Contrasting Asana postures and Pranayama Breath Infusion

There are asana postures as a practice on its own. Many mistake this as the culmination of yoga. It is not so, however.

There are pranayama breath disciplines. Some who master this are of the opinion, that this is the way to establish the foundation for interiorization and spiritual absorption. Interiorization is called pratyahara. Spiritual absorption, as a conjoint practice, is tagged as samyama. Samyama is segmented as three stages as dharana, deliberate focus, dhyana, effortless focus, and samadhi extended effortless focus.

Asana is not the culmination of yoga but it is necessary if the physical body is not flexible and does not have efficient blood circulation. Spiritual achievement is not a physical process but it is related to that attainment of yoga, because a lack of efficient circulation in the physical body, causes increase consumption of attention from the subtle body. This robbery results in a lower vibration subtle body. That reduces spiritual perception. Asana postures should cause efficient circulation so that the subtle body expends the least possible  energy to maintain the physical form.

Pranayama breath infusion is concerned with increasing the quality of energy which is circulated in the physical body and the corresponding subtle one. While asana is concerned with circulating the energy which is in the physical and subtle bodies, the breath infusion is concerned with the quality of the energy.

A low quality of energy even if circulated efficiently, will not cause that energy to be improved in quality. This is why pranayama is required. It increased the oxygen in the physical body and increases the subtle energizing energy in the subtle one. Hence what is circulated is of a higher quality which results in brighter subtle perception and more shifts to higher planes.

Some yogis practice asana postures as the preliminary practice. When these are completed, they switch to pranayama breath infusion. That should result in automatic interiorization because as soon as the subtle body has a hyper charge of energizing energy, it internalizes.

Once this happens the meditation on higher planes of consciousness can occur as a natural progress or as one which requires very little effort to hold the attention of the coreSelf.

The asana postures can be combined with breath infusion. When this happens the yogi can cause the infused energy to be circulated through the entire physical body and the subtle form very efficiently. But otherwise, one may do asana postures and then do breath infusion to conclude the preliminary preparation for interiorization and meditation.