That which is around the house, such as the gardens and the pathways, reflects the outer body.  During the years when my focus was more on my internal growth, I found that I did not take care of my garden.  As my evolution moved me towards balancing inner growth with outer growth, then the order of the garden became important as well.  On the other hand, we may keep a very orderly garden and a very orderly exterior, but when inside of the house is not kept well, this shows that the façade is more important than the reality, that what is on the outside is more important than what is on the inside.  In yoga, we try to balance the inside and the outside, keeping both the visage as well as the face clean and orderly.

Our automobile is that which moves us from one place to the next, and when we do not care for this vehicle of movement, we basically are jeopardizing our own movement towards our goals.  It is important to keep our cars clean because this shows we are interested in sanctifying the modality of progress or, at least, movement.

Saucha is also important in the food we eat.  Inorganic foods are contaminated with toxins (the worst kind of dirt) and should be avoided, as should processed foods.  In general, foods with artificial chemicals added must be shunned.  Fresh, organically grown foods are ideal for the yogic diet.  Why? When we eat toxins such as pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, preservatives, artificial colors, artificial flavors, stabilizers, etc., these toxins  must be flushed out of the body, but this requires energy.  Often it cannot be flushed out of our bodies since we do not have the extra energy to do so, and so the toxins get enveloped by fat to protect the body, and then are stored for future flushing.  Unfortunately, most people never get to the point of having an abundant energy reserve, and so this fat-protected toxic layer pervades the body, and increases each day!  This leads to hundreds of diseases and problems in the body.

Additionally, the organic foods we eat must be well cleaned.  Though much more nutritious than inorganic or irradiated food, organic food still often has tiny parasites and bugs in it.  Clean it with Fruit and Vegetable Rinse (available at Yoga Centers) before eating.

The shadow side of saucha is seeing everyone else as dirty.  It is important to realize that each person comes from their own level of consciousness, and making judgments about them is unyogic.  Let us embrace saucha as an integral part of our life, and we will feel more protected energetically, more respectful of our bodies and environment, and as a result, be more efficient, and feel more relaxed and happy in a cleaner and more organized environment.

Aadil Palkhivala©2013

By Sumathi Reddy at 

A version of this article appeared April 16, 2013, on page D1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Doctor’s Orders: 20 Minutes Of Meditation Twice a Day.

At Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, doctor’s orders can include an unlikely prescription: meditation.

“I recommend five minutes, twice a day, and then gradually increase,” said Aditi Nerurkar, a primary-care doctor and assistant medical director of the Cheng & Tsui Center for Integrative Care, which offers alternative medical treatment at the Harvard Medical School-affiliated hospital. “It’s basically the same way I prescribe medicine. I don’t start you on a high dose right away.” She recommends that patients eventually work up to about 20 minutes of meditating, twice a day, for conditions including insomnia and irritable bowel syndrome.

Integrative medicine programs including meditation are increasingly showing up at hospitals and clinics across the country. Recent research has found that meditation can lower blood pressure and help patients with chronic illness cope with pain and depression. In a study published last year, meditation sharply reduced the risk of heart attack or stroke among a group of African-Americans with heart disease.

At Beth Israel Deaconess, meditation and other mind-body therapies are slowly being worked into the primary-care setting. The program began offering some services over the past six months and hopes eventually to have group meditation classes, said Dr. Nerurkar.

Health experts say meditation shouldn’t be used to replace traditional medical therapies, but rather to complement them. While it is clear that “when you breathe in a very slow, conscious way it temporarily lowers your blood pressure,” such techniques shouldn’t be used to substitute for medications to manage high blood pressure and other serious conditions, said Josephine Briggs, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health. In general, she said, meditation can be useful for symptom management, not to cure or treat disease.

Dr. Briggs said the agency is funding a number of studies looking at meditation and breathing techniques and their effect on numerous conditions, including hot flashes that occur during menopause. If meditation is found to be beneficial, it could help women avoid using hormone treatments, which can have detrimental side effects, she said.

Martha O’Boyle, a 51-year-old in Fremont, Calif., has suffered from chronic pain in her arms, chest and elsewhere since suffering from a heart attack two years ago.

