WHICH DIRECTION TO KEEP THE HEAD IN SHAVASANA?
Many times our Yoga teachers have a question on the direction of head in Shavasana as some people in their classes having half-baked Vasthu knowledge say that head must always be kept in the south. They also say that if you lie with head to North you will face Yama the God of death when you get up. I felt that I should send you all the basic response, as I am sure that you all encounter this problem in your classes.- Dr Ananda
Yoga has been so distanced from its original natural past that people think nothing of doing Suryanamaskar at night (don’t forget it is meant to be a sun salutation) or doing heating Pranayamas in the summer and cooling Pranayamas in the winter. All sense of Yoga as part of nature and its cycles has been lost in the frenzied desire for me-first, business-Yoga with the aim to succeed at all cost even if the ‘Yoga’ is no more ‘Yoga’.
Shavasana is the Yogic practice where we try to relive the death experience, as death is the final relaxation and ‘let go’. We learn to let go while still being alive. That is why all aspects of the death position such as the head being in the north, the feet together, etc are recreated to put us in the shoes of the dead. We shut ourselves off from the world and let go of all attachments just as if we have died to the external world.
As we live in an abundant universe with a great electromagnetic field (bio field) running from north to south of the planet, we want to tune into the natural flow and go with the flow by being in the same field and enhancing the body’s field in the process. This is achieved by putting head in the north and feet in the south.
The Yogi dies to the world each day when they let go of all attachments to the external life. The dead bodies are kept with head to the north and so also the Yogi in Shavasana as we want to recreate the entire death experience in Yoga.
The problem with the modern material man is that he/she is afraid of death, as they want to cling on to all they have in this life. Such people will never be able to lie down in Shavasana in the proper manner, as they don’t want to die!
Yoga teaches us to face death (both the experience as well as the Lord Yama- e.g. Natchiketa in the Katopanishad) bravely and in a manner fit for a Yogi by confronting it with good health and right attitude.
In my persona opinion people can lie down in any direction they want to sleep but when doing Yogic relaxation they must lie down with head to north as we want to be part of the natural electromagnetic circuit that runs from north to south
The logic of modern Vasthu is that our head represents the north pole of the body and as north poles repel each other the head and N pole of earth repel each other causing problems in the iron-laden blood cells etc. This is the most stupid and far fetched of logics as we live within the earth’s field and it is not as if we are out side the field for our head and the north pole to repel like two small magnets.
The other argument is that after Shiva had cut off Ganesha’s original head, the elephant lying with its head to the north got its head cut off for being transplanted on Ganesha. Now, I think that the elephant was lucky, as what would have just been an ordinary elephant head has now become a godly head worshipped by millions all over the world.
The next argument that comes up it that Yama, the Lord of death who presides over the south will get angry if we put our feet towards him. However we must not in the same breath forget that Dakshinamurthy Shiva, the Guru sits in the north facing the south. Now, I would rather anger death than my Guru, for Guru is the foremost to all chelas. It is said that if Guru and God appear together and we are in a quandary as to whom we must bow first, we bow first to the Guru for he is the one who will introduce us to God.
For most modern Yoga teachers this will be news, as they don’t care two hoots about what direction they face etc. It is customary in Indian culture that the teacher sits either in the north or east (in the mornings) while they teach the class. How many modern Yoga teachers even know or follow that?
I give below one of our early scientific studies at JIPMER, Pondicherry, India on head direction and lying down by Prof Madanmohan, Prof Kaviraja Udupa, and Prof Ananda Balayogi Bhavanani,
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Abstract: Indian culture stresses the importance of direction during performance of daily activities. Some Yoga teachers prescribe that the Yogic relaxation and polarity practices must be done while lying with the head towards the North in order to align oneself with the earth’s electromagnetic field. There is some evidence that earth’s magnetic field influences physiological functions. Hence, the present study was undertaken to see whether head direction has any effect on heart rate and blood pressure during supine rest. 43 normal healthy school children were recruited and their recordings were taken after 5 minutes of supine rest. The subjects were randomly assigned to lie with their head towards North, East, South and West directions on four different days. Heart rate and blood pressure were recorded at the end of 5 minutes of supine rest. Heart rate was lowest in North and highest in South, the difference being statistically significant by Student’s paired ‘t’ test. Systolic pressure was lowest in the North and significantly higher in the West. Lying supine with head towards North had the lowest rate-pressure-product as compared to the West. Our study demonstrates that lying supine with head in different directions has a definite effect on the heart rate and blood pressure. Further studies in different age groups and in hypertensive patients may help in understanding the mechanisms and implications of this phenomenon.
