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Salutations to the cosmic light, the Lord of our hearts, omniscient and omnipresent. In His divine presence, good evening, dear brothers and sisters. It is a blessing to be here in this holy place, and it is my privilege to be with you, by the Divine Will, to serve you with the science of yoga. You definitely know what yoga is, and there are many different techniques. The literal meaning of yoga is balance—balance between the universe and consciousness. It means harmony, the harmonizing of all the elements and planets. That is why yoga is for the harmony of body, mind, and soul. Ultimately, the Sanskrit word yoga means union: the union of the individual consciousness with the cosmic consciousness. Yoga is designed to achieve the ultimate goal of human life. That requires, first of all, good health. Some scientists say health is not everything, but without health, everything is nothing. Thanks to God, we have a healthy body, healthy mind, and healthy intellect. There are different approaches to that Self. The Self represents the cosmic Self, not the soul. The soul is individual, and the Self as Ātmā is universal. To achieve this—what we call self-realization—we ask: Who am I? From where did I come? Why did I come? What am I doing? And where will I go? There are different ways to achieve our goal, and in yoga we have five different paths. One is known as Karma Yoga. The word karma means actions. We believe in the karma philosophy: where there is an action, there is a reaction; and where there is a reaction, there is an action. Karma is done through four different ways: tan, man, bachan, dhana—through the body, through the mind, through words, and through social or wealth power. Whatever we do will have an influence on us. The reaction of our action we call destiny. Destiny is the result or the fruits of our actions. Do good, get good. Do bad, face bad. It doesn’t matter what. If you eat good things, you will have good health. If you eat bad things, you will have bad health. What we call good luck or bad luck is destiny, good or bad. Therefore, Karma Yoga is divided into two parts: śakām karma and niṣkām karma. Śakām karma are selfish deeds, and niṣkām is selfless—to serve, to help. Helping hands have more value than folded hands. Where help is needed, there is no need for arguments about culture, nationality, or belief. The highest dharma, the highest religion, is to serve, to help. Help without any conditions, without any expectations—that is called Niṣkāma Yoga. God Kṛṣṇa said in the Bhagavad Gītā that your yoga sādhanā or practice will be successful through doing Karma Yoga, working and helping. Then comes Bhakti Yoga, the yoga of devotion. Yes, we do believe there is God. We do believe in higher consciousness. We do believe in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit means the self-realized soul. And we do believe in the Guru Vakya, which means the Holy Scriptures. We do believe there is God, and our prayers will be heard. Prayer is a personal consultation with God, and meditation with the mantra is being in the lap of God. God is within you. Whenever you think of God—and He is almighty—He can influence and direct our destiny. We know we cannot influence our destiny, only if we know what is the cause. Search the cause of your destiny. Search the cause of your problems. Search the cause of your illness. Then you can work and solve the problems. Then comes Rāja Yoga, the yoga of self-discipline. Self-discipline is key to success. The greatest enemy of the human is laziness. Where there is laziness, there is no success. Rājā means the king. The king must have discipline and is responsible for making decisions. The king should not decide anything selfishly. If he or she makes decisions for their own benefit, then they are not a king. Nowadays, let’s say the ministers, presidents. The president is known as the father of the nation. He or she has to take all the citizens of the nation as her own family members and decide in favor of what is good for all. Similarly, Rāja Yoga is a yoga of discipline. First, there are ten principles: yama and niyama. Yama means not to do; follow the ethical principles. And niyama: control thyself and be disciplined. Ahiṃsā (non-violence), no stealing, no lying. Many of these principles are very similar. The same principles you have in, if you are a Christian, then you know the Ten Commandments. They are exactly the Yama and Niyama of the Rāja Yoga. The fourth path is called Jñāna Yoga, the yoga of philosophy or knowledge. Knowledge means there should be no ignorance. Ultimately, the knowledge is about the Supreme, the Self, the Reality. What is changing is not reality, and what is not changing is reality. Our body is changing, our mind is changing, our emotions are changing, our memory is changing, our intellect is changing—everything is changing. Our soul will change too, but the Self will never change. Eko Brahma Dvitīya Nāsti: only one, that is the truth, the reality, the love, the light, the Satya. And that is the supreme, the Brahman. And the fifth part of the way of yoga is called Haṭha Yoga. Haṭha means to endure certain problems or to endure some discomfort and be disciplined and practice. Haṭha: to achieve with great willpower. Generally, they were dividing this haṭha into four parts. First called bala haṭha, the will of the child. When the child would like to achieve or have something, then either they will cry, or the child knows how to make the parents melt their heart and give to him or her what he