Is yawning in meditation a bad sign?

In this vocabulary it is a correction rather than a failure: the breath has gone shallow and the body is topping it up. Practitioners are usually told to let it happen and then lengthen the breath deliberately.

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Minor wind

Devadatta

Devadatta · देवदत्त

God-given. Governs yawning and the stretch that arrives with it: the body taking in the air that ordinary breathing missed.

yawning stretching fatigue air

Group: One of the five upa-pranas
Governs: Yawning and involuntary stretching
Direction: Inward, deeply
Name means: Given by the gods
Related wind: Prana
Sources: Gheranda Samhita, Ayurvedic compendia

What it does

A yawn is a large involuntary inhale, usually with a stretch attached. The classical reading is that ordinary breathing has been too shallow for too long and the body corrects itself without asking.

Devadatta is the wind credited with that correction, which makes it the only upa-prana whose job is to compensate for a failure of the main wind.

The name

Devadatta is an ordinary Sanskrit personal name, the equivalent of saying John Smith, and it is also the name of Arjuna's conch in the Bhagavad Gita. Whether the wind is named for the conch or for the everyday name is not resolved in the commentaries.

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Its main wind

Prana

The wind of intake it corrects for.

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Its group

Dhananjaya

The minor wind that remains after death.

Frequently asked questions

: In this vocabulary it is a correction rather than a failure: the breath has gone shallow and the body is topping it up. Practitioners are usually told to let it happen and then lengthen the breath deliberately.

Krikara

Vayuene

Dhananjaya

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