APPENDIX
KEVALA KUMBHAKA
Kevala means alone and kumbhaka retention of breath,
that is, without inhaling and exhaling, which highly-trained yogis can maintain for a long time at will. Some of these can remain for weeks and months — some say even years — in kumbhaka with the mind in coma (laya) without dying, because though the breath is presumed to have entered the sushumna and has been completely suspended, a filament of breathing still persists to sustain the life in the body. But this is not as astounding an achievement as it appears to be, nor is it indicative of advanced spirituality; for it is a purely mechanical feat of which any eligible person who undergoes the training is capable. In whatever guna the mind happens to be at the moment, the breath remains throughout stuck to the nadi which belongs to that guna inside the sushumna; for there is no sadhana to lift it up to a higher guna or to the guna-less state.
Thus long-drawn-out kevala kumbhaka without sadhana is utterly useless except as a demonstration in endurance. Sadhana purifies the mind which induces alike purity in the breath.
When kevala kumbhaka is associated with sadhana it is of short durations and is often called Yoga-samadhi, sometimes even nirvikalpa-samadhi, which fundamentally differs from its namesake of the Jnana marga in which the mind merges completely in Brahman, the Absolute Consciousness. In this as in the previously-mentioned kumbhaka, the breath is caught by its own guna in the sushumna and the mind is also comatose,
but the object is not demonstrative, for the public eye, but genuinely mukti. Theoretically kevala kumbhaka is immensely potent in transcending the gunas — tamas, rajas and sattva — in the sushumna, as represented by the three outer nadis, namely sushumna, vajrini and chitrini respectively, to the innermost nadi, the Brahma nadi, which, being guna-less, is blissful, hence its other name amrita-nadi (nectareous). But this is not, strictly speaking, a nadi but the pure consciousness, the Supreme Self Itself. Hence when this is attained the mind is said to have become the cosmic mind and the breath the cosmic breath.
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The advantage of this method, which is widely used in the Laya [?] yoga, over the other pranayama methods, especially the kundalini, is supposed to lie in its simplicity and quick results; for here the tedious labour of rousing kundalini, the consciousness-force which lies coiled at the root of the spine, through both the kevala as well as the sahita, or ordinary, kumbhaka and making it move from chakra to chakra up to the sahasrara is obviated, though the risk of acquiring siddhis and the consequent falling off the path is considerably greater.
But actually this is far more tedious, dangerous and of far lesser potential success than the other systems. Gaudapada and Shankara condemn laya on the ground that its alleged bliss is nothing but the lethargic oblivion of the misery of the active mind obtainable in sushupti, which thus detracts from the progress resulting from an awakened sadhana. Its samadhi is likewise a misnomer. They aver that laya samadhi is as harmful as desires:
"The mind distracted by desires and enjoyment as also the mind enjoying the pleasure of oblivion (laya) should be brought under discipline by the pursuit of the proper means. For laya is as harmful as desires." (Gaudapada Karika, III, 42, with Shankara's commentary)
By the proper means Gaudapada implies the Jnana [?]
marga which is the safest, quickest, and the most rational of all sadhanas.
When the Supreme Consciousness is experienced in
jnana through dispassion (vairagya) and the usual psychical practices, namely, vichara and dhyana, perennial kumbhaka is spontaneously achieved without deliberate attempts for it, which is the reason why the Jnani's breath is said to have united with the cosmic breath. The Jnani [?], being always in mental stillness, is ever in kumbhaka, but what may be rightly called invisible kumbhaka, for the breath in it appears to be as normal as that of the ajnani.
