The verse and its meaning · Yoga in Practice · Yoga in Practice — Pranayama

Bhramari at night: the sounds heard within

Gheranda Samhita 5.78

अर्धरात्रे गते योगी जन्तूनां शब्धवर्जिते। कर्णौ पिधाय हस्ताभ्यां कुर्यात पूरककुम्भकम् ॥

Meaning · English

When midnight has passed and the sounds of living creatures have fallen away, the yogi closes both ears with the hands and practises the breath: drawing in, then holding.

The text opens a new breath practice with its own heading: bhramari kumbhaka. Bhramari means the bee, here the black humming bee. Kumbhaka means holding the breath, like a pot (kumbha) filled and kept full. The name joins an insect to a retention. The verse gives three conditions. The first is the hour. Gheranda says midnight has gone by, so the practice belongs to the deep part of the night. The second is the quiet. It names the time as one free of the noise of creatures, meaning animals, birds and people. The third is the body's act. The yogi closes both ears with the hands, shutting out what is left of the outer world. Then comes the breath. Puraka is the filling, the in-breath. Kumbhaka is the holding that follows. The verse names only these two. It gives no count, no nostril, no seat and no humming, so it leaves those to a teacher. The verse does not state its reason. The two verses after it are about sounds heard within, and the commentarial habit of reading is that outer silence and closed ears are there to let those inner sounds be noticed. That is a reading from what follows, not a line of this verse. What it asks of a practitioner is a quiet hour, shut ears and a slow breath.

1. Sit in a quiet place once the night has gone still, with your back upright. 2. Close both ears with your hands, lightly. 3. Breathe in slowly, then let the breath turn without forcing a hold if you are new to this. 4. Listen to what remains when outer sound is shut out. When the mind wanders to thoughts, come back to the listening. 5. Stop at dizziness or strain, lower your hands slowly and breathe ordinarily before you open your eyes.

The text gives the hour, the closed ears and the in-breath with its hold. The counts, the rounds and the choice of fingers below are modern teaching, added so a beginner can try it safely. 1. Sit once the house is quiet, on the floor or on a chair, with the spine upright and the shoulders loose. 2. Rest your hands on your knees and let a few ordinary breaths pass. 3. Raise both hands and close both ears gently. Press the small flap of each ear, or lay the fingers over it. Let your elbows hang a little away from the ribs. 4. Close your eyes and let them rest. Keep the face soft. 5. Breathe in slowly through both nostrils for a count of four. The text names no nostril, so use both. 6. Beginner: hold nothing. Let the breath turn at the top and breathe out slowly through the nose for a count of four. 7. Do three rounds. Between rounds, lower the hands and take two or three ordinary breaths. 8. Way out: lower your hands slowly. Keep your eyes closed for a few breaths in the ordinary room sound, then open them. A teacher adds that the pressure on the ears is light, never a jab. The jaw and the throat stay relaxed. A hold is learnt only with a teacher, starting from a very short pause after the in-breath, and never stretched. The text names the hour after midnight. Modern teachers accept any quiet hour, since no page should ask you to lose sleep. Stop at dizziness, tightness in the chest, pressure or pain in the ears, or any strain.

The body first. Closing the ears with the hands lifts the arms and gently engages the shoulders, so letting the elbows hang and the neck stay free matters. The spine stays upright and the rest of the body is still. The hands are the only active part. The breath. Slow filling through the nose moves the ribs and belly and tends to quiet the breath's usual restlessness. The hold is where the old method differs most from an easy breath. Gheranda includes it, but a beginner's version leaves it out, because a forced hold brings strain. The mind. With the ears shut, outer sound drops away and the sound of your own body comes forward: the breath, the pulse, a faint ringing. Attention has fewer places to go, so it turns inward and settles on what is left. This is the plain effect of the shape. The tradition's own account is different in kind. Gheranda treats the closed ears and the night silence as the means to hear a sound within, which the verses after this one go on to list. That belongs to the tradition's account of the subtle body, not to physiology.

This verse names no fruit. It states the conditions and the act and stops. The claim is in the verses that follow: Gheranda goes on to describe inner sounds heard in the ear, a series that begins with fine, soft ones. The tradition's claim, then, is that the practice opens the hearing of those sounds. This card does not say what that hearing leads to, because the text does not say it here. Nothing is promised for health, sleep or the mind in the verse, and none is claimed on the text's behalf.

A baker finishes her shift at three in the morning, sits on the stairs of her building and covers her ears. For a moment the street goes dull and she hears her own breath and pulse. This is the ordinary occlusion effect of closed ears, and any person can notice it. What today's understanding agrees with is modest. Slow breathing through the nose in a quiet place generally calms the body's alert state, and cutting outside noise helps attention settle. These are general findings about slow breathing, not about this exact method. What has no support is the tradition's account that the inner sounds are a spiritual sign. Faint ringing or humming in a quiet room is usually just the ear and the body's own noise. Ringing that persists deserves a doctor's look. Nothing established shows a benefit from breath holding, and holds can cause lightheadedness. Midnight as a rule is also unhelpful, since broken sleep works against calm. The old terms puraka and kumbhaka map simply onto the in-breath and the pause, but the nadis and prana have no modern counterpart in anatomy.

This is not medical advice. A teacher corrects what a page cannot, and any pain means stop. Bhramari kumbhaka includes a breath hold, so it is learnt with a teacher, not from a page. Take particular care with high blood pressure, heart conditions, pregnancy, glaucoma or eye pressure problems, ear infections, ear pain or ringing in the ears, and any recent surgery to the head, neck or chest. Anyone prone to fainting or panic should leave the hold out altogether. Keep the pressure on the ears light. Never press hard, and never push a finger into the ear canal. Do not stretch the hold or the breath to reach a sound. The old literal reading, practising through the night, can cost sleep, and lost sleep does harm of its own.

अर्थ · हिन्दी

In this book

• Before: Seed Sound or Silence · Gheranda Samhita 5.47
• Next: Kevali — the breath that says hamsa, so'ham, by itself · Gheranda Samhita 5.84
• All of Yoga in Practice · Ask Krishna about it

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