Month: November 2007

Hasta Pandagushtha Asana

04_Hasta Pandagushtha

 

Technique

Stand straight. Lift your left foot. Hold the toe of your left foot with your right hand and keep the left hand on your waist. Stretch the left leg so that it comes to your waist level (making 90o angle with right leg). Both the legs and the trunk are to be kept straight. Balance as long as you can conveniently.

Then repeat the pose, holding right leg with left hand.

 

Benefits

  • Gives strength to the legs.
  • Solves spinal problems and tones up the nerves.
  • Exercises arms.
  • Beneficial for the proper functioning of the intestines.
  • Helpful in observance of celibacy (Brahmacharya).

Six Practices of Shat Karma for Purification

The Shat Karma comprises of six practices. The six practices of Shat Karma for purification are –

 

  1. Dhauti
  2. Nauli
  3. Basti
  4. Neti
  5. Trataka
  6. Kapalbhati

 

These six practices aim at cleansing the whole body internally from top to toe. Practically all diseases are the result of accumulated impurities in the body. Hence the Shat Karma practices, if regularly done, make us immune from diseases due to their cleansing effect.

 

The Dhauti would clean the throat, the food canal, the stomach and the rectum; Basti the Colon; Neti the head or the body above the shoulders; Nauli the intestines; Trataka the eyes and the Kapalbhati would purify the lungs and the blood.