“Here’s a cardiologist telling me to go and meditate,” said Ms. O’Boyle. “I’m thinking, does she think I’m crazy?”

Ms. O’Boyle began taking meditation classes at Stanford Hospital & Clinics in 2011. The eight-week class consisted of once-a-week sessions lasting two to three hours. “Once I started the class I saw the benefits of it,” she said. Now, Ms. O’Boyle meditates every day for 20 to 45 minutes. “The pain is not gone, but it helps me cope with it,” she said.

The most common type of meditation recommended by doctors and used in hospital programs is called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, which was devised at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Dr. Nerurkar said she doesn’t send patients to a class for training. Instead, she and other physicians at Beth Israel Deaconess will demonstrate the technique in the office. “Really it’s just sitting in a quiet posture that’s comfortable, closing your eyes and watching your breath,” she said.

Murali Doraiswamy, a professor of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., says it isn’t clearly understood how meditation works on the body. Some forms of meditation have been found to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which stimulates the body’s relaxation response, improves blood supply, slows down heart rate and breathing and increases digestive activity, he said. It also slows down the release of stress hormones, such as cortisol.

Dr. Doraiswamy says he recommends meditation for people with depression, panic or anxiety disorders, ongoing stress, or for general health maintenance of brain alertness and cardiovascular health.

Thousands of studies have been published that look at meditation, Dr. Doraiswamy said. Of these, about 500 have been clinical trials testing meditation for various ailments, but only about 40 trials have been long-term studies. It isn’t known whether there is an optimal amount of time for meditating that is most effective. And, it hasn’t been conclusively shown that the practice causes people to live longer or prevents them from getting certain chronic diseases.

Some short-term studies have found meditation can improve cognitive abilities such as attention and memory, said Dr. Doraiswamy. Using imaging, scientists have shown that meditation can improve the functional performance of specific circuits in the brain and may reduce age-related shrinkage of several brain centers, particularly those that may be vulnerable in disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.

In a study published last year in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, African-Americans with heart disease who practiced Transcendental Meditation regularly were 48% less likely to have a heart attack or stroke, or to die, than those who attended a health-education class. Among the meditation group, there were 20 such occurrences, compared with 32 in the control group. The study, which ran for more than five years, involved about 200 people.

Recent research found that meditation can result in molecular changes affecting the length of telomeres, a protective covering at the end of chromosomes that gets shorter as people age. The study involved 40 family caregivers of dementia patients. Half of the participants meditated briefly on a daily basis and the other half listened to relaxing music for 12 minutes a day. The eight-week study found that people who meditated showed a 43% improvement in telomerase activity, an enzyme that regulates telomere length, compared with a 3.7% gain in the group listening to music. The participants meditating also showed improved mental and cognitive functioning and lower levels of depression compared with the control group. The pilot study was published in January in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Government-funded research also is exploring meditation’s effect on dieting and depression.

The meditations I teach are to visualize color, especially white light, as it includes the colors of the rainbow and therefore making it unnecessary to imagine all the colors separately to bring healing.  The body recognizes white light for balance, self-love, and oneness with our true Creator.  Soft pink light has a gentle healing presence which transforms our inner child wounds and brings maturity.  In the meditation, we also imagine royal blue light to help release and transform karmic habits which are creating the unhappy and stagnant stories in our lives.  The blue light also increases our devotion and commitment to our true purpose, bringing permanent healing.  As we go deeper into our Heart Chakra and closer to our Soul, we imagine and feel the silver light to reconnect with the Divine Feminine aspects of ourselves.  Gold light is also imagined and felt to reconnect with the masculine parts of ourselves.  Our Soul, the Spirit, the Creator are energy particles of light – white, gold, silver and beyond.

