As Sadhguru continues his exploration of the pancha (five) vayus, he focuses on apana vayu this time. Find out what you can do to optimize inner cleanliness of your body, mind, and energy system, to go through life like a breeze.
Sadhguru: Today, we want to see to what extent we can explore apana vayu. The prana vayu generally moves from the navel up. That is why there is this breathing from the navel to the pit of the throat. Apana vayu moves from Manipuraka, which is just below the navel, down to the Muladhara.
Physiologically, energetically, psychologically, and emotionally, you want a balanced platform. Because without balance, none of your faculties – your intelligence, your talents, your capabilities – can ever find fulfillment. If we want balanced growth, as we take care of the upward movement of energy, we also take care of the downward movement of energy.
Apana represents the excretory system, not just in terms of the digestive process – excretion needs to happen on the cellular level all across the body. Otherwise, the body tends to become dense. Keeping the body clean on all levels is very important. If every cell in your body is as clean as possible and you stand in a gentle breeze, you will feel like the air is passing through you. It is not, but if the breeze touches you, you can feel that the sensory transmission is going much deeper than the skin, which essentially means you are becoming sensitive to life.
Life sensitivity means you experience life in larger proportions than people normally do. For this to happen, it is important that your apana vayu is active and your system is clean. To keep a place externally clean is important. To keep your system clean is even more important. There are various levels of impurities – karmic, genetic, samskarik [1].
[1] Enduring impact of our genetic memory
Through daily transactions of food, water, and physical contact, you gather impurities. These impurities manifest themselves in the physical, mental, and energy bodies. The levels of suffering in your body, mind, emotions, and energetic condition are determined by the level of impurities you have.
Purification is one thing – not messing it up is another thing. There are people who do a lot of purification work, but they keep messing it up every day. So the first thing is not to mess it up, then to clean. Or if it is very dirty, first clean, and then do not mess it up.
There are many levels to purify yourself. What you eat and drink; how you breathe, sit, stand, and interact with people, what kind of sounds you utter and hear, what kind of atmospheres you create for yourself and everyone around you – all these things are important. Whether you spend time in joy, affection, resentment, hatefulness, or anger – accordingly, the level of impurities will be that you gather in the system.
Impurities are largely in the secretions and fluids of the body; they could be either acidic or alkaline. These two aspects must be well-balanced. If acid increases a lot, it will burn out the system from inside. A whole lot of people are doing this to themselves – every day, they are burning themselves out in their mind, emotions, and energies, and because of that, the body suffers in many ways.
Especially those of you who are aspiring for spiritual growth or even mysticism – you need a good mechanism. A good mechanism means the least amount of friction. If nothing has gathered, everything is clean, it functions smoothly. Whatever we want to do with it becomes easy. If you want this life to perform at its highest level, then purification in everything you do is needed.
How to live at the peak of everything you can do in your life? For this, the tool is Yoga, to be at the peak all the time – physically, mentally, emotionally, and energetically.
Apana vayu is a tremendous force. It has many manifestations within the system. If you over-activate it without knowing what you are doing, beyond that point, it will take away things that should not be taken away. If apana is not well activated, you will have a poor elimination system.
When your elimination process or excretory process is poor, there will be density in the system; you will feel opaque or heavy in the body, though your body weight may be the same. You may have noticed that on some days, your body feels light; on other days, your body feels heavy. Not because you have lost or put on weight. When a certain amount of cleanliness has happened, the body will naturally feel light. Your very body can be happy.
You must check this every day when you wake up in the morning – is the body happy and looking forward to the day? This is not about your mental process. If you observe the body, you will know whether it is on or wants to be off. If the body wants to be off, it means death. If there is no cleanliness in the body, it wants to be inactive because it is suffocating inside.
You know how difficult it is to breathe and how suffocating it becomes when your nostrils are blocked. Similarly, there are many passages that could be blocked. It is very important to eat the kind of food that clears the passages. Food is not just about nourishment but about cleanliness. It should not stay in the system for long. When you are doing sadhana, it is important to eat something that does not stick in you. When it has done its job, it must be excreted. Not a speck of it should remain within you.
Cleanliness is not just of the digestive tract – there are more complex spaces that need to be cleaned. The simplest thing to clean is the alimentary canal; if that is not clean, how to clean your brain?
