In all Seven Corners of the World The Saptarishis – Ambassadors of Shiva’s Knowing

In all Seven Corners of the World
The Saptarishis – Ambassadors of Shiva’s Knowing




When we say ‘Shiva,’ it means many things to many people. It is the most multidimensional description that you can describe one being with. 

Shiva is described as an ascetic of the highest order, and as a debaucher of the highest order too; as a yogi, the very embodiment of awareness, but at the same time as a drunkard. 

He is described as the Sundaramurthy, the most beautiful one, and also as a hideous one. So it goes on. He means many things to many people. But for those who are on the spiritual path, the most significant aspect of Shiva is that he is a yogi; not just a yogi – the yogi, the aadhi yogi or the first yogi. 

The significance of his life is that he was the first one to bring this dimension to humanity, that a human being need not be contained in the defined limitations of our species, that there is a way to go beyond these limitations. 

That there is a way to be contained in physicality but not to belong to it. That there is a way to inhabit the body but never become the body. That there is a way to use your mind in the highest possible way but still never know the miseries of the mind. 

The word ‘yoga’ literally means ‘union;’ that is when an individual has the ability to unite himself with the universal, when a limited entity of a human being is able to enjoin with the limitlessness of the cosmos, when a shred of creation can experience being the Creator of the existence.

When we are able to unite an individual entity which is of various types of bondages and boundaries with that which is boundless and know the joy of having both at the same time – this is yoga. 

This dimension was first brought to humanity by this great being that we refer to as Shiva. The word ‘Shiva’ itself literally means ‘that which is not.’ ‘That which is not’ means ‘that which does not exist’ – emptiness, nothingness. 

This idea of emptiness, nothingness, of that which does not exist, should not be perceived as negative. If you look up into the sky on this darkest night[1] of the month, your eyes will tell you it is full of stars because that is how the human vision is attuned towards creation. But if you really look at it, you will see the galaxies are just small specks; the real substance out there is nothingness. This nothingness which is the womb of creation, this nothingness which fills 99% of the cosmos, this we refer to as Shiva – the boundless non-existence.

We also refer to the aadhi yogi as Shiva because he perceived this boundlessness. One who has perceived the limitless nature of the existence is also limitless, in the sense, the only way you could perceive the boundless is to dissolve your own boundaries and become boundless yourself. So we refer to both, the limitless nothingness and the aadhi yogi, as Shiva.

The limited nature of the individual being is only a stepping stone for knowing the unlimited nature of the existence, or the limitlessness of ‘that which is not.’ 

When the aadhi yogi attained to his ultimate possibility, many were drawn to him. Among these, the most significant ones are those seven sages who became the vessels to receive his knowing and to transmit it to the rest of the world. 

These are the celebrated sages who are known as the saptarishis[2]: Agastya Muni, Atri, Angira, Bhrigu, Gautama Maharishi, Kashyapa and Vashishta. They were already well-versed in various arts and sciences, and instrumental in crafting the civilizations, the science and scientific developments, and the healthcare systems of those times.

Three of them have been very significant for southern India. Of course Agastya Muni, who is the father of the siddha vaidya[3] and rasa vaidya[4], which are the greatest contributions that he made. After his realization, he came back to share his realization with this part of the world.

Atri, who was married to Anusuya, played a very important role in bringing peace when the Kurukshetra war happened. When hundreds and thousands of men were being killed ruthlessly without any purpose because people could not quench their anger and hatred, when a matchless warrior called Dronacharya engaged in an indiscriminate slaughter, it was Atri who went and stopped him, who reminded him of his dharma. And it was Atri who made Dronacharya withdraw from the war and sit with his eyes closed till he [Dronacharya] exited his body. So Atri stopped the most brutal war that this land has ever seen.

Gautama… When I say ‘Gautama,’ a lot of people will think we are talking about Gautama the Buddha – no. Gautama the Buddha was named after one of the saptarishis. 

Thousands of years before Gautama the Buddha came, the saptarishi Gautama lived with his wife Ahalya and a few disciples in a small hermitage in Triambakeshwar. One day it so happened, a cow walked into his hut and ate up all the rice that was stored there for the usage of the hermitage. When he saw the cow had eaten up all the rice, he tried to chase her away, being a little anxious as to what to do for his tribe that lived with him. When he was chasing the cow, she fell down and died. 

He felt so heartbroken, so pained that he caused the death of this cow as in India, one of the greatest crimes that you can commit is killing a cow. Why this is so is, the cow is the only animal which has human emotions. In this land, people share very intimate relationships with the cow. If you are in distress, if you are pained by something, if you are in grief, you will see, the cow will shed tears for you. It has such a deep sense of empathy for a human being. Because it has human emotions, here in India for a long time, we have considered killing a cow as murder.

