QUESTION & ANSWER With Sadguru ( Breath and Relations Related)

Frequency of Breath

Questioner: For both Surya Kriya and asanas, the instruction is to breathe slightly deeper than normal. What is the idea behind that?

Sadhguru: Generally, most human beings are breathing somewhere between 12 to 15 times per minute. They use less than 20% of their lung capacity during normal breathing. If your lung capacity expands, the number of breaths per minute during normal breathing naturally comes down, without you controlling it.

If you stick to the classical form of yoga, over a period of time, your breath will become slow. There are very poetic expressions for this. They say, if your breath becomes 11 per minute, you understand the language of every animal and bird around you. If your breath becomes nine, you understand the very language that the Earth is speaking. If your breath becomes seven, you know everything that is worth knowing in existence. That means your body becomes so stable that there is no static, no crackle – it just perceives everything. Even now, the body perceives – otherwise you could not exist. You may not be conscious of it, but your body understands exactly how the Earth is spinning, what is happening with the Sun, what is happening with everything. As long as you live, your body is adjusting to all that.

When your breath becomes more and more stable, the disturbances of life are gone. You are able to clearly see what is happening. Either you achieve this through yogasanas or by becoming absolutely meditative. For example if you sit in Shoonya meditation, the breath becomes very slow, almost not there. In Shoonya, many of you may be breathing about nine to ten breaths per minute. Then again, at certain moments, you will breathe faster.

You can get there through meditative processes, but doing so by preparing the body is more reliable. With meditation, today your breath may naturally slow down, tomorrow it may not. But if you prepare the body, the progress is more stable. That is the strength of doing the practices every day – they steadily take you up. With meditative processes alone, one day it is fantastic, another day you may not be there at all.

If you intentionally stretch your normal breath, after some time, you will gasp. That is not evolution of the system. That is forcefully trying to do something. On the other hand, when you practice asanas, breathing slightly deeper than normal, over a period of time the duration of the breath may increase. Your normal breath will become slower, and so will your slightly-deeper-than-normal breath.

As your system evolves, the number of breaths you take per minute will naturally come down. You will start understanding what people around you are saying. You will understand the language of other creatures, the language of the planet, and the very language of the source of creation.

The body always understands because it is a piece of creation. It knows everything about creation. It is just that there is too much disturbance for you to realize that. It is like turning on the radio and there is static because of lightning, rain, or whatever, so you cannot hear the music. If the rain stops, suddenly the music comes out crystal clear to your ear. That is the whole process of knowing. You just have to stop the static.

The Effect of Rapid Breathing

Questioner: In certain asanas, for example in Bhujangasana in the Surya Kriya series, or in the Sarvangasana series, as well as in Matsyasana, we do rapid breathing. Why so?

Sadhguru: Wherever there is rapid breathing, there is an effort to turn a very physical process into an energy process. When there is an opportunity without risk, we are trying to use it. Kriyas have to be done with a certain care. Suppose your energies get activated without the right kind of preparation, while you are in the wrong posture, in the wrong attitude, in the wrong situation, your stomach is full or whatever else, what could be a great thing will turn into a disaster.

It is like a pot of gold came down from above, but it fell on your head and killed you! If a rock broke off from a mountain, fell on your head, and you died, it is one thing. If a pot of gold came down from above, but instead of you catching it, it fell on your head and you died, it is a disaster! So, when we do asanas, only certain postures where it is safe to do that, we seek to transform them into Kriyas.

Questioner: Sadhguru, people who come to the yoga class with experience in aerobics or other types of exercise tend to breathe through their mouth while doing yogasanas. Does it make a difference whether we breathe through the nose or mouth? And why should we breathe slightly deeper than normal?

Sadhguru: If you are running at a certain pace, there is a tendency to open your mouth because breathing through your nostrils may not be sufficient. But you never ever breathe through your mouth during asanas. This is not an aerobic exercise – asanas are about building internal strength of the organs and the whole system. Within a few weeks of practicing asanas, naturally, your system will become more capable and your pulse rate will decrease.

Breathing through the mouth is both unaesthetic and unscientific. You should always breathe through your nasal passage – except in emergencies. If you are just born and they hold you upside down, or you are running a marathon and your pulse rate goes beyond a certain level, or it is your last breath and you want to live for one more minute – then it is all right. Otherwise, always breathe through your nostrils because the nasal passage is there for this purpose – make use of it. There are many benefits to this. One is the purification of the air. Another is that the temperature of the air gets adjusted to your body temperature before it enters the lungs, which is important.

In yogasanas, there is absolutely no necessity to breathe through your mouth. You should never push yourself to the point where you have to open your mouth. You must steadily build it up in such a way that your ability to breathe keeps increasing. We say you should breathe slightly deeper than normal because otherwise, if you go into an extreme position and I say “breathe normally,” you will not get enough oxygen and after some time you will gasp. Any gasp is an aberration in the breath. Any aberration in the breath naturally has an effect on various aspects of the body.

If you breathe in hot air, even if you are at sea level and there is enough oxygen, you will gasp as if you were in high altitude. The human body is comfortable at a certain temperature and it needs a certain air mixture. When I used to ride my motorcycle across the country and I would go up a mountain, from about 4000-5000 feet above mean sea level, the oxygen becomes less and the engine starts behaving differently. Since I always wanted the same level of power, I would stop, open up the carburetor, make the necessary adjustments, and only then ride on. If you come down to sea level, the engine starts knocking and you have to adjust the cylinder head again.

