Sadhguru: For most of the chronic ailments that people are suffering today in the world,
the headquarters is in the stomach.
Impurities gather over a period of time and you become dense,
both in body and head. (Laughs)
It determines the way you think, feel, understand and experience life.
DeJa Blu: I'm curious actually, your perception on water fasting,
or fasting and taking prolonged periods of time...
Sadhguru: See, she went to food directly. (Laughter)
Okay, fasting, not food. Good.
DeJa Blu: It's the opposite of food. It's time away from food and the benefits,
if you believe there are any benefits from allowing ourselves to take a reset and
to renegotiate our relationship with food.
Sadhguru: See ah...
this happened in Los Angeles.
A cardiac surgeon drove his...
he was little fascinated with his Ford Mustang.
That was his car, and he was a little excited about it, and...
one day it started coughing a little bit.
So he took it to the local mechanic and said, "Some problem, please fix it."
He said, "Yeah doc, come tomorrow morning, it'll be ready."
The doctor before going to work tomorrow morning, he went there, but it was not ready.
So he said, "Okay, come in the evening, it'll be ready."
He came in the evening, it was not ready. He said, "What's the matter?
You said morning, I came, you said evening, I came, what is the issue?"
And the mechanic was in that kind of mood, he said,
"See, you're a heart surgeon. You also fix engines, I also fix engines.
How come you're paid ten times more than me?"
So the doctor looked at him and said,
"Try to fix the engine when it's running, let me see."
So, human life and human body needs to be fixed when it's running,
otherwise it's meaningless, alright? You can do postmortem (Laughs), what's the point of that?
We need to fix this body when it's running.
If you want to fix this body when it's running, you must understand...
because we're talking about something related to digestive process.
These are the stages of this: ingestion - putting something inside;
digestion, assimilation, excretion. These are four dimensions of food,
and the whole process.
Ingestion, digestion, assimilation, excretion.
Ingestion is happening in today's world just about any time, wherever they are, sitting, standing,
any time of the day or night, people just eat because there's so much food.
It was not like this, ever, in the history of humanity, but unfortunately...
Fortunately, there's a lot of food.
Unfortunately, people don't know, when to eat, when not to eat.
As there are cycles in time... see, we know time only by cycles.
If the planet spins, one like this (Gestures), one spin, we say it's a day.
Otherwise you wouldn't know.
If the moon goes around, we say one month.
If we go around the sun, then we say one year.
So our idea of time is essentially cycles.
Our birth and death is also question of cycles.
Only because our mother's bodies were in sync with the cycles of the moon,
we're even born, otherwise we wouldn't be born.
So our whole physical existence is cyclical.
The entire spiritual process, we could go into that if you wish,
essentially is significant because it's not cyclical.
Because cyclical means you're going in circles.
If I say you're going in circles, what does it imply?
André Duqum: You're in a loop. Sadhguru: You're not getting anywhere.
André Duqum: Yeah. Sadhguru: Usually, if I leave you in desert, where...
here there are some mountains, if there are no features, it's just sand.
Then people end up going in circles.
That means you're not getting anywhere, that means you're lost.
So the moment you are completely identified with your body,
and your psychological structure, you will start going in cycles.
So in India, it's... in the yogic culture, it's very, very clear,
this is called a Samsara, that means cyclical life.
So cyclical life, as good a merry-go-round it may be,
you know, if you arrange it well, it's a good merry-go-round, but you're not getting anywhere!
Children can enjoy a merry-go-round.
If all the adults are sitting in the merry-go-round and going round, and round, thinking they're traveling...
oh, very tragic, isn't it? So that's what happens.
So the body is a cycle.
These cycles are very connected with the planetary cycles,
with the moon's cycle, with the sun's cycle, everything;
lunar cycles, solar cycles, and the earth's cycles, are very important for the body.
If one has the necessary awareness, they could observe on which day your body doesn't need food.
Every other creature knows this. Unfortunately, human beings have forgotten,
because their thought process,
or their silly mind has superimposed every other sense they have in their system.
If you observe your system, you will see, on a particular day, you don't feel like eating.
That day you should not eat.
But no, you're at your friend's house, there is a party, you stuff yourself,
even if your body says no, you stuff yourself.
You see all the animals, even if you have a dog at home,
on a certain day, he refuses to eat; both dogs and cats, have you noticed this?
He will go and eat some blades of grass if it's available, and puke and cleanses himself.
Because he's conscious that ingestion is continuously happening,
but digestion and excretion is not as efficient as ingestion.
Ingestion is happening compulsively but other parts need to work,
other dimensions of digestive process needs to work.
When we say digestion,
digestion happens in the whole alimentary canal, not just in the stomach.
And assimilation also happens across the entire alimentary canal.
Now, excretion doesn't happen only through the alimentary canal,
excretion needs to happen on the cellular level also.
