Between the in-breath and the out-breath: a yoga practice from the Vijnanabhairava Tantra

Bhairavi (the feminine principle, or manifest reality) asks Bhairava (the masculine principle, or reality beyond specific manifestation): "... from the standpoint of absolute reality, what is the essential nature of Bhairava?"

The answer that comes is: "... the ultimate nature of Bhairava is not separate from their (your!) own Self."

In other words: everything in existence (plant, mineral, & animal as well as human) is, in its essence, God!

Next Bhairavi asks: how then does a yogi or yogini go about realizing this directly? This is the point in the Vijnanabhairava Tantra where specific yoga practices begin to be offered ...

The first one of these is offered in verse 24:

The supreme Shakti reveals herself when inbreath and outbreath areborn and die at the two extreme points, top and bottom. Thus, between two breaths, experience infinite space.

The yoga practice that is being offered to us, then, is simply to pay attention to the "space" that opens when the in-breath has ceased (has "died") but before the out-breath has begun (has been "born") and like-wise to pay attention to the space that opens when the out-breath has ceased ("died") but before the next in-breath has begun (been "born"). For it is through these spaces between in-breath & out-breath that the energy of the infinite flows (which we can access simply by resting our awareness, our conscious attention, there.)