Gorakhnath's Ajapa Method for Samadhi

<<Taken from the Book An Introduction to Natha Yoga, Pages 52-53>>

Yogi-Guru Gorakhnath taught another very beautiful and effective process of constantly
remembering and meditating on the Supreme Ideal of life and ultimately realizing it. This is called
Ajapa. A man in normal health naturally breathes in and breathes out twenty one thousands and six
hundred times in course of every twenty four hours. This natural process of out-breathing and inbreathing is contemplated as the process of the Jiva's (the human self's) going out into the universe and
unifying itself with the Universal self or the Absolute Spirit and again drawing in the universe or the
Universal Self into itself and filling up the whole being with the Absolute Spirit. It is imagined that at
the time of out-breathing (rechaka) the individual self goes out with sound Ham (meaning Aham or I or
Ego) in order to be identified with or merged in the Vishwatma or Paramatma and comes back into the
consciousness of individuality in the process of in-breathing (puraka) with the sound sa (meaning He or
the Universal Self or Supreme Spirit), bringing as it were the Universal Spirit into itself. Thus, it is
held, a natural attempt is continuously going on, in the waking state as well as in the state of sleep,
through every involuntary act of respiration, for the unification of the individual with the Universal, the
inner with the outer, the part with the Whole, the ego tied to the body with the eternally liberated Spirit,
the finite empirical consciousness with the all-comprehending and all-transcending Absolute
Consciousness.
This is very beautiful and sublime conception of our normal breathing function, taught by
Gorakhnath. A Spiritual truth-seeker is instructed to pay attention to each breath, as it naturally goes
on, with a devoted heart, and to deeply contemplate on its spiritual significance. Without any artificial
effort for the forcible suppression or regulation or lengthening or shortening of the natural breathing
function, he is only to see that no breath (at-least in the waking state) passes unnoticed and to attempt
to remember and feel the union between himself and the All-pervading Divinity, which truth every
breath silently mutters to his heart. This is Ajapa-Yoga, Gorakhnath himself says in his Gorakhsha
Shataka that no other vidya, no other japa, no other Gyana can be compared with this ajapa; as the
result of the continued practice of ajapa, the truth of the unity of the self with the Brahma , of Jiva with
Shiva is realized in spiritual experience; all lust and hatred and malice and fear and anxiety and
restlessness vanish, and the bliss of the consciousness of self-fulfillment is enjoyed within the heart. In
the higher stages of the practice of Ajapa no conscious attention to breath is necessary. The attention
becomes gradually more and more absorbed with feeling of the blissful unity between the self and the
Brahma. The consciousness of the self also vanishes, and only one undifferentiated blissful
consciousness illumined by the Divine Light remains. Thus the state of Samadhi is attained through
the practice of Ajapa and the bliss of union with Shiva or Brahma is enjoyed.