Kechari Mudra

Technique
For Kriyabans Only
(those who have received Kriya Yoga Initiation)
 Kechari Mudra
Technique
For Kriyabans Only

(those who have received Kriya Yoga Initiation)

Ananda Kriya Sangha

India
B-10/8, DLF Phase I
Gurgaon (Haryana) 122 022
email: kriya@anandaindia.org
web: www.anandaindia.org

United States
14618 Tyler Foote Road
Nevada City, CA 95959
email:kriyayoga@ananda.org
web: www.ananda.org
 What is Kechari Mudra?
From The Art and Science of Yoga, by Swami Kriyananda

A mudra is a yoga position that is designed especially to awak-

en spiritual energies in the body. Of all mudras, Kechari [pro-
nounced ke–CHAR–ee] is one of the most important.
Unfortunately, it is also one of the most difficult. The tongue
must be brought back behind the soft palate so that its tip con-
nects with certain nerves in the nasal passages. If the tongue
cannot be brought back that far, its tip may be placed against
the uvula (the soft fleshy appendage that hangs from the soft
palate at the back of the mouth).

The chief purpose of Kechari Mudra is to awaken Kundalini.

The positive and negative energies in the tongue and nasal pas-
sages (or uvula), when joined together, create a cycle of energy
in the head which, instead of allowing the energy to flow out-
ward to the body, generates a magnetic field. This field draws
energy upward from the body and from the base of the spine
to the brain.

It is said that the tongue turns back of itself in Samadhi. The

practice of this mudra helps to hasten the advent of deep spir-
itual states of consciousness.

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 Questions and Answers on Kechari Mudra
(from Ananda Kriyaban Retreats with Swami Kriyananda)
Question: Please tell us a little about Kechari Mudra?
Swami Kriyananda: Kechari Mudra is called the highest of all
the mudras. To be adept in hatha Yoga, there are two mudras
in particular you should master. Kechari is one of them. It is a
very peculiar technique. I understand why Master only hinted
at it in his lessons. It’s the sort of thing that can make people
say, “Yoga is weird! Thank you, I’m not interested!”

In Kechari Mudra, you turn the tongue back and put it behind
the soft palate. A compromise version that gives some of the
same benefits is to touch the tip of the tongue to the uvula,
that little flap hanging down at the back of the throat. Yoga
teaches that the union of the nerves in the tip of the tongue
and the uvula is the real inner sexual union. It creates a kind
of short circuit of the energy that draws it forcibly from the
body into the brain. You can feel an immediate effect when
you do it. It is an extraordinary and powerful technique.

In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and in Hatha Yoga shastras, it is the

technique for learning to levitate and fly. If you keep these
nerves [in the tip of the tongue and nasal passages or uvula]
united for a certain period of time an elixir is secreted. It tastes
sweet, like a mixture of clarified butter and honey. I wonder if
the “promised land” where the Jews were led—the “land of
milk and honey”—was really a symbol of the heavenly king-
dom within.

There is a whole veda in the India scriptures called Samaveda,

which most people think is about drinking rice wine and get-
ting soused. In fact, it is about this inner nectar, which is high-
ly charged and can keep you energized for long periods of time
without your needing to eat. It gives tremendous joy and

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spiritual power.

Yogis say that when bears go into hibernation they roll their
tongues back. That is why they are able to remain so long—
months at a time—in suspended animation. Their heartbeat
gets very slow—down to one or two beats a minute, I believe.

In samadhi, the tongue automatically goes into Kechari

Mudra. So doing it deliberately will help you go into ecstasy.
For the Higher Kriyas, it is particularly beneficial. Kamala Silva
[a direct disciple of Master] told me she got far more from the
Higher Kriyas when she did them with Kechari Mudra.

Lahiri Mahasaya taught Kriya with Kechari Mudra. To be able

to get the tongue into Kechari you first have to stretch the
frenum (the cord that ties the tongue to the floor of the
mouth), so many of Lahiri Mahasaya’s disciples include
tongue-stretching exercises as part of their Kriya initiation.
(See next section.)

