Some thoughts from a Yogic / Ayurvedic perspective on cleansing, fasting and detoxing.
by Carl Hargreaves
We are at a junction between seasons, a time of change. According to Yoga and Ayurveda, this is a good time to cleanse the body. The body will seek to establish a healthy new equilibrium for the coming season. We will be healthier if our new state of equilibrium does not include last season’s toxins.
Detoxing and fasting are popular subjects in the media. Of course, the media focus on the extreme versions of cleansing to get our attention and sell their stories. These extreme practices do more harm than good. A yogic fast will not cause harm, it will not shock the body. The body loves stability. Change costs the body resources and causes harm. So a fast should be slow! A sudden starvation diet, for example, will trigger the body’s survival strategies: We will experience an increase in the desire to eat building foods. Weight gain often follows a crash diet for this reason. The crash diet will at first remove some superficial toxins; -those toxins which don’t cost much to remove. The really nasty toxins will be driven deeper into the tissues.
Laṅghana is the sanskrit word for “to fast”. Fasting is a process of reduction. Bṛmhaṇa means “to expand.” Feasting will do this! Stimulation of the body’s processes is Bṛmhaṇa. The body can take on substances and increase outward growth and activity; loading the system. And the body can decrease various activities and substances in the body, unloading the body. Laṅghana processes unload the system, so that excesses and wastes can be removed.
Bṛmhaṇa is associated with the inhale, which leads to increase and expansion. The intake of breath and its retention is Bṛmhaṇa, but as we know, -the intake of foods can also cause us to expand! In fact everything that goes into the system, (including the intake of images and ideas) loads the system and requires some kind of increase... A fast therefore also includes images, sounds, thoughts, experiences. So a fast will mean less TV, less reading, less radio, less stress, less going out to busy places…
Things must be taken out of the system or it will overflow, become disturbed, and may explode! Cleansing is laṅghana and is associated the exhale, and reduction. During the exhale, the body lets go of the stale breath we do not need. To breathe in fresh air we must breath out first. Laṅghana comes first. At this time we are going to establish a new state of equilibrium, we must get rid of what is old and no longer benefits us first. Then the new state of equilibrium will be built afresh, not mixed with accumulated wastes.
A toxin can be defined as something the body cannot digest, cannot use. The more a toxin gets in the way of the bodies' processes, the more toxic it is. So cleansing is the reduction of certain accumulations that get in the way.
The first step in a cleansing program is to stop putting more in. If we reduce our intakes, then the body takes advantage of the situation and gets rid of some wastes. If we reduce the inputs, if we avoid building and stimulating foods and activities, we will find that cleansing happens naturally. There are certain yoga practices, herbs and foods which can support the process, and even help “scrape” out some of more stubborn toxins. However we must do this carefully. The body should not be stressed or it will prioritise short term survival: “Flight or fight” mode is a Bṛmhaṇa state, where many important long term health projects are sacrificed to gain an increase in available energy in the very short term. The theory goes that when the body is stressed it buries its toxins deeper in the tissues. This is so as to get them out of the way fast, and avoid paying the cost of dealing with difficult toxins now. Now the priority may be fighting or running away and if we are starving, -getting fed. A fast is simply to reduce what we put in.
I'm told that Krishnamacharya said that "to fast is to eat only when we are hungry." If we follow his advise this will be wonderful for our health. It will mean eating slowly and attentively, so that as soon as we are no longer hungry, we stop eating. The good news is that if there is no more bingeing, there must be no more starving either! Yoga does not advocate too little food, or too much, and takes this middle line with many things like sleep and exercise. When I work with individual students on diet and lifestyle changes, we always take things slowly, a little at a time, in a way that is sustainable, and not too much of a shock to the system.
In this society our lifestyles, careers, and economy are generally weighted towards increase, growth and expansion. Naturally people want more of what they like. We are generally rewarded for more. We have inbuilt drives and there are powerful external influences increasing our desire to consume more. However, the more we put in; the more we load the system. A successful yogic fast will reduce the desires and drives that are leading us to overload ourselves. This overloading is the root cause of ill health. Krishnamacharya said that disease is caused by desire. At the same time, our drives and desires are not “bad” in themselves. Our drives and desires are inbuilt and the legacy of evolution. We needed them for our genes to reproduce and survive. They are not only useful but essential. However if we are the slaves of our desires, we are like robots following a program absorbed through advertising and other environmental triggers and written in our DNA. We must be able to override our drives when we know they are leading us into trouble, and we must avoid certain triggers, or we will certainly suffer heartache and probably headache! If they lead to over consumption, and we cannot process what we have bitten off, we will inevitably suffer, -starting with a stomach ache!
After a cleanse, accumulations that block our body’s activities are reduced. Mental and emotional toxins that block clear seeing, wisdom and awareness are also reduced. We will have reduced the power that our drives and desires have over us, and increased our own personal power and freedom proportionally. When we fast we practice a limitation on satisfying our drives. This self denial causes friction: We heat up. We get hot and bothered when we don’t get what we think we “need” or want! “Tapas” is sanskrit for this discipline or practice. Tapas means “to heat”. Tapas is purifying and cleansing. It is the burning away of toxins both mental emotional and physical.
