Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

by Sadhguru

Ptyalin is present in the saliva of all herbivores, but not in carnivores. So carnivores just have to cut their food into smaller pieces and swallow it,...

Mastication involves grinding and then thoroughly mixing the f...

If mastication happens properly, close to fifty percent of your digestive process would be finished in the mouth.

stomach region is expecting partially digested food to efficiently complete the process. In modern life, people are in such a hurry that we gulp our rush-hour

lunches without the food being properly masticated. The stomach is burdened not only with undigested food, but al...

If you eat raw meat, it takes between seventy to seventy-two hours to pass through your system;

cooked

meat takes fifty to fifty-two hours; cooked vegetables twenty-four to thirty hours; uncooked vegetables twelve to fifte...

three ...

Putrefaction occurs very rapidly in the summertime, when the temperature and moisture are conducive. Your stomach is always a tropical place, and if meat

stays there for up to seventy-two hours, the level of putrefaction is very high. This essentially means there is excessive bacterial activity, and your body must

expend a lot of energy to contain the bacterial level, so that it does not cross the line that se...

Most carnivorous animals do not eat

every day—definitely not three times a day! They know the food they eat moves very slowly through their tracts. A tiger is said to eat once every six to eight days.

If you eat clarified butter with sugar, as in sweets, it is digested and turns into fat. But clarified butter without sugar

can cleanse, heal, and lubricate the alimentary canal.

Additionally, the cleansing of the colon will immediately manifest as a certain glow a...

In other words, we are incapable of completely integrating more evolved, intelligent, and emotionally endowed creatures into our systems. In

earlier times, in communities that were more in tune with the earth, people could hunt and eat animals and work out the consequences

through enormous amounts of physi...

But given the largely sedentary lives people lead nowadays, the acidity produ...

contribute greatly to the unexplained levels of stress that are being wid...

Additionally, large animals, particularly ...

of their impending slaughter well before it happens. Consequently, they experience high stress levels, which generate a tremendous amou...

This, in turn, has its own adverse impact on those who late...

the day of Ekadashi was fixed in the Indian calendar. Ekadashi is the eleventh day of the

lunar segment and recurs every fourteen days. It is traditionally regarded as the day to fast.

People who are constantly on nicotine and caffeine will find that fasting can become very difficult.

This has been a tradition among the womenfolk in many

families. An ant is the smallest living entity you can see around you, the most inconsequential organism you can think of. So, for that very reason, you feed it first. You

make an offering not to the gods, or other celestial creatures, but to the smallest creature you know. This planet belongs as...

Gautama the Buddha went to the extent of saying, “When you are badly in need of food, if you give away your food to somebody else, you will become stronger.”

Similarly with sleep: when you feel sufficiently relaxed you come awake. The moment the body is rested it will wake up—whether it be

at three or four or eight o’clock. When it comes to food and sleep, your body is the best judge.

you will see that once it is well rested, it will awaken—that is, if it is eager to come to life. If it is somehow trying to use the bed as ...

body in such a way that it is not longing to avoid or escape life. Maintain it in such a way that...

If you sleep without a pillow or with a very low pillow, which doesn’t allow the spine to get pinched, the neuronal

regeneration of the brain and the cellular regeneration of the neurological system will be much better.

If you sleep without a pillow, it is best to lie on your back in a supine position, rather than...

position is referred to in yoga as shavasana: it enhances the purification and rejuvenation of the body, promotes the free flow of movement in the energy...

What we call sex is just two parts of this duality striving to become one.

Of all the loving acts that two human beings are capable of, the simple act of holding hands can often become the

most intimate.

Basically, because the nature of the hands and feet is such that the energy system finds expression in these two parts of the body in a very singular wa...

intimacy than the contact between any other pa...

You can try this with yourself. You don’t even need a partner. When you put your hands together, the tw...

(right-left, masculine-feminine, solar-lunar, yin-yang, etc.) are linked in a certain way, and you begin to experience a sense of unity within yourself. This is ...

In any case, sex is not the most powerful urge. Hunger is.

If all that you have known is the body—and anyway you are going to lose it—anxiety and

fear will be your constant companions.