Recognition

Dhāraṇā 2 · The Turning of the Breath

Resting in the pause where the breath turns back — within at the heart, without at the dvādaśānta — until the form of Bhairava shows itself.

The first dhāraṇā placed attention at the two birthplaces of the breath. This one names what is actually found there: a pause. The breath goes out, and for a moment it has stopped going and has not begun returning. In that moment, the verse says, the form of Bhairava is revealed.

The two spacesवियद्युग्म

The verse calls the two points viyad-yugma — a pair of skies. Inside, the space at the heart where the in-breath spends itself. Outside, the dvādaśānta, the end-of-twelve: the point twelve finger-breadths beyond the nostrils, in open air, where the out-breath spends itself. One void is wrapped in the body; the other has nothing of the body in it at all. The breath swings between two emptinesses all day, and attention normally rides the swing and sleeps through both ends.

The method

Follow the out-breath to its end in the outer space and rest exactly where it turns — the verse's word is nivartanāt, from the turning-back. Do the same at the heart with the in-breath. Do not stretch the pause, and do not hold the breath to manufacture one; a manufactured pause is an act of the will, and the will is part of what pauses. Simply be present at the turn, every turn, until presence there is continuous.

The grammar of the second line carries the doctrine. Through Bhairavī — the Śakti who is the breath — the form of Bhairava vyajyate, is made manifest. Not produced, not attained: disclosed. A verb of production would mean the pause creates something. Nothing is created at the pause. Something that was always the case stops being covered.