The Hatha Yoga Pradipika has four chapters, and they correspond to four divisions of practice: asana, pranayama, mudra, and nadanusandhana.
Three of those are familiar. Modern hatha yoga teaches asana constantly, pranayama occasionally, and mudra as a curiosity. The fourth — a quarter of the entire text, and the subject of the chapter on samadhi — has effectively vanished from teaching.
This is odd, because Svatmarama is not ambiguous about its importance. He states that Adinath described a vast number of methods for reaching laya, and that in his own view, devoted attention to nada is the chief of them (4.66). The final chapter of the foundational hatha text builds toward one practice, and that practice is listening.
Nada Yoga is named for it. Most people who describe themselves as practising Nada Yoga have never done it. For the full map of where this practice sits, see our guide to Nada Yoga, the yoga of sound.
What the Word Means
Nada means sound — specifically, in this context, the unstruck sound heard within, rather than sound produced by anything striking anything else.
Anusandhana is the more interesting half. It is usually translated as investigation, inquiry, or searching after. It carries a sense of tracking something down — following a trail, keeping after a thing until it is found. It is not passive.
So nadanusandhana is not “listening to inner sound” in the sense of noticing that a sound is there. It is the sustained pursuit of it. The text describes a practice of following the sound as it changes, moving after it as it gets quieter, refusing to let attention settle on anything else.
That distinction matters for how the practice actually feels. It is closer to tracking than to relaxing.
Where It Sits in the Text
Chapter four of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika is on samadhi, and it approaches the subject through laya — dissolution or absorption. The mind does not get quiet by being told to; it gets quiet by becoming absorbed in something until it stops maintaining itself as separate.
Nadanusandhana is offered as the most reliable route into that absorption. And Svatmarama makes a point that is easy to miss: he notes that this practice is available even to those who cannot grasp the philosophical teachings intellectually (4.65–67, and again at 4.80, where he says intellectual brilliance is not required).
That is a striking claim in a tradition often preoccupied with qualification. The most direct method in the text is also the one with the lowest barrier to entry.
The prerequisite is not intelligence. It is a purified sushumna — which is to say, the pranayama has to have been done first. That order is not negotiable in the text, and it is the reason this practice appears in chapter four rather than chapter one.
The Actual Instruction
The text gives it in two verses.
At 4.67, the yogi sits firmly in muktasana, adopts shambhavi mudra, and listens with a collected mind to the nada heard within the right ear.
At 4.68, the ears, eyes, nose and mouth are closed — and then a clear sound is heard in the purified sushumna.
Two things here are worth getting right, because modern accounts routinely blur them.
Shambhavi mudra is not ear-closing. Shambhavi mudra, as the same text defines it at 4.36, is an internalised gaze: the attention is absorbed within while the eyes remain open and unmoving, seeing without seeing. It is an eyebrow-centre practice, not a hand practice. Verse 67 gives shambhavi. Verse 68 separately describes closing the sense-gates.
You will very often see nadanusandhana taught as shanmukhi mudra — plugging the ears with the thumbs, covering the eyes, nose and mouth with the remaining fingers. This is not baseless: verse 68 does describe closing those gates, and at 4.82 the text mentions yoni mudra as a means of hearing nada. Shanmukhi and yoni mudra are closely related, and the Gheranda Samhita treats this territory in more detail.
So both approaches sit in the text. But they are two different instructions, and presenting shanmukhi mudra as what verse 67 says is simply inaccurate. The precision is worth keeping.
The right ear is the other point of dispute. Dakshina does mean right, and the plain reading is the right ear. But dakshina also carries meanings of favourable, capable, or true, and some commentators read the instruction as pointing to an inner ear rather than an anatomical side. Both readings have defenders. In practice, beginners generally hear whatever they hear wherever they hear it, and forcing the sound to appear on a particular side is a good way to spend the session straining.
The Four Stages
At 4.69 the text names four avasthas — states or stages — and says they apply to all yoga practice, not only this one:
Arambha — the beginning. Ghata — the vessel. Parichaya — increase or acquaintance. Nishpatti — consummation.
The chapter then maps each to a granthi, a knot in the subtle body that the practice pierces, and to a characteristic sound.
Arambha avastha (4.70–71). The brahma granthi, at the heart, is pierced. A happiness arises in the void of the heart, and sounds like the tinkling of small ornaments are heard within the body.
Ghata avastha (4.72–73). The vishnu granthi, at the throat, is pierced. A kettledrum sound arises in the space of the throat, accompanied by a much stronger bliss.
Parichaya avastha (4.74–75). The sound of a drum is heard in the space between the eyebrows, and the breath enters the great void. The text says the practitioner at this stage becomes free of misery, old age, disease, hunger and sleep — a list that should probably be read as describing a state of absorption rather than as a medical prospectus.
Nishpatti avastha (4.76). The rudra granthi is pierced, the breath reaches the seat of Shiva, and the sounds of the flute and the vina are heard.
These are not stages you should expect to move through on a timetable, and the text’s claim that mental instability is overcome within fifteen days (4.83) is best treated as encouragement rather than a schedule.
The Progression of Sounds
Separately from the four stages, the text gives a general progression: sounds begin loud and varied, and become subtler with practice (4.84).
At 4.85–86 it lists them. At the beginning: the ocean, clouds, a kettledrum, the jharjhara drum. In the intermediate stage: a conch, the mardala drum, a bell, a horn. At the end: tinkling ornaments, a flute, a vina, and the humming of a bee.
Then comes the instruction that makes the whole practice work, at 4.87–88. Even when loud sounds are present, attention goes to the subtler one. If a gross sound and a subtle sound are both available, you take the subtle one, every time. And the mind is not permitted to wander outside the field of sound altogether while it does this.
