Kashi – The City of Light

Kashi, or Varanasi as it is commonly known today, was the center of rituals, and a phenomenal tool created for spiritual growth. Yogi and mystic, Sadhguru, looks at the lore and science behind some of its main rituals.

Sadhguru: Mysticism means exploring dimensions that are not yet in your understanding or perception. To explore those dimensions together, there are various types of rituals, which are beautiful, but if not conducted with absolute integrity, they can easily become exploitative. Ritual means not just doing pooja. This used to be a land with complex and phenomenal rituals, but due to lack of integrity and misuse, these rituals largely got wiped out.

This is the power of the ritual – you can conduct it for any number of people, even if they are ignorant of it.

For example, Kashi is the oldest living city on the planet. Mark Twain said, “Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together.

Who would have thought someone could plan such a fabulous city 12,000 to 15,000 years ago. It was a most fantastic plan – layers and layers of urban development. The highest level of talent in spirituality, science, mathematics, music, and astronomy all gathered in one place. It became the city of learning and of dispensing knowledge. Shiva enjoyed the intellectual vigor, the music, the company of people, and the way the city was designed. He fell in love with Kashi and did not want to leave anymore.

There is a story of how, when Shiva was about to come to Kashi, king Divodasa did not want him to enter the city because he knew if Shiva was there, he would not be the single point of focus anymore. He said, “A king can rule the city only if everyone looks up to him only. If you want me to rule the city, Shiva should not come. If he comes, I will leave.”

Shiva sent two ganas to the city to see how to get rid of this king. However, they fell so much in love with Kashi that they established themselves just outside the city and never went back. They did not have the guts to go to Shiva and say, “We love the city too much.”  Shiva sent two more – they never came back either. Today, at the four corners of Kashi, there are four gana sthanas, where these four guys settled. Then he sent Ganapati – he never came back either. Afterwards, he sent Kubera – he never came back. Finally, he decided to go himself, and he did not want to go back either. All this is being said to tell you how beautiful this city was. When Agastya Muni was asked to leave Kashi and go south, he cried and wrote a heartrending poem, running into hundreds of stanzas, about the beauty of the city and the pain of leaving.

Benares, Illustration by James Prinsep, 1832.

There is a whole lot of science behind how they established certain aspects of the city. It was such a complex and geometrically perfect design. But Kashi is not what it used to be anymore. The superstructure of the city is broken. The center of Kashi was a powerful energy form, which created a tower of light. So many sages and saints have talked about the tower of light, and about the actual Kashi being an energy form above the city. Even today, that part is intact, but the base and the main temple have been broken. But one aspect you must witness if you have the opportunity – in the evening around 7:30, there is one particular ritual, which is called Sapta Rishi Aarti.

After Shiva had transmitted yoga to the Sapta Rishis and they all had become fully enlightened, he sent them to different parts of the world to spread this knowledge. Before they left, they expressed their anguish, “Now if we go away, probably we will never get to set our eyes upon you again, physically. How can we have you with us when we want you?” Shiva taught them a simple process, which lives on to this day as Sapta Rishi Aarti, conducted by these priests who may not know the science behind it, but they stick to the process. I witnessed how they built stacks and stacks of energy, just like that.

We could do this at the ashram but it takes a different kind of skill. There are yogis who do such things – that is a different matter – but I have never seen anything like that anywhere conducted by priests. . For priests who have no such energies of their own, what they build up in this temple in this one hour is phenomenal because they have a method – that is what a ritual is. Whoever conducts it, if it is done right, it will work, because it is a technology. These priests maintained the process. They kept well what is of some sanctity to them, and it still works fantastically. And at night, there is the Shayan Aarti, which is cute. If you get to witness it, you will know how loudly you have to put Shiva to sleep.

Ganga Arti

This is the power of the ritual – you can conduct it for any number of people, even if they are ignorant of it. In contrast, doing anythingspiritual, meditative, is in a way safer and cleaner, but you have to prepare the person. A ritual does not need preparation – you can do it for the whole town. It may be a million ignorant people – still, if they just sit there, we can make them benefit. But unless the person who performs the ritual has a certain integrity, rituals become a tool for exploitation.

The best way to approach dimensions of the beyond is through internal methods and processes, but it needs a lot of preparation. If you want a quicker dissemination, there are external technologies and processes – I would rather call them processes than rituals. We can make this happen to large groups of people. But it needs absolute integrity. Only in the last three years, we brought in rituals at the Isha Yoga Center, because we have created people of such integrity that no matter what is given to them, the focus of their lives will not change.

