Bhuta Shuddhi – Getting to the Root of Karma

Sadhguru discusses the 5 elements of creation and the importance of purifying them within the body. This purification process, called Bhuta Shuddhi, allows one to get to the root of the karmic imprint.

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Shyama: Pranam Sadhguru.

I have a question about Bhuta Shuddhi.

We speak about cleansing of the five elements.

Cleansing them of what,

why do they become impure

and what is the difference between

Pancha Bhuta Aradhana which happens on Shivaratri

and the Bhuta Shuddhi process

which we learn as a part of Hata Yoga?

Sadhguru: The five elements,

just five,

if they have to play so much mischief

its not one or two manifestations,

trillions of manifestations

if all this has to happen,

if it does not acquire

other qualities or possibilities,

there is no way with five you can create so many.

They are naturally receptive in nature.

The air that you breathe,

the food that you eat,

the water that you drink

we will leave the other two

because you dont have much experience of those two.

Today, we know

we can influence them

just with thought, emotion, intension or energy

we can change the quality of the water,

we can change the quality of the air and the food that we eat,

just with our intention or emotion or thought process.

So

the five elements within you

which makes this body are deeply, deeply influenced

a certain layer of information,

which generally referred to as the Karmic substance gathers;

without it the elements would not behave in a particular way within you.

It would be same

every human being would have been same

if there was no specific information.

see, if you eat a banana you become a woman

the banana becomes a woman.

Somebody here eats, it becomes a man,

if a cow eats it becomes a cow - same banana.

Banana is not so intelligent to make itself into a man, woman, cow, whichever animal consumes.

It is a certain amount of information within you,

which transforms a banana into

a woman or a man or a cow or an elephant or whatever for that matter.

What you call as myself,

individual self is essentially a certain volume of information

and the fundamental way that it is stuck on to you

is through the elements

because there is nothing here apart from the elements.

So, cleansing it is also about cleansing it

and making it free of the accumulated information

or the karmic substance.

If this is not done

then you will be a strong individual

but you will never know

how to breach this boundary that you have set for yourself.

This is not some boundary set by the existence;

this is a boundary that youve set for yourself.

If you cannot cross the boundary that you set up,

thats a foolish way to live, isnt it?

You set up a boundary without knowing why

and you cant cross it after sometime

and you start claiming

This is how I am!

This is you know this is a common statement you hear everywhere,

you ask them to cross some limitation

No! This is how I am.

This is not how you are

this is what you made yourself to be.

Now, cleansing becomes relevant

when you want to extend yourself beyond these boundaries

when freedom and liberation becomes the goal of your life.

If you want to be a concrete ball

there is no need to cleanse,

theres no need to cleanse at all.

So concretization of karmic processes will make you rigid.

Rigidity will bring enormous amount of suffering,

enormous.

You dont need a calamity to happen;

you are a calamity by yourself.

You do not need any external assistance,

this is called self-help.

Most people

when it comes to their suffering

they are all on self-help.

You know

Nobody need to poke them.

When was it last time that somebody physically poked you?

Hmm?

When was it last time?

Maybe when you were in school

somebody did this to you.

After that nobody is bothered about doing anything like that.

Most of you, almost all of you have never

been poked with a dagger or a sword

at the most a pin or a finger

nothing more.

But for most of you in the last ten, fifteen or twenty-five years

nobody has ever even poked you with a finger

because everybody is weary of you.

Whos

So how much

if you look at the volume of suffering that you go through -

anger, fear, hatred, jealousy, whatever else you go through,

misery whatever-

how much has been caused from external agencies,

how much is caused by you

if you look at it,

it is a miniscule percentage

which has been caused from external agencies.

No, no, no my mother-in-law said this,

my boss said that -

they are saying what theyre saying

but they are not poking you.

Physical suffering has not been caused to you from outside unless youre from Middle-East

For most of you such things have not happened

but rest is all your own making.

This is simply because

the imprint is so deep

that you behave in predetermined compulsive ways.

A thousand times the same situation has happened

but still the next time it happens

you almost react the same way -

it takes a certain amount of awareness,

certain amounts of shaking you up to respond in a different way.

So, whats called Bhuta Shuddhi is

to do it in the most fundamental level.

If we cleanse your mind

if we clean it in the morning,

by afternoon you will have a whole new world again

Its really waste.

This is why

no no significance or no importance is given in the yogic system

towards your psychological structure

what you think, what you feel they dont care

because if you change it today again

within few hours you will change it back into something else.

We are only interested in the body;

this is why yoga calls everything as body

physical body, mental body, energy body like this

but no mind

because the psychological activity thats happening

towards which you have given enormous importance

is of no consequence or significance.

Depending upon the type of information imprinted within you.

Whatever is your karma,

whatever is your sanskara,

that is how you think,

thats how you feel,

thats how your emotions happen,

everything happens that way.

So we are interested in handling the root.

If you prune the tree

it will sprout back with vengeance

no point

pruning it.

If you handle the root itll be gone.

So the very root of karmic imprint is in the elements,

that is the most fundamental space.

It takes much more than handling other aspects.

So, generally because most people are not interested in absolute transformation.

They just want a little change,

they dont want to lose themselves.

Bhuta Shuddhi means you want to lose yourself

whether its good, bad, ugly, beautiful, it doesnt matter

you want to lose everything that you have built,

so that the Creators creation will stand up and shine within you.

Itll take a certain amount of work

the Bhuta Shuddhi thats been taught to you is very basic.

If you want to do more serious forms of Bhuta Shuddhi

it will mean

it becomes your entire life,

its not something that you do on the side.

So even if you do a very minor version of Bhuta Shuddhi,

you will see

the change that happens in you is permanent

there is no tendency to fall back

and thats important.

Otherwise everybody changes for three days

and again they fall back into the rut.

After sometime that will not happen

when you assist whatever else youre doing with the Bhuta Shuddhi practice.

Nadha Aradhana I mean the Pancha Bhuta Aradhana is another matter,

thats a ritual.

For those who are not willing to do sadhana

just to give them some benefit,

thats the beauty of a ritual,

thats a limitation of a ritual.

Somebody else can conduct a ritual for you

you dont have to do any sadhana, just sit there and benefit from that

but then only if they conduct, you have it

otherwise you dont have it.

Suppose we dont do Pancha Bhuta Aradhana, you dont have it.

So, the ritual is always like this,

it is beautiful because

people who do not know anything about it

they can still benefit from it.

At the same time if those who conduct,

do not conduct it properly

it will not happen to you.

If they do not conduct it at all,

it will never be available to you.

But if you do Bhuta Shuddhi practice by yourself

if youre willing you can keep it up

and you will see as time progresses

its impact is undeniable.

Above all,

whatever it does,

however small the practice is,

whatever it does, there is no turning back.

Thats a very aspect of Bhuta Shuddhi.

If you

if you

lets say six months you do asana,

another one year you give it up,

everything will back

will be back as it was.

Six months you did pranayam

if its a powerful process like Shakti Chalana Kriya, if you did,

its impact will be there

but of at a certain period of time

if you dont do it for a certain period of time,

again itll turn back.

You meditate, you do Shoonya meditation for some time -

if you dont do it for a certain period of time

slowly itll turn back.

But that is not the nature of Bhuta Shuddhi.

Bhuta Shuddhi if you do

nothing seems to be happening

because its very fundamental and its slow

but whatever happens, it will not turn back.

It stays with you,

as long as you hold this body it stays with you

it will not go

because its on a very fundamental level.

Thats the significance of Bhuta Shuddhi.