So because Gautama felt he had committed a murder and he wanted to absolve himself from that, he called for Shiva and said, “Why has this happened? It was not my intention to kill this cow. I was only chasing her away; but she died.” Shiva saw that this had been an unintentional act and said, “Because of the scarcity of rice that you have, you got so excited about this cow eating up your rice. Let me give you an instrument with which you can grow as much rice as you want,” and he had a river born in Triambakeshwar which came to be called Gautami, and later on Godavari which feeds the rice bowl of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa today. The river Godavari was born for the purpose of relieving Gautama of the sin of killing a cow; and also to relieve the great sage of the scarcity of rice which caused unnecessary anxiety in him. An immense amount of rice or paddy is grown even today in the Godavari delta.

So these were celebrated sages of their time; but when they heard of Shiva’s ultimate realization, they all beelined to Kailash. These sages who were worshiped in their own times went as disciples to Shiva and sat at his feet, wanting to know the ultimate possibility. And over a period of time, Shiva shared this possibility. He did not allow them to go back to their homes but sent them to different corners of the world. 

One he sent to Central Asia, another to North Africa which is presently known as Ethiopia or Egypt and Middle East, another he sent to South America, another to South West Asia, another stayed with him, another came down to the lower part of Himalayas, another came down south – that was Agastya Muni. Agastya is very important for us because he walked this land. He has been upon this mountain, and in many ways, we consider him as the father of southern mysticism.

There are various forms of mystical processes on the planet, but South Indian mysticism is very unique and profound in its nature. I am not saying this because I am born in South India. Probably one reason is, this part of the world provided a most conducive atmosphere for spiritual teaching for thousands of years. 

The mystics who came could explore anything and experiment whichever way that they wanted without being persecuted, a chance which unfortunately most mystics have not had in other parts of the world. This part of the world offered that conducive atmosphere, so mysticism grew in an intricacy and profoundness which is unmatched anywhere else on the planet.

If closely observed, the manifestation and the methods of Shiva’s knowing can be noticed in civilizations as far away as South America. When the Greeks came to India around 300 BC, in the esoteric Shiva, they saw the reflection of their own God Dionysus, a mad rebel who was surrounded by his own set of ganas who were known as Satyrs. Like Shiva, he was also the Lord of mountains, trees, bees, rivers, wine, dance and theater. He too sought salvation through ecstatic rituals. His mystery cults took the shape of Orphism that went on to greatly influence the Christian rites of sacrament and communion.

The presence of the work of these seven sages across the planet is visible even today. It has just taken on many forms. It is amazing that even today, in the temples of Greece, in the Baalbek temples in Lebanon, in certain temples in Egypt, you still see the yogic symbols – Guru Pooja stones of 16 corners which could not have come from anywhere else except from the knowledge that the aadhi yogi himself transmitted.

The ganas were constant company for Shiva. They are described in the scriptures as distorted and demented beings; they did not have a human form; they were in some other form. They spoke in a language which nobody understood – a total cacophony. And they had limbs without bones. 

You know the story of Ganapathy, this slight misinterpretation of chopping an elephant’s head and putting it on the body of the young boy. It was not an elephant head – it was a head of a gana who had limbs without bones. Even today, you call him Ganapathy, not Gajapathy. Never ever has he been known as Gajapathy[5]. He has always been known as Ganapathy, that means ‘the leader of the ganas’ because Shiva lopped off the head of the leader of the ganas and put it on the body of this young boy.

These yakshas, ganas, gandharvas[6] rule the legends of the East as beings who came from elsewhere. So Shiva always kept company of these beings who are not of human form. And in their company many things happened – one thing was they did not ascribe to any social norms because they did not even belong to the society through which Shiva walked.

Why I am telling you this is he did everything that would make him unfit to be accepted by the world. But still the world accepted him as Mahadeva[7]. 

The iconographic proofs gathered in the British anthropological museum say that Shiva in the form of Rudra is the oldest god on the planet. The iconography says it is over 12,000 years. He was the god of the inhabitants of this Bharatvarsh or the Indian subcontinent as it is known today. 

When the Aryan invaders came over 8,000 years ago, they had Indra as their god. They militarily defeated the locals, politically dominated them, enslaved them in many ways, but they took the god of the defeated. Never before or never after in the history of humanity such a thing has happened. 

