Questioner: I had chronic back pain, so I started taking Siddha medicines for the past
one and a half months.
Now I am feeling better and am able to do my Yoga practices.
Is there metal in Siddha medicines?
Can You compare it to Western (allopathic) medicines and to Ayurveda, and explain how
Siddha medicines impact our body?
(Sadhguru): Essentially the difference between Ayurveda and siddha and
allopathy is just this – allopathy is purely chemicals,
chemical manipulation of the system.
When it's an emergency, you must use it.
But if it's a long… you know if it's a chronic ailment
which is going to be with you for a long time and you’re going to take some medicine for
a long time, definitely popping pills for long periods
of time is not a good thing.
So Ayurveda is herbal; herbs are also chemicals but in natural form.
It’s way better than taking it in a synthetic form.
Ayurveda needs a certain amount of application and knowledge because
there are over three hundred thousand okay?
Three hundred thousand Ayurvedic formulations according to the ancient texts.
Three hundred thousand formulations you have to understand
if you have to really prescribe Ayurveda.
So prescribing or practicing Ayurveda is a it needs a lifelong involvement.
These days I see people come from outside the country;
they study Ayurveda for one-and-a-half months and they are certified ayurvedic teachers
or doctors, practitioners,
which is a very dangerous thing to do.
Three hundred thousand formulations, how to give it,
to whom to give it, when to give it
is not a simple thing to understand, it takes a lot.
Above all you need a phenomenal understanding of the body
to be able to prescribe this.
Siddha is very different in the sense, siddha is essentially elemental in nature.
This there are herbs but essentially it's elemental
in nature.
It comes more from the yogic science because the fundamental of yogic science
is in Bhuta Shuddhi or in cleansing of one’s elements.
This is an evolution from the yogic science and siddha vaidya was essentially formulated
by Agastya Muni and they say Adiyogi himself practiced it
and Agastya brought it to the south and only in the south, it lived;
nowhere else.
And it's elemental in nature, which needs less study
but more internal mastery for the person, who practices it,
which is again a problem today.
We hope these young people, who are starting their sadhana at the age
of six and they are going to be in sadhana throughout
their growing period, these kind of people can take to siddha
very effortlessly because the necessary sadhana is there within
them.
Siddha vaidya cannot happen without sadhana.
Today they have set up colleges for siddha vaidya,
which it will not work like that.
They’re picking up bits and pieces from the text and trying to practice that
– quackery
siddha quackery is happening; siddhavaidya is not happening
because siddha vaidya has to be practiced by a siddha.
It is a siddha who can practice siddha vaidya.
Siddha means an established one; one who is firmly established within himself
because it's elemental in nature.
Because it's elemental, it's not really a medicine as such.
You are dealing with the fundamental material which makes the body
you are not trying to infuse some other medicine into it.
So usage of metals is very much prevalent in siddha.
I know the western medicine will immediately brand it
as nonsense but in siddha,
all the things that you consider as poisonous are used
as a part of their medicine.
Nine deadly poisons you heard of NavaPashana
all the nine deadly poisons are used as medicine.
Lead is very frequently used; mercury is regularly used.
So Rasa Vaidya is very much part of siddha vaidya
and for those of you who’re calling for God’s help
when I mention the word mercury, mercury is not poisonous,
it is just with mercury oxides people have poisoned water.
It is irresponsible usage in the industry, which has done this.
There is mercury in the soil, okay?
We did not import mercury from Mars, it's always been in this planet.
It is not poison.
It is mercury oxides, which are irresponsibly used in industry
and let out into the rivers and lakes, which poisoned the waters on this planet.
Now they think mercury is poison.
No, mercury is not poison but if you drink it,
it’ll kill you not because you can absorb it as poison;
it is because of its sheer weight.
If you put it into the stomach it will not go through the pipe,
it will just drip through the stomach because of its sheer weight,
because it's specific gravity is almost fourteen times that of water,
because of that …because of sheer weight –
if you place it in your hands it just goes into your hand through the pores.
Similarly if you put it into the stomach it will go through the stomach,
it will not go through the intestine.
Because of that, it may kill you because it bores holes,
not because it's acidic, simply because of sheer weight.
But consumption of mercury is very much a part of the yogic system
and very much a part of the siddha vaidya.
I am still alive only because of mercury, not otherwise.
So siddha is a very completely different kind of medicine system
than anything that you’ll find on the planet but it needs a siddha to give siddha medicine.
If you are not established, if you can't hold the mercury,
you don’t give mercury to somebody else.
Yogic system has always used mercury.
Mercury and yogis are always together.
you cannot even you will see traveling yogis
will carry a little bit of mercury with them always,
if not in liquid form, in solid form,
solidified mercury.
People do practices, keeping it in their mouth and doing things
and whatever.
There’re various aspects to it.
Nobody try that here, okay?
We don’t want you dead.
It's not just bad things that kill you, good things that you’re not ready for can
kill you.