Why Gut-Cleanse in combination with Yoga?

Cleansing the biggest organ, the biggest ‘pipe’ of our body doesn’t mean that it has to be ‘out of order’ before you consider doing it. So you can also go on reading if you have regular bowel movement. Usually you try to get the plumber in before the pipes are blocked and the bathroom gets flooded, right?

So let’s start at the beginning. Most of us know the yoga form called Hatha Yoga - or at least the term Hatha Yoga, assuming it is the yoga where you do lots of “exercises”/ physical yoga practices. Yoga which always had the aim to get the practitioner to experience union within and a higher consciousness, never thought only of physical health in the sense of not being sick as we quite often do in the West where you are healthy if you are not sick. The asanas (physical practices done with awareness) were always meant to help the organs to work perfectly together and to get the body subtle so that the practitioner would be able to sit for long hours in meditation without the body having to move.
Hatha Yoga starts off with 6 main cleansing practices; one of them being an intestinal cleanse, another the cleansing of the nostrils, another is a cleansing breathing practice and yet another one is a mind purifying meditation practice. A gut cleanse practice is a thorough cleansing that is not just a practice concerning the stomach and intestines. The benefit for the yogic practitioner is a lighter, more flexible, physical body as well as leaving most people with a definite altered consciousness. The various metabolic acids and chemical wastes causing stiffness, lethargy and heaviness such as lactic acid and uric acid are washed away. A clearer and more alert mind is experienced as with fasting, but without the irritating feeling of an empty stomach.

Clearly a connection between the release of physical constipation as well as unconscious mental constipation is experienced.

So first comes the cleansing, the preparation of the physical body, then asana. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika describes the purpose of asana as:

“Kuryaat tadaasanam sthairyamaarayogyam cha anglaaghavam.” It translates:
”One must perform asanas to gain steadiness of body and mind, freedom from disease and lightness of limbs. (1:17:2).”