Stillness or Stimulation: The Radical Differences Between Hatha Yoga & Patanjali's Breathwork

Yogaland Podcast

Andrea Ferretti

Health & Fitness, Yoga, Yogaland

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2025

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What if everything you’ve learned about pranayama tells only half the story?

In this episode, Jason Crandell breaks down the two radically different approaches to pranayama found in traditional Hatha Yoga and Patanjali’s Raja Yoga. These lineages share a goal—liberation through practice—but their breathwork techniques, underlying philosophies, and mechanisms of transformation couldn’t be more different.

Whether you’re a yoga teacher, a teacher-in-training, or a student curious about the deeper roots of breathwork, this talk will help you understand:

• Why pranayama in the Hatha Yoga tradition focuses on energy, purification, and awakening Kundalini

• Why Patanjali’s approach to pranayama emphasizes stillness, subtlety, and inner quiet

• How each tradition views the purpose of pranayama in relation to the mind, body, and spirit

• What these differences mean for your breathwork practice and teaching today

This lecture is excerpted from Jason’s online Pranayama Teacher Training, a comprehensive course that combines modern science and traditional wisdom to help yoga teachers build confidence in teaching breathwork.

🧘‍♂️ Learn more about Jason’s Pranayama Teacher Training here: jasonyoga.com/breathwork

🔍 Key Topics Covered:

• Pranayama in Hatha Yoga vs. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra

• The role of kundalini, nadis, and chakras in traditional breathwork

• Patanjali’s model of liberation through stillness of mind

• The purpose of breath control (pranayama) in classical yoga

• How to apply these insights in modern yoga classes and teacher trainings

ABOUT JASON AND HIS ONLINE YOGA TEACHER TRAININGS:

✅ Train to become a yoga teacher with Jason's 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training: jasonyoga.com/200

✅ Get your 300hr & 500hr Teacher Training Certificate with Jason: jasonyoga.com/300

✅ The Essential Guide to Yoga Anatomy Online Course: jasonyoga.com/anatomy

✅ The Art of Teaching Beginners Online Course: jasonyoga.com/beginners

✅ The Art of Yoga Sequencing Online Course: jasonyoga.com/sequencing

✅ JOIN OUR MAILING LIST and you'll be the first to know whenever we have new content: https://www.jasonyoga.com/newsletter

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey everybody, welcome to Yoga Land. I am not Andrea Ferretti. I am Jason Crandall stepping in briefly just for this
0:07.0	episode. And as many of you know, I launched a pranayama training this year. I'm super excited about it.
0:14.8	And as part of that training, I recorded a lecture or a discussion, if you will, about the distinction of patangeli-based
0:25.7	pranayama techniques and the patongoli-based method of personal liberation, and contrasted that
0:33.9	against traditional hatha yoga types of pranayama and the hatha yoga modality or movement towards
0:43.5	liberation and i thought that that would be a really interesting thing for everyone to listen to i think
0:50.0	for me this content is genuinely fascinating.
1:02.0	And as a student of yoga, I think you'll be really interested in learning more about both the Patongali worldview and how breathwork fit into it and the Hatha Yoga worldview and how
1:08.0	breathwork fit into that.
1:10.1	Those of you that want to learn more and join the
1:12.9	course, I would love for you to join. We are starting our live calls very soon. So this is the last
1:20.8	week that you can join access to the course and also join the live calls. So for those of you that want to join me and some
1:32.9	peers and learn more about pranayama, you can check it out at jasonyoga.com backslash
1:38.9	breathwork. And I think that you're going to find this discussion really interesting. So enjoy.
1:44.4	And Andrea and I will be back next week with a conversation about plenty of stuff.
1:51.1	So thanks again and we'll talk soon.
1:54.3	What I want to do for you in this conversation is break down really the big broad strokes of how pranayama was practiced and what its
2:06.4	intentions were in the broader, more traditional forms of Hatha yoga or Hata yoga,
2:12.7	and also how pranayama was practiced and how it was perceived in the Patangeli or the Raja-based lineages.
2:22.5	Now, when we do this, everybody, as we go into this, to me, it's fascinating.
2:29.1	It's intellectually really powerful and transformative.
2:34.1	And at the same time, it's going to require us to go
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Andrea Ferretti, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Andrea Ferretti and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.