or she wants. Love, you know, the child, the will of the child. Second—I’m sorry to say, there are sitting ladies—the will of the ladies. Women have very strong willpower. If they decide to do, they will do it. Third is the will of the king. If the king wants to decide and would like to do something, no one can say anything against it. You can say, but it will not help. And fourth is the will of the yogī. Now, Haṭha Yoga—this evening’s subject which I would like to speak more about—Haṭha Yoga has got six techniques: netī, dhautī, bastī, naulī, tratāk, and kapālabhātī. Haṭha Yoga is for the purification of the body, mind, and intellect. This is the perfect way to good health. When you practice the physical exercises and breath exercise, and you call it Haṭha Yoga, that is not Haṭha Yoga; that is a part of Rāja Yoga. Rāja Yoga is known as Aṣṭāṅga Yoga. Aṣṭ means eight. Aṅg means the limbs or steps: Yama, Niyama, Āsana, Prāṇāyāma, Pratyāhāra, Dhāraṇā, Dhyāna, and Samādhi. These are the eight steps of Rāja Yoga. So, āsanas means yoga exercise is what you are doing, and prāṇāyāma means the breath exercise. So, when you go to some yoga class and you are saying, “I would like to practice haṭha yoga,” generally, in this part of the world, people understand haṭha yoga only as doing physical exercises, breathing, and relaxing, and that’s all. I was in Haṭha Yoga. In reality, you are practicing Rāja Yoga, which is also not bad. It’s perfect. Nothing is bad. Nothing. Haṭha Yoga: Neti practicing. Is there someone who doesn’t know this? What is a Neti? Please, if you raise your hand, it would be easy for me to explain. Thank you, one, two, three. Well, the rest all know what netī means, so I will not explain. The other three, they will come to me after, and I will explain them. Good idea, because the rest who know will say, “Wasting of our time,” that’s it. Netī, that’s so. Good, but I leave that to one side because you all know. Second is the dhautī. Do you know what is the dhautī? Who doesn’t know, please be fair and raise your hand, so my subject is not falling in the water. Now I got it. Thank you very much. So many know. The netī was for purification of the nose. But you know, therefore I will not tell you. Dhautī is cleaning or purifying of the elementary channel, the food pipe. Sometimes, some people have acidity, what we call heartburn. You feel sour from the mouth comes, not a good smell. Also, you smell that is not good. That means there is a digestive problem, and also here. There you have a kuff dhautī done through two techniques. One morning, after finishing your toilet, you go to the bathroom and you take two liters of water. Will you do it? I can tell you further, but if you will not do it, then it’s again a waste of time. Hard job today. Well, two liters of lukewarm water, like body temperature or about 39 to 40 degrees Celsius, and you put in two liters of water, three teaspoons of salt. It depends which salt it is. The Himalayan salt, there you have to put a little more. Sea salt, three teaspoons is enough. And you drink it, like a thirsty man drinks water quickly. So, two liters of water you drink within two minutes. Bravo. Very good. Two liters of water go in, no problem. Then what to do? Now, with the left hand, you press your stomach a little bit, the abdomen muscles, and from the right hand, two or three fingers you take and press your… root of the tongue, little, and bend forward, either on the wash basin or in bathtub, up, or where it will not fall. Water out, what will happen? This two-liter water will come within one minute out. It took time, two minutes to drink, but in one minute, everything comes out. You will be surprised what comes out, and you will be surprised how good you feel after that. Please wait, do not drink your coffee immediately, or if you are used to drinking in the morning already whiskey or vodka, then please don’t drink. In the morning, all the best would be to have one cup of some herbal tea. After, then you can drink your juice, you can drink your coffee, you can drink your tea, or you can have a breakfast the whole day. You will have very pleasant feelings, and from your store, from your mouth, a good smell will always come. This is called dhautī. It helps the people who have asthma. It helps the people who have allergies. The second technique of the dhautī is that… It is a little difficult one, which you will not do probably. This one, which I told you, that is called water dhautī, jal dhautī. Jal is the water. You do it once a week. In the beginning, you can do it every second day for two weeks, and then once a week. Enough. After you can do the fourth night, enough. The second technique is called sūtra dhautī. Sūtra is the cotton. You take a pure cotton cloth, about six inches wide and about ten feet long. Good? Pure cotton. Wash it nice with the neem soap. Neem is a tree in India, and this neem soap is available here in the UK also. Or with the environmentally friendly soap. Then, again, lukewarm water with the salt inside. You soak the cloth in the water and hold it from one side. And you take it in the mouth and say to yourself, “Good appetite.” Don’t bite, only chew. Oh, God, nine feet is gone in. Don’t worry. Our intestine is 5.8 or 8.5 meters long. So don’t worry, still we have time. After you hold this, that it doesn’t go all in, and slowly pull it out. It can happen it sticks. Don’t force, otherwise you will feel like a fish caught out of the water. I will give you my telephone number, you can phone me, master, what to do now? Well, this is not a good