Sadhguru speaks of the koorma nadi, which ties "you and your body" together. The koorma nadi is that which directs the pattern of inhalation and exhalation. Attaining mastery over this allows us to stay rooted in the physical, but venture out beyond physical nature.

Full Transcript:

Sadhguru: So this breath or what conducts the breath, in yoga we call this the koorma nadi. You know what’s a koorma? Not kuruma (Laughter) Koor… (Laughs) No I saw some tongues (Laughter)… Koorma means a turtle or a tortoise, an amphibious creature, it’s in the water but it can also venture out. So you are a… you can become an amphibious creature if you master this koorma nadi, that means you are in the body but you can be little outside the physical nature because this is your desire. Your desire is not to leave the physical for good, you want to be rooted in the physical but you want to have a taste of what is beyond, this is human desire always. In trying to… See everything that you are doing, please look at this, whether you are going out to conquer the world, you get married, you bear children, you do this, you drink, you go to temple, you drug, you do whatever the hell you want – essentially all that you’re looking for is you want a bigger experience of life, isn’t it? Yes or no? The only way your life’s ex… experience can be enhanced is by expanding your perception. If your eyes can see something that it cannot see right now, your experience is enhanced. If your ears can hear something that you cannot hear something right now, your experience is enhanced. Like this if your perception is enhanced only then your experience is enhanced, otherwise you are only going on imagining things within the limited data that you have already gathered, yes? The only way to enhance is to expand or to come out.

So koorma nadi, this is… this breath is referred to as koorma nadi because if you use it properly you can become like an amphis… amphibious creature that you can be in the body but you can venture outside. This is like a rope - let’s say we pull out your breath right now, if I take away your breath what will happen? You and your body will fall apart. Right now in your experience you are the body sitting here but this rice and ch… chintha thokku and gomukoora everything is gathered up here and sitting here. Yes or no? Yes? It’s the food that you’ve eaten. Is this an accumulation? Do you understand this is an accumulation?

What you accumulate can be yours, can never ever be you, isn’t it? Yes? I can say this is mine, this is mine, this is mine but if I say this is me, this is me, this is me (Gestures) - lost it, isn’t it? Whatever you accumulate can be yours, can never ever be you. So the moment… if I pull the breath away then you and what is… what you have gathered will fall apart, you and your body will fall apart. Or in other words it’s the breath or the koorma nadi which ties you and your body together. When we say koorma nadi, we are not just talking about the passage of air. Right now you are incapable of experiencing the breath, in the sense, see right now if you watch you think you are watching the breath – no. You are only noticing the sensations caused by the passage of breath, you are not capable of knowing the breath itself. So the breath or what sets up this pattern, what directs this pattern that we are calling as koorma nadi. If you have some mastery over that you become an amphibious creature - that is you are rooted in the physical but you can venture out.

If this much freedom arises in human life suddenly you know there is another possibility that there is something beyond physical nature. Whatever you are going through this wis… within this physical cocoon is not everything, you know an…a completely different dimension of life. If this one thing you know, if you have a moment of experience beyond your physicality, death is not a (an?) issue, isn’t it? Hmm? If you know life beyond your physical body right now, death is not a (an?) issue. Death is a big issue because you know nothing beyond the body, when they threaten to take it away there is terror in people simply because everything that you know is going away. If you knew something beyond the body, suddenly this would not be such a big problem. And it… it is not a problem, it is a solution for all our problems that we are mortal. If you were here… Let’s say next million years you are not going to go - tch that is a problem, isn’t it? We must live our span and we must go, that’s a good thing (Laughs).