bringing a balance between ida and pingala is a very important part of living a balanced life. Forty minutes at a time - four times during the day,
there is a certain transition happening. These are called as twilight zones or sandhyas
because at this time, the balance between ida and pingala shifts very rapidly. In the yogic way of looking at things, there is no
such thing as body and mind. There is physical body, there is mental body,
there’s energy body. The energy body comprises of seventy-two thousand
nadis. When we say a nadi, it means a channel or pathway. Nadi does not mean a
nerve. If you cut open this body, you will not see the nadis. There is no such thing
physically, but experientially if you observe the nature of movement of the energy in the system, you will see
that it always moves along established pathways; never randomly. So, there are seventy-two thousand
ways in which it moves - thirty-six on the right, thirty-six on the left - thirty six thousand on either side.
The right is called as pingala. The left is referred to as ida. These are also
referred to as sun and moon. So these two, ida and pingala or the sun and the
moon, the right and the left, on the level of your mind signify the logical and the intuitive. When I say intuitive,
intuition is not another dimension of perception, but just another dimension of computing. If you
have the same amount of information within you, if you go logically, there may be ten steps to get to
a place. Intuition means you don’t take the ten steps, you just jump to the tenth step. But today modern
education systems, one hundred percent stomping on the intuitive dimension; only
the logical is developed. Anything intuitive is dismissed off as mumbo jumbo.
For everything, you have to think through. What your grandmothers just knew, today you have
to do a billion-dollar research to find the same thing. When you have to think through everything
and everything seems to have multiple steps, now life becomes stressful. If one wants to be
successful beyond a certain point, there are some things where you should
be able to jump the steps and arrive at it. Still the same information, still the same stuff,
it is just that you don’t have to walk through that many steps every time. This makes
life very stressful because it is like you’re driving your car on two wheels; the other
two wheels unused and safe; I don’t know for when to be used; but the two wheels
that you’re using will feel enormous amount of stress. So, in the yogic system the significance of
the intuition is as important as the logical. So, bringing a balance between ida and pingala
is a very important part of living a balanced life. Being able to conduct yourself through
complex situations with ease comes only when the intuitive dimension of your mind
is sufficiently evolved and developed. Otherwise, small things will freak you because for
everything there are multiple steps. Here we’ll be doing a few things to bring a balance
between ida and pingala to give you an experiential understanding of this.
If you take your forefinger, place it beneath your nostrils, and gently exhale, find
out in which nostril the breath is dominant right now. Hmm? How many of your right? Left? Okay, it’s
either right or left; only two barrels, you know? If there were twenty five, how complex it would have
been (Laugh). If you observe yourself through the day, you would have noticed that approximately between
forty to forty-eight minutes, the dominance of the breath will shift from right to
left and left to right. Have you ever noticed this? Have you? Why this is happening is within the system,
the dominance of energy or prana, which is the vital force in the system is shifting
from pingala to ida and ida to pingala every forty minutes. Once the energy shifts, within
the next eight minutes, the breath will shift. If you’re in a perfect state of health and
wellbeing, it will shift within a few moments or we can say instantaneously. This shifting is
happening every forty minutes, but during certain times of the day, which are referred to
as the sandhya kalas, which means the twilight zones; twenty minutes before sunrise, twenty
minutes after sunrise. “Oh, that’s okay Sadhguru. Tell me if there
are other times.”(Laugh) Tch. Twenty minutes before noon, twenty minutes
after noon. Twenty minutes before sunset, twenty minutes after sunset. Twenty minutes
before midnight and twenty minutes after midnight. Forty minutes at a time; four times during
the day, there is a certain transition happening. These are called as twilight zones or sandhyas
because at this time, the balance between ida and pingala shifts very rapidly.
Because it’s shifting rapidly within yourself, it’s very easy to bring it to a balance at these
times. To an extent, almost everywhere in the world, any spiritual process or practice means morning,
evening. Sandhya has become synonymous with spiritual practice. The time has become
synonymous with many practices. So, bringing a balance between ida and
pingala is important for a balanced development of a human being. you feel truly comfortable only when
you're in balance in some way. When there's any kind of imbalance
there's a discomfort, isn't it? Yes? Participants: Yes.
Sadhguru: When you're experiencing any kind of imbalance there is discomfort. Only when you attain to
a certain balance you feel really comfortable. So, comfort is never really determined
by what you're sitting on or where you are. Comfort is determined by how balanced you
are within yourself. This basic comfort that every human
being must have, unfortunately has been denied to too many people. Just to sit
with total ease in one place is not there in most people right now, isn't it?
Simply sitting in ease, complete ease, it is not there. So, when there is no ease
it's a disease. Whether you're medically diagnosed or not
it is a dis-ease. If the dis-ease continues over a period of
time it will manifest itself in the body as a malfunction which gets
labeled as some kind of disease. Incredible names they're coming out with
for every kind of problem. The fundamental reason why the system doesn’t
last its span; it's designed to last its span but it is not lasting its span because we’re
keeping it in various levels of imbalance. You drive your car on just two wheels all the time,
you know, something will break down. So, similarly the whole system is not being properly
kept; there is not enough balance in the system. Only when you're in balance there is comfort.
Otherwise there's no comfort. One will not know comfort unless he knows
some sense of balance within himself. Only when you're in balance you can be still.
And man is ill, human beings are ill only because they do
not know how to be still. Stillness will not come unless there is
proper balance. Only when you're totally balanced you can be still
within yourself; otherwise that will not happen.