Whatever external activity you do in your life, it is meaningful only if it touches people’s lives. If you can maintain integrity no matter what, we can offer you wonderful tools through which you can touch people’s lives in a way that you have never imagined possible. Once you have such access to another human being, your hands must be super clean. If you are sweeping outside, no one will ask you, “Did you wash your hands?” It is okay if your hands are not so clean. Suppose you are serving food, people would like to know if you washed your hands. Suppose you are inside the temple, we would like to know if you had a shower. Suppose you have to conduct a surgery, we definitely want to know if your hands are cleaned and disinfected.

The more access you have to another human being, the cleaner you have to be. If “What about me?” is the biggest question in your mind, you should not have access to anyone. If this one question does not arise in your mind, you are free to touch any being, and you should. Millions of people need this, because nothing has truly touched them. Without being touched, the being will not be a being – the being will just be a body.

Shiva’s Adornments – The Symbols and Symbolism of Shiva

What’s the meaning of the snake around Shiva’s neck? Why does he have a moon on his head? What is the significance of all this symbolism? In the third part of the series “Getting to Know Shiva,” yogi and mystic, Sadhguru, takes a look at the adornments and symbols of Shiva. The first two parts looked at who Shiva is and four significant places in India where Shiva has spent time. These posts are excerpts from Sadhguru’s latest book, “Shiva – Ultimate Outlaw .” Pay what you want and get it.

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Third Eye

Sadhguru: Shiva has always been referred to as Triambaka because he has a third eye. The third eye does not mean someone’s forehead cracked and something came out! It simply means another dimension of perception has opened up. If your perception has to evolve and enhance itself, the most important thing is that your energy has to evolve and enhance itself. The whole process of yoga is to evolve and refine your energies in such a way that your perception is enhanced and the third eye opens.

The third eye is the eye of vision. The two physical eyes are just sensory organs. They feed the mind with all kinds of nonsense, because what you see is not the truth. You see this person or that person and you think something about him, but you are not able to see the Shiva in him. You see things the way it is necessary for your survival. Another creature sees it another way, as is necessary for its survival. This is why we say this world is maya. Maya means it is illusory. We are not saying that existence is illusory. We are only saying the way you are perceiving it is illusory. So another eye, an eye of deeper penetration, has to be opened up. The third eye means your perception has gone beyond the dualities of life. You are able to see life just the way it is, not just the way that is necessary for your survival.

Nandi

Sadhguru: Nandi is a symbolism of eternal waiting, because waiting is considered the greatest virtue in Indian culture. One who knows how to simply sit and wait is naturally meditative. Nandi is not expecting Shiva to come out tomorrow. He is not anticipating or expecting anything. He is just waiting. He will wait forever. That quality is the essence of receptivity. Before you go into a temple, you must have the quality of Nandi – to simply sit. You are not trying to go to heaven, you are not trying to get this or that – you simply sit.

People have always misunderstood meditation as some kind of activity. No – it is a quality. That is the fundamental difference. Prayer means you are trying to talk to God. Meditation means you are willing to listen to God. You are willing to just listen to existence, to the ultimate nature of creation. You have nothing to say, you simply listen. That is the quality of Nandi – he just sits, alert. This is very important – he is alert, not sleepy. He is not sitting in a passive way. He is sitting, very active, full of alertness, full of life, but just sitting – that is meditation.

Trishul

Sadhguru: Shiva’s trishulrepresents the three fundamental aspects of life. These are the three fundamental dimensions of life that are symbolized in many ways. They can also be called Ida, Pingala and Sushumna. These are the three basic nadis – the left, the right and the central – in thepranamaya kosha, or the energy body of the human system. Nadis are pathways or channels of pranain the system. There are 72,000 nadis that spring from the three fundamental ones.

The Pingala and Ida represent the basic duality in the existence. It is this duality which we traditionally personify as Shiva and Shakti. You can simply call it masculine and feminine. When I say masculine and feminine, I am not talking in terms of sex – about being male or female – but in terms of certain qualities in nature. You could say the logical and the intuitive aspect of you.