Bringing the body to ease

Recently, I was at the Volvo truck plant and they were showing me the electronic instruments that are attached to the engine nowadays. It detects the efficiency of the firing inside the internal combustion engine, the fuel temperature, the oil temperature, and if there is any small aberration, it informs the driver that this is what is happening. The driver may not be educated enough to make use of this information, so there is another computer which is correcting all these things. For a truck that is lugging up to 130 tons, even a small change in engine performance will translate into a big overall performance drop. This is just a small imitation of what your body always does. Even a small change in the air temperature will affect it, but the body has correction measures if you are breathing properly. It will correct itself for the rareness of air and for even a small change in the air temperature.

This time when we went to Kailash, we were at an altitude of over 16,000 feet for almost eight, ten days. Except for the Sherpas who always live in that altitude, I was the only one who did not take altitude-sickness medication, even though all the other participants were practicing more yoga on a daily basis than I do. But if you build your system over a period of time, you can enjoy the benefits on all levels, all the time – not only in high altitude. If the body comes to ease, the other possibilities open up. If the body is not at ease, the other possibilities will not open up because everything is focused on making the physical part right.

This is what yoga is about – you want to bring your body to such a state of ease that you do not even know whether your body exists or not. You cannot forget the parts of your body that hurt right now. You can only forget what is at ease. To bring the body to such ease, you must breathe slightly deeper than normal, and over time, in any asana, if you are in the perfect posture, your breath should become normal. If your body is in good shape and you are within a certain age range, after about 12 to 18 months of intense practice, you will come to a point where in a full asana posture, there will be no need to breathe deeper than normal anymore. Just the normal breath will be more than enough, without gasping. If you remain in the full posture for one minute and there is no aberration in your breath or your pulse rate, it means your body is coming to ease. If it comes to such a state of ease, there will be no dis-ease. And if there is no state of dis-ease in you whatsoever, then the body has energy to explore other dimensions of life. Otherwise, the body keeps you busy for the rest of your life.

Question: Much of the anxiety I experience comes through my relationships. Isn’t it reasonable to expect some understanding from other people?

Sadhguru: When you live in this world, there are various types of complex interactions happening. As your field of play increases, the complexity of interaction also goes on increasing. If you are just sitting in a cubicle working on your computer with only one other person, you need only a little understanding. If you are managing a thousand people, you need a vast understanding of everyone. Suppose you are managing a thousand people and you want all these people to understand you, you are not going to manage anything. You need to understand the limitations and capabilities of these thousand people and do what you can. Only then will you have the power to move the situation the way you want it to go. If you are waiting for these thousand people to understand you and act, it is a pipe dream. It is never going to happen.

 Question: Suppose somebody is in a close relationship with me and is very important to me. Shouldn’t I expect better understanding from them?

Sadhguru: That’s the point. The closer the relationship is, the more effort you should make to understand them. It so happened, once there was a man who had been slipping in and out of a coma for several months, with his wife staying at his bedside night and day. When he came to, in those few moments of consciousness, he motioned for her to come closer. As she sat beside him, he said, “I’ve been thinking…you have been with me through all the bad times in my life. When I got fired, you were there to support me. When my business went down the tube, you were there working overtime and doing night shifts. When I got shot, you were by my side. When we lost the house in that legal clash, you were right there beside me. Now my health is failing, and you are still by my side. When I consider all this, I think you only bring me bad luck!”

This is exactly what you are doing to yourself and to your relationships. Someone becomes closer and dearer to you only as you understand them better. If they understand you, they enjoy the closeness of the relationship. If you understand them better, you enjoy the closeness.

Question: This is easier said than done. It is difficult to always be there…

Sadhguru: It is not that the other person is totally bereft of understanding. With your understanding you can create situations where the other person would be able to understand you better. If you are expecting the other to understand and comply with you all the time while you don’t understand the limitations, possibilities, needs and capabilities of that person, conflict is all that will happen. It is bound to happen.

Unfortunately, the closest relationships in the world have more conflict going on than between India and Pakistan. In your relationships, you have fought many more battles than they have. This is because your line of understanding and theirs is different. If you cross this L.O.C., this Line of Control, they will get mad. If they cross it, you get mad. If you move your understanding beyond theirs, their understanding also becomes a part of your understanding. You will be able to embrace their limitations and capabilities. In everyone, there are some positive things and some negative things. If you embrace all this in your understanding, you can make the relationship the way you want it. If you leave it to their understanding, it will become accidental. If they are very magnanimous, things will happen well for you. If not, the relationship will break up.

All I am asking is: do you want to be the one who decides what happens to your life? Whether they are close relationships, professional, political, global or whatever, don’t you want to be the person who decides what happens in your life? If you do, you better include everything and everyone into your understanding. You should enhance your understanding to such a point that you can look beyond people’s madness also. There are very wonderful people around you, but once in a while they like to go crazy for a few minutes. If you don’t understand that, you will lose them. If you do, you know how to handle them.

Life is not always a straight line. You have to do many things to keep it going. If you forsake your understanding, your capability will be lost. Whether it is a question of personal relationships or professional management, in both places you need understanding. Otherwise, you won’t have fruitful relationships.