The automatic satisfaction of desire in the wrong way is a root cause of headache, heartache and belly ache! If we cannot choose to resist our drives, then we are not free, and we are going to suffer. On the other hand, we should not repress our desires. In fact we should closely heed our impulses. They contain invaluable information, messages essential for our survival and happiness. The problem is how the drives, (the feeling that we want or need something), are translated into desires, (the feeling plus the idea that what we feel is for this or that particular thing.) The solution to the problem lies in the fact that we can observe our drives. We can observe our desires if we are taking enough distance. From a detached perspective as the seer of our drives, we are no longer caught up in them. It will be problematic if we get caught up in them. If we are not caught up in our feelings, but the observers of them, we will be free to choose; We can follow them; or we can do something else. Desire requires skillful interpretation and handling. If we are not caught up in our desires, but are able to observe them without attachment, we can get in touch with these skills. Our desires and drives then become precious sources of information. Tempered by tapas, our desires whisper the wisdom of intuition. Unchecked by knowing; unobserved by awareness; desire blinds us to the truth.
During a fast we can spend some time asking ourselves which activities, which people, which foods and ideas excite our minds and in that way cloud our knowing. To fast is to reduce these disturbances. Yoga is that which calms the mind. Desire pulls at us; and this pulling disturbs the mind. Therefore, yoga will reduce the pull that desire has over us. During a fast we should avoid troublesome activities, disturbing situations and people. Then the body and mind can relax enough to let go of the things we do not need. Anxiety and stress make us contract and cling onto what we have. Especially ideas we hold about our ourselves. The most dangerous toxin of all is that bundle of ideas we hold about ourselves. The mind contracts pulsating around our ideas about ourselves. These contractions limit our lives, blocking our potential by blocking thoughts that challenge the “I”. The “I” fits our definition of a toxin because it is a blockage, it blocks the openness and spaciousness of awareness. The “I” makes desire more toxic by binding the “I” thought to it. Desires are potent, but adding the idea that a feeling is mine, that an outcome will impact on me, gives any feeling far more pull. If the feeling is satisfied or not this interacts with the idea I have of myself. The “I” thought is a toxin because it blocks a potential life of greater truth and happiness. Energetic pressure builds up behind a sticky toxic blockage, and the stuck energy becomes increasingly disturbed trying to find another way to flow. The “I” thought is a disturbed contraction of mind, this agitated pattern of energy has the unmistakable signature of a toxin.
The noise and pressure of our “I” thought drowns out the gentle silence of our true nature, which is pure awareness. The part of the mind that we call the “I maker” misinterprets and filters the information we receive through the senses and distorts what we know of the world outside. It does this to maintain and support ideas we hold about ourselves. To satisfy an idea of ourselves it colours and hides the truth. “I” is a tyrant!
Tapas is the revolution! Tapas means “I” can’t get no satisfaction! Tapas will take effort: like the mans says: -“I try and I try”…. When you succeed and “I” doesn’t get no satisfaction, -you are detoxing. This is a cleansing of your energy and strengthens your inner power. You will have to rock and roll with desire for a while, not getting noooo satisfaction! It will get real hot! Holding yourself in the fire tempers your character. It weakens the bonds of desire. It sets you free! Tapas must be done carefully: too much and you will become weakened; even burned.
The false “I” lives through ideas about who we are. But we are not merely ideas! We really exist, we exist far more deeply than any ideas about ourselves. According to yoga, The Self is that which sees. Sees ideas and everything else. The stillness and clarity of seeing, of simple observing is generally obscured by the constant activity that is the “I” thought. The Awareness is never in motion. Since the mind is configured to notice change, not that which has always been quietly present, we fail to notice the presence, the awareness that has always resided within. We cannot see the truth of our own existence; -that we are seeing itself. Awareness, or seeing is so still, and the mind is so busy thinking about “I”, we find it very difficult to connect the mind to awareness: To meditate. Seeing is too transparent, too still, too quietly present to be noticed. It is the seeing itself which is our being. Awareness is life itself.
In conclusion:
Yoga encourages us to identify our “selves” as the seer/ the seeing. Cleansing has the same goal. The clarity that follows a cleanse allows thoughts and feelings to be seen more clearly. Without the “I” being so mixed up in it. Purity is when substances are not mixed up, but separated out. Cleansing improves purity. It is wise to cultivate the detached mind that can skilfully interpret desire. This is a steady mind, in which energy is stable and thought is not blocked and disturbed by the “I” mechanism. From such a place of awareness, -we might make far better choices. Choices based on higher principles than the autocratic rule of “I”. In a cleansed state, a state of clarity, we can decide whether to react in this way or that. We are free to choose whatever set of principles we wish to follow. A cleanse is unblocking mentally, emotionally and physically, so we are no longer caught up in the thoughts and drives and feelings. We have developed some distance from them. We can observe them. Once this happens, we are more free.
Good Tapas!