When it comes to clothing, the body loves joyful, rainbow colors from soft, gentle pastels to more vibrant, uplifting, energizing hues.  Color brings balance to the mind and body.  We are color beings from Spirit to form.  Many physicists agree that all matter is frozen light.  This is why nature is so colorful, it is revealing the beauty of our true selves – color and light.  We have heard many times that we are what we eat.  We eat (absorb) through all our senses.  The eyes and skin absorb color and light.  I find that beige, tan and other neutral colors tend to numb the mind and prevent us from feeling ourselves as loving, alive, radiant beings of light.  Since the skin emanates Light because it is alive, its color is irrelevant; however, inanimate black, brown and other dark, dense colors are “blindness” to the mind and eyes.  These colors are used in nature to hide, block and separate us from our true selves.  Black, brown and other dark colors actually deplete us of energy by absorbing light and positive feelings.  This makes it difficult to receive life-giving energy from around us and blocks our ability to smile from inside-out. Furthermore, since the essence of yoga is to create union between body, mind and Spirit, it is logical to wear beautiful, joyful, uplifting colors that welcome your Soul into each yoga posture you do.

We live on a very colorful planet.  Enjoy this gift of seeing and feeling your true self around you.  After reading this article, buy a bouquet of flowers and observe the uplifting feelings that come up as you focus on nature’s expression of beauty and life.  One day in meditation class, at Alive and Shine Center, you will see you are the light – colorful, radiant, shimmering and yearning to shine in every cell – bringing true health and joy.  Let’s come alive and shine together and create a beautiful, love-filled humanity.

Below are more facts about color from an article written by Dr. Dietrich Klinghart of Bellevue,WA.

• “…treatment with color projection into the eye can have a profound effect on the hormonal system, the emotions, stress levels, sleep, brain function, and many other aspects of the patient’s biochemistry and well-being. The profound effect of light stimulation to the retina on the body’s metabolism has long been established through the work of the brilliant German ophthalmologist Fritz Hollwich, M.D., Ph.D. xiv. ”
• “A study showed that wearing black clothing immediately depresses the NK-cell activity and several other parameters used to judge the activity of the immune system.  Black is carcinogenic. The opposite is also true: wearing rainbow colors stimulates the immune system and the mood.”
• “German scientist Fritz Albert Popp, PhD. confirmed all cells in an organism use subtle light emissions to communicate with each other constantly. Cells gossip, inform, celebrate and grieve xxiv. Only cancer cells behave differently: they do not emit light.”
• “Light (and sound) can have a profound effect on regulating and correcting inter-cellular communications.”

To read the entire article go to: http://www.klinghardtacademy.com/images/stories/color_therapy/color_therapy_through_eyes.pdf

Listen to Aadil and Savitri on their radio show, Alive and Shine:

• Interview Dr. Klinghart on their radio show:  Ignorance May Not Always Be Bliss Afterall! (March 19, 2013)
• The Color of Joy Part II (March 27, 2012)
• The Color of Joy, Part I with Dr. Dave Kreider (March 20, 2012)

In the same way, our personal asana practice should not be balanced but should balance us, and our asana classes should balance our students. Since most of our students are in varying states of imbalance, our classes, if rightly conceived, will often appear to be imbalanced to the untrained observer.

Health and yoga are all about finding balance. Effort and rest. Elimination and assimilation. Yang and yin. Day and night. Extreme action leads to death and so does extreme inaction. Finding balance leads to health.

I know many teachers who believe that they have failed as teachers if, at the end of class, their students are not drenched with sweat and exhausted. Yet, our goal should not be to further exhaust our students but to make them whole.

It’s a struggle to work against the notions that already exist in our society. We are taught to work hard and ignore the body’s pleas for rest, substituting coffee and stimulation for the nap or extra hour of sleep which would otherwise restore us. Because of this, our students usually come to class in varying states of exhaustion. Doing an entire practice of intense movement causes an exhausted nervous system to become thoroughly depleted. Of course, moving a student vigorously is important since most people don’t move enough in their daily lives of sitting in chairs all day, achy, and chronically stiff. Yet, we must find a balance in our teaching and make sure the student feels as whole as possible—rather than as exhausted as possible—when he leaves class. In stressful times such as these, perhaps it’s time for classes that emphasize restorative poses more.

