The Bhramari Pranayama: Opening the Brain

While practising the Bhramari Pranayama (Hummin Bree Breath), we focus closely on the sound of the breath resonating in the brain. More importantly, we meditate on the residual sound and vibration it leaves in the brain (and body) after the practice ends. These after-effects are more penetrating than the practice itself, which is why it’s essential to remain still once Bhramari Pranayama is complete.

Bhramari Pranayama is best applied after asana and other active pranayamas. Because it works on the inner brain and body more than the external, it’s ideal to practise in the early morning hours or at night, when the mind is empty and beginning to settle toward rest.

The Bhramari Pranayama increases the nada or the subtle sound emitted by brainwaves. I experienced my first Samadhi while listening to this subtle frequencies. For those who cannot hear the sound, Bhramari Pranayama can be practised to stimulate higher brainwaves.

How to Meditate Upon the Nada

The vibrating effect of Bhramari Pranayama raises brain frequency, producing an initial sound, like a white noise, high-pitched but not loud. For most people, this is the first sound they’ll hear. Stay with it.

Soon, a more subtle sound will emerge from within that first one. Let your attention shift to this new sound. Then, as an even lighter sound arises beneath it, move your attention there too. In this way, continue discovering sound after sound.

I clearly recall my first encounter with the nada. I came so intensely veru similar to a lighting stike. Then my mind went blank, my inner vision white and a powerful rush of electricity covered my entire body. Through time, it became less intense, but longer and deeply penetrating.

This inward exploration through layers of sound is what the yogic tradition calls nada anusandhana. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika describes this progression in some detail, likening the early sounds to the ocean, thunder, a kettledrum, or gushing stream (or waterfall) – dense and forceful. To me, the first sound came as a lightning strike. As my practice deepens, the sounds I hear refine into something more delicate. I have experienced hearing bells and chimes, a flute, a bowl, singing voices and various string musical instruments.

Keep transferring from the coarser sound to the subtler one, allowing the mind to dissolve into whatever sound is most refined in that moment. The Nada Bindu Upanishad speaks in a similar essence. It described the mind, once it gets absorbed in the nada, like a bee that lives inside a flower, no longer desiring to fly elsewhere.

When the mind gets fully absorbed – the state of laya – a deeply buried sound within all of this shall emerge: the sound of OM. The old texts describe this final stage as anahata nada, the “unstruck sound,” not produced by any friction or vibration of physical matter, but self-existent — and they say that once the mind merges fully with it, it dissolves the way salt dissolves in water, arriving at a state some call manonmani, the mind beyond mind.

I myself was a bit skeptical that the OM exists until it happened to me. It’s the most profound and penetrating sound I have ever heard. Don’t seek it. Simply relax, and stay attentive.