Don’t miss the first two articles in this series: Part 1; Part 2—Systems Theory; and Part 3—Sacred Chemistry. If you would like to listen to this article rather than read it, scroll down for the audio recording!
Dear You,
Today is the easy chemistry lesson: Applied Chemistry.
If it’s dawning on you that there is a lot learn… and you really want to move into your Sacred Anatomy before you die, I suggest you apply for the course that guarantees your sacred anatomy evolution.
Now, back to the hoopla.
We left off the last Sacred Chemistry lesson talking about regulators and built-in hierarchies.
We were talking about the top-down and bottom-up system the cosmos has created in our bodies. I mentioned the three doshas are a regulatory hierarchy that coordinates the more complex subsystems of the body. Subtle to Gross. Simple to Complex. The simplicity contains the complexity.
Where we’re going in Applied Chemistry… is how does the 3 doshas theory affect what is happening with you on your yogic path?
Let’s investigate.
When you practice yoga you become more sensitive. Often your yoga teacher doesn’t realize it’s part of her responsibility to warn you that the sensitivity you’re cultivating on the mat will trickle into all aspects of your life, so it can come as a surprise.
Here is an example of how sensitivity might who up for you as a yoga student:
Say you always go on a hot date on Friday nights. You eat a lovely meal and drink a few lovely glasses of wine. Then one day you start going to yoga. Soon you find yourself loving how you feel after class… so you buy a punch card. You start showing up 3 times a week. You love it. Your teacher knows so much about the body and you’re feeling more at home in yourself than you maybe ever have.
Friday night date night is still happening… but you’re not enjoying it as much as you used to. It seems like the conversation isn’t as engaging. The food makes you bloated. Plus, you’ve started waking up at 2 am. You think that might be coming from the wine. What the hell… you think. Can’t a gal enjoy a little fun now and then?
Let’s break down what is happening.
During each yoga class you’re progressively moving prana deeper into your cells. Due to abyhasa or repetitive evolutionary practice your cells start to soften up and become more accessible to prana. As the cells get smarter from the prana, they start to output what is outdated or toxic. Yes – you are detoxing or purifying yourself. In yoga this is referred to as tapas, or purification of the physical, mental and spiritual (think psychosomatic system).
The more you go to class the more your consciousness moves into the field of the subtle. The more subtle energy in your cells … the more sensitive you become.
Many modern-day-yoga lovers go through a phase where they find this newfound bioelectrical sensitivity annoying.
But, from a sacred chemistry perspective it makes perfect sense:
You cultivated more consciousness in your cells. Your cells dig that. Your cells got more intelligent, more organized, more charged with energy and simply more connected to the source. You started to transport more consciousness, which enabled you to transmute more consciousness to build structures that were smarter structures.
When you showed up and practiced repetitively with informed alignment, you plugged into the laws of how energy works on a more subtle level. Your organism got more aligned and integrated into a more functional system. Your body-mind systems got smarter. And you tapped into the dynamic experience of optimal health.
Then you went on date night. To your regulatory system this was a less intelligent choice for a few reasons. To get why – you need to know the chemistry of the natural law of the human body clock.
From an Ayurvedic perspective lets look at what is happening behind the scenes. This give us insight into why habits that were groovy in our past create a residue in our present.
First off, turnover energy (pitta) is strongest in the midday. That is the best time to turnover food into smaller molecules of nutrients and energy. When you go on date night at the time of day when turnover energy has another agenda. The turnover energy is dormant from 6-10 pm and then goes on a housecleaning mission.
You asked your Pitta to stop cleaning house and to deal with digestion. It did a half-assed job at both the house cleaning and the digestion. The wine further put a load on the nightly blood cleansing process. Because your system is less tolerant of imbalance now, you get a 2 am wake up call to help you decide to not put the extra load on your liver next Friday Night. Saturday morning you woke up to a dirty, and maybe even bloated house.
Now you know why.
The laws of sacred chemistry are inviolable. Meaning… you pay when you violate them. No one gets away with anything.
Often we may think someone is getting away with someone. Your partner may be able to put away a huge meal at night and drink beers and remains thin as a rail. He doesn’t have insomnia.
Your best friend drinks coffee all day and doesn’t suffer from insomnia or PMS or any of the side effects caffeine causes you. Everyone’s ship is sunk by something specific – concepts like genetics and kaivaigunya and karma dive into that. When and how a person sinks their own ship is the real story behind no one getting away with anything. Hyper-caffeinated-friend might have trouble meditating or unplugging from her laptop. Hubby might be working a job he’s not in love with… still. My point is this – when you get just how psycho-somatic-behavioral-relational we all are – it’s not hard to a trained eye to see where the effect of the cause is showing up.
The more yoga and meditation you do… the more side effects you will experience when your diet and lifestyle don’t match up with what your 3 regulators really want.
You might also start to notice that you really can tell the difference between greens from the farmer’s market and greens from a bag of frozen spinach. And not just in terms of taste… in terms of how it feels in your blood.
This level or perception of cause and effect is what sacred anatomy is all about. You can perceive clearly the cause and effect. You can feel it in your system.
You can observe and as you do you are learning Ayurveda + your sacred anatomy from the inside out.
“If the subtle controls the gross, if the regulatory system is more powerful than the system that it relates, than acting on the regulatory system, you can begin to cure unexpected pathologies.” More Dr. Hankey.
The diurnal human body clock is a law of nature. Just as human bodies are proven to produce more bile midday to digest our food, our bodies goes through cycles of metabolism (pitta), catabolism (vata) and anabolism (kapha) at specific times. Around dusk, anabolism (kapha) kicks in to get you to chill out and take rest. In wee hours of dawn catabolism (vata) kicks in to get you up and moving.
If you’re out of sync you won’t notice this. If you’re in sync and you don’t follow the lead of the cycle, you’ll notice your day is off. You might not have a complete bowel movement and you’ll reabsorb toxic waste and have low energy and a less-than-superhero immune system. You might not think as clearly as you’d like… and reach for caffeine to make up the difference. And so forth and so on.
There is a little leeway in there. But not much. The more sensitive you become, the more it will hurt when you don’t follow the simple routine.
The doshas have biorhythms. The more yoga or meditation we do – the more obvious the biorhythms become. The biorhythms aren’t optional. They create a potential of optimal response – or choice making. The more sensitive we become the better the choice we have the potential of making.
When you become more sensitive, you improve the sensitivity of response of each regulatory system (think biorhythm). With improved sensitivity of response you have improved regulation. With better regulation you get communication, integration, and vibratory bliss. (This is why the anandamayakosha lies embedded in the awake intuitive body, or vijanamayaskosha. The Vijnana reflects awake engaged behavior change based on experience.) And in terms of disease, better regulation means less havoc-wreaking doshas unconsciously trickling down into their subdoshas and creating chaos and complexity in pathology.
Ayurveda holds a high bar for health. Ayurveda is about optimal health, sacred anatomy, enlightenment, and optimal response. We’re designed to wake up and fully live in an awakened anatomy. Our imbalanced doshas may suck us backward… but the practices propel us forward into smarter biorhythms.
When we allow the biorhythms to lead our daily choices we experience balanced vata or homeostasis balanced pitta, or the creation of order; and balanced kapha or more integrated tissue.
Tri-doshic balance through healthy biorhythms regulates the system.
I know that might not sound too sexy… or juicy… but it really is. It’s the cultivation of a deeper appeal, a more connected juice. Getting healthier, more awake, more alive and more free as you get older is about as sexy as it gets.
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