Teachers are always asking me whether both sides of a pose should be held for an equal length of time. Not only must the practice as a whole be balancing, but each pose must also be balancing. Usually a student is stiffer on one side than another, and staying for an equal length of time on both sides does not balance the student. Instruct the student to say a coupled of extra breaths on the side on which they are stiffer and their body will slowly move back into balance.

Some students can do magnificent backbends but can hardly begin a forward bend. As yoga teachers, we easily recognize that this imbalance is unhealthy. Yet, other, less recognizable imbalances can be unhealthy too–imbalances in the student’s constitution. Because a student’s condition is inherently one-sided, we must help him use asana to balance his condition.

A student whose physical nature is kapha (lethargic, sluggish, overweight, loyal, stable, loving) in the Aryuvedic system must generally practice more vigorously to balance his or her dosha (condition). The kapha nature is like an elephant that doesn’t move quickly but can work all day. People with a predominantly kapha condition tend to have low blood pressure. For kapha, the practice should generally involve more jumping and more movement, and moving through poses without holding them too long. The practice should include backbends, inversions, and arm balances, and de-emphasize long holds in poses except restoratives and Savasana.

A student who is pitta (hot, angry, fiery, goal oriented, focused, and a high achiever) is a like cheetah who can run extremely fast but can’t sustain the pace for long. Such a person generally needs a more calming practice. Work such students briefly and vigorously to release that pent-up pitta energy and then have them hold their poses longer. Encourage a more internal focus and fewer jumps. Do soft backbends, short holds in Sirsasana, and long holds in Sarvangasana. Generally, a pitta has high blood pressure, so Sirsasana and backbends are not as beneficial as for the kapha person. Forward bends are especially good for pitta types. Have such students stay a long time in restoratives and Savasana, preferably with an eye bag and perhaps even blocks around their heads to hold in the fiery energy of the brain.

A student with a vatta condition (airy, unfocused, fickle, creative, exuberant, and charismatic) is like a bird, always flying into the sky. Such a student needs a grounding practice to bring them down to earth. Standing poses are ideal. Vatta students should hold poses for a long time. Since a vatta student loves to jump from pose to pose, work to balance this condition by having a practice with less dynamic movement. Focus on rooting in all poses, especially in standing poses and inversions. Backbends are also good, though vattas tend to get dizzy doing them.

Now we approach the question you are probably already asking yourselves. In a class format, how can we simultaneously address different people with different constitutions and conditions? It’s not easy. In fact, this magical balancing act is the hallmark of a great teacher. In classes where there are dozens of students, it is, at best, difficult, and, at worst, impossible to teach each individual student according to his condition. Further, all students must hold the poses for the same length of time on each side. However, as you get to know the conditions of the students you can approach them one at a time and teach them how to individualize their practice using the modalities of breath, intention, and method.

In terms of breath, a student with a kapha condition should be asked to breathe faster while a student with a pitta condition should be asked to breathe more slowly. A vata student should focus on the exhalations, moving their energy down and rooting into the earth.

The kapha student’s intention should be to focus on lifting the energy of the pelvis upward, creating more fire in the body. The pitta student’s intention should be to cool down the nervous system, doing poses with a less powerful lift and a greater sense of widening to facilitate the element of water. The vata student’s intention should be to create downward movement in all poses, a grounding action.

Similarly, the three different conditions can be balanced by three different methods of practicing. For example, in standing poses, teach the kapha student to lift the energy of the arches up the inner legs and up the central axis. The pitta student’s method is to expand the heart center into the hands and widen the pelvis. The method for the vata student is to plant the heels and the toe mounds into the earth to root.

Through these methods, one student at a time, we can create an appropriate practice using breath, intention, and method, even though everyone in the class appears to be doing the same poses at the same time.

It is a cosmic principle that we either live in imbalance or act to create balance. Though we may be comfortable in imbalance (which we often perceive as balance), we cannot grow in such a state. It is through shining light on that which we are not—our opposite—that we illuminate the road to progress.

Aadil Palkhivala 2013

As you practice Yoga, you begin to notice changes in the way you react to events at work and situations at home. With aches and pains no longer nagging you, with your nervous system in a state of calmness, and with your mind not congested with frantic thoughts, you find that you are able to respond to life quite differently from the way in which you once did.

