Breath Infusion/Meditation Prioritized

Of the two breath infusion and meditation, which is the most important?

If you had only sufficient time to do one or the other, breath infusion or meditation, which would you practice, which would you neglect?

Here of late, I had the opportunity to consider these questions. I emphatically decided that breath infusion is more important than meditation. I was in a circumstance where there was only sufficient time for a complete session of either or a partially incomplete session of both.

Considering that partial session was not desired, I decided to do the first of the two practices which is breath-infusion, even though that serves as a preliminary practice for the other discipline which is meditation.

Meditation is actually a three stage activity which Patanjali tagged as samyama, the three higher stages of yoga, which are dharana, dhyana and Samadhi. When those three stages work as one progression they are terms as samyama which I translated into the English as meditation.

Question is:

Why do I feel that it is better to do a thorough session of breath infusion and not do even a partial session of it with a partial session of meditation? The answer is that in the long range between here and the time of death of the physical body, the general condition of the subtle body is the one factor which will determine the level of existence, I would be on after the physical body was confiscated by its fate.

My inability to have a thorough session of each practice was due to time and association constraints from my childhood, from the time when I used this body in its infantile stage. Recently an influence from that time, from a senior relative who served to protect and upkeep that infant body prevailed, so that it squelched the time factor and caused a limited time for practice. In compliance with this restraining force, I decided that breath infusion was more important than meditation because breath infusion will elevate the subtle body even if there is no meditation following the breath infusion.

Meditation will not necessarily uplift the subtle body when meditation is done without breath infusion. That is because negative energy in the subtle body might linger in it and put a damper on the meditation session. Hence in the toss-up between meditation and breath infusion, when the coin of preference was throw in the air, it landed in favor of breath infusion.

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I know that most persons who consider themselves to be yogis, meditators, or spiritualists, would have selected meditation. Meditation in its lose definitions is the preferred process nowadays, with the big event being samadhi. However I found that if breath infusion is done the yogi does not have to complete the pratyahar sensual energy withdrawal practice. Instead he gets the completion of that as a bonus for doing the breath infusion in a thorough way.

According to Patanjali, pratyahar sensual energy withdrawal is not part of meditation but it must be completed before one can be in what he defines as meditation. Patanjali also suggested that samyama is a progress of the three higher states of yoga. In fact that is so true that it is proven by the observation that if the person is in the highest stage, his descent or eviction from that level will result in his being downshifted into the lower stage of dhyana and then into the next lower stage of dharana. Then his senses will become externalized again for usage in the physical or astral external environment.

Meditation when done without doing breath infusion prior, has a low quality to it for the most part and on most occasions. There are meditation sessions where this is not true, where without doing breath infusion, the person reaches high states of consciousness but that is not common.

If a breath infusion is done proficiently, then the yogi will find that pratyahar sensual energy withdrawal is achieved through it and he finds himself to be ushered quickly through the three highest stages of yoga. If however there is not enough time for a full session of breath infusion followed by a full session of mediation, then the yogi should do the breath infusion and not begrudge the influence which restrained the practice.

The material body is a joint enterprise owned by the yogi and by others who contributed to its upkeep. A yogi should not be vindictive, selfish and reactive to those who want to extract services from the body or want to use the body for purposes which have nothing to do with yoga practice.

A yogi should be free and easy and should not try to confiscate and commandeer everything that has to do with the material body which is a communal property and is not a single autonomy of the yogi. A yogi should be insightful in this regard and let nature work out the consequential equations as it sees fit.

Stated more precisely, a yogi should attend to the education of the Bhagavad Gita which is the primary source of information on the performance of karma yoga practice. Failure to heed the behests of the Universal Form of Krishna will result in an unsuccessful meditation session because of inferences coming into the mind of yogi while he meditates. These interferences will effectively block advancement. They will come from those others persons who are part of the joint enterprise which is the material body, because of their contribution to its upkeep, especially in its infant stage.