Śivasaṃhitā 3.81

Kāmadeva — the god of love and desire, India’s equivalent of Eros — is the standard of beauty and attractiveness in Sanskrit mythology. Comparing the yogin to Kāmadeva is not only about physical attractiveness: in tantric tradition, the siddha’s beauty emanates from the fullness of their ojas, the quintessence of all vital tissues that yoga has refined and condensed. It is a radiation of health and potency that the human eye perceives as beauty without being able to identify its source.

The fourfold absence this verse describes — no hunger (kṣudhā), no thirst (tṛṣṇā), no sleep (nidrā), no swoon (mūrcchā) — does not mean the yogin never eats, drinks, or sleeps. It means their organism has transcended the biological urgency of these needs. Hunger and thirst have become optional: prāṇa provides the nutrition that previously depended on food and water. Sleep has become unnecessary because practice produces the deep rest that ordinary sleep only partially provides.

The absence of mūrcchā (fainting, loss of consciousness) is perhaps the most technically significant. In advanced prāṇāyāma, especially during long kumbhakas, there is a real risk of loss of consciousness through hypoxia. The yogin who has reached niṣpatti has reconverted their metabolism to the point that even without atmospheric oxygen during prolonged periods, consciousness remains stable and clear.