Bringing a balance between the Ida and Pingala will make you effective in the world; this will allow you to handle life aspects well. Most people live and die in Ida and Pingala. Sushumna, the central space, remains dormant. But Sushumna is the most significant aspect of human physiology. Life really begins only when energies enter into Sushumna. You attain to a new kind of balance, an inner balance where whatever happens outside, there is a certain space within you that never gets disturbed and cannot be touched by outside situations.

Moon

Sadhguru: There are many names for Shiva. One name that is very commonly used is Soma or Somasundara. Soma could literally mean themoon, but soma essentially means inebriation or intoxication. Shiva uses the moon as a decoration because he is a great yogi who is intoxicated all the time, but he sits in great alertness. To enjoy the intoxication, you must be alert. Even when you drink, you try to stay awake and enjoy the intoxication. And that is how yogis are – totally drunk, but fully alert.

The science of yoga gives this pleasure to you to be internally drunk all the time, but one hundred percent stable and alert. There has been a lot of research in the last couple of decades, and a particular scientist found that in the human brain, there are millions of cannabis receptors. If you simply keep your body in a certain way, the body will produce its own narcotic, and the brain is waiting to receive it. It is only because the human body produces its own narcotic that feelings of peace, pleasure and joy can happen within you without any stimulus from outside.

When the scientist wanted to give this chemical an appropriate name, he came down to India and found the word ananda, or bliss. So he called it Anandamide. If you generate a sufficient amount of Anandamide in your system, then you can be drunk all the time, but fully awake, wide awake.

Snake

Sadhguru: A snake is also very sensitive to certain energies. Shiva has the snake around his throat. It is not just symbolic. There is a whole lot of science behind it. There are 114 chakras in the energy body. Out of these 114, people are usually talking about the seven fundamental chakras in the system. Among these seven fundamental ones, the vishuddhi chakra is located in the pit of your throat. This particular chakra is very strongly associated with the snake. The vishuddhi is about stopping poison, and a snake carries poison. All these things are connected.

The word vishuddhi literally means “filter.” If your vishuddhi becomes powerful, you have the ability to filter everything that enters you. Shiva’s center is supposed to be vishuddhi, and he is also known as Vishakantha or Neelakantha because he filters all the poison. He doesn’t allow it to enter his system. Poisons are not necessarily that which you may consume through food. Poisons can enter you in so many ways: a wrong thought, a wrong emotion, a wrong idea, a wrong energy or a wrong impulse can poison your life. If your vishuddhi is active, it filters everything. It saves you from all these influences. In other words, once vishuddhi is very active, that person is so powerful within himself that whatever is around him does not influence him anymore. He is established within himself. He tends to become a very powerful being.

Sitting Still – Settling the Mind and Body

Questioner: Sadhguru, I wish I could simply sit for long hours, but I am just not able to keep my body still. How can I overcome this limitation?

Sadhguru: To sit still, definitely your body needs to be conditioned – hata yoga is towards that. But even if your body is in a good condition, you still will not be able to sit still, unless you settle some other aspects.

There are eight limbs of yoga – yama and niyama, asana, pranayama,pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, and samadhi. They are not steps – they are limbs. If you had eight limbs, which one to move first is your choice, according to your need. Is there a rule which limb to move first? Since you are from India – do not think you must always put your right leg first. There are certain aspects of life where putting your right leg first is better, and there are other aspects where putting your left leg first is better. Which leg to move first depends on the activity. Similarly, which limb of yoga to use first depends on where you are.

If you want to sit still, just working on your body is not good enough – you have to work upon your mind too.

For a long time in the history of humanity, the body was the strongest aspect and the biggest hurdle. Therefore, people were put through hata yoga first. A few hundred years ago, only 5-10% of people had mental problems. Others only had physical problems. Even today, in the villages, most people only have physical problems, not mental problems. But generally, in the last few generations, people have had more mental problems than physical problems, because they use their mind more than they use their body. This is a big shift for humanity. Until 100 or 200 years ago, human beings used their body much more than their mind.

Since I am a contemporary mystic, I am looking at people who are here now. As their problems are more mental than physical, we generally start off with kriyas and meditation, which mainly work on the level of energies and mind, and only then go into hata yoga.

If you want to sit still, just working on your body is not good enough – you have to work upon your mind too. Particularly for this generation, focusing on settling the whole system – mind, emotions, body, and energy – is important. It is a wrong perception that people of today are more brilliant than people of the past. It is just that people’s minds are more out of control today because of haphazard use.