Impurities gather over a period of time and you become dense, both in body and head. (Laughs)
If you don't cleanse yourself, then it'll pile up over a period of time.
We call this karma, because when it piles up,
it determines the way you think, feel, understand and experience life.
People may not realize this, but they will think, "This is how I am, this is my nature."
This is not your nature, this is the way you messed yourself, alright?
So this cleansing process, one important thing is, to give a break for ingestion.
Because other systems are largely involuntarily, you can stimulate them,
but they're involuntary, they're functioning. Ingestion is a voluntary process,
though unfortunately, for most people, it's become compulsive.
It should be a voluntary process, that is, "I eat when I want to eat.
When I decide I want to eat, I will eat. My hand doesn't decide when to eat."
If there's anything (Gestures), anything (Gestures).
You know, people are doing this all the time. (Laughs)
DeJa Blu: I relate. (Laughter)
Sadhguru: I think if we leave a bunch of good chocolates around you,
your hand will eat, not you. (Laughs)
So ingestion should be a conscious process.
To bring this consciousness, there are many methods, one is fasting.
Simply denying yourself food and water could cause damage to the system.
You must support it with the necessary practices.
If you have the necessary practices, the need for food will come down.
See, our energies are not coming only from the food that we eat,
the sunlight, the air, the water... actually, if you...
in the yogic sciences we say, if you really keep your system well,
60 to 70 percent of your energy should come from these three factors: sunlight, air, water.
Another 40 percent should come from the food that you eat.
So naturally, food, amount, volume of food that you eat, will compress.
I must tell you about myself. When I was young, I'm a big eater.
I never became big, because my activity was immense.
But today what I eat is actually...
one tenth, or less than one tenth, of what I used to eat at that time.
From the age of nineteen till now, I'm still the same weight.
Same weight, what I was at nineteen.
Only thing is, at that time, all the weight was on my shoulders,
now because of this gravity continuously working on me,
kind of pulled it down a little bit, (laughter) but I kept myself up! (Laughs)
So fasting as a process must be done with necessary understanding.
If people don't have that awareness…
in India we fixed the 11th day of the moon cycle, you must fast.
If you're not able to fast, you go on something very light - it's called Palahar.
That means, you go on fruit diet,
because fruit is a substance which is over 90 percent water.
And you must eat water, not drink water, this is the yogic science.
As far as possible, you eat water,
you always be conscious about the food that you're eating, what is the water content.
Like a South Indian meal if you eat,
a cooked meal I'm talking about, if you eat, very easily 60, 70 percent water.
In fact more, in some of the foods, it's much more.
But now the food that you're eating here, you're eating bread,
which was baked a month ago probably - is it, minimum?
Even in so-called organic shops, it's at least a month, or at least a week?
Nobody's going and getting fresh bread, and come, and anyway,
the way the bread is baked, it doesn't have water in it - very, very little water.
So of course, you're compensating that with a bucket of Coca-Cola,
or something like that... (laughter) alright? André Duqum: Yeah.
Sadhguru: I said a bucket... DeJa Blu: A bucket, it's a good amount of Coca-Cola!
Sadhguru: It is this big. (Gestures) (Laughter)
But that doesn't work like that. If you drink any liquid along with your food,
the acids that are necessary for digestive process will get diluted,
your whole digestive process gets inefficient.
Because food when it goes in, if it contains water, it... assists.
But if you put any liquid on top of it,
you will see, the food will remain in the stomach bag for too long.
We are very concerned about this always, in the yogic culture and life,
that we don't want food to remain in our stomach bag for more than two and a half hours maximum.
In two and a half hours' time, it doesn't matter what I've eaten,
how much I've eaten, it must go into other parts.
If it remains there, it makes you dull, it makes you lose your sense of perception.
The level of perception, the keenness of perception, is lost.
Which you notice if you eat food without coke, or coffee, or tea, or anything,
you feel dull, it kind of pulls you down.
Whole lot of people have developed a culture around it – after lunch, they have to sleep.
It's like, you went to the gas station, you fueled up, then you can't start the engine (laughs)
because there is gas in the tank. So that's what it means.
So, to ensure that digestive system is in full process,
because for most of the chronic ailments that people are suffering today in the world,
the headquarters is in the stomach. Yes.
For lot of people it's shifting to their head, but...
largely headquarters is in the stomach: what they eat, and the way they eat.
So in this way they eat, one simple thing to bring discipline is,
maybe one or two days in a month, you go on much lighter foods,
which are very simple and easy on the body.
If you can just thrive on water, or just a little bit of lemon
and water, or lightly honey-laced water, it will help.
But if it's not possible for you, maybe a fruit, or something...
which is very, very light on the system. The idea is,
to give digestive process and assimilation process a break,
so that rest of the body begins to excrete on the cellular level,
it must throw out all the impurities.