Key idea of the Yoga Sūtras
prāṇāyāma · breath control
Regulating and pausing the breath, so the mind becomes fit for concentration.
Prāṇāyāma is the fourth limb. With posture in place, Patañjali defines it as the cutting off of the flow of in-breath and out-breath (2.49). It is outward, inward or held, and measured by place, time and number it becomes long and subtle (2.50). A fourth kind goes beyond the range of outer and inner (2.51). The results are stated plainly: the covering over the light wears away (2.52), and the mind becomes fit for concentration (2.53). Breath appears earlier too, as one of the ways to a clear mind: 'or by breathing out and holding the breath' (1.34), and disturbed breathing is listed among the signs of a scattered mind (1.31). Vyāsa reads 'the covering over the light' as karma that hides discernment (on 2.52). Breath control here serves the mind, not fitness. Any holding of the breath should be learnt from a qualified teacher.
Vyāsa
“In the case of the yogin who is practising restraints of breath, the karma capable of covering discriminative thinking dwindles away.”
Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya in J. H. Woods' translation (1914), p. 196.
How it has been read
Readers differ on what 'cutting off' (viccheda) means. Vyāsa takes it as the absence of both in-breath and out-breath, that is, a holding (on 2.49); some modern teachers read the limb more broadly as any conscious regulation of breath.
A common misreading
Prāṇāyāma is often presented as breathing exercises for relaxation. In the text it is a limb aimed at uncovering the light and readying the mind for concentration (2.52–2.53).
Where the text defines it
- 1.34 Or by breathing out and holding the breath.
- 2.49 With posture in place, breath control is the cutting off of the flow of in-breath and out-breath.
- 2.50 It is outward, inward or held; measured by place, time and number, it becomes long and subtle.
- 2.51 The fourth goes beyond the range of outer and inner.
- 2.52 Then the covering over the light wears away.
- 2.53 And the mind becomes fit for concentration.