That single rule is the technique. Everything else is context.
The reason it works is given at 4.89–90: whatever nada the awareness settles on, it becomes steady there and eventually absorbed — and awareness fixed on nada stops reaching for sense objects the way a bee inside a flower stops caring about the scent.
The mechanism is not mystical. Each move toward a subtler sound requires a finer quality of attention than the last. The practice does not calm the mind by relaxing it; it calms the mind by asking it for progressively more precision until there is nothing left over to be restless with.
How to Begin
Best for: practitioners with an established pranayama practice and some capacity to sit still
Effect: absorbing, quietening, deeply internalising
Level: Intermediate
Practise where it is genuinely quiet. Early morning or late night. This is the one practice where ambient noise is not a minor inconvenience but the whole obstacle.
Sit upright in a stable seated posture. Muktasana is specified; siddhasana, sukhasana or a firm chair will serve. The posture needs to hold without adjustment for the length of the session, because movement resets the attention.
Do your pranayama first. A period of nadi shodhana is the usual preparation. The text is emphatic that the sound is heard in a purified sushumna, and in practical terms the breath needs to be settled before subtle listening is possible at all.
Let the breath return to normal, and stop managing it.
Close the sense gates. The simplest version is to press the tragus of each ear inward with the thumbs and rest the fingers lightly over the closed eyes, keeping the elbows relaxed rather than lifted and rigid. Alternatively, work with an open-eyed shambhavi gaze as verse 67 specifies. Do not do both at once on your first attempt.
Listen. Do not search aggressively, and do not decide in advance what you should be hearing.
When you find a sound, stay with it. When you notice a quieter sound underneath or behind it, move to that one. Then keep doing that.
If the mind leaves the field of sound entirely, bring it back to whatever sound is available and start again.
Begin with ten minutes. Build slowly.
Come out gradually. Release the hands, let the eyes stay closed for a minute, and sit before standing.
Ringing in the Ears: A Necessary Caution
This practice instructs you to listen for sounds that no one else can hear. That is also a description of tinnitus, and the overlap needs saying plainly.
Tinnitus is common. It has causes ranging from the entirely benign to the medically significant — noise exposure, earwax, ear infection, certain medications, hearing loss, and in a small number of cases conditions that need investigation. It is not a spiritual attainment, and treating a new symptom as evidence of progress is a genuinely bad outcome.
The practical guidance is straightforward. If you have a persistent ringing, buzzing or hissing that is present outside your practice — while walking, working, talking — get it assessed by a doctor before you spend months interpreting it as anahata nada. This is especially true if it is one-sided, new, worsening, accompanied by hearing loss or dizziness, or if it began after a loud noise exposure.
There is no conflict between the tradition and this advice. The texts describe a sound encountered inside a specific practice, after preparation, in a quiet setting, arising and changing as attention refines. A constant tone that follows you around the day is a different phenomenon, and the honest thing is to say so rather than to flatter the practitioner.
Two further cautions. Do not press hard on the ears — the tragus is closed gently, not compressed, and forceful pressure achieves nothing except discomfort. And if the practice produces anxiety, disorientation, or a sense of losing your bearings, stop and return to something more grounded. Deep internalisation does not suit everyone, and it does not suit anyone all the time.
Common Misunderstandings
1. That this is a sound bath. External sound — bowls, gongs, recordings — is ahata nada, struck sound. Nadanusandhana concerns anahata nada, the unstruck. Listening to something someone else is playing is a legitimate practice, but it is a different one, and no amount of it is nadanusandhana.
2. That you should hear the flute or the vina early on. The subtle sounds sit at the end of a long progression. Expecting them at the start produces either disappointment or imagination, and imagination is the more dangerous of the two.
3. That it can be done without preparation. The text places this in its final chapter for a reason. Attempted with an unsettled breath and an untrained capacity to sit, it becomes twenty minutes of straining to hear something.
4. That any inner sound is anahata nada. See the section above. The tradition’s confidence should not override a symptom that a doctor ought to look at.
Closing Thought
Nadanusandhana is the strangest of the classical practices to modern eyes, because it asks for so little activity and so much precision. Nothing is being built, stretched, held, or counted. The entire method is: find the sound, and when a quieter one appears, go to that one instead.
It is also, on Svatmarama’s own account, the most direct thing in the book — and the one he says does not require you to be clever.
The chapter that yoga forgot is the chapter the text was building toward.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is nadanusandhana?
Nadanusandhana is the practice of sustained inner listening described in chapter four of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. The practitioner closes the sense gates, attends to the internal sound, and follows it as it becomes progressively subtler.
What are the four stages of nada practice?
Arambha, ghata, parichaya and nishpatti. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika associates each with the piercing of a granthi — brahma at the heart, vishnu at the throat, rudra at the eyebrow centre — and with a characteristic sound.
Do I need to close my ears to practise?
Verse 4.68 describes closing the ears, eyes, nose and mouth, and 4.82 mentions yoni mudra. But verse 4.67 specifies shambhavi mudra, an open-eyed internalised gaze. Both approaches appear in the text; they are not the same instruction.
Is the ringing I hear anahata nada?
Possibly not. Persistent ringing outside of practice is more likely to be tinnitus and should be assessed by a doctor, particularly if it is new, one-sided, worsening, or accompanied by hearing loss or dizziness.
Can beginners practise nadanusandhana?
The text places it after asana, pranayama and mudra, and requires a purified sushumna. A settled pranayama practice and the ability to sit still comfortably are reasonable prerequisites.
How long does it take to hear the inner sound?
This varies enormously and depends heavily on preparation and on how quiet your environment genuinely is. The text’s claim of results within fifteen days should be read as encouragement rather than as a schedule.