motivation. So if it remains little, that you, it doesn’t come out, maybe it happens that you take some lukewarm water with the salt. Take one sip, take one sip of the water. The vocal cords will again relax because it’s stuck because you have had, you were afraid it will come out. For nearly one and a half meter, this fabric which comes out, the last part will be so yellow and bitter and smelling clean. That’s all. Take a little water, clean your mouth. You will have a perfect digestion, you will have perfect feelings, relaxed, and you think, “What happened to me today? I am so happy and so feel pleasant.” That’s called sūtra dhautī. Of course you have to learn with your yoga teachers, that’s first. Don’t do it tomorrow, please. After that comes bastī. Basti is like a cleaning of the entire intestines, large and small intestines. In old age, they used to go to the lake or pond. Nice and clean waters, they did one naulī. They sucked the water through the anus and went out, and they passed. Like what we call nowadays in hospital, enema. Call enema. But better than that, we have now in yoga other technique developed, that’s called śaṅkha prakṣālana. Śaṅkha is a coin, a conch. And when we see the conch, it’s just like a ring, a spiral. If you put water directly in it, it will not come immediately; it goes like this. So our intestine, which is also going like that, so we suppose the water to go quickly and safely. This practice should be done four times a year, at the end of every season and the beginning of the new season. Not only that, in nature, everything is changing. Autumn is coming, winter is coming, then spring is coming, and summer is coming. The trees are changing. But we are also changing; our body is changing. There is no difference according to the nature between our body and the tree. The same well that will purify the blood, those who have a skin problem, the problem is gone. Those who have a digestive problem, the problem is gone. Those who have constipation, the problem is gone. Those who have diarrhea or loose motion, the problem is gone. Those who have something, what you call an ulcer, the problem is gone. Those who have a gastric problem, it is forever gone. Those who have high blood pressure, after the Saṅkṣālana, you can put your tablets in the cupboard of your home museum. High blood pressure problem is gone. I guarantee you today, those who have a headache, if that headache is connected with our digestion and the gastric problems, the problem is gone. Many, many things, because mostly the cause of our many illnesses is our intestines, our stomach, what we eat and what is not properly digested, not properly cleaned. So Śaṅkha Prakṣālana, I would suggest you do it. Then you will say, “Wonderful. But how?” That you need willpower. That’s called Haṭha Yoga. To swallow a cloth, we need the willpower to drink two liters of water. Beer, you can drink it quickly, you know. There are some people who take two liters of beer, this one and this one. Why not the water too? It’s practice. Śaṅkha Prakṣālana, for doing Śaṅkha Prakṣālana you need at least half a day and the other half for rest. The best day is Sunday, that you have free, or Saturday. In this, you have to drink about 40 to 50 glasses of water, let’s say nearly 10 liters. No problem, no problem. You drink one glass of water, you perform those five different exercises. You can read or have it in our yoga book, which is outside. There’s all described, but still I would ask you, if you want to do, please do under the guidance of the teacher. You drink till eight glasses of water, and after each glass you do the five exercises, and after eight glasses you go to the WC. If it comes out or not, it doesn’t matter. Come back, drink a glass of water, do five exercises, go back to the WC again, come drink one glass, do the five exercises, go, come, go, come, go. That is what will happen with the force. Everything will come out, and you will be surprised what comes out from your stomach. You will be surprised. Then water will come clean as you drink, and now you think, “Now my stomach is clean.” You come back, you drink one glass of water, and do these five exercises. You go back, and you will see some black pieces coming out, something like a stone is coming out. So your teacher will know, he will—he or she will tell you, “Now it’s okay.” After that, it’s very important to follow the discipline. It means for one week: no pizza, no raw fruits, no juice for five days. No black coffee and no black tea. You can have the milk. Twenty days no alcohol at all, no beer, nothing. Thirty-five days no meat, no fish, and dish. You will get a complete chart day by day of what you can have to eat, and what you should not eat. Your body will be so thankful to you, and you will say, “I am flying.” Just that’s it. If you will do it, that’s called basti or saṅkhaprakṣālana kriyā of Haṭha Yoga. Third and fourth is called naulī, naulī, the churning of the stomach muscles, and it means it is exercise for your intestines to be strong and have very good digestion, so that you can absorb all kinds of nutrition from your diet, what you are eating. And it is said, 95% sure you will never be a victim of cancer. We used to say you can digest even the iron beans. So strong is your digestive system. After three months, you do it again. After three months, you do it again. So the Naulī Kriyā, which I tell you now, is done every morning. It takes you two to three minutes, that’s all. It’s very, very good. Do you know what is Naulī Kriyā? No. Well, it should be done only after four or