The breathless state

Hey Guys,just recently I was reading the book of Yogananda, The Atobiography of a Yogi, and found that they were talking about the breathless state on page 230 is written:"Numerous bewildered seekers in the West erroneously think that an eloquent speaker or writer on metaphysics must be a master. The rishis, however, have pointed out that the acid test of a master is a man's ability to enter at will the breathless state, and to maintain the unbroken samadhi of nirbikalpa . 21-5 Only by these achievements can a human being prove that he has "mastered" maya or the dualistic Cosmic Delusion. He alone can say from the depths of realization: "Ekam sat ,"-"Only One exists."Now i was thinking if someone of you ever experienced this kind of state? And is it really a sign of high development?All the best

I really don't know. That book is on the old shelf here next to me, and to be frank, yogananda is quite dear to me, I've read the recorded essays in numerous volumes of his recorded talks, and he is a real sweet heart if you ask me.

Now this breathless thing, it comes up a fair bit in the various Indian Yoga/Medtitation stuff. I don't doubt that it is possible, I understand the theory of it, and have been thinking/intuiting on that topic for several years, but have never met anyone that could do it.

I can lie down on the floor, and reduce my breathing down to two breaths in a minute, and from there, one breath in a minute, if I take my time, it is effortless and I found that out quite by accident before I ever read Yogananda's book. It is NOT holding the breath, but slowing down all your biorhythms and deeply relaxing your body until you are using less oxygen, like the opposite of running or jumping up and down.


However, this is NOT the breathless state, and certainly my heart is still beating. I do not know how to enter the state of suspended animation P.Y. talks about. It is odd that he RECOMMENDS it "to rest the physical heart" but does not give instructions.

Plenty of people are happy to teach all sorts of exotic techniques for high sums of money, How successful their Yoga is I don't know, but their money extraction method is most effective :)

Various Kriya Yoga message boards talk about some people who can do this, but it means nothing unless you can meet a teacher in person who can demonstrate AND teach it, everything else is just hearsay or mental speculation.

I agree with him. (Yogananda).

I may be able to do this. I sometimes find myself in the realization that I have not taken a breath in what seems like hours. And this isn't just like "Oh well you don't notice your breathing, it's done involuntarily." I make a note of my breathing and I always try to breathe less than what I think I need as to I guess well I don't really know why. I like to take shallow breaths and I constantly keep track of my breathing and pulse. So that being said I have had more experiences than I can count in which I have noticed that I have not taken a breath in a VERY long time, and when I come to this realization my lungs are always empty and when I breathe again I do not feel short of breath and my heart rate is quite calm (I make a note of trying to keep a low heart rate in stressful situations or even just normal life so this is nothing special.) I can't quite recall the last time that it happened but it can happen at any time really. I can be deep in meditation or just walking through the hallways of my school, the place and stress level does not seem to matter. When this first started happening I was afraid and I would quickly breathe in, thinking that I was somehow forgetting to breathe or that I would damage my body in some form, needless to say, it does nothing bad to me. So I can not be sure if this is what Yogananda meant in the book or if it is something different but I felt that you would be interested to hear my experience either way. Thanks for reading. Have a good day.

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Originally Posted by PleaseJustListen

I may be able to do this. I sometimes find myself in the realization that I have not taken a breath in what seems like hours. And this isn't just like "Oh well you don't notice your breathing, it's done involuntarily." I make a note of my breathing and I always try to breathe less than what I think I need as to I guess well I don't really know why. I like to take shallow breaths and I constantly keep track of my breathing and pulse. So that being said I have had more experiences than I can count in which I have noticed that I have not taken a breath in a VERY long time, and when I come to this realization my lungs are always empty and when I breathe again I do not feel short of breath and my heart rate is quite calm (I make a note of trying to keep a low heart rate in stressful situations or even just normal life so this is nothing special.) I can't quite recall the last time that it happened but it can happen at any time really. I can be deep in meditation or just walking through the hallways of my school, the place and stress level does not seem to matter. When this first started happening I was afraid and I would quickly breathe in, thinking that I was somehow forgetting to breathe or that I would damage my body in some form, needless to say, it does nothing bad to me. So I can not be sure if this is what Yogananda meant in the book or if it is something different but I felt that you would be interested to hear my experience either way. Thanks for reading. Have a good day.

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The question is, was your heart still beating? Because if so, that is something different than what Yogananda describes in the Autobiography of a Yogi book, where his emphasis is on resting the heart.

I'm not sure to be honest. I would not be surprised either way.