The way our education system is structured, it will invariably lead to disturbed minds. A child is going from reading poetry to mathematics – both are connected, but there is no one to make the connection. From mathematics, they go to music – both are connected, but there is no one to make the connection. From music, they go to chemistry – they are connected, but there is no one to make the connection, because the music department and the chemistry department do not get along.

Everything is taught in disjointed ways because after all, no one is studying with a passion to know. Everyone is studying to pass the examination and get a job. This is a very destructive way of educating yourself and a pathetic way to live. But no matter how senseless it is, the majority of people in the world have chosen to live like that.

Recently, I was at a very high profile evening event, where alcohol was being served in a corner. The host said, “Sadhguru is here, let’s not have alcohol served.” But some people could not keep their hands off it. There was a minister who came and said, “I’m sure Sadhguru is a man of the world – he won’t mind.” I said, “When did the whole world get drunk?” Today, it is made out like if you are a man of the world, you must drink, otherwise, you do not belong to this world.

We are culturing human minds in a completely wrong way. Then how can we expect them to be peaceful and blissful? It will not work. Unless you do the right things, right things will not happen to you.  If your body is not at ease simply sitting here, obviously, something is not okay with it, even if you are medically certified as normal. I was surprised to know that according to the medical textbooks in the United States, going to the toilet twice a week is considered normal. According to yogic culture, yogis should go to the toilet twice a day, because excreta should not remain in the system. What should go out must go out at the earliest possible time. First thing when you get up in the morning, it should be done. Twice a week means on an average, you keep it in your body for three days, and you expect your mind to be okay? It will not be okay because your colon and your mind are directly connected.

The colon is at the muladhara, which is the foundation of your energy system. Whatever happens at the muladhara, happens to the whole system, one way or the other – and particularly to your mind. Today’s scientists are arriving at such conclusions because they study the human being under a microscope – piece by piece. Therefore, about every bit, they come to a different conclusion. The whole cannot be perceived from outside – it can only be perceived from within.

Do your sadhana, change your diet to include more natural foods, and you will see in a couple of months’ time, you will sit still.

http://blog.ishafoundation.org/yoga-meditation/demystifying-yoga/sit-still/

Patanjali – The Father of Modern Yoga

 

Yogi and mystic Sadhguru explores the incredible life and capabilities of Patanjali, the father of modern yoga and the author of the celebrated yoga sutras.

Sadhguru: If you look at Patanjali, as an enlightened being, he can’t be more enlightened than someone else. There is no such thing. Realization is realization. But as a man and above all as an intellect, he is such an intellect that the great scientists of today look like kindergarten children in front of him. The breadth of his understanding of life is so big that you cannot believe that this is possible in one human being. In his mastery of language, mathematics and in his perception of astronomy, he is so fantastic. Today’s scholars argue that this is not one man’s work, that many people must have worked to make this happen because it is so big, it cannot fit into one man’s intellect. It is one man’s work. He is probably one of the greatest intellects ever on this planet.

He is known as the father of modern yoga. He did not invent yoga. Yoga was already there in various forms, which he assimilated into a system. Shiva, the Adiyogi or first yogi, transmitted yoga to the Sapta Rishis or the seven sages many thousands of years ago. He had the highest understanding of human nature, but he didn’t put anything down in writing. He was too wild to be a scholar. He found it was too difficult to put everything he knew into one person, so he chose seven people and put different aspects of yoga into them. These became the seven basic forms of yoga. Even today, though these have branched off into hundreds of systems, yoga has still maintained seven distinct forms.

The Yoga Sutras

Patanjali came much later and sort of assimilated everything. He saw that it was getting too diversified and complex for anyone to understand in any meaningful way. So he assimilated and included all aspects into a certain format – as the Yoga Sutras.

He just understood humanity inside out – not as people but as a total mechanism of the human body, mind, consciousness…

Sutra literally means a thread. Or in modern language we can say it is like a formula. 

Anyone who knows the English alphabet, even a kindergarten child can say E=mc², but there is an enormous amount of science behind that little formula, which most people do not understand. The sutras are like this, in thread form. Out of ignorance, people have just taken these sutras and are trying to implement it as it is. A thread is of no consequence by itself. There can never be a garland without the thread but no one ever wears a garland for the sake of the thread. The thread was given so that each master makes his own kind of garland. You can put flowers on it, or beads or pearls or diamonds. The thread is vital but that is not a goal by itself.