six hours of eating. So the best is morning, because in the evening you eat. That’s nine o’clock, ten o’clock, six o’clock, eleven o’clock morning, seven o’clock you can do it, six o’clock you can do it. Is there someone who can demonstrate the knowledge from yoga in daily life? Practitioners, one, two, you come, Darśan Purī. So, I think sometime, demonstration. It is good that how it goes, that now only practice is such a blessing for your body. You can’t—it needs control over the stomach muscles and intestines. You can come here, please. I will first exhale to the end, until my lungs are empty. And then I will put my stomach in by pulling my diaphragm up. Expanding my lungs so that I am empty. My down plane, inner organs inside, and then I go. Good. Please, just teach me also. So now, your chance, please. You would like to try? Next time. So these movements, or this exercise of the Haṭha Yoga, only from looking, we can see how good it can be for our stomach muscles, for our intestines, for our solar plexus, and for our digestion. It didn’t take a long time, so you need not worry that it is such a long time I have to practice. No. Once a day, in the morning, after drinking this water, you do Kunjal Kriyā. This was the fifth technique of Haṭha Yoga. And now the fifth one. The fifth one is called the concentration technique. To develop the concentration, to develop the memory, to find your inner peace. It is very, very good for the artist who is a painter. And it is very good for those who would like to meditate. Those who are meditating, to see something with closed eyes, the light in their inner space, or any kind of visualization, any project you would like to make or design, you look within your computer. It will be very helpful, and there will be no headache. It will give you very pleasant and very good sleep, and it will help you to improve your eyesight. That’s called Trāṭak meditation. Trāṭak means gazing on a particular point, on the tip of a grass blade, or on the tip of a flame, a tiny candle flame or an oil flame. In your next yoga class where the Gaṅgā Devī is leading, I would ask her if she can teach you how to do the Trāṭak. It’s wonderful. And if there are some children who are for five years, six years, and still they make wet their bed in the night, you teach them Trāṭak, and from the first night on, first day, finished. They will not do it. It’s like a miracle. Yes, it’s like that. The tratak technique of the Haṭha Yoga should also be practiced first under the guidance of a good, experienced teacher. Then you can do it at home, and the best is to do it before going to sleep. Yes, one thing, don’t forget before going to sleep. After the tratak, don’t forget to blow off the flame. It can happen in a night you see a big flame, and that’s not good. The sixth and final technique of the Haṭha Yoga is called Kapāla Bhāti. Kapāl means the forehead, this part of our head and sinuses. To clean this, and if you do this, you will have no sinus problems. Kapāla Bhāti is done after doing the neti. And about neti, you know, I will not explain. So, kapālabhāti you can also do now. You will feel very good. Sit straight if you want, please. There is no force. It’s a human right, so I cannot force you. If you want, I would like to do it. First, look at me. We will always inhale from the stomach, always breathe through the stomach. There are three levels of the breath. One is here only. This is like a rabbit or a dog. Those creatures who breathe so quickly have a laced life, a short life. Or one is very exhausted, or very nervous, or scared. The second phase of the breath is from here, from the chest. People have very tight dresses, and they try to breathe like this. That is not good. The best breath is that you breathe in the stomach first. Breathe in the stomach. In the glass or in any pot, the level of the water is the same. When I suck the water out, the level of the water is the same. Similarly, if I use my diet completely and relax these stomach muscles, then I can have more volume and get more oxygen. When you practice breath exercises, then you will learn you have to breathe from the abdomen. Can you try if you can breathe so deep from the abdomen? First, the stomach should expand, and then the chest. First, contract the chest and then the stomach. Try, please. Sit straight. Do not lean on the chair. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Very good. Kapālbhāti means purification of the sinuses. Only the pregnant woman should not do it. So Kapālbhāti is done like this. You quickly inhale through the mouth and with force exhale through both nostrils. The mouth remains open like this, and the pressure breath is from, still, you are breathing from the abdomen. Wrong will be this. This is wrong, and comfortable and perfect kapālbhāti is so after doing the neti. This is after doing the netī. When you go driving through the traffic, you come into your room or into your office, there is better air and all this traffic air pollution. If you do just one minute of kapālbhāti, you will feel very relaxed. Suddenly, you will have more blood circulation towards your head. You will feel completely different. So we can try now, please. Like this, you inhale through the mouth and keep your mouth a little open, and exhale with the nose. It is something like you clean your nose with the tissue. Remember the locomotive. Steam locomotive, so then it goes to the tunnel, then it becomes Bhastrikā, not Kapālbhāti. So Kapālbhāti is this. Try, please, once more, 15 times. Once acceleration is one. Do it yourself.