Sanskrit & Roots
The heritage vocabulary — the meaning and origin of the terms behind the practices.
CO2 Tolerance Test: What Kumbhaka Was Actually Training
A breath-hold timer scores how loudly your body objects to carbon dioxide. The classical retention ratios were counting something else entirely.
6 min readbreathworkप्राणायामAncient Indian Breathing Techniques: The Pranayama Map
Classical India named eight breath practices and sorted them by what they do to you. Six are still taught. Two were quietly dropped.
7 min readphilosophyसंस्कारSamskara: Why Do Old Memories Surface in Meditation?
Two weeks into practice, memories start arriving uninvited. The Sanskrit tradition named the mechanism, and retrieval research describes the same thing in another vocabulary.
6 min readbreathworkअग्निसारAgnisar Pranayama: What Happens After 100 Repetitions?
A classical manual prescribes one hundred abdominal pumps on an empty breath. In 2022 an ultrasound probe found the practice sends blood toward the gut.
6 min readsadhanaअन्तरायNine Obstacles of Yoga (Antaraya): Why Practice Stalls
Patanjali listed nine ways a practice comes apart, from illness to losing a state you had already reached. Read as a diagnosis, the list still holds.
7 min readbreathworkविषमवृत्ति4-7-8 Breathing vs Visama Vritti: Does the Ratio Matter?
No classical manual specifies four, seven and eight. The numbers are modern, the structure is old, and the evidence points at neither. It points at the rate.
6 min readmeditationनिद्राFalling Asleep During Meditation? Nidra Explains Why
Sleepiness on the cushion has two causes, and they call for opposite responses. Patanjali filed sleep among the movements of mind; sleep science agrees.
9 min readmeditationप्रत्याहारPratyahara: Sense Withdrawal for an Overstimulated Mind
The fifth of Patanjali's eight limbs, and the one most practice skips. Sense withdrawal is not blocking the world out; it is ending the reach toward it.
6 min readphilosophyतितिक्षाTitiksha is the endurance that makes no complaint
Titiksha sets two conditions: bear the difficulty, and do it without the running internal complaint. The first is ordinary. The second is what the traditions were actually pointing at, and it is the one modern toughness gets wrong.
7 min readphilosophyप्रतिपक्षभावनम्Pratipaksha Bhavana: How to Cultivate the Opposite Thought
Patanjali's instruction for a mind under attack by its own thoughts: don't suppress the thought. Cultivate its accurate opposite, and return to it until the grip loosens.
7 min readmeditationप्रयत्नशैथिल्यEffortless Effort: The Meditation Paradox of Prayatna
Genuine effort and pointless strain feel the same from the inside. Yoga's answer to a mind that will not settle is to loosen the grip, not tighten it.
7 min readphilosophyप्राणWhat Is Prana? The Prana Behind the Breath
Prana is the Sanskrit word for life force — the current that animates the body and rides on the breath. Understanding the difference changes how you practise.
6 min readphilosophyसाक्षीSakshi: the witness consciousness that notices your thoughts
Sakshi is the Sanskrit word for witness consciousness — the awareness that notices a thought without becoming the thought. It is not a state to enter; it is something already present, hidden by habit.
8 min readbreathworkभस्त्रिकाBhastrika is the bellows-breath — what it does to the body, and why the texts insist on a teacher
Bhastrika is rapid, forceful breathing from the diaphragm — what the Hatha Yoga Pradipika calls the bellows-breath. The texts are precise about its power and equally precise about its risks. Both matter.
8 min readsadhanaसाधनाSadhana is what makes a practice hold over years
Sadhana is the Sanskrit word for daily, deliberate practice — the structure that turns intention into reality. Most people who fail at meditation have not failed at meditation; they have failed at sadhana.
6 min readOne of these each morning.
The reading is the doorway; the practice itself lives in the app. Guided breath, meditation and journaling — no threads, no streaks, no notifications you’ll resent.