Pink October, 2012: Sadhguru Talks About Breast Cancer

October is celebrated as Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the world over. All through this month, campaigns are held to spread awareness and also raise funds towards the research, diagnosis and cure of this disease.

 

As described by Wikipedia, “Breast cancer is a type of cancer originating from the breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk.”
22.9% of all cancers in women worldwide are related to the breast. In 2012 alone, the American Cancer Society reported 226,870 new cases of breast cancer in women and 39,510 deaths from the disease. Some of the most prominent risk factors for breast cancer are related to lifestyle – lack of physical activity, smoking, poor diet, obesity, high hormone levels, and lack of childbearing or breast feeding.

Today, as a part of our contribution to the ongoing breast cancer awareness initiatives, we would like to present to you Sadhguru’s own words on the subject. He tells us about the way the yogic system views cancer and what can be done to avoid the disease.

Sadhguru:

Cancerous cells are present in all our bodies. In the yogic system, we describe cancerous cells as being similar to, let’s say, criminals in a society. If there are a few individuals here and there who commit petty crimes, it doesn’t really affect the society. But when they gang up together in one place, something begins to happen. Similarly, having a few cancerous cells in your body is not going to affect your life or health in any way. Generally in yoga, we look at it this way: when certain kinds of blanks happen in the energy body, either because of a person’s attitude, food, lifestyle, or any other factor due to which the energy body gets affected, an atmosphere conducive to the growth of cancerous cells is created. So if the flow of energy is not good in a certain part of the body, cancerous cells choose that place to hide and fester.

Breast cancer is very rampant today, especially in societies where a lot of women never conceive. It is a good thing they are doing for the world, anyway. But even if they have children, generally in today’s world, for most women child-bearing happens only once or twice and is over before a certain age. So the next 15 to 20 years of their life that they still have the capability to bear children and the necessary hormones are still being produced – this is not being made use of. This is one of the main reasons for both breast and uterine cancer occurring among women.

The mechanism of the breast, which was mainly made to feed the offspring, is not made use of. Or, it is made use of at a very early age and not after that. If a woman went through the normal process of conception, from the age of 16 to 18 until about 45, she would be conceiving periodically which would have kept her whole system active and kept the energy flowing. Because it is not made use of the way it should have been physiologically, that part of the body becomes low energy. Such an atmosphere always attracts cancerous cells, and it becomes a place for them to accumulate and do the necessary work that they do.
So does it mean to say we must produce more children? Please don’t. There are ways to find solution for this.

One of the simplest solutions that we have for curtailing cancerous cells in the system is periodic fasting. One aspect of these cells is that they need a lot more food than a normal cell, up to 30 times more. Just by denying yourself food on certain days, you could put down the level of cancerous cells.

There are also certain types of sadhana one can do where one’s hormonal secretions can be controlled. The Shakthi Chalana Kriya^[1] and asanas we teach help in correcting and balancing the system. We have seen many women with uterus-related problems, such as polycystic ovaries getting completely cured by simply practicing certain asanas and kriyas. The hormonal conditions inside the body become controlled, rather than simply reacting to the kind of food you eat and atmosphere you live in.

To what extent the practices have helped patients suffering from cancer, we cannot document or confirm this. But we have definitely seen that they recovered quite well. The doctors who were treating these cancer patients were quite surprised at their response to chemotherapy. We have seen a few people who recovered from chemotherapy very quickly after doing yogic practices. Whether their cancer went away because of the practices, there is no way to say that. I would say supplementing yoga with medical treatment could definitely benefit the patient.

 

[1] Shakti Chalana Kriya is taught as a part of the yoga program Shoonya Intensive at the Isha Yoga Center. To know more, please visit: http://www.ishayoga.org/advanced-programs/shoonya-intensive