Explore the profound impact of kumbhaka and shoonyaka in yogic practices, as Sadhguru reveals their transformative power and benefits across multiple dimensions of human experience.
Questioner: What is the significance of holding shoonyaka or emptiness of breath and kumbhaka or fullness of breath in Yogic practices?
Sadhguru: What are kumbhaka and shoonyaka? There are many aspects to these practices. If you ask a regular medical professional, they will measure certain parameters in your system and tell you that these practices regulate the oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange, bringing more balance to that dimension within you, which is why you will feel more energetic and the like. That is true, but it is not the reason why you hold kumbhaka and shoonyaka.
Breath is an activity that is happening not because of you, but in spite of you. When I say “in spite of you,” you must understand that when you create thoughts and emotions, your breathing patterns will change accordingly. There are many emotions that want your breath to stop.
Breath is an activity that is happening not because of you, but in spite of you.
If people experience fear, they become breathless because when that emotion arises, the rest of the body wants to die or disappear in some way. You do not actually die, but you become breathless, which is indicative that the body wanted to stop, but then the natural longing to live will make you breathe rapidly, as if you are sinking or drowning into something.
There are various aspects of Yoga, though now you are specifically asking about kumbhaka and shoonyaka. There are physiological changes that you can observe, which can also happen when you go through certain situations. Some time ago, I had an opportunity to drive a car somewhere at over 330 to 340 kilometers per hour.
The person sitting next to me said, “Sadhguru, even at this speed, you are smiling and talking to me. You should not be doing this.” I said, “What does my smiling and talking have to do with my driving?” He said, “When I drive anywhere over a certain speed, my heartbeat, pulse rate, blood pressure, everything goes up, and that is the exhilaration I enjoy, but you do not seem to enjoy anything.”
Kumbhaka and shoonyaka bring equanimity into you so that external situations will not cause any imbalance in the system.
Because my blood pressure does not shoot up, and I do not sweat and fret, does it mean that I do not enjoy anything? Your ability to enjoy is greatly enhanced when there is a certain equanimity within you. Kumbhaka and shoonyaka bring equanimity into you so that external situations will not cause any imbalance in the system. People often think that the high that you can get on life is all about adrenaline.
Adrenaline is an interference; it enters your bloodstream because your body thinks that you have entered a dangerous situation. Adrenaline is the foundation of the fight or flight response. Suppose you are in the jungle and a tiger appears; you have to either fight it or run away from it. These are very reactionary options.
Another option is to do something intelligent, which should be the way of the human being. That option is only available to you when your body – as an entity that includes your mind, emotion, energy, and everything else – does not react anymore but responds in whichever way you want.
Kumbhaka enhances your energy, including vitality, intelligence, and perception.
One of the important aspects of kumbhaka and shoonyaka is that they bring equanimity to your chemistry, making it non-reactive. That means you can respond whichever way you want, but external stimuli do not make you react. A certain calmness and coolness enter the system so that it will not drive at a very high rate of revolutions per minute. Otherwise, the body suffers in so many ways; the ability to live is curtailed, and consequently, its life can also be curtailed.
These are other dimensions of kumbhaka and shoonyaka: Kumbhaka enhances your energy, including vitality, intelligence, and perception. Holding kumbhaka enhances all these aspects. The instructions always say to not forcefully hold it but slowly increase the capacity of the system.
Shoonyaka offers more significant spiritual benefits, as it gradually breaks down the sense of individuality. By holding shoonyaka, the boundaries of who you are slowly dissolve in a natural way over a period of time, and a certain sense of universality creeps into you without you even noticing it.
So, kumbhaka and shoonyaka have physiological, psychological, spiritual, and energy dimensions. If you are able to dissolve your boundaries through shoonyaka, then the enhancement of your own energy through kumbhaka will create a huge presence. If you enter a place, people will feel it. This presence is important. The reason people are talking as much as they are, even looking up to the sky and talking to the god they believe in, is because there is no presence.
If you are able to dissolve your boundaries through shoonyaka, then the enhancement of your own energy through kumbhaka will create a huge presence.
This is the transformation that needs to happen to an individual human being: you have to move from prayer to presence. If you understand the presence of existence, how strong it is, and that it is always present, you will see that because of this presence, everything is happening.
And once you have a presence of a certain significance or intensity, you will see it is not any different from the presence that the entire existence is always soaked in. Once you know this by experience, who you are and what everything is become one.
