B. Cleansing of Physical Body

For food there are two elements. First is cleansing and second is nutrition. Cleansing is put before nutrition, but these days what we focus on more is nutrition and not on cleansing. So let’s start with the cleaning process. There is the cleaning of the lungs, the cleaning of the pores, the cleaning of the kidneys and the cleaning of the bowels so the bowel movement is right. For the cleaning of the lungs, here you are practicing the breathing and breathing substantially helps. The diaphragm breathing which you are doing makes the breath longer and rhythmic without any jerk and without shallowness in it. The lungs get filled completely and the breath remains rhythmic and no jerk is there. That’s a good way to breathe. The Mahamrityunjay Kriya you do, inhaling from the nose and exhaling from the mouth, to clean negativity is extremely good. There are a large amount of toxins these days that the body is gathering either from electromagnetic waves, genetically modified food or fertilized food with pesticides or pollution, a good number of reasons why we have toxins. So for that the breathing you are doing in the morning is extremely good, all the 24 parts of the body are covered, from head to toe everything is covered. In tradition, there are different Pranayam. So you take Kaphal Bati, Bhastrika, alternate nostril breathing, Nadi Shodhan, cobra breathing; they are all good for cleaning. The cobra breathing is primarily what you practice in Mahamrityunjay Kriya. All these are great mechanisms to clean the lungs and other body parts. So cleaning of the nerves is extremely important. We start first with cleaning of the lungs. In the process of cleaning using the breath, as I have explained, four things are extremely important, irrespective of which breathing technique you are using. Of course in certain breathing techniques these principles are not applied because the primary purpose of the ones we speak about is to clean negativity, emotions. But other than that, fundamentally in breathing the breath should be long so the lungs get filled completely. Breath should not have any jerk in it. It should be rhythmic. So breath is longer, breath is rhythmic and the breath should not have a gap between inhale and exhale. If there is too much of a gap in between inhale and exhale that’s not good. And the fourth, which you always hear, is a sort of noisy breathing. Somebody sleeps and they start making noise. That’s also not an indication of good health. So the breath should not be noisy. If we make any kind of noise we should work towards fixing it. There are also other Kriyas, further I will be discussing those and how to use them to cleanse. Inhaling from the mouth is not healthy generally speaking. In certain exercises of emotional release it is practiced, but it is only for that purpose. In general in life, you do not breathe from the mouth. So it should always be through the nose. In breathing, at a time you will find either the left nostril or the right nostril is open, any one of them. Or any one of them is dominating. The left nostril is indicative of restfulness. That’s why Kabir Dasi used to say that when your left nostril is open, then you meditate. When the right nostril is open, that’s an indication of more activity. For example, digestion is taking place. So Kabir Dasi used to say that when the right nostril is open, then you have food. And here you practice sleeping on the left side for five to ten minutes after eating so the right nostril becomes open. And when the right is open then the blood is reaching to the stomach and it is doing the job of digestion. When both nostrils are open it’s an indication that Sushumna Nadi is open. So for meditators, most of the time, both nostrils should be open. We should reduce the food quantity. This food quantity plays a big role because our Muladhar is connected to food and Kundalini is connected to the Muladhar. So if we eat more then the energy goes into digestion, the less we would eat (not on a level that you start feeling weak), but you experiment and see that you reduce food and you come into a balance. And then most of the time Sushumna will be open. And that’s a good state. For cleaning of the nostril, left or right, one Kriya is the Neti which you practiced. You take water in from one nostril and take it out of the other one. And in that you have lukewarm water with salt in it. So that takes out the mucous and then more easily you go into meditation. Whenever a meditator sees that his nostrils are not open he should clean them. That should be a regular practice. For nostrils to be open you can also use Sutra Neti, in which you use one thread. You take it in and it reaches to the mouth and hangs in the mouth so you use your hand to hold it and you clean it up by moving it. That’s another way to clean the nostril. So the mucous is completely out and that helps to be in a relaxed