Benefits of Fasting | Sadhguru

for most of the chronic ailments that people are suffering today in the world the headquarters is in the stomach impurities gather over a period of time and you become dense both in body and head it determines the way you think feel understand and experience life [Music] i'm curious actually your perception on water fasting or fasting and taking prolonged food directly okay fasting not food good it's the opposite of food it's time away from food and the benefits if you believe there are any benefits from allowing ourselves to take a reset and to renegotiate our relationship with food see uh this happened in los angeles a cardiac surgeon drove his uh he was a little fascinated with his ford mustang that was his car and he was a little excited about it and uh one day it started coughing a little bit so he took it to the local mechanic and said some problem please fix it he said yeah doc come tomorrow morning it'll be ready the doctor before going to work tomorrow morning he went there but it was not ready so he said okay come in the evening it'll be ready he came in the evening it was not ready he said what's the matter you said morning i came he said evening i came what is the issue and the mechanic i was in that kind of mood he said see you're a heart surgeon you also fix engines i also fix engines how come you are paid 10 times more than me so the doctor looked looked at him and said try to fix the engine when it's running let me see so human life and human body needs to be fixed when it's running otherwise it's meaningless all right you're going to post bottom what's the point of that we need to fix this body when it's running if you want to fix this body when it's running you must understand because we're talking about something related to digestive process these are the stages of this ingestion putting something inside digestion assimilation excretion the four dimensions of food and the whole process ingestion digestion assimilation excretion ingestion is happening in today's world just about any time wherever they are sitting standing any time of the day or night people just eat because there's so much food it was not like this ever in the history of humanity but unfortunately fortunately there is a lot of food unfortunately people don't know when to eat when not to eat as there are cycles in time see we know time only by cycles if the planet spins one like this one spin we say it's a day otherwise you wouldn't know if the moon goes around which have one month if we go around the sun then we say one year so our idea of time is essentially cycles our birth and death is also a question of cycles only because our mother's bodies were in sync with the cycles of the moon we are even born otherwise we wouldn't be born so our whole physical existence is cyclical the entire spiritual process you could go into that if you wish essentially is significant because it's not cyclical because cyclical means you're going in circles if i say you're going in circles what does it imply you're in a loop you're not getting anywhere yeah usually if i leave you in desert where here there are some mountains if there are no features it's just sand then people end up going in circles that means you're not getting anywhere that means you're lost so the moment you are completely identified with your body and your psychological structure you will start going in cycles so in india it's in the yogic culture it's very very clear this is called a samsara that means cyclical life so cyclical life as good a merry-go-round it may be you know if you arrange it well it's a good merry-go-round but you're not getting anywhere children can enjoy a merry-go-round if all the adults are sitting in the merry-go-round and going round and round thinking they're traveling oh very tragic isn't it so that's what happens so the body is a cycle these cycles are very connected with the planetary cycles with the moon cycle with the sun cycle everything lunar cycle solar cycles and the earth cycles are very important for the body if one has the necessary awareness they could observe on which day your body doesn't need food every other creature knows this unfortunately human beings have forgotten because their thought process or their silly mind has superimposed every other sense they have in their system if you observe your system you will see on a particular day you don't feel like eating that day you should not eat but now you're at your friend's house there is a party you stuff yourself even if your body says no you stuff yourself you see all the animals even if you have a dog at home on a certain day he refuses to eat both dogs and cats have you noticed this he will go and eat some blades of grass if it's available and puke and cleanses himself because he's conscious that ingestion is continuously happening but digestion and excretion is not as efficient as ingestion ingestion is happening compulsively but other parts need to work other dimensions of digestive process needs to work when we say digestion digestion happens in the whole elementary canal not just in the stomach and assimilation also happens across the entire elementary canal now excretion doesn't happen only through the elementary canal excretion needs to happen on the cellular level also impurities gather over a period of time and you become dense both in body and head if you don't cleanse yourself then it will pile up over a period of time we call this karma because when it piles up it determines the way you think feel understand and experience life people may not realize this but they will think this is how i am this is my nature this is not your nature this is the way you messed yourself all right so this cleansing process one important thing is to give a break for ingestion because other systems are largely involuntary you can stimulate them but they're involuntary they're functioning ingestion is a voluntary process though unfortunately for most people it's become compulsive it should be a voluntary process that is i eat when i want to eat when i decide i want to eat i will eat my hand doesn't decide when to eat if there's anything anything you know people are doing this all the time i relate i think if we leave a bunch of good chocolates around you your hand will eat not you so injection should be a conscious process to bring this consciousness there are many methods one is fasting simply denying yourself food and water could cause damage to the system you must support it with the necessary practices if you have the necessary practices the need for food will come down see our energies are not coming only from the food that we eat the sunlight the air the water actually if you in the yogic sciences we say if you really keep your system well 60 to 70 percent of your energy should come from these three factors sunlight air water another 40 should come from the food that you eat so naturally food amount of volume of food that you eat will compress