The
most fundamental practice in the yogic system, which is the basis of everything else that
we are doing, is called as bhuta shuddhi. Bhuta shuddhi means, you know,
bhuta means pancha bhutas or the five elements. Shuddhi means to cleanse that. If you learn to cleanse the five elements
in the system, that's all there is. All other yogic practices are an extract from
the five… from the pancha bhuta system of yoga. If you do a certain level of cleansing for
the elements then you attain to what's called as bhuta
siddhi, that means you have mastery over the elements. If you have mastery over the elements
you not only have mastery over the body, over the mind,
over the very creation Seventy-two percent of your body is water. If this 72% of water in your body becomes
sweet, it would be…
you would be quite a wonderful person, isn't it? Yes? Another 12% is earth. If you make that sweet,
84%, very good percentage, isn't it? Another 6% is air. That’s easy because we can control the air
and create various situations. Yogic practices are there to make the air
behave in a sensible way within you; 90%. Another 4% is fire –
you can keep the fire as it is because after all you live in a society,
hmm? You need to burn somebody a little bit, isn't
it? And you’re married,
so you need… sometimes you need some firefighting, isn't
it? Another 6% is akash
or the space. Today once again phenomenal amount of research
has gone into what is akash. They’re talking about what's called as akashic
intelligence. your ability to sit here is simply because
the akashic energy, the space is holding you in place. So the highest intelligence in creation is
being… has been recognized as the space. It is doing things which you cannot imagine. It is throwing up creation just like that. So there is a way to treat it within you and
outside of you. So knowing this,
the five elements, we produced a system through which
you can take charge of the five elements within you. If these five elements are in your control,
just whole life process is in your control. The very process of birth, living and death
is 100% in your control
if you take these five elements into your charge. A simple process like this
can change the fundamentals of one’s life, if you give yourself totally to it. ..... Sadhguru: It's just
Body is a play of five elements, so is the world,
so is the universe. Everything is a play of five elements. In these five
unless you want to explore mystical dimensions you don’t have to bother about the space. So there’re only four. Among the four
seventy two percent of your body is just water. Another twelve percent is earth,
you know only twelve percent of your body is actually earth,
largely it is water. So it's eighty-four percent. Another six percent is air;
air is the easiest thing to manage and take charge of
because there is breath and you can take charge of it in a certain
way. Another four percent is fire. Taking mastery over fire could do many things
to you but because you are house-holders living in
family situation, you don’t have to take charge of fire. You can keep it as it is;
sometimes you can burn somebody a bit. You need it right? You’re married (Laughs). Once in a way if you don’t burn them a bit,
it may not work. Yes or no? The remaining six percent is space;
you don’t have to bother about that unless you want to explore mystical dimensions
of the existence. To live well
four elements is enough, fifth one is not relevant for people
who just want to live well. It's very important
because every substance, all the four elements have memory;
particularly earth and water have a very strong sense of memory. Today modern science has explored this in
a big way and they are proving to you
that water has tremendous memory. Particularly about water, much research has
happened. If I go to a new place
something sensitive, something important if I go,
I don’t go and talk to the local guide; I’ll just look for an unbroken rock,
something that’s not been touched and broken; I just go and sit. I know everything about the place
because there is a phenomenal memory out there. So with water. When water behaves in a certain way,
depending upon what type of memory it carries; it's from this,
people are going to consecrated spaces or temples
and dying for a few drops of water because the water has the memory of the divine. They want that water to get into them,. that’s what theerth means. Threerth means water which has the memory
of the divine. You want that water
which has a good memory to go into you. So always your grandmothers were aware of
this. Tthey told you
‘if somebody gives you water, first you must look at their face
not what they’re giving you. Ssomebody gives you something to eat
don’t look at the food, look at the person, how are they giving it?.’ They need not chemically poisoned this,
just with the emotion and thought things can go bad. So this is no more a grandmother story;
this is scientifically proven now that this happens that water has memory. You can either turn this sweet or make it
bitter with your rubbish. If you can cause sweetness and bitterness
for the water which is in this tumbler, can't you do this to the water that is here? So if you just make the waters within you
sweet, you’ll become seventy two percent okay. Okay? (Laughs)
Another twelve percent of earth if you do, eighty-four percent, you are doing great. Air, if you maintain it,