Invaders always impose their gods on the invaded. But here, the invaders took the god of the invaded. The victorious took the god of the defeated because the essence of what he was offering was so valuable; they could not ignore him. The power and the possibility of what was being offered were so potent that the victorious took the god of the defeated. There can be no better testimony to the methods and technologies that he transmitted.

– Excerpted from Sadhguru’s talk on Mahashivrathri 2011

[1] Refers to Shivarathri, the night before new moon
[2] Literally ‘seven seers/sages’
[3] Traditional Tamil medicine
[4] Traditional science of rasa or mercury
[5] Gaja in Sanskrit means ‘elephant’
[6] Different kinds of celestial beings
[7] Literally ‘Great God;’ one of the names of Shiva

Tapping into the Akashik Intelligence

Tapping into the Akashik Intelligence

Ever wondered why some people seem to breeze through life while others struggle? Sadhguru tells us about akashik intelligence, and gives us a process to bring this larger intelligence into our lives.

Sadhguru: Modern science is beginning to recognize that there is something called akashik intelligence. That is, empty space has a certain intelligence. How this akashik intelligence behaves with you – whether this intelligence works for you or against you – will determine the nature of your life. Whether you are a blessed being or one who is going to be knocked around for the rest of your life simply depends on your ability – either consciously or unconsciously – to be able to get the cooperation of this larger intelligence which is functioning.

After sunrise, before the sun crosses an angle of thirty degrees, look up at the sky once and bow down to akash for holding you in place today.

It is improper to call akash or space, the fifth element because it is the element. All the other four –earth, water, fire and air – just play upon it; the fundamental element is akash. It is in the lap of this boundless space that these four elements play the game. We are sitting here on a round, spinning planet in the solar system. It is all held in place only by akash. You are sitting in your place not because of yourself, you are sitting in your place only because akash is holding you in place. It is akash which is holding this earth, this solar system, this galaxy and the whole cosmos in place – and no strings attached, just see! Just held like that.

If you know how to get the cooperation of akash into your life, this will be a blessed life. One simple process you can do for this is, after sunrise, before the sun crosses an angle of thirty degrees, look up at the sky once and bow down to akash for holding you in place today. After the sun crosses thirty degrees, sometime during the day – anytime – look up and bow down again. After the sun sets, once again look up and bow down, not to some god up there, just to the empty space for holding you in place for today. Just do this. Life will change dramatically.

If you get cooperation from akash, life will happen in magical ways.

Have you noticed, even Tendulkar looks up? It is not just him, right from ancient times, when man achieved something in great moments of success, he looks up because unknowingly there is a realization. Some of them may be looking up for the uperwaala but mostly, when you hit a peak experience, have you noticed, even without your awareness, your body looks up in gratitude? Somewhere there is recognition; there is an intelligence here which recognizes that.

Do this process consciously three times a day. If you get cooperation from akash, life will happen in magical ways. An intelligence that you have never thought possible will become yours.

Dissolving your karma factory

Dissolving your karma factory

Sadhguru: Every moment of your life, whatever you do or don’t do, your karma is dissolving. The very life process is dissolution of karma. 

You have a certain amount of allotted karma, which we refer to as prarabdha. The prarabdha is working itself out. 

But the problem is the production factory is working overtime – new karma is being piled up so rapidly.

Dissolution can only happen at a certain pace, but people can be very efficient with production! 

For example, during a standard day in your life, from the moment of waking till you go to sleep, if you compare how much activity you actually do by simply working, and how much you think up things, what you are thinking up could be fifty times more than what you do. I am being very conservative when I say fifty. You are producing fifty times more karma than you can work out. It is just like calories. You are burning 600 calories but eating 6000 calories – it has to pile up somewhere.

Shut Down Your Karma Factory

Let’s say you don’t do any karma – nishkarma – you simply sat. This means karma is still working out now at the same pace but you are not producing anything. 

This is the reason why spiritual atmospheres are made in such a way that you don’t decide when to eat. There is a bell, and you go and eat. You don’t decide what to eat. You joyfully eat what is served. You don’t choose. 

We are not against enjoying food, it is just that for the simple act of eating you produce so much karma by desiring, thinking and multiplying all this. 

After all, you can only eat so much. If the food is good and you like it very much maybe you eat 5% extra. If you go beyond 10% you are in trouble. 

For this simple act of eating, how much is going on in people’s head! I enjoy food as much as anyone, but you must do the food on your tongue or your stomach. Or if you like to cook you must do it in the pan. I like to cook so I do it in the pan. If I like the food I do it on the tongue or in the stomach. You are doing it in the head – that’s not the place for food. Head and food don’t go together – you are creating karma.