Unless you are exposed to the culture, it is a little difficult to understand what kind of mind Patanjali is. Even though the Indian scriptures like the Vedas  and the Upanishads are quite phenomenal by themselves both in terms of grammatical excellence and in their poetic beauty and content, the Yoga Sutras are an absolutely brilliant piece of work compared to any of the scriptures on the planet talking about life and beyond.

They are a tremendous document about life and the most uninteresting book on the planet. It is the driest and dullest book you can read. It is not scholarly in the usual sense. Patanjali does not teach any practice in them. He did this intentionally, and his mastery over language and composition was such that he wrote it in a way that no scholar would be interested in it. The idea is, this is a formula to open up life. If people like the poetry and literary part of it, all kinds of people, especially scholars, will read it. Once they read it, they will make a 100 different interpretations of it.

The sutra will mean something only to a person who is in a certain level of experience. Otherwise it is just a bundle of words which don’t make any sense. Someone who is exploring his consciousness, if he is in a certain state of experience, if he just reads one sutra, it will be explosive. You are not required to read the whole book. If you read one sutra and make it true with your life, that’s enough. It will realize you.

And Now Yoga

Patanjali

Just to give you some sense of what kind of a man he is – he starts such a great document of life in such a strange way: the first chapter of the Yoga Sutras is just half a sentence, not even a full sentence. The sentence is like this, “And Now Yoga.” What do you make out of it? Intellectually, it doesn’t make any sense, but experientially what it is saying is, if you still think that building a new house or finding a new wife or getting your daughter married will settle your life, it is not yet time for yoga. If you have seen money, power, wealth and pleasure, you have tasted everything in your life and you have realized that nothing is going to fulfill you ultimately and work in the real sense, if you have gotten that point, then it is time for yoga. All the nonsense that the whole world is involved in, Patanjali just brushes it aside with half a sentence. This is why the first sutra is “and now yoga.” That means, you know nothing works and you do not have a clue about what the hell this is. The pain of ignorance is tearing you apart. Now, yoga. Now there is a way to know.

It is improper to call Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras a book because it is not a book. It is a complex arrangement of tools – such fantastic tools arranged in such a brilliant way that if at all something similar ever happens, it is too far away. Because someone with that kind of inner experience usually would not care or bother with scholarly nonsense. And someone who is so scholarly is usually so lost in his scholarship that he never has any inner experience. Never before has there been one person with an absolute depth of inner experience, but with that kind of erudition and scholarly mastery over language.

He just understood humanity inside out – not as people but as a total mechanism of the human body, human mind, human consciousness – everything – in such absolute detail and completeness. There is simply no better way to look at it. It is not fair actually because whatever you try to say, the guy has already said it! You think of the most brilliant idea and try to say something, but he has already said it. He did not leave anything for anyone to say about life.

The musician

They say he played a variety of instruments and was a great musician and singer. The veena was one of his favorite instruments and he composed many ragas. His intellect was such that he could find a way through anything. He was absolutely audacious in everything and did things in a challenging way that no one could break through.

There was another sage Vyagrapada who was his contemporary. Vyagrapada means “one who has tiger’s feet.” And there was someone else with a name that meant “one with horns on his head.” Once, in their banter, they got into an argument and teased Patanjali. He then took a challenge that he will compose music in any raga without using alphabets with “horns.” This is almost impossible but he composed a complicated series of music. If you listen to it, you will just see it seems impossible, but still the music sticks to the tones and tunes of the ragas without those alphabets. It is so incredible. That is the kind of man he was.

Chidambaram temple

In South India, there were five lingas created for the five elements in nature. Patanjali consecrated the linga for space which is inChidambaram.

In the yogic system, the snake is used as a symbolism for unmanifest energy or kundalini because till it moves, you don’t even realize that it is there. Patanjali was such a great being, for him divinity is not an upward movement. He is a cascade of divinity. He is a kind of human being that gods would be envious of. He is symbolically depicted in the famous half-man, half-snake form indicating that he has risen above the duality of life and attained to ultimate oneness, and in doing so, has opened the door for others to achieve the same. Half of his body has been symbolically made into snake, because he is not seen as a person anymore. He is seen as the very basis of the yogic system.

