Upanishads · Yogakuṇḍalinī 1p
॥
Devanāgarī
सैवावस्था परा ज्ञेया सैव निर्वृतिकारिणी इति
Transliteration (IAST)
saivāvasthā parā jñeyā saiva nirvṛtikāriṇī iti
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
सा एव अवस्था परा ज्ञेयाsā eva avasthā parā jñeyāthat very state as the highest is to be known
सा एव निर्वृति-कारिणी इतिsā eva nirvṛti-kāriṇī itiit itself is that which gives peace, thus
Translation
"That very state is to be known as the highest; it is what gives peace".
Version
087f708dd8cb · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
The first chapter is sealed with a prose line, and in it stands a word worth attention: nirvriti-karini, "giving peace." Nirvriti means "cessation [of turmoil], contentment, peace, delight"; from ni-vrit, "to turn back, to cease." That is, peace is understood here as the cessation of whirling — that very bhramate, "whirls," named when reading the seventy-second line.
Let us look back at the whole chapter, for it is finished. Eighty-six verses, and almost all of them craft: what to eat, how to sit, how to breathe, where to sit, how many times, with what daily increment. Its promises are mostly bodily and therefore verifiable; and where it promises beyond this, it makes its own reservations — about the teacher, the measure, weariness, the ten hindrances.
There is much honesty in it, and it deserves listing. It sets the measure by the self three times (1.12, 1.24, 1.35); it says "enough" (1.55); it warns that it is harmful to think about breathing (1.57); it names, as the first hindrance, a man blaming his own ailment on the exercise (1.58); it leaves the ninth hindrance nameless, rather than inventing a word (1.60). And this same book, reaching its end, closes not with a state and not with dissolution, but with the fact that two rejoice together (1.86).
The second chapter will change its subject: it will speak of khechari — and of the fact that for attainment, exercise alone is not enough, but a meeting is needed.