There are practices that focus solely on the apana vayu, but they are not suitable for most people. If you want to keep the whole system clean, it is best to learn Shakti Chalana Kriya, which addresses all the five vayus. Within the Shakti Chalana Kriya, the first three Kriyas are all about prana vayu. Mahath Prana Kriya/Kapalabhati is for samat vayu. Swana Kriya is about the apana vayu. Similarly, Kaka Kriya is for udana vayu and Naga Kriya is for vyana vayu. You need to cultivate the different vayus in a balanced way.
Too much of any one of these vayus will cause imbalances. If there is a little more prana vayu or samat vayu, which are major forces, it will not be a problem. But if there is a little more of any of the other three, which are subtler in nature, it can cause a very skewed situation in the system. You may draw people’s attention because you may act a little freakish. You may become more socially incompetent if you raise these kinds of things. It is important that the five vayus are cultivated in a very balanced way.
How do you cleanse yourself? One simple thing is, at least twice a month, for twenty-four hours, go without food; just have water. Brahmacharis and many others in the Isha Yoga Center are doing that on every Ekadashi[1], which is the best day to do that. On the evening before, you eat, and only next day evening, you eat again. After some time, you will get used to it. If you are doing enough sadhana, it will not be a problem.
Otherwise, if you are feeling tired, you can squeeze a lemon into the water, and maybe add a spoon of honey – it will keep you going. Doing this twice a month along with your regular practices will ensure body is clean.
[1] Eleventh day of each of the two lunar phases that occur in a lunar calendar month
But the simplest and most wonderful way to arrive at cleanliness is to be in a blissful state. There is scientific evidence that when you are joyful and pleasant, your body chemistry becomes clean. Your experience is in many ways rooted in your chemistry. If your chemistry is getting contaminated by what you generate within you, then initially, you will get unhappy. Later on, it will turn into ill health and all kinds of suffering.
When your body or mind is generating a chemistry you do not want, over a period of time, it accumulates and becomes a compulsive behavioral pattern. Then you may say, “This is how I am. This is my nature.” This is not your nature – this is what you have made out of yourself.
As a human being, you have the privilege to make yourself whatever you want. The apana vayu plays a significant role in making this happen for yourself. It is about cleanliness of what we hear and say, how we move around, and what thoughts and emotions we have. How do you take care of that? Inner Engineering.
At different stages of life, different things will occur, but it is very, very important that the fundamentals are not lost. Remind yourself of the five fundamentals of Inner Engineering every day, or several times a day if needed. This is a simple way of staying blissful.
If you are falling off here and there, it is because you are imbalanced. If you fall when someone touches you, it is because you are imbalanced. That is why the yogic practices, the sadhana – to bring balance to the system. Daily practice is to see that you are not wobbling. Above all balance.
You can cleanse your system with simple practices, but it is important that they are done in balance. The significance of apana is that it is predominantly a downward moving force. Everyone thinks going up is more important, but standing on the ground firmly is equally important. The apana vayu creates that possibility.
If on two days a month, preferably on Ekadashi, you have only water and do the complete Shakti Chalana Kriya twice that day, it will greatly enhance the cleansing process.
The greatest tool ever devised to really cleanse the body absolutely inside out is the system of Hatha Yoga. It is a harder way, but if you give yourself to it, you will see the effect after some time. I am speaking from my own experience, based on those few years when my Hatha Yoga and Angamardana happened, no matter what kind of activity I was in or where I was.
Today, at 64, I am still far more resilient than a whole lot of young men out here, physically – I am not even talking about other aspects. This is not to boast about myself. What I am saying is, you need to invest time. Simply invest yourself into sadhana. I am not someone who invests my life in doing something that does not work.
We are investing our lives and everyone’s lives into this process because it works like nothing else. It functions beyond what you understand as life, and beyond what medical science knows as physical and mental health today. Life is a certain sense of wholeness; there is an intrinsic integrity to life. Yoga is about strengthening that. If you strengthen it, you do not have to worry about life.
In whichever way and form life comes, you will hit it well. But if you are not prepared, you are always hoping for a sweet ball to come your way. If a hard ball comes your way, what will you do? Let the hardest ball come. So what – we will hit it well. That is all there is to life. If you invest focus, intensity, and attention on that, there will be no regret.
