Jagadguru Sri Abhinava Vidyatheertha Mahaswamin

Chapter 5 - Hatha Yoga Mastered

On the night of His sannyasa-sweekara day, His Holiness had a dream in which Lord Shiva demonstrated the practice of pranayama in siddhasana and padmasana including various bandhas (energetic locks). On the next 6 consecutive nights the dream continued wherein the Lord demonstrated numerous yogasanas and kriyas, such as nauli (According to Hatha Yoga Pradipika, kriyas are cleansing techniques and nauli is one of them). Whenever the Lord performed an asana, His Holiness automatically understood whether this was just for His information or for His practice later. On the seventh night, the Lord demonstrated khechari mudra (A hatha yoga practice carried out by curling the tip of the tongue back into the mouth until it reaches above the soft palate and into the nasal cavity. This has been described and eulogized in the Upanishads and hatha yoga texts) and taught His Holiness nadanusandhana (contemplation on the internal sound). Such was the impact of the Lord’s teaching that His Holiness could vividly recall any of the Lord’s demonstrations even decades later.

His Holiness later remarked that He had not done any asana or kriya that Shiva had not shown Him in the dreams. However, He practised the asanas and kriyas only after learning, as it were, a number of them from Kasi-svamin and the bairagis (wandering recluse). He further came to know the names of asanas from Kasi-svamin and from books. His Holiness felt that God wanted Him to postpone doing asanas and kriyas until having seemingly learnt many of them from humans. Because of this, there was no scope for others to wonder how He was abruptly able to practice hathayoga without having been taught.