You should not only be on an empty stomach – your
bowels should be empty too. If you do Hatha Yoga, you must ensure to leave at
least 10 or better 12 hours between your last meal and your practice. That way,
you give enough time for digestion so that when you get up in the morning, the
body will naturally purge. If you eat late at night and get up early, the
digestion will not be complete.
In traditional Indian medicine, whether it is Ayurveda or Siddha,
whatever health problem you have, first they will purge your colon. If you want
to be healthy, it is essential that your colon is clean. The colon cannot be
clean for people who eat certain types of foods, and who have the habit of
eating in between too much. Especially dairy products and non-vegetarian food remain in the
colon for long periods of time.
Anything that is not an actual part of your body
should be out if you want to move your energies upward. Yogic practices are not
exercises – they are methods to restructure your system. In a way, you are
trying to recreate yourself by remolding your system the way you want it to be.
For this to be done, there should be nothing but your body. The only thing that
is okay to have is water.
Practicing yoga means beginning a partnership with
the Creator. You cannot do it all yourself, but you can create the necessary
atmosphere for the Creator to do the job. You want that which is the source of
creation to become your willing partner. The first time you were made, it was
not your choice – it was your parents and forefathers who decided how your body
should be shaped, and how it should function. It happened from genetic memory.
This is why in this culture, we refer to enlightened ones as dwijas or
twice-born. Once born out of your mother’s womb – the way you were born was not
your choice. But now you are reinventing and recreating yourself, step-by-step,
the way you want yourself to be.
Your life will not change if you have a nose job
done or if you get an implant in some part of your body. Your experience of
life will change only if the very way your body functions energy-wise, the way
it thinks, the way it feels, the way it responds
to the universe around, can be altered. If you change your nose or you do
some other kind of cosmetic procedure, how someone else looks at you may
change. It may change the experience for the beholder, not for you. Your
experience will only change depending on the extent to which your body is in
line with the source of creation.
If you really look at creation, you will see
everything smacks of phenomenal intelligence. If you pay enough attention to a
simple leaf, you will know what kind of intelligence has gone into making this,
and how many functions it has. In a way, a leaf is a plant’s energy source. The
dream of today’s scientists is to create a leaf as a renewable energy source
that could power your house, and even provide food and water for you.
Scientists have been working on this cutting-edge technology for years. They
are struggling so much to produce one leaf, because it is incredible how many
things a leaf can do at the same time. Even in a single atom, phenomenal
intelligence is involved – we are not able to really figure it out.
The nature of the Creator is intelligence. You may
think you need love, money, wealth, or whatever else – no, you need a little
more sense – no matter what your IQ is. How many times have you looked at
people around you and thought, “I only wish they had a little more sense.” If
not just your intellect but your intelligence doubled today, you would grasp
everything so much more easily. What you would otherwise learn in fifty years,
you could learn in five years.
Being partner with the source of creation means
getting a huge infusion of intelligence, a kind of intelligence that you would
not believe possible. For this to happen, obstacles need to be removed. This
body is the work of the source of creation. The food that you have put into it
is not yet part of the body, and the stool that you have produced is not part
of it either. Therefore, your stomach and bowels should be empty. But if you
are doing yoga for four, five hours continuously, it is all right to lace the
water that you drink with a small spoon of honey. We want the water to be tepid
because if you drink cold water, the body has to warm it up, which results in a
loss of energy. If the water you drink is within three degrees above or below
body temperature, the body treats it as part of itself.
Tepid water and honey are the only two substances
that are allowed in your stomach, and nothing else. There must be only body –
no other obstacle. Otherwise, the Creator will not have anything to do with
you. The source of creation, the intelligence which functions within you,
treats anything else as an external substance, which will not participate in
your asana. The Creator or the source of creation must function and participate
in your asana – only then does an asana become a yogasana. Otherwise,
it is just a posture.
