Ha and Tha

(waves crash) Okay. Word Hatha is, like Hatha Yoga, is a dual word. It comes from the two different, there's Ha and Tha. And when they are together, it's sometimes translated to force, so Hatha yoga is basically it's a mechanical way to approach the self. Like example, if you have Bhakti yoga, it's more like a natural way to approach the self and God and Hatha yoga is to force, it's actually mechanically trying to approach the self.

And now we have this Ha and Tha. So Ha means sun, like the sun is shining, and Tha is moon. And Ha is compress and Tha means expand. And Ha means also heating and Tha means cooling. So they are not really, well we, if you try to understand this concept of Ha and Tha, they are not, we cannot really think about them same way as ying and yang because they are not really opposites.

You understand, they share lots of similarities. And when we use this on these Bandha practices, the Bhandas, usually when we speak about the Ha Bhanda, it means that it's compressive, so there's energetical compression when you do the Ha Bhanda. On the energetical level there's energies directed to the certain part of the body. And on the physical level what is happening is that the physical, physically, like for example fluids of the body they are moving away from that part of the body. So when, if I do the Ha Uddiyana bandha, lower abdomen in and up, the energetically movement is in, but on the physical level the blood and all the stuff is moving away from that part of the body.

And then when we do the Tha, Tha is expanding. So when we do the Tha Uddiyana bandha, there's expansion. So when we do the Tha Bandhas, there's expansion. And then all the blood and everything is concentrated on that part of the body, so this is how when we work with this Ha and Tha concept when we are doing the Bandhas. And then, when we speak about Marmas, Marmas also have this Ha and Tha value.

But if you have two Marmas, so we have two Marmas and they have, it's always in a relation, so their values are relative. So if I have two Marmas, so Ha Marma is that which is dominant and Tha Marma is that which is subordinate, which is actually supporting or creating resistance to that dominant Marma. So if I, example, if I have the Antarayanu Marma, my inner knee, and then I have outer groin, which is Bahayakati Marma, I have two Marmas now. And then if I use this Bahayakati Marma to move this Antarayanu Marma away from the hip joint, then this outer groin, this Marma here, that's value is high, that's the dominant Marma. And then this inner knee is Tha Marma because that's actually subordinate Marma to this.

So they are relative, they are, they don't, these Marmas don't have absolute value of Ha and Tha, it's the relative value which is depending on their relationship. So it's a little bit, actually, like we have human relationships. We have certain value to the other human beings. You may be a boss for some people but then you are employee for the other person. So there's also this kind, in our relationships, also we have the relative values.

So this is the idea of this Ha and Tha. And then this, basically when we speak about Hatha yoga, it's all, this Ha and Tha principle, you can find it basically everywhere. You can find it on the Bhandas. You can find it in the Marmas. You can find it in the breathing, there's Ha breathing techniques which are heating and which are actually, and then we have Tha breathing techniques which are cooling, example.

And then also, on the mental functions, also when we do the Vinsaya, when the mind is focused on the one object. So that's, then we speak about Ha function of the mind. Mind is actually compressed. And then we have Samanya which is objective function of the mind that we try to see the bigger picture, then we speak about Tha function of the mind, which is expand. So this is how these Ha and Tha principles work.