Question: What is the goal of Kechari Mudra?

Swami Kriyananda: People often ask how to get their energy
moving up the spine to the spiritual eye. Well, Kechari Mudra
is a good way to do it. It draws the energy into the spine and
starts pulling it toward the brain.

Question: At what point do you recommend that one add

Kechari Mudra to one’s practice?
Swami Kriyananda: You should begin doing it when you have
a good sense of internalization of energy, of inner calmness in
the spine. When you’ve reached that stage of your practice, you
will get more effect from Kriya doing it with Kechari Mudra.
Don’t think in terms of starting after a certain period of time—
five or ten years, say—think rather of starting when you feel it

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is the right time to do it.

It is a very important technique, even though it may seem a lit-

tle strange at first. There is a positive energy in the tip of the
tongue and a negative energy in the uvula and in certain nerves
in the nasal passages. When these two energies unite, it short
circuits, making a powerful cycle of energy that creates a mag-
net. The right way to raise the kundalini is to create a magnet
from above, rather than forcing it from below. Kechari Mudra
is a natural and right way to create that magnet.

Question: Will Kechari Mudra help to get rid of blockages in

the spine?
Swami Kriyananda: It definitely will do that. Spiritual block-
ages in the spine are a kind of tension. Generate enough
upward moving energy and it will blast through those block-
ages. Kechari Mudra is one way of generating that energy.
Everything gets drawn up in its wake.

Question: Ever since last year’s Kriyaban Retreat I have been prac-
ticing the preparatory exercise Telubya [pronounced te–LUB–ya]
Kriya. Can you tell me where this exercise originated?
Swami Kriyananda: It originated with Lahiri Mahasaya. He
taught it. Where did he get it? I suppose from Babaji. Where
did Babaji get it? That fact is buried in history.

Babaji said that in a former incarnation he was Krishna and

gave the science of Kriya to Arjuna and a few others. Krishna,
in the Bhagavad Gita, also says that he had given this science to
the most ancient of known rishis at that time. This Kriya, there-
fore, has been taught by great rishis through thousands of
years. It is very holy. All the different aspects of it are ways of
helping to make our practice of Kriya Yoga more perfect.

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Question: How long does it take to master Kechari Mudra—
months, years?
Swami Kriyananda: It depends on the tightness of the frenum.
Pushing the tongue against the roof of the mouth and milking
the tongue helps to loosen the frenum. It also depends on the
length of your tongue. If you can touch the tip of your nose
with your tongue that’s a promising start.

Lahiri Mahasaya insisted on people doing Kechari Mudra.

Ours is Lahiri Mahasaya’s Kriya so we should keep in mind the
importance he placed on it.

Question: I have been practicing Kriya with my tongue

turned towards the back of my throat in the closest approxi-
mation to Kechari Mudra I can make. Would it be better to
wait until I can do Kechari Mudra well before practicing Kriya
in this way? Although this is helping to stretch the frenum, it
causes me to have to breathe through my nose as well as
through my mouth.
Swami Kriyananda: Touching the tongue to the uvula does
bring some of the same effects as Kechari Mudra. The difficul-
ty is that when your tongue is tensed to keep it against the
uvula, it is harder to make the Kriya sounds. One of the sounds
especially is very difficult to make when the tongue is turned
back. You don’t want to keep moving the tongue back and
forth with each Kriya because it is distracting.

If you can make the sounds with the tongue turned back, if
you can hold the tongue against the uvula and still relax your
throat enough so your concentration is on the currents and
not on the tension in the tongue, then it’s fine to do Kriya that
way. It becomes a matter of personal taste and personal abili-

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ty. It is up to you. Frankly, I can’t do it, but other people have
assured me they can. The fact remains, it really isn’t as good to
do Kriya in that way as it is with the tongue all the way back
and into the nasal passage.

Master didn’t teach Kechari Mudra to the general public

because it is a difficult technique to master. Westerners find
yoga extraordinary enough without this in addition! Also,
Master found that emphasizing the Kriya sounds is important
for getting the true feeling of Kriya in the throat and spine. In
Kechari, you have to make the sounds deep in the throat and
it is impossible to make the sounds the way they are normally
taught. You have to visualize the sounds.

