prāṇāyāma is not what people usually understand—it is not a mechanical action of inhaling, holding and exhaling. that is only a preliminary stage. It is a gross imitation. true prāṇāyāma is not external, it is antarmukhi (internal). it is sūkṣma (very subtle, the subtlest).
you see, the breath—prāṇā—is not just air. it is the movement of life, the spanda, the universal motionless-vibration that connects your individual consciousness with the cosmick consciousness, with parābhairava. when a śivayogi starts on the path, he watches the breath as it goes in and comes out—inhaling and exhaling. but if he remains stuck at this level, he remains bound in duality.
now, when, through self-consciousness, the śivayogi stops paying attention to the gross movement of the breath—not forcibly, naturally—he begins to feel a different kind of movement. that movement is not in space, but in consciousness. the breath becomes spontaneous, easy, without any force of effort. it becomes refined, so subtle that it is no longer felt as breath, but as a pulsation of consciousness, as a spanda.
and this is the secret: at that moment, the śivayogi does not breathe. breath is given to him. the prāṇā that was previously going in and out is now moving universally, cosmickally. his consciousness is situated in that pulsation that neither rises nor falls—it simply is.
this is what my guru swāmiji call true prāṇāyāma—where there is no effort, no fall, no distinction. the śivayogi becomes situated in the śāmbhava state.
so remember, “prāṇāyāma is not breath control—it is transcendence of breath. it is the art of entering the origin of breath, where breath dissolves into pure consciousness. that is true breathing—svātmapraveśaḥ, entering into one’s own nature.”
— Ｎａｇｋｕｍａｒ です.