Questioner: What is the significance of the sequence in which we are doing the asanas? Can we change the order?
Sadhguru: The order is not something that you or I invented—it arises from a close observation of how the whole human system functions. In your system, there is something called skeletal comfort, muscular comfort, organ comfort, and energy comfort.
Most of the vital organs of the body are in the chest and abdomen region. These organs are not rigid, nor are they fixed with bolts and clamps. They are loose, hanging in connective tissue like nets. If you sit in a reclined posture, particularly in a plane or car, your muscles may be comfortable, but your joints and organs will suffer enormously. This you will notice by the time you reach your destination—you will be exhausted. If you sit up straight, this exhaustion will not be there because your organs will be in maximum comfort. If you lean back, one organ will press on another, impairing their function. This is especially true if you eat a full meal and sit in a reclining chair.
In India it is always known that one must eat before or just after sunset, leaving at least four hours’ space before going to bed, to ensure the food has digested. Otherwise, if the stomach is full—let us say, with one to one-and-a-half kilograms of food—if you lie down for a few hours, this weight could cause serious damage over a period, depending upon how you are lying down.
In Hata Yoga, this organ comfort is always considered. Energy comfort is also considered. If you activate one aspect of your energy without activating another aspect of it, your system will become disjointed. There are many disjointed bodies everywhere. Disjointed energy means living a broken life. Somehow, you may manage to live long, but no matter what enters your life, you will not be complete. You may win the lottery, you may get married to the best man or woman in the world, you may pray 24 hours of the day—no matter what you do, you will live a disjointed life.
When you do yogasanas, if your alignment is right, it matches with the cosmic alignment in some way. The 84 yogasanas represent 84 alignments, because existence as we know it now is seen as the 84th creation. The memory of these 84 creations is reflected in our body. We are trying to release and activate this memory. If one gets into these 84 postures, or if one masters a single posture and approaches the remaining 83 through that, one can know everything that has happened in creation until now, because the memory of that is within one’s system in a codified way. If this memory is touched by another dimension outside of yourself, it can be activated and ignited.
In the meantime, before this alignment with the ultimate happens, by getting into the postures, inner alignment happens, which will naturally create a chemistry of healthfulness, joyfulness, and blissfulness—and above all balance.
Only if you have a balance that is not disturbed by external situations, you are capable of making use of the competence and intelligence within you. Otherwise, even the most wonderful qualities that one may have will go waste, simply because of lack of balance. Hatha Yoga brings this balance.
Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, a bestselling author & poet. He has been conferred the Padma Vibhushan in 2017. Isha.sadhguru.org