But Master did teach that when you can go deep, doing Kriya
with Kechari is the correct way to do it. Interestingly, Dr. Lewis
told me that one time Master looked at him and said, “You
aren’t doing Kriya properly.” “What do you mean, sir?” Dr.
Lewis asked. Master said, “You should practice Kechari when
you do Kriya.” Because I could do Kechari, the next time I saw
Master I asked him, “Sir, should I do Kechari while doing
Kriya?” Master replied, “Not yet.” In other words, he wanted
me to get the feeling of cool and warm, and control over the
currents before doing Kechari.

In India they make a big thing of teaching Kechari before you

can even do Kriya. Master said, “That isn’t necessary.”

In the past, I was a little hesitant to teach Navi Kriya except as

one of the Kriya preparation techniques. I don’t want to teach
anything unless I know Master taught it. But recently I have
heard that Kamala Silva taught Navi Kriya and Durga Mata
[a direct disciple of Master] knew it. The only way they could
have gotten it is from Master. So now I feel more confident in
teaching it. Navi Kriya is a good thing to practice, but it is not
8
part of the way Kriya Yoga is taught to the public. These other
techniques are things you can add bit by bit if you want to, but
they are not necessary. The necessary thing is that you feel the
currents in the spine. These techniques, especially Kechari
Mudra, are adjuncts that will help you practice Kriya more
deeply.

Question: What did Master say about practicing Kechari

Mudra in combination with the other meditation techniques
like Hong-Sau, AUM, Jyoti Mudra, Maha Mudra?
Swami Kriyananda: I didn’t hear him say anything on this par-
ticular subject. I know that different lines of Lahiri Mahasaya’s
disciples say of course you do Kechari with Jyoti Mudra, and I
would assume that this is true. If you are doing Kechari with
Kriya, why not do it with Jyoti Mudra? It makes sense. The
same thing could be said for the other meditation techniques.
With Maha Mudra, it is less important. The main thing in
Maha Mudra is stretching and magnetizing the spine. With the
heel in the anus and the chin on the chest you lock the energy
in the spine. Magnetizing that energy, send it upward, drawing
it to the point between the eyebrows. Maha Mudra is a very
important practice. It is not just physical stretching; it is a
magnetizing process that will make your practice of Kriya
deeper.

Question: Should you use olive oil in doing Kechari Mudra?

Sometimes my throat gets really dry?
Swami Kriyananda: Yes, you can use oil.
Question: Do you have to use your fingers to get the tongue
into Kechari Mudra?
Swami Kriyananda: I have to, but people who are better at it
don’t. Some people can do Kechari as soon as they attempt it.
It’s part of what they practiced as yogis in past lives so they’re
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born with the ability to do it. Norman [a fellow disciple at Mt.
Washington] was able to do it immediately.

Question: When you do Kriya do you always keep your mouth

open?
Swami Kriyananda: If I do Kriya without Kechari Mudra I keep
my mouth open, unless I have a sore throat. If I do it with
Kechari Mudra, then of course my mouth is closed. You can’t
make the traditional Kriya sounds with Kechari, instead you
make a sound in the deep throat.

Question: If you finally learn to do Kechari, and you want to

incorporate it into your sadhana, where would it fit in?
Swami Kriyananda: Do your Kriyas with Kechari Mudra.

Question: What about doing Kechari Mudra while moving? A

friend of mine told me he actually did it while walking.
Swami Kriyananda: You can do it as a stretching exercise while
doing something else, like walking or driving. Just don’t get
too deeply into it, or you might go into samadhi and walk off
a cliff or drive up a telephone pole!

There is a written record of a Brahmin priest who lived to be

very old. It says he traveled long distances on foot, doing
Kechari Mudra as he walked. He was able to travel hundreds of
miles a day that way. [Swami has cautioned people not to do
full Kechari Mudra while driving or with any other task that
requires concentration.]

Question: Even after your Kriya practice, do you continue

doing Kechari Mudra while sitting in the silence?

