Our task is to learn to slow our breath in order to breathe less than usual. On average, an ordinary person takes 20–25 breaths per minute, some people take 30 breaths. The breathing is shallow. An ordinary person takes roughly 21,600 breaths per day. It’s about upholding the Soham principle.‘So’ in Sanskrit means ‘that’, the Sublime, the source of life. ‘Ham’ means ‘I’. Basically, Soham principle is breathing in and out, it’s a mantra, and this is a very important aspect to understand.

A person under stress tends to breathe much faster. The faster we breathe, the shorter our life is, because every person is given a certain amount of breaths. Every breath cuts off the time of our existence, because ojas, the vital force that we have got from on high, runs out.

Here is an important point: we must prepare our body so that our breathing naturally stops being shallow and uncontrolled, without doing it forcefully. Actually, it can be shallow, but only if this process is under your control. The number of breaths per minute must be reduced to a minimum—this is possible. We must learn not to breathe or to breathe very slowly.

You can naturally take as few as 10–12 breaths per minute, and then reduce it even more, just to several breaths. It will become your natural state. You can get there in one to three years depending on how intense your practice is.