I think that long salt water cleansing technique sounds completely dangerous and irresponsible. Has medical science heard about this and shown it to be safe?
A. This is a very common and perfectly normal response about something which most modern people would consider as quite radical. There are a number of issues which need to be explained about such a technique. Firstly, your rational concerns about its safety need to be separated from your own irrational fears and medical ignorance. Firstly, it does sound dangerous on first impression since the only reference point most people would have is to drinking sea water, which we have all been told will make us very sick even in small quantities or will kill us in excess. But, the first thing which makes Shankaprakshalana different and safer is that the water drank is “normal saline” – that is the same saltiness as the human blood stream which is only one quarter as salty as the sea. Drinking and drinking and drinking lots of fresh water would either bloat the body or cause excessive urination. However Shankaprakshalana does not cause this to happen either, because when the “normal saline” water