Please look at every aspect like this in your life. You are creating fifty or hundred times more karma than you are working out on a daily basis. 

When you cook food, or when you joyfully eat, digest it and make it a part of yourself, you are working out karma. The simple process of life itself will work out karma.

A spiritual path means we want to set your karmic process on fast-forward. We want to take a bigger load of karma than the allotted load because we don’t want to come back and do the same thing again and again. 

We want to finish it off right now. This is a conscious choice one has to make – do you want to slowly work it out or do you want all the nonsense to be over as quick as possible.

If you enter an active spiritual process, suddenly you may find everything is moving at a bewildering pace. 

You will see, you are in more trouble than ever before. Earlier, troubles used to come to you once in six months. Now, every six hours you are in deep trouble because your karmic process is on fast-forward. 

Only fools who have sanitized themselves from life believe that spirituality means being peaceful. No. To be spiritual means to be on fire – inside, outside, everywhere. Peace will happen when you rest in peace. This is the time for exuberant life! 

If you were ecstatic or very blissful and joyful, would you even think of being peaceful? Such a thought wouldn’t even occur to you.

The Karmic Spring

Unfortunately, nowadays, humanity is not looking at how to intensify life, we are always looking to elongate life. Because of this, a number of people lose their memory and mental faculties beyond a certain point, and a karmic factor is very much there in these ailments.

Today, without taking care of the karmic fiber we are just trying to elongate the physical life of a human being because we have a certain amount of mastery over biochemistry.

Karma means a certain kind of software that you unconsciously created. 

Before you were born, somewhere between 40 to 48 days after conception, this karmic fiber was tightening itself like a spring coil. 

Depending upon past information, the strength of your body, the nature of your parent, the type of conception and various factors, it chooses a certain amount of information to be tightened into a spring. It is like a coiled spring. 

If you simply sit, it will slowly unwind itself. The more still you sit, the faster it will unwind itself but because you are in activity and you are also piling up new things, it unwinds itself at a certain pace. 

If I look at the tension in the karmic fiber when someone is born, I can easily tell you how many years approximately that child will live – if some drunken driver doesn’t smash the child down, or if he doesn’t come in touch with any spiritual master! 

If he just lives a standard life, we can say how long he will live. We know the coil will work itself out at a certain pace.

This was a common thing when a child was born in India: the first thing the family would do is invite a yogi or sage to the house, or they would take the child to him because they want him to feel the child. 

It is still there today but generally birthday parties have replaced these things. Otherwise, this was the most significant thing. You want to take your child to a certain person who can see if there is any over-tightening of the spring, and do something to fix that to ensure the child’s wellbeing. 

But still, a drunken driver can knock him down. Or some master can come and either unwind him fast or load up many lifetimes of karma onto his present load. 

So, karma works itself out in a certain way unless something happens and it gets all wound up once again or gets released too fast. These things may happen because of certain issues.

Today, without taking care of the karmic fiber we are just trying to elongate the physical life of a human being because we have a certain amount of mastery over biochemistry. We are trying to stretch life using medicine and surgery. This could be one of the major reasons for the number of people losing their memory and mental faculties beyond a certain point because it is a “dumb computer” – do what you want, it just stares at you because though the software is over, the hardware is still kept going with a replaced heart or kidney.

If they had also strived to enhance the other dimension of their life and done a little bit of spiritual work – something beyond the physicality – then even if you live for a thousand years you can generate the necessary software because there is a lot of stuff elsewhere. 

There is a warehouse of karma which has not been opened up right now which is called sanchita. 

Or, you could have programmed yourself such that when your software is going away you also have the freedom to shed your hardware.


Editor’s Note: Find more of Sadhguru’s insights in the book “Of Mystics and Mistakes.” Download the preview chapter or purchase the ebook atIsha Downloads.





In the second of two parts, Sadhguru looks at how karma is the maya of many, and how kriyas and pranayams are a process to strengthen the etheric body, and distance ourselves from karma.


Sadhguru: Karma is essentially the maya of many. “Maya” is usually translated as “illusion” though that word doesn’t convey everything. But let’s say maya means illusion. The illusion of the many is the foundation of karmic substance. As long as you are established in, “This is me, that is you,” karma is a well-established reality. It is like a solid, real, steel structure.

However, if you confuse yourself, “Which is me and which is not me?” suddenly karma loses its foundation. If you look around and you don’t know which is you and which is not you, in this mix up the karmic foundation cannot stand anymore and just crumbles. In one moment of confusion, suddenly, whole structures of karma just collapse. 