Suppose someone swerves in front of you when you’re driving along the freeway.  Previously, you may have felt threatened, angry, or frightened.  However, since you just emerged from a Yoga class, calmness pervades your being and you are able to react quickly and avert an accident! Also, instead of typical angry responses, you can be slightly humored by the driver’s behavior and by our cultural obsession to get everywhere in a hurry.  In addition, with the spacious feeling in your mind, you have room to entertain other thoughts.  You are able to think, “Maybe that person’s wife is seriously ill in the hospital, and he needs to get there in a hurry.”  You maintain your calm focus, and then drive safely home.

Suppose that a family member says or does something that might make you defensive and upset.  As you practice Yoga, especially combined with meditation, you develop inner awareness and the presence of mind to catch these emotions before they manifest as angry, hurtful words.  You are able to ask yourself, “Is there some truth in what they are saying?”  After all, whenever you open a box, the only thing that can come out is that which is already inside.  Ask yourself why anger would be in your box, and why does it come out so easily?  Now you are able to go inside and look at yourself so that, next time, a similar situation does not evoke a similar reaction.

There is more to Yoga than poses.  As you progress along the path, you learn how to use the calm feelings and wise philosophies that underlie Yoga in all aspects of your life.  You carry yoga in your mind, in your words, and in your heart.

Life is designed to be joy, not sorrow; fulfillment, not punishment; abundance, not deprivation.  Yoga is about finding bliss, our very nature, in all the minute, meandering movements of our lives.  When you do this, you live Yoga.  Then you have a smile in your heart and sleep more at peace when the sun has finally set on the day.

© Aadil Palkhivala 2013

Why saucha?  Patanjali places saucha as the very first niyama, the first step towards self-exploration.  Why would Patanjali give this much importance to cleanliness?  Saucha is the foundation of niyama, or personal discipline. The reason is energy.  When the body is dirty, it is holding onto past energy.

When clothes are dirty, they are holding onto past energy.  When the house is dirty, it is also holding onto past energy.  It‘s like a weight that the house caries.  I’m sure you’ve discovered that when you have just cleaned up the whole house, vacuumed it, cleared out the cobwebs, changed the sheets, then it feels lighter, it feels brighter, it feels more alive.  That is because you’ve removed a layer of the past.  So, instructing students to be clean is instructing them to remove layers of the past and move into the present.  To be cleaner is to become lighter, to become brighter, to shed a layer of yesterday and become more present in the moment.

Also, saucha enhances sensitivity—sensitivity to your own body smell and sensitivity to the negative feelings that dirt brings.  These gross sensitivities have to be cultivated for the later limbs of yoga which require extreme sensitivity.

Often we hear the argument that we should not be obsessed with dirt, because dirt is God as well.  Although obsession for anything is unyogic and dirt, of course, has God in it, everything in the universe has its place.  We would not try to wash our bodies with cow dung, even though  cow dung  is God, because our skin is not the appropriate place for cow dung to be.  In the same way, the appropriate place for dirt is not in the house or on the body.

First comes cleanliness of the physical body.  That is, having a shower, making sure the body does not have an odor.  No dirt under the nails.  Clean hair.  It all starts with the body.  Number one is body.  Number two is clothing–that which touches the body.  Not using the same clothes twice if they have been worn for any length of time.  Washing clothes constantly.  Using clean towels to wipe the body after a shower.

Then comes that which the body and the clothes are in, which are the house and the car.  One of the elements of a clean house is not wearing shoes inside it.  The reason for this is to keep the sanctity of the home.  Shoes bring the energy of the outer world into our home.  Another element of a clean home is to rinse our hands immediately upon entering the house to clear the energy of the outer world.  Doing these two things, you will find that the house starts to build its own energy–which is a reflection of your cleaner energy–rather than being a dilution of the energies of the outer world.  Otherwise these energies of the outer world flow in and out, thereby diluting your own energy when you are in the house.

Aadil Palkhivala©2013