Gorakhnath

Seated, spine tall. Close the right nostril, inhale left; close both briefly if it is comfortable; exhale right. Inhale right, exhale left. That is one round. Ten to fifteen rounds, no strain, no long retention. This is the entry practice of the whole tradition, and the one that must be stable before anything stronger is considered.

Seated. Exhale fully. Lift the pelvic floor gently — the sensation is a lift, not a squeeze, and the buttocks and belly stay quiet. Hold two or three seconds, release completely. Five repetitions, then rest. Learn it entirely on its own before it is ever combined with breath retention.

A quiet room, at night if possible. Sit, close the eyes, close the ears with the thumbs. Attend to whatever internal sound is present — ringing, a hum, a high tone. Do not manufacture one and do not evaluate it. Follow it as it changes. When attention wanders, come back to listening. The Nāth practice in its plainest form.

A candle at eye level, an arm's length away, in a dark still room. Gaze without blinking until the eyes water. Close them and hold the after-image until it fades. Two or three rounds. Stop at soreness. Not for anyone with glaucoma or a retinal condition.

A written version of what the yogi wears. Name one thing you are currently defending — a role, a reputation, a version of yourself. Write what it would cost to stop defending it, and what it currently costs to keep. No resolution required. The Nāth position is that the defending is the weight.

Walk with no route, no phone, no podcast and no errand. When you notice you have begun planning, return attention to the feet. The wandering yogi's practice in a domesticated form: what surfaces when there is nothing to arrive at is the material worth watching.

Who was Gorakhnath?

Gorakhnāth, or Gorakṣanātha, was the yogi who organised the Nāth Sampradāya, an order of ascetics that shaped the development of haṭha yoga. He is usually dated to the eleventh or twelfth century, though scholarly estimates range from the ninth to the thirteenth. He is described everywhere as the disciple of Matsyendranāth. Numerous Sanskrit and vernacular texts are attributed to him, most of them later compositions written under his name.

Did Gorakhnath invent hatha yoga?

Not exactly, though the tradition credits him with it. The Nāths are unquestionably central to how haṭha yoga was systematised and transmitted, and the texts that carry the tradition circulate under Gorakhnāth's name. But recent scholarship has shown that the earliest known text teaching haṭha techniques, the Amṛtasiddhi, comes from a Buddhist tantric milieu and predates the order. The accurate statement is that he consolidated and organised the tradition rather than originating it.

Why are the Nath yogis called Kanphata?

Kānphaṭa means 'split-eared'. At full initiation, the cartilage of both ears is pierced and heavy rings, kuṇḍalas, are inserted. The mark is permanent and visible, which is the point — it makes the commitment irreversible and identifies the yogi anywhere in India. Not every member of the tradition takes this initiation; it marks the fully initiated ascetic.

What is the relationship between Gorakhnath and Matsyendranath?

Matsyendranāth is the earlier figure and Gorakhnāth's teacher; together they are the founding pair of the Nāth lineage. The most repeated story tells of Matsyendranāth becoming absorbed in the pleasures of the kingdom of Kadalī, and Gorakhnāth entering in disguise to remind him of his practice and bring him out. The tale is told as an instruction: even an accomplished practitioner can be caught, and the lineage is what retrieves him.

What is the Nath view of the body?

That it is the instrument of liberation rather than its obstacle. Earlier ascetic traditions largely sought to transcend or mortify the body; the Nāths set out to purify, strengthen and seal it, treating a perfected body as the precondition for a liberation that happens while alive. Almost every distinctive feature of haṭha yoga — the cleansings, the locks, the retentions — follows from this single reversal.

What is jivanmukti?

Liberation while living. Rather than treating freedom as something realised at or after death, the Nāth position is that it is available now, in this body, to someone still walking about and doing things. In practice it describes a person no longer driven by the pressures that ordinarily organise a life — not a person who has left the world, but one no longer bargaining with it.

What is sahaja?

The spontaneous or natural state — the uncontrived condition that remains when practice has done its work and effort can stop. The Nāth verses treat it as something uncovered rather than produced, which creates the tradition's characteristic tension: rigorous physical discipline aimed at a state that discipline cannot manufacture. The verses tend to make jokes about this rather than resolve it.

Which texts are attributed to Gorakhnath?

The Gorakṣaśataka and the closely related Gorakṣapaddhati, the Siddha Siddhānta Paddhati, the Yoga Bīja, the Amaraugha Prabodha, and the vernacular verses known as the Gorakh Bāṇī. Attribution here is traditional rather than documentary: texts were composed under a founder's name over several centuries, which marks lineage rather than authorship. Treat any confident claim that Gorakhnāth personally wrote a given text with caution.

Is Gorakhnath worshipped as a god?

He occupies an unusual position — a historical yogi treated as a deathless siddha, and in some regions as an incarnation of Śiva. The Gorakhnāth Math at Gorakhpur is a functioning temple as well as a monastery, and shrines to him exist across North India and Nepal. Within the tradition the distinction between an accomplished yogi and a divine figure is not drawn as sharply as an outsider might expect.

What is the connection to Gorakhpur and the Gurkhas?

The city of Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh is named for him and houses the order's principal monastery. In Nepal, the town of Gorkha takes its name from the same source, and the Gurkha soldiers are named after that town. The reach of the name across North India and Nepal is one of the clearest indications of how widespread the order became.

How do the Naths relate to Kabir and the sant poets?

Closely, and often argumentatively. Nāth vernacular verse circulated widely in North India before and alongside the sant poets, and Kabir engages with Nāth ideas directly — sometimes borrowing their vocabulary of inner sound and the unstruck word, sometimes mocking their preoccupation with the physical body and their outward marks. The exchange helped shape North Indian devotional poetry.

Can a householder practise the Nath tradition?

The full path is ascetic — initiation, wandering, the split ears. But the tradition has always had a lay following, and its accessible practices carry across: alternate-nostril breathing, steady posture, mūla bandha in isolation, and above all listening for the inner sound, which needs no equipment and no belief. What should not be attempted from a book are the strong retentions, the cleansing procedures and the extreme mudrās.