Mindful Breathing by Patanjali, Father of Yoga
W hile breathing is an automatic function of life, its conscious management has been used often from the simplest of emotional management techniques such as – ‘hold your breath’, ‘take a deep breath’ to advanced practices for yoga and the Buddhist techniques of mindful breathing. The revered Himalayan sage, Patanjali was an ancient sage who lived around 400 BC in Northern India. He is regarded as the father of Yoga. His treatise on yoga is the original and foremost text on the subject and he too has talked on the subject. Patanjali has summarized yoga in extremely brief phrases called sutras. Their elaboration is left for later commentaries. As regards his work on Yoga, Patanjali has kept it free of any reference to religion, ritual, tradition etc. perhaps so that all may benefit from it. However he includes devotion to God as an essential element. While defining God he has not used existing nomenclature but defined Him in general terms as the supreme consciousness of ...