In this verse we have a description of the technique of ‘breath-control’ regularly practised by some seekers, in order to keep themselves under perfect self-control, when they move amidst the sense-objects in the work-a-day world.

As a sacrifice some offer “THE OUT-GOING BREATH INTO THE IN-COMING BREATH AND OTHERS OFFER THE IN-COMING INTO THE OUT-GOING.” The latter is, in the technique of Pranayama, called the Puraka, meaning the ‘process of filing in’; while, the former is the ‘process of blowing out,’ technically called the Rechaka. These two processes are alternated with an interval, wherein the ‘breath is held for sometime,’ within and without, which is called the Kumbhaka. This process of Puraka-Kumbhaka-Rechaka-Kumbhaka, when practised in a prescribed ratio, becomes the technique of breath-control (Pranayama). This technique is again explained here as a Yajna by which the practitioner, in the long run, learns to offer all the subsidiary Pranas into the main Prana.

Prana is not the breath; this is a general misunderstanding. Through breath-control we come to gain a perfect mastery over the activities of the Pranas in us. When very closely observed, we find that the term Prana used in the Hindu Scriptures indicates the various “manifested activities of life in a living body.” They generally enumerate five different kinds of Pranas, which, when understood correctly, are found to be nothing but the five different physiological-functions in every living body.

They are: (1) the function of perception, (2) the function of excretion, (3) the function of digestion and assimilation, (4) the circulatory system, which distributes the food to all parts of the body, and lastly (5) the capacity in a living-creature to improve himself in his mental outlook and intellectual life. These activities of life within, about which an ordinary man is quite unconscious, are brought under the perfect control of the individual through the process of Pranayama, so that a seeker can, by this path, come to gain a complete capacity to withdraw all his perceptions. This is indeed a great help to a meditator.

IN THIS SERIES OF TECHNIQUES ENUMERATED BY KRISHNA, AS A LAST METHOD, WE HAVE IN THE FOLLOWING STANZA THE TWELFTH METHOD DETAILED:

Pranayama-parayanah, constantly practising control of the vital forces-i.e. they practise a form of pranayama called Kumbhaka (stopping the breath either inside or outside) [‘Three sorts of motion of Pranayama (control of the vital forces) are, one by which we draw the breath in, another by which we throw it out, and the third action is when the breath is held in the lungs or stopped from entering the lungs.’-C.W., Vol.I, 1962, p. 267. Thus, there are two kinds of Kumbhaka-internal and external.]-; prana-apana-gati ruddhva, by stopping the movements of the outgoing and the incoming breaths-the outgoing of breath (exhalation) through the mouth and the nostrils is the movement of the Prana; as opposed to that, the movement of Apana is the going down (of breath) (inhalation); these constitute the prana-apana-gati, movements of Prana and Apana; by stopping these; some juhvati, offer as a sacrifice; pranam, the outgoing breath, which is the function of Prana; apane, in the incoming breath, which is the function of Apana-i.e. they practised a form of pranayama called Puraka (‘filling in’); while tatha apare, still others; offer apanam, the incoming breath; prane, in the outgoing breath, i.e. they practise a form of pranayama called Recaka (’emptying out’). [Constantly practising control of the vital, forces, they perform Kumbhaka after Recaka and Puraka.]