ninety percent you’re doing great. Fire, if you want to purify,
it's much more work, it's much …it takes much more to purify
the fires in you. Fire is in different ways. We call this
There are various aspects of fire, there is reproductive fire,
there is digestive fire, there is mental fire,
there is heart fire and there is inner fire. There’re five dimensions of fire. These five are difficult to work for ordinary
people. It takes lot of discipline
but the three can be worked out. The reproductive fire,
the digestive fire and the mental fire can be worked out very
easily – very easily means; with little effort one
can do that. Tthe other two will take much more to work
with. If you just purify these fires
then you are no more an ordinary person. You’re not just a healthy, happy person
you are much more because once you have mastery over the fire
element in you then you’re touching the space. You’re just one step away;
suddenly you are not just an ordinary human being,
you are not just happy and healthy human being; something else is burning with you
which is not Most people in the world will never know that
or till now they have not. Our objective is everybody should know it. If you took charge of the fire in your groin,
the fire in your belly and the fire in your mind
how many miraculous things you could do with this life? How much mastery you would have
and how…how well you could live, how consciously
and how much by choice you could live rather than be a slave of compulsiveness,
isn't it? Yes? This is not about denying yourself this or
that. Tthis is just about everything happens by
choice for you not by compulsion. So taking charge of the elements is the most
fundamental form of yoga and all yoga,
whatever kind of yoga everything is an offshoot of bootha suddhi,
either, it is in…it is on the track
or it's gotten distorted but everything is an offshoot of this. ................ Shyama: Pranam Sadhguru. I have a question about Bhuta Shuddhi. We speak about cleansing of the five elements. Cleansing them of what,
why do they become impure and what is the difference between
Pancha Bhuta Aradhana which happens on Shivaratri and the Bhuta Shuddhi process
which we learn as a part of Hata Yoga? Sadhguru: The five elements,
just five, if they have to play so much mischief
it’s not one or two manifestations, trillions of manifestations
if all this has to happen, if it does not acquire
other qualities or possibilities, there is no way with five you can create so
many. They are naturally receptive in nature. The air that you breathe,
the food that you eat, the water that you drink
we will leave the other two because you don’t have much experience of
those two. Today, we know
we can influence them just with thought, emotion, intension or energy
we can change the quality of the water, we can change the quality of the air and the
food that we eat, just with our intention or emotion or thought
process. So
the five elements within you which makes this body are deeply, deeply influenced
a certain layer of information, which generally referred to as the Karmic
substance gathers; without it the elements would not behave in
a particular way within you. It would be same
every human being would have been same if there was no specific information. see, if you eat a banana you become a woman
the banana becomes a woman. Somebody here eats, it becomes a man,
if a cow eats it becomes a cow - same banana. Banana is not so intelligent to make itself
into a man, woman, cow, whichever animal consumes. It is a certain amount of information within
you, which transforms a banana into
a woman or a man or a cow or an elephant or whatever for that matter. What you call as myself,
individual self is essentially a certain volume of information
and the fundamental way that it is stuck on to you
is through the elements because there is nothing here apart from the
elements. So, cleansing it is also about cleansing it
and making it free of the accumulated information or the karmic substance. If this is not done
then you will be a strong individual but you will never know
how to breach this boundary that you have set for yourself. This is not some boundary set by the existence;
this is a boundary that you’ve set for yourself. If you cannot cross the boundary that you
set up, that’s a foolish way to live, isn’t it? You set up a boundary without knowing why
and you can’t cross it after sometime and you start claiming
“This is how I am!” This is… you know this is a common statement
you hear everywhere, you ask them to cross some limitation
“No! This is how I am.” This is not how you are
this is what you made yourself to be. Now, cleansing becomes relevant
when you want to extend yourself beyond these boundaries
when freedom and liberation becomes the goal of your life. If you want to be a concrete ball
there is no need to cleanse, there’s no need to cleanse at all. So concretization of karmic processes will
make you rigid. Rigidity will bring enormous amount of suffering,
enormous. You don’t need a calamity to happen;
you are a calamity by yourself. You do not need any external assistance,
this is called self-help. Most people
when it comes to their suffering they are all on self-help. You know
Nobody need to poke them. When was it last time that somebody physically
poked you? Hmm? When was it last time? Maybe when you were in school