state where you can breathe and are able to go into meditation. Ujjay breath is also a good thing. Imagine that the control of the breath is not happening breathing from the front portion of the nostril, but you are breathing from the throat. So there would be a little sound in the breath and then from the throat itself you release the breath. That makes the breath more controlled. Because if the breath is controlled then the emotions are controlled. In that sense then you are not a servant of the emotions, you are king of the emotions. You might have noticed that in short breathing, when you are angry the breath is little in, little out. When you are relaxed the breath is peaceful, long and rhythmic. And when you are sad the breath is little in, more out. So with the emotion the breath changes and if you have mastery over the breath, then you have mastery over emotions. There are 108 types of baths in yogic manuals. Out of that, one of the finest ones to clean the pores are the internal baths, in which you sit in Sidhasan, applying all three Bandhs. The stomach contracted, Uddiyan, the Mooladhara squeezed, Mool Bandh, and the third, Jalandhar, throat locked and chin touching chest. With that you do the cobra breathing with attention on the third chakra. There, one needs to be very careful, if done improperly without proper guidance of a teacher one could burn the areas around the kidneys. From there you generate heat and when the heat is generated sweat will come out and you feel more clean than usual. In the caves this is what we practice so one doesn’t need to go take a shower. This is even a better shower, one feels deeply cleansed. And there’s no need for sun in this practice. For beginners, one can use sauna or steam for cleaning the pores. That would penetrate inside and the pores would be cleaned. There are many other baths like tub bath or Katisnan for the back, you keep the hip inside cold water and the rest of the body up. What happens when it is cold is, the blood circulates in that area and that part gets healed. Other cleaning mechanisms, one is upper wash, you have done the Kunjal Kriya. You drink lukewarm water with salt in a squatting position fast and rhythmically so water doesn’t go out. Then after, put both the ring and middle finger in the throat to the little man hanging and then take the water out. Frequently this can be practiced by meditators to clean the upper lungs. Another thing is Sank Prakshalan, which you do for three days. First day you start with lukewarm water with salt. Drink 8 to 10 glasses then you go to the toilet. Second day more, 15 or 16 glasses, third day 20 to 25 glasses. The point is that the same water you are drinking, if that starts coming down into the toilet then the whole cleansing is done. One could achieve this in two days also. Some not even in three days. But the majority of people clean it in three days entirely. So from top, mouth to throat to lungs to kidneys to intestines, all the way down, everything gets cleaned in the Sank Prakshalan. It’s good work for three days. Other than that, Dauthi Kriya, where you have around a three inch white cloth which is around 20 feet long. And then you chew it inside and then you swallow it inside and take it out so all the mucous inside the stomach gets cleaned out properly. That’s more for deep cleansing. You need to plan and organise it and it can be done. And the cloth which you take should be sterilized. Around three inch cotton cloth which is sterilized and twenty feet in length. After the lungs and pores are cleansed, the third one are the kidneys. For kidney cleansing the best is whey. Whey is created when you warm milk and then put one lemon in it. As you put the lemon, the milk will be separated. What you have underneath the water is the whey. And whey is very nice to clean the kidney. It’s considered in yogic tradition to be the best thing to clean the kidney. Watermelon is also good. One can eat watermelon frequently to clean the kidney. Other than that, juices. Fruit and vegetable juices. Orange juice, cucumber juice, lemon juice; they are good for kidney cleansing. We have talked about lungs, pores and kidneys, and now what remains is the bowels. The bowel movement should be regular. In the morning, you drink lukewarm water with lemon and honey is also good. Good for soothing and good for kidneys too. If you have honey you mix it in, if you don’t have, just drink luke warm water and lemon. Drink in the squatting position with legs apart. Then you can take the left leg down to the right foot and right leg down to the left foot. You cross them fifteen or twenty times and then you go to the toilet so the bowels move and then you clean better. That way if you go to the toilet to get fresh in the morning it will be better. That way the bowels get clean. The lungs, pores, kidneys and the bowels. These are four important elements for cleansing the internal system.