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Swami Kriyananda: Yes, of course you can.

Question: If you can do Kechari Mudra, should you do it with

the Higher Kriyas?
Swami Kriyananda: Yes

Question: Do you have to open the throat when you do

Kechari Mudra?
Swami Kriyananda: When you turn the tongue back the throat
opens automatically.

Question: If you are doing Kechari Mudra when you do the

Kriya breath, is there a sound?
Swami Kriyananda: Yes, you can make a sound deep in the
throat. With Kechari Mudra, though, you can’t get the tradi-
tional Kriya sounds, so you have to think them.

Question: When I do Kriya with Kechari Mudra, I have to use

my will to make the sounds in the throat. Should I do that?
Swami Kriyananda: Yes, the sound in the throat helps to get the
feeling of air passing. It’s a good thing to do. It doesn’t have to be
loud. When I’m doing Kriya on my own I do it softly.

Question: Where does the tongue go in Kechari Mudra? How

far up can you push it?
Swami Kriyananda: There’s no hole that passes the tongue
into the brain, so feel free to go as high as you can. There is a
cord between the two nostrils, and above that, still more space.
With practice you can push above the cord. That’s where the
tongue should be. You can also just touch the tip of the tongue

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to the uvula and get some effect that way.

Question: Do you need to press the tongue up in the nasal

passage and touch the nerves there?
Swami Kriyananda: No, keep the tongue relaxed in the nasal
passage. At first there is a certain strain in this position. Then
after a while it feels natural and easy.

Question: Does the tongue ever get stuck in Kechari Mudra?

Swami Kriyananda: No, don’t worry about it.

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 Kechari Mudra Preparation Exercises
The main obstacle to doing Kechari Mudra is the shortness of
the average tongue and of the frenum (the cord that ties the
tongue to the floor of the mouth.) These exercises will help
you to stretch the tongue and frenum gradually and naturally.
(Lahiri Mahasaya taught some of them.) Under no circum-
stances should the frenum be cut. It was put there by nature to
prevent us from swallowing our tongues. To cut it might also
sever the nerves that go to the tongue.

You may be able to practice one of two of these Kechari prepa-

ration exercises on a daily basis. You may have time to do them
all. But don’t overdo it. If you find the frenum, tongue or soft
palate getting sore, you may need to take a break from the exer-
cises for a day or longer. Keep in mind that it takes time—
months or maybe years—to be able to do full Kechari Mudra.
In addition to these practices, devotion to God and gurus, will
also in time help you to be able to do Kechari Mudra.
Devotion draws God’s grace on your practice.

1 “Milking” the Tongue—The tongue can be stretched by

gently pulling or “milking it.” With a damp cloth, pull the
tongue outward and then downward several times with a gen-
tle “milking” motion. This may be done for several minutes a
day, before your meditation or at other times.

2 Pressing the Tongue Against the Roof of the Mouth—The

frenum may be stretched by turning the tongue back as far
as you can and pressing the base of it against the roof of the
mouth. Gradually, as the tongue relaxes, try to stretch it further
and further toward the back of the mouth. In time, you should
be able to touch it to the uvula at the back of the throat, as a
first step to doing full Kechari Mudra. You can hold this posi-
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tion while practicing Hong-Sau, AUM or Kriya as long as it is
comfortable for you.

3 Rubbing the Frenum Across the Teeth—The frenum may

also be softened and stretched by pulling the tongue out
and gently rubbing it left and right across the lower teeth. Be
very careful with this exercise; especially if you have particu-
larly sharp lower teeth. This technique, which you should prac-
tice for a couple of minutes, can be combined with the
“tongue-milking” exercise—gently pull the tongue outward
and downward, then rub it across the bottom teeth.

4 Telubya Kriya—In this exercise, turn the tongue back and

cleave it to the roof of the mouth. Slowly open your mouth
while continuing to press the bottom of the tongue against the
roof of the mouth. At the point where the connection breaks,
thrust the tongue out as far as you can. Practice about 25-50
times a day, or as much as you can with comfort.