Have you noticed, if you ever fell in love with someone, your likes and dislikes, who you are, what you like, what you don’t like, everything got mixed up a little bit – at least for a few days, after which it might have come back to you again! 

You started doing what you thought you cannot do because who you are was a little confused. The maya of the many was confused because a little bit of oneness came between two people, and suddenly the karma lost its foundation and crumbled.

The Problem of Many

It happened like this – during 1944, eight Hitler doubles were kept in a safe house. Of all the people, these were the best fed, best kept people and they didn’t have to do anything except once in a while. 

They were trained to be like Hitler. They dressed like him, they ate like him – they had to do whatever he did because when they had to play the act, they had to do it in such a way that nobody would know. So, these guys were really having a good time.

Then Heinrich Himmler, one of Hitler’s trusted aides came. It was part of the routine that whenever anyone came, they had to salute the doubles just the way they would salute Hitler because they had to get used to it. So, Himmler came and said “Hail Hitler!” Then he said, “I have good news and bad news.”

All of them said together, “Good news first.”

“Our Fuhrer is alive and well.”

“Bad news…?”

“Unfortunately, he lost his left eye,” and he pulled out a cork screw.

Karma is like that. It is the problem of the many. So, the first thing is to stop creating – life works itself out. 

Or if you want to drop all your karma at once, that can also be done. But you need to understand, karma is not only a bondage, it is also a protection. It is a cement that binds you with the body. 

If all karma is dissolved, you will not be able to hold on to your body – you will drop it. If you are not aware of this, for most beings, the moment of enlightenment and the moment of leaving the body are the same. Only those who are on the path of kriya, who know the mechanics and the nuts and bolts of the body hold on to it.

Exercising the Etheric Body

In yoga, we look at a human being as five sheaths or layers of body. Three – the physical, the mental and the energy body – are physical realities; maybe subtle but still physical. 

The other two – the etheric body and the bliss body – are in a different realm. The etheric body is a transition from physical to non-physical. The bliss body is purely non-physical. The physical body, the mental body and the energy body carry karma. 

But the etheric body and the bliss body do not have any karmic substance because they are non-physical. 

The physical dimension of existence happens between cause and effect. But what is beyond the physical does not happen between cause and effect. 

So, the moment you begin to taste the divine, suddenly, it doesn’t matter how many heaps of karma you have, it has no impact on you because you are beginning to step into the realm of the non-physical where there is no karmic substance.

Karma is the problem of the many. So, the first thing is to stop creating – life works itself out.

When you do any kind of conscious breathing processes like kriyas and pranayams, you are trying to exercise the etheric body – that dimension of you which has a physical element in it but is not physical. 

You are trying to strengthen that because you want that to become a passage, not a barrier to the non-physical dimension of who you are. There are various other aspects to it in terms of physiological and psychological benefits, and the spiritual dimension, but one simple aspect is, if this dimension, which is the link between the physical body and the non-physical dimension that is the very source of creation, becomes a strong force by itself, then the physicality of who you are, the psychological structure that you call as “myself,” and that dimension which is the source of all this will naturally be connected all the time. 

The idea is that Divine is not an idea or belief in your life, Divine is a living presence in your life. 

That is the basis of sadhana, that these three are well integrated and connected on a moment-to-moment basis. 

We are not looking for highs or a once-in-a-way experience, we are looking for constant contact with that dimension. 

Only then it finds expression in the way you live, in the way you exist, in the way you can do things – in everything.

Dussehra or Vijayadashami Tamas Rajas Sattva

Vijayadashami Tamas Rajas Sattva
Dussehra or Vijayadashami, is the day that follows the nine days of Navaratri. Yogi and mystic, Sadhguru, looks at how this day can bring success and victory into our life.

Sadhguru: Navaratri, culminating with Dussehra, is a cultural festival of great importance and significance for all. It is a festival that is all about the goddess. In Karnataka, Dussehra is about Chamundi, in Bengal it is about Durga. Like this, it is about various goddesses in different places, but essentially it is about the feminine goddess or the feminine divinity.

Dussehra – The tenth day of celebration

Navaratri is replete with symbolism about vanquishing evil and wanton nature, and about having reverence for all aspects of life and even for the things and objects that contribute to our wellbeing. 

The nine days of Navaratri are classified as per the three basic qualities of tamas, rajas and sattva. The first three days are tamas, where the goddess is fierce, like Durga and Kali. The next three days are Lakshmi related – gentle but materially oriented goddesses. The last three days are dedicated to Saraswati, which is sattva. It is related to knowledge and enlightenment.