somebody did this to you. After that nobody is bothered about doing
anything like that. Most of you, almost all of you have never
been poked with a dagger or a sword at the most a pin or a finger
nothing more. But for most of you in the last ten, fifteen
or twenty-five years nobody has ever even poked you with a finger
because everybody is weary of you. Who’s
So how much if you look at the volume of suffering that
you go through - anger, fear, hatred, jealousy, whatever else
you go through, misery whatever-
how much has been caused from external agencies, how much is caused by you
if you look at it, it is a miniscule percentage
which has been caused from external agencies. “No, no, no my mother-in-law said this,
my boss said that” - they are saying what they’re saying
but they are not poking you. Physical suffering has not been caused to
you from outside unless you’re from Middle-East For most of you such things have not happened
but rest is all your own making. This is simply because
the imprint is so deep that you behave in predetermined compulsive
ways. A thousand times the same situation has happened
but still the next time it happens you almost react the same way -
it takes a certain amount of awareness, certain amounts of shaking you up to respond
in a different way. So, what’s called Bhuta Shuddhi is
to do it in the most fundamental level. If we cleanse your mind
if we clean it in the morning, by afternoon you will have a whole new world
again It’s really waste. This is why
no… no significance or no importance is given in the yogic system
towards your psychological structure what you think, what you feel they don’t
care because if you change it today again
within few hours you will change it back into something else. We are only interested in the body;
this is why yoga calls everything as body physical body, mental body, energy body like
this but no mind
because the psychological activity that’s happening
towards which you have given enormous importance is of no consequence or significance. Depending upon the type of information imprinted
within you. Whatever is your karma,
whatever is your sanskara, that is how you think,
that’s how you feel, that’s how your emotions happen,
everything happens that way. So we are interested in handling the root. If you prune the tree
it will sprout back with vengeance no point
pruning it. If you handle the root it’ll be gone. So the very root of karmic imprint is in the
elements, that is the most fundamental space. It takes much more than handling other aspects. So, generally …because most people are not
interested in absolute transformation. They just want a little change,
they don’t want to lose themselves. Bhuta Shuddhi means you want to lose yourself
whether it’s good, bad, ugly, beautiful, it doesn’t matter
you want to lose everything that you have built,
so that the Creator’s creation will stand up and shine within you. It’ll take a certain amount of work
the Bhuta Shuddhi that’s been taught to you is very basic. If you want to do more serious forms of Bhuta
Shuddhi it will mean
it becomes your entire life, it’s not something that you do on the side. So even if you do a very minor version of
Bhuta Shuddhi, you will see
the change that happens in you is permanent there is no tendency to fall back
and that’s important. Otherwise everybody changes for three days
and again they fall back into the rut. After sometime that will not happen
when you assist whatever else you’re doing with the Bhuta Shuddhi practice. Nadha Aradhana… I mean the Pancha Bhuta Aradhana is another
matter, that’s a ritual. For those who are not willing to do sadhana
just to give them some benefit, that’s the beauty of a ritual,
that’s a limitation of a ritual. Somebody else can conduct a ritual for you
– you don’t have to do any sadhana, just sit
there and benefit from that but then only if they conduct, you have it
otherwise you don’t have it. Suppose we don’t do Pancha Bhuta Aradhana,
you don’t have it. So, the ritual is always like this,
it is beautiful because people who do not know anything about it
they can still benefit from it. At the same time if those who conduct,
do not conduct it properly it will not happen to you. If they do not conduct it at all,
it will never be available to you. But if you do Bhuta Shuddhi practice by yourself
if you’re willing you can keep it up and you will see as time progresses
its impact is undeniable. Above all,
whatever it does, however small the practice is,
whatever it does, there is no turning back. That’s a very aspect of Bhuta Shuddhi. If you
if you let’s say six months you do asana,
another one year you give it up, everything will back
will be back as it was. Six months you did pranayam
if it’s a powerful process like Shakti Chalana Kriya, if you did,
its impact will be there but of… at a certain period of time
if you don’t do it for a certain period of time,
again it’ll turn back. You meditate, you do Shoonya meditation for
some time - if you don’t do it for a certain period
of time slowly it’ll turn back. But that is not the nature of Bhuta Shuddhi. Bhuta Shuddhi if you do
nothing seems to be happening because it’s very fundamental and it’s
slow but whatever happens, it will not turn back. It stays with you,
as long as you hold this body it stays with you
it will not go because it’s on a very fundamental level. That’s the significance of Bhuta Shuddhi.
