Khechari Mudra Clarification
In partial khechari, sometimes sadhak reached a point where both the nostrils gets closed......as he feels no or feeble breath during exhalation or inhalation....is he breathing thru spine/shushmana.....pl. clarify
Recommendation:
Khechari Mudra or closing off the air flow from the lower nasal cavity into the throat is by itself not a valid kriya procedure. The reason is that if one is successful at closing off the air flow and has not developed higher consciousness, then one will enter into jada samadhi or swoon (murchaa).This will not yield enlightenment, higher intuition or insight consciousness.
Jada samadhi is samadhi in the mode of ignorance (tama guna samadhi).
Feeble breathing or complete cessation of breathing is not necessarily a sign of yogic samadhi. Questions pop up:
What enlighten did the student attain?
What higher perception did the student experience?
What mystic insight did the student gain?
How better did the student understand verses from Yoga Sutras or Bhagavad Gita, after the state during when he noticed cessation or near cessation of breathing?
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There are two valid positions from which to use khechari mudra. These positions may be experienced by accomplished yogis even if they do not engage khechari mudra. This means that khechari mudra is not necessary but it can be helpful for those who master it.
These valid positions are:
- Full breath infusion through the subtle body
- Shift of the subtle body out of the physical system whereby the kundalini does not have to be aware of the subtle body and it has already repaired the physical system and does not need to work on it for healing it and rejuvenating cell energy.
These two states are explained:
Full breath infusion is when the student succeeds during a pranayama session to extract all the apana (carbon dioxide) energy from the subtle body so that it is infused with prana or fresh astral energy and all the polluted subtle gasses are removed from it.
Due to the removal of the pollution, the kundalini feels relieved from its task of constantly exhaling to remove pollution. It then relaxes itself for the time being. This relaxation of kundalini is experienced as cessation of breathing or very slight breathing. If khechari mudra is applied after a thorough session of pranayama, then there will be a shift of focal awareness of the core-self where it will notice that the kundalini shut down the breathing system, the mind became totally calm and other dimensions came into view. Insight higher perception will be experienced (jnana-chakshu, jnana- dipa).
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If the subtle body shifted out of the physical system and is shifted far in terms of level out of it, then the kundalini will feel relieved. Then it will try to repair the cells of the physical system. As soon as it is satisfied that it did enough of that, it will relax the breathing so that there will be cessation of breath or very slight breathing.
The student may apply khechari mudra at this time, if he or she has shifted back into the physical system and can apply the mudra without disturbing the near-sleep condition of the physical system. Generally this is not possible, nor is it necessary.
If the system has shut down breathing all on its own, there is no need to apply khechari mudra. An example of sometime similar is raising kundalini shakti using various bodily locks in the physical and subtle bodies and also combining these with pranayama practice. Sometimes a yogi finds that even without application of locks, kundalini behaves itself as intended. For instance it might stay in sushumna nadi without being pressured to do so by the locks. Or it might spread through various nadis in the trunk of the subtle body without punching through outside the subtle body even though the yogi has not applied the anus, sex and navel locks.
If kundalini behaves as intended when the locks were not applied, then for the time being the locks would be superfluous, unnecessary.
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The real reason for application of khechari mudra is to control the length of time of a samadhi, because if it is not applied, then the mind might, on its own, when it is influenced by the kundalini, begin normal breathing again, which will activate the subtle body into the physical system and pull back the core-self into the physical body consciousness before the yogi intends to return to it.
Real samadhi is not caused by khechari mudra but real samadhi may be prolonged if khechari samadhi is applied before entering the samadhi, because then when the kundalini feels that it should initiate regular breathing again, it will find that it cannot do so because the tongue was parked in the position which causes the passage of air from the nostrils to the lungs to be closed off and to require will power energy to move the tongue back into its normal position.
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To understand khechari mudra properly, please consider an embryo. It does not breathe in the way we do by using air absorption through its lungs. Instead it breathes by using oxygen which is already combined into the blood by the body of the mother. However as soon as there is cessation of blood flow with the mother, it has to begin breathing forthwith or it will die.
So long as the subtle body is filled up with prana from a thorough pranayama session, then there is no need for breathing because the system has an excess of prana to live on. But as soon as that excess vital energy is used, the normal breathing must begin again, otherwise kundalini will go into a panic which will put an end to the samadhi.
If khechari mudra is applied and the system does not have sufficient fresh prana to keep it going, then the result will be unfavorable for the yogi because then he has artificially used the mudra.
It also takes tons of attention to apply and hold khechari mudra and that in itself is counterproductive to samadhi practice. In the final analysis anyone’s khechari mudra is only as good as the insight he or she gains when practicing it.