Vijayadashami – The Day of Victory

Investing in these three will make your life in a certain way. If you invest in tamas, you will be powerful in one way. If you invest in rajas, you will be powerful in a different way. If you invest in sattva, you will be powerful in a completely different way. But if you go beyond all this, it is no longer about power, it is about liberation. 

After Navaratri, the tenth and final day is Vijayadashami – that means you have conquered all these three qualities. You did not give into any of them, you saw through every one of them. You participated in every one of them, but you did not invest in any one of them. You won over them. That is Vijayadashami, the day of victory. This brings home the message of how being in reverence and gratitude towards everything that matters in our lives leads to success and victory.

Dussehra – Devotion and Reverence
It is my wish and my blessings that all of you should celebrate Dussehra with total involvement, joy and love.

Of the many things that we are in touch with, of the many things that contribute in making and creating our lives, the most important devices that we employ in making a success of our lives are our own body and mind. Being in reverence towards the very earth that you walk upon, towards the air that you breathe, the water that you drink, the food that you eat, the people that you come in touch with and everything else that you use, including your body and mind, will lead us to a different possibility as to how we can live. Being in a state of reverence and devotion towards all these aspects is a way of ensuring success in every endeavor that we partake in.

Celebrate Dussehra With Joy & Love

Traditionally, in Indian culture, Dussehra was always full of dances, where the whole community mixed, met and mingled. But because of external influences and invasions over the past two hundred years, we have lost that today. Otherwise Dussehra was always very vibrant. Even now it is still so in many places, but it is being lost in the rest of the country. We have to bring it back. The Vijayadashami or Dussehra festival is of a tremendous cultural significance for all who live in this land – irrespective of their caste, creed or religion – and should be celebrated with gaiety and love. It is my wish and my blessings that all of you should celebrate Dussehra with total involvement, joy and love.

Sadhguru explains about tamas – the nature of the first three days of Navaratri. Accompanying the text is Sounds of Isha’s rendition of Adi Shankaracharya’s Soundarya Lahari, written in praise of Devi.

Sadhguru: In yoga, all the qualities of the world have been identified as three basic gunas: tamas, rajas, and sattva. Tamas literally means inertia. Rajas means activity. Sattva is the breaking of boundaries. 

The first three days of Navaratri are tamas, where the goddess is fierce, like Durga and Kali. 

Tamas is the nature of the Earth, and she is the one who gives birth. The gestation period that we spend in the womb is tamas. 

It is a state which is almost like hibernation, but we are growing. So tamas is the nature of the Earth and of your birth. 

You are sitting on the earth. You must just learn to simply be one with her. You are anyway a part of her. When she wishes she throws you out, when she wishes she sucks you back.

Do something with the garden. This will build a natural bodily memory in you that you are mortal.

It is very important that you are constantly reminded of the nature of your body. Right now, you are a mound of earth prancing around. When the earth decides to suck you in, you just become a small mound.

In the ashram I always tell people, no matter what work you are doing, every day you must stick your fingers into the earth at least for an hour. Do something with the garden. This will build a natural bodily memory in you that you are mortal. 

Your body will know that it is not permanent. That realization in the body is extremely important for one to keep his focus on his spiritual pursuit. The more urgent the realization becomes, the stronger the spiritual sense becomes.
Sadhguru looks at the quality of Rajas

The second set of three days of Navaratri are Lakshmi related – gentle but materially-oriented goddesses. Sadhguru looks at the quality of Rajas, the quality of days four to six of Navaratri, and how it can be a process of liberation.

Sounds of Isha also releases the second of three songs for Navaratri, “Thunbam illadha nilaye Shakti”, based on a poem by Mahakavi Subramanya Bharatiyar.

Sadhguru: Among the three celestial objects with which the very making of our bodies is very deeply connected – the Earth, the Sun, and the Moon– Mother Earth is considered tamas. 

The Sun is rajas. The Moon is sattva. Tamas is the nature of the Earth and of your birth. The moment you come out, you start activity – rajas begins. 

Once rajas comes, you want to do something. Once you start doing something, if there is no awareness and consciousness, the nature of rajas is such, it’s good as long as the going is good. When the going gets bad, rajas is going to be super-bad.

A rajasic person has a tremendous amount of energy. It is just that it has to be channelised properly. Every action that you perform can be either a process of liberation or entanglement. 

If you perform any activity with absolute willingness, that activity is beautiful and creates joy for you. 

If you perform any activity unwillingly for whatever reason, that activity creates suffering for you. 

Whatever you are doing, even if you just sweep the floor, give yourself to it and do it with total involvement. That’s all it takes.

