is no breathing, you are exactly in the same stage as you will be in when you will die. For a second you are in tune with death -- breathing has stopped. The whole of THE BOOK OF THE SECRETS, VIGYAN BHAIRAV TANTRA, is concerned with it -- emphatically concerned with it -- because if you can enter into that stoppage, there is the door.

It is very subtle and narrow. Jesus has said again and again, "Narrow is my way -- straight, but narrow, very narrow." Kabir has said, "Two cannot pass together, only one." So narrow that if you are a crowd inside, you cannot pass. If you are even divided in two -- left and right -- you cannot pass. If you become one, a unison, a harmony, then you can pass.

Narrow is the way. Straight, of course; it is not a crooked thing. It goes directly to the temple of the divine, but very narrow. You cannot take anybody with you. You cannot take your things with you. You cannot take your knowledge. You cannot take your sacrifices. You cannot take your woman, your children. You cannot take anybody. In fact you cannot take even your ego, even your self. You will pass through it, but everything else other than your purest being has to be left at the door. Yes, narrow is the way. Straight, but narrow.

And these are the moments to find the way: when the breath goes in and stops for a second; when the breath goes out and stops for a second. Attune yourself to become more and more aware of these stops, these gaps. Through these gaps, God enters you like death.

Somebody was telling me, "In the West, we don't have any parallel like Yama, the god of death." And he was asking me, "Why do you call death a god? Death is the enemy. Why should death be called a god? If you call death the devil it is okay, but why do you call it a god?" I said we call it a god very consideredly: because death is the door to God. In fact death is deeper than life -- life that you know. Not the life that I know. Your death is deeper than your life, and when you move through that death you will come to a life which doesn't belong to you or me or to anybody. It is the life of the whole. Death is the God.

A whole Upanishad exists, kathopanishad: the whole story, the whole parable is that a small child is sent to Death to learn the secret of life. Absurd, patently absurd. Why go to Death to learn the secret of life? Looks like a paradox, but it is reality. If you want to know life -- real life -- you will have to ask Death, because when your so-called life stops, only then real life functions.

"The next step after the perfection of posture is pranayam, which is accomplished through holding the breath...." So when you inhale, hold it a little longer so that the gate can be felt. When you exhale it, hold it outside a little longer so that you can feel the gap a little more easily; you have a little more time. "... or stopping the breath suddenly." Or, anytime, stop the breath suddenly. Walking on the road: stop it -- just a sudden jerk, and death enters. Anytime you can stop the breath suddenly, anywhere, in that stopping, death can enter.

Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 6
Chapter #7
Chapter title: Death to The Limited
7 September 1975 am in Buddha Hall