Pranayama Practices

Pranayama serves as a wonderful stepping stone between your asana practice and meditation, offering a smooth transition into stillness. It can be especially helpful as a way to prepare for your evening meditation sessions during your personal practice time at the ashram.

While all of these pranayama techniques are introduced in your Level 1 Yoga Teacher Training, their deeper teachings and applications are covered later in the program. To help you enhance your practice in the meantime, we’ve included these techniques here as an early resource for inspiration and exploration.

It’s important to note that all pranayama practices within the ShambhavAnanda Yoga tradition are designed to quiet the mind while calming and balancing the breath. Unlike pranayama practices in some other traditions, which may aim to stimulate the chakras or generate heat, these techniques focus on fostering balance, harmony, and an inner sense of tranquility.

Before diving into the video tutorials, we recommend taking a moment to read the introduction to pranayama below. This will help you gain a clearer understanding of the purpose and approach of these practices. Once you’re ready, feel free to explore the videos and begin incorporating these techniques into your personal practice.

Enjoy your journey into pranayama!

Note: Pranayama Practices at bottom of this page

Introduction to Pranayama in the Shambhavananda Tradition

THE MIRROR OF THE BREATH

The breath frames our experience of life itself—

we enter the world with an inhale and exit it with an exhale. Every step of the way in between, the breath mirrors our experience of daily life.

When we feel calm and safe, our breath naturally slows and deepens, activating our parasympathetic nervous system to produce a relaxing effect. When we are stressed, frightened, or uncomfortable, our breath speeds up, becomes shallow, and our sympathetic nervous system activates, accelerating us along with it.

The yogic tradition teaches that breath is a two-way mirror—our state of being affects our breath, but our breath can also affect our state of being. Both the science of yoga and modern medicine demonstrate how pranayama practices regulate the nervous system, decrease stress, prevent insomnia, improve focus, emotional control, and more—the list goes on.

BREATH IS CONSCIOUSNESS

Breath is not just another physiological component of our life and practice; it is a literal bridge between the physical and subtle aspects of our experience on and off the mat.

As the Shiva Sutras reference from the Tattvartha Cintamani:

“Entering in breath (prāṇa) is the first change of God consciousness. This is the initial step towards manifestation.”

Breath is the first manifestation and serves as a link we must walk when transitioning from the physical to the subtle. The Kaushitaki Upanishad reinforces this connection:

“The breath of life is the consciousness of life, and the consciousness of life is the breath of life.”

This reveals that our breath and consciousness are inextricably linked, with pranayama serving as the bridge that guides us from the physical to the subtle.

SURRENDER AT THE LEVEL OF THE BREATH

This is precisely why Patanjali positioned pranayama in the eight limbs of yoga—as the bridge between asana (limb 3) and meditative work (limb 4).

Patanjali writes in his Yoga Sutras:

“Pranayama is the regulation of the breath in order to consciously use the life force (prana) for growth. When the practitioner has been strengthened through asana practice, it’s easier to bring focus to the space between the breaths.”

Practicing surrender through asana teaches us how to surrender through pranayama, which prepares us for surrender at the level of the heart and mind in meditation.

This structure is mirrored in the path of the Koshas, which describe the layers of our being, and the primary teachings of Kashmir Shaivism, which follow the same trajectory from physical to subtle and beyond.

BUILDING THE BRIDGE TAKES TIME

The bridge of pranayama takes time to build.

You’ve likely practiced Trikonasana hundreds of times and are now learning to teach it. But how many times have you practiced Purakaand Rechaka in the way taught in ShambhavAnanda Yoga?

Doing pranayama without falling into common traps like doership or overbreathing requires patience. There is much to learn about pranayama, but even more about practicing it with surrender.

For this reason, we encourage you to start incorporating pranayama into your daily practice now, so that your experience can grow and deepen, just as your asana practice has over the years. Pranayama is a subtle art form that requires time and surrender—don’t wait until the end of the training to begin exploring it.

BRIDGING THE WORK OF ASANA UP TO THE BREATH

EFFORTLESS EFFORT…YET AGAIN

Pranayama, like asana, invites us to seek a state of effortless effort, moving with the flow rather than against it. For those unfamiliar with ShambhavAnanda Yoga, this may seem like a simple concept, but your asana practice likely demonstrates how practical and transformative these teachings truly are.

The following quote from Babaji offers insight into pranayama with surrender:

“Think of the breath as a vehicle rather than a jackhammer. Often students use the breath too strongly. You will not be using the breath to cut the rock open…The breath is like a massage…When students are able to be open and simple with their breath they realize that controlling the breath is not the same as watching the breath … The pranayama within the breath is simply flowing with the breath.”

By substituting asana for breath, the same teaching applies:

“Think of the yoga posture as a vehicle rather than a jackhammer. Often students use the posture too strongly. You will not be using the posture to cut the rock open…The posture is like a massage…When students are able to be open and simple with their asana practice they realize that controlling the posture is not the same as feeling the posture … The asana within the posture is simply flowing with the asana.”

THE WORK OF SURRENDER

When faced with tension or discomfort in life, we may try to use our breath as a tool to break through, like a jackhammer. Similarly, in asana, we might overstretch a tight hamstring, creating further discomfort.

However, as Babaji teaches, true effectiveness lies in relaxing enough to feel the flow of breath and energy dissolve tension from the inside out. This principle applies to both pranayama and asana, where surrender is the ultimate technique, enabling the techniques themselves to shed discomfort and reveal our true nature.

THE MOST ADVANCED PRANAYAMA

Surrender is a practice, not a destination. At first, it may seem like doing nothing, but over time, we learn to work with surrender, releasing tension while absorbing energy.

This is why Patanjali concludes his teaching on pranayama with:

“Besides these methods of altering the breath, there is another, more subtle approach to pranayama which transcends the concept of the breath existing merely inside or outside of the body” (Sutra 2.51).

Our most advanced pranayama practice connects us to the flow of life force. As Babaji says,

“The pranayama within the breath is simply flowing with the breath.”

Pranayama helps us rediscover the breath’s natural flow—not to change it, but to become one with it.

We conclude with a poem by Zen Master Paul Reps:

Eyes closed

or Half Closed

Seeing Released

let breathe

as you let wind blow

rain fall

Enter

one breath