When you are passionately involved with something, nothing else exists for you. 

Passion does not mean “man-woman” passion. Passion means unbridled involvement with something. 

It could be anything – you can sing passionately, you can dance passionately, or you can just walk passionately. 

Whatever is in touch with you right now, you are deeply passionate with that. You breathe with passion, you walk with passion, you live with passion. Your very existence is with absolute involvement with everything.

[/SadhguruImage]
Thunbam illadha nilaye Shakti

“Thunbam illaadha nilaye Shakti” is a song by Mahakavi Subramanya Bharathiyar which has been adapted here by Sounds of Isha. 

The song is about the energy that makes every aspect of life happen. It summarizes the whole activity that is life as the play of Shakti. The great poet says, “The lap where life flourishes is Shakti.” Shakti also enables us to break the bondages of karma and liberate ourselves.


Thuṉbam illādha nilayē shakti
thookkam illā kaṇ vizhipē shakti
aṉbu kaṉindha kaṉivē shakti
āaṇmai niṟaindha niṟaivē shakti

The state of being with no suffering is Shakti
The state of awakening beyond sleep is Shakti
When love matures and sweetens that is Shakti
The fullness and fulfillment of masculine is Shakti

Iṉbam mudhirndha mudhirvē shakti
eṇṇathil niṟkum neṟiyē shakti
muṉbu niṟkiṉdṟa thozhilē shakti
mukthi nilaiyiṉ mudivē shakti

When the sweetness matures that is Shakti
The divine which resides in the thoughts is Shakti
Whatever work comes before us is Shakti
The state of mukti, the end, is Shakti

Sōmbar kedukkum thuṇivē shakti
sollil viḷaṅgum chudarē shakti
thīmpazham thaṉṉil suvaiyē shakti
dheivathai eṉṉum niṉaivē shakti
sāmbalai poosi malaimisai vāzhum
shaṅkaraṉ aṉbu thazhalē shakti

The braveness which destroys laziness is Shakti
The flame which is instilled in these words is Shakti
When the best of fruits are eaten that taste is Shakti
When thoughts of divine arise that is Shakti
Shankara who lives on top of the huge mountains, his lovely flame is Shakti

Vāazhvu peṟukkum madhiyē shakti
mānilam kākkum valiyē shakti
thāzhvu thadukkum sathirē shakti
sañchalam neekkum thavamē shakti

The lap where life flourishes is Shakti
The strength which guards the earth is Shakti
The flame which stops one from falling is Shakti (denotes inner strength that averts fall/defeat)
The tapas that eliminates confusion is Shakti

Veezhvu thadukkum viralē shakti
viṇṇai aḷakkum virivē shakti
ūzhviṉai neekkum uyarvē shakti
uḷḷathoḷirum viḷakkē shakti

The finger which stops downfall is Shakti
The one who spans the whole expanse of sky is Shakti
Her highness who eliminates karma is Shakti
The inner flame which shines from within the heart is Shakti

Sattva – Refining the Body

The seventh, eight and ninth days of Navaratri are the time of Sarasvati and the quality of sattva. Today, Sadhguru speaks about this quality.

Sadhguru: There is no physical entity without all these three dimensions – sattva, rajas and tamas. 

Every atom has these three dimensions of vibrance, of energy, of a certain static nature. If these three elements are not there, you cannot hold anything together. It will break up. 

If it is just sattva, you won’t remain here for a moment – you will be gone. If it is just rajas, it’s not going to work. If it’s just tamas, you will be asleep all the time. So, these three qualities are present in everything. It is just a question of to what extent you mix these things.

Moving from tamasic nature to sattva means you are refining the physical body, the mental body, the emotional body and the energy body. 

If you refine this so much that it became very transparent, you cannot miss the source of creation which is within you. Right now, it is so opaque that you cannot see. 

The body has become like a wall blocking everything. Something so phenomenal – the source of creation – is sitting here but this damn wall can block it because it’s so opaque. It’s time to refine it. Otherwise you will only know the wall, you will not know who lives inside.

30 Minutes That Changed My Perspective Forever

30 Minutes That Changed My Perspective Forever






Simon Kemp

@eskimon • Founder, Kepios • Regional Managing Partner, We Are Social • Author, "Social Brands"
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30 Minutes That Changed My Perspective Forever
Sep 30, 2015
23,859


I recently had the immense privilege of interviewing globally renowned yogi, Jaggi Vasudev, also known as Sadhguru.