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 Kechari Mudra FAQS (Frequently Asked Questions)

1 Question: Can anybody do Kechari Mudra? Are there some

people who just are not able to do it no matter how long
they practice the preparatory exercises.
Answer: Although we haven’t done a study, most people that
we know have been able to do Kechari Mudra if they do the
exercises regularly.

2 Question: Is this an essential practice for Kriya Yoga?

Answer: Although it is very helpful for deepening ones medi-
tation, it is not absolutely essential.

3 Question: How long does it normally take to get into

Kechari Mudra if one does the preparatory exercises regularly?
Weeks? Months? Years?
Answer: For some people it’s a month. For others it can be a
year or longer. How long it takes will depend on the tightness
of the frenum and the length of the tongue.

4 Question: How will I know when I am in Kechari Mudra?

Answer: You will feel your tongue above and behind the soft
palate. The soft palate will be pushed forward by the base of
the tongue.

5 Question: When your tongue is in Kechari Mudra how long

does it stay in that position?
Answer: Initially the frenum and soft palate might get sore and
you’ll want to come out of Kechari Mudra, but after a while
you will be able to stay in it for an hour or longer. There is no
limit to how long you can stay in that position.

6 Question: Will I begin to talk strangely if I do the Kechari

15
Mudra exercises or Kechari Mudra?
Answer: No, stretching the tongue won’t interfere with your
normal speech nor will your tongue look any different.

7 Question: Will I gag by bringing my tongue to the back of

my throat?
Answer: Some people have that reaction in the beginning,
occasionally, but it usually calms down quickly.

8 Question: Can I hurt myself by doing these practices, for

example, can I swallow my tongue? Can my tongue get stuck in
the nasal passages or in the throat? Can I block my breathing?
Answer: The tongue goes up not down in the throat during
Kechari Mudra. Once you are in the mudra you breathe
through the nose. We have never heard of anyone swallowing
their tongue doing Kechari Mudra. And no, your tongue can’t
get stuck in this position.

9 Question: I’ve heard that you can cut the frenum and get
into Kechari Mudra more quickly.
Answer: Under no circumstances should the frenum be cut, as
certain unscientific writers have proposed. The frenum was put
there by nature to prevent us from swallowing our tongues and
it contains important nerves that supply the tongue. To cut the
frenum might sever the nerves that go to the tongue. It may
take longer to stretch it than to cut it, but to hasten this process
with a razor blade would be foolish and dangerous.

10 Question: Can I do Kechari Mudra when I do the

Energization Exercises?
Answer: Swami Kriyananda said not to do Kechari Mudra
while doing the Energization Exercises because during
Energization we are sending our energy outward to the body.
For the same reason it would be unwise to do Kechari Mudra
16
when you are ill.

11 Question: I’ve heard that the tongue goes into Kechari Mudra
automatically when you go into deep states. Is this true?
Answer: Yes, it is true. When you go into samadhi your tongue
naturally goes into Kechari Mudra.

12 Question: Can I automatically go into Kechari Mudra in a

deep meditation without having practiced the techniques?
Answer: Yes, some people have had that happen.

13 Question: What do I do if I go into a deep state of con-

sciousness in Kechari Mudra? If my breath stops, or if I feel a
deep joy, or an over-powering sensation in my head?
Answer: Just enjoy that state of consciousness. Your tongue
may naturally come out of Kechari at that point. Don’t worry
about it getting stuck.

Progressive Stages in doing Kechari Mudra

First Stage: The tongue is as far back as comfortable toward

the back of the throat.

Second Stage: As you stretch the tongue and frenum, you will
be able to touch the tongue to the uvula (the soft fleshy
appendage that hangs from the soft palate at the back of the
mouth.)

Third Stage: The tongue is brought above the soft palate.

Final Stage: The tongue is brought above the soft palate and
up to the top of the hollow area (nasal cavity) as far forward
and upward as possible.

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First Stage Second Stage

Third Stage Final Stage

1 Nasal cavity 4 Frenum

2 Soft palate 5 Throat
3 Tongue 6 Uvula

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