Chitta Vritti Nirodha

Patanjali defined yoga as Chitta Vritti Nirodha, which literally means that if you still the modifications and activity of the mind, you are in yoga. Everything has become one in your consciousness. We may be pursuing many things in our lives and going through processes that we call achievements, but to go beyond the modifications of the mind is the most fundamental and at the same time the highest achievement one can attain, because this releases a human being from what he is seeking – from what is within and what is outside – from everything. If only he stills his mind, he becomes an ultimate possibility. The mind becomes a plain mirror, not a wavy mirror. A wavy mirror will distort one’s whole perception of life. At least if you don’t look at it, you may have some idea how you are, but if you look at it every day, it will give you a completely distorted vision of everything.

Right now, most human beings are using their mind only between their memory and imagination. Memory and imagination are not two separate things. Memory is accumulated past, imagination is an exaggerated version of that. If you bring your mind to a state where you are neither contaminated by memory nor deluded by imagination, then it is a truly intelligent, penetrative mind. It sees everything there is to see – life and its source. 

For the survival process, your memory and imagination are good enough, but if you want to explore other dimensions of life, then memory and imagination are not sufficient because they are only a recycling of your past. 

Once you recycle your past, there is a pattern to your life. And it is an unbreakable pattern if your mind is just engaged in memory and imagination. Once you are trapped by a pattern, it does not matter who created the pattern, it is a kind of slavery. 

Essentially, realizing that one is trapped in psychological realities and missing out on the existential experience of the grandeur of creation is the first step towards liberation.

This is the reason why, of all the beautiful ways in which it could be expressed, Patanjali chose the description Chitta Vritti Nirodha for yoga – a technology which can take you towards your liberation or realization.

The Source of Thoughts

Questioner: Sadhguru, what is the source of thoughts?

Sadhguru: In terms of content, the source of your thoughts is the accumulation of your sense perceptions. In terms of substance, a thought is just a reverberation – you can give it any form. When the reverberations become continuous, the thought process picks up momentum. Through meditation , you calm down the reverberations into stillness. The reverberation that you experience as thought right now would on a lower scale of evolution be instinct. Instinct is not exactly the same as thought – there is much more clarity in instinct than in thought.

Instinct is a lower form of thought, or thought is a higher form of instinct.

A thought can be formed one way or the other – it can be contradictory. Instinct is clear-cut. Animals that are lower on the evolutionary scale seem to be so much surer about their life than human beings, because their reverberations are on the level of instinct. Instinct is always about survival – mostly physical survival. If you look at a worm for example, it seems to be surer – it just knows where to go, because it follows its instinct.

We can say instinct is a lower form of thought, or thought is a higher form of instinct – whichever way you want to look at it. Instinct has minimal reach – it is always about your immediate surroundings. But your thoughts need not be about your immediate surroundings – they can be about anything. That is why you think of so much nonsense that does not really concern you. You think about all kinds of things – heaven, hell, a million years later or a million years ago – thoughts can go anywhere.

In the evolutionary process, as the body evolves, the reverberations that happen within also evolve from instinct to thought. Thought is a certain freedom – it gives you larger access to life. But at the same time, thoughts create total turmoil in human beings. All suffering is because you do not know which way to think and what to do. If you went by your instinct alone, you would know what to do. Life would be much simpler, but also very limited. There would be no possibilities other than survival.

After instinct evolved into thought, and the thought process became excessive, the struggles have arisen, because the thoughts happen involuntarily, according to the sense impressions that you have gathered. The thought process has become a problem for people only because they are not aware that it is just a reverberation. These reverberations can take any form, or you can experience them just as reverberations without giving them any form.

In a way, the process of Shoonya meditation  is just that. It is not that your reverberations have stopped, as yet – it is just that you have stopped attaching forms or meanings to them. Being aware enough not to attach forms or meanings to every reverberation that happens within you is an enormous freedom, and it releases you from the past content of your mind. Or in traditional words – it is unbinding your karmic structure, because you are not giving it any form or meaning anymore.

The whole process of Isha Yoga is about not giving a form to the reverberation that you are right now. Your thought is a reverberation, and in a deeper way, what you call as “myself” is also a reverberation. Life itself is a certain reverberation. Modern physics is proving that the whole existence is a certain reverberation of energy. The physical body, thoughts, emotions, and everything else are different aspects of the reverberation that existence is. 

In human beings, this reverberation has evolved from an instinctive state to a thought state, which is a freedom because it gives you a larger access to life. At the same time, without the necessary awareness, all suffering that human beings are going through is just in their thoughts – it is in the way they think.

http://blog.ishafoundation.org/sadhguru/masters-words/source-of-thoughts/