Going in to the conversation, I wasn’t sure what to expect; our host, Prasad Sangameshwaran of The Hindu Business Line newspaper, had suggested that Sadhguru might inspire me to ‘rethink a few things’, but I couldn’t see any immediate link between our respective areas of interest and experience.

However, as you will read in a transcript of our interview below, I was in for one of the most inspiring conversations of my life. Sadhguru highlights all the reasons why marketing – and marketers – have lost their way, and offers some powerful insights to help us overcome our challenges.

Simon Kemp: One of the challenges we face as marketers and brands is that we spend a lot of time thinking about the way people perceive us from the outside world without looking inside. How can businesses look at their inward transformation?

Sadhguru: There is a fundamental flaw in this process. Without enhancing yourself, you are trying to enhance your activity. It’s like taking a Vauxhall and trying to drive it on an F1 track. It’s bound to fall apart. Instead of dreaming of winning an F1 race if you build a machine which is capable of doing whatever it’s supposed to do, then whether it wins or not is subject to what others have done. Whether you win a race or not simply depends on how good or bad other people are. But when we do something are we functioning from the highest possibility within us, or from the lowest possibility, or somewhere in between, is a big question. And you do not know what your highest possibility is. For every other creature in this planet nature has drawn two lines. But for human beings there is only the bottom line, and no top line. So it does not matter what you become, you still do not know whether you hit the peak or not. Only those people interested in winning races with crippled people have hit the peak.

No matter what you have done there is always a chance that you can do more. Enhancing the machine and human mechanism is most important. Whether you win the race or not is not important. Then everything will be enhanced. The greatest disaster in the planet is that people who have no clarity, have confidence.

Kemp: Many of the brands in the world do not have clarity, but represent confidence …

That’s why you see a lot of loud advertising because they have no clarity but a lot of confidence.

How do we help people gain clarity without focusing too much on the confidence? Even if we speak from your experience, where did you find that clarity yourself?

You are who you are only on the matter of what you perceived. What you have not perceived is not you, isn’t it? Whether you are consciously aware of this or not, how people experience you is based on whatever we have perceived. Instead of enhancing perception, we are again trying to enhance expression. You are in the space of social media. People are forever expressing on every topic no matter whether they know something or not. This is the age of expression without perception. It’s a disaster.

People are becoming who they are because of what they express and not because of what they have perceived. The nature of life is such that only what you have perceived is you. Right now, because you picked bits and pieces from around the world, you can express all kinds of things you don’t know enough about.

The big problem with our industry is that we are collecting lots of information and accumulating lots of gadgets without experiencing it. We have gigabytes of data that are probably not being put to good use …

When you byte (bite) so much, you will bloat (laughs). And it’s not healthy.

How do translate the desire to learn from data to make the action of learning valuable? How do we move along that journey?

There is a fundamental flaw in that question. You belong to a generation that is goal-oriented. That means you are interested in the sweetness of the mango, but not interested in the tree. You live in a generation where mangoes come from the supermarket and not from a tree. But if you have a mango tree in your garden you have to think soil, manure, water, sunlight. There are no mangoes in your mind. Mangoes will happen. In other words, you are too interested in the consequence but not in the process that causes the consequence. This is goal-orientedness.

In Yoga we say, if you have one eye on the goal, you have only one eye to find your way. Hence it’s inefficient. If you used both your eyes to find your way, according to your capability, you will go as far as you can go. That means you are not concerned how far somebody is going. You want to go as far as you can go. That’s what you are interested in. But right now the goal-orientedness means that you are only interested in going one step further than your neighbour. The only joy that you have in your life is somebody is doing worse than you. I think that’s a sick mind.

How can we get our peers from marketing to move away from goal-orientedness?

From digital to divine (laughs).

Where do we find the divine? We need to let people find the alternative to what is flawed …

Tell me one thing. You can look at Mr Usain Bolt for the inspiration. That’s alright. But if you try to run like him, you will break your legs. That’s all that will happen.

Because somebody mastered that you can use him as inspiration but don’t try to do it. It’s like a Vauxhall trying to behave like a Ferrari.

Often marketers look at the competitive landscape …

That’s the biggest mistake. Maybe you can hit the ball better than Sachin Tendulkar. The possibility is there. So why do you want to limit yourself to Tendulkar’s standards? There was a time when nobody believed that an individual would reach 100 runs in a cricket match only within 30-40 overs. Then Sanath Jayasuriya hit a century within 20 overs. Now people are hitting within 10 overs. In this case, they are not thinking about what somebody did.

So if you become goal-oriented, your goals are often determined by other’s capabilities. You will never do what you could have done. Maybe you could never hit a ball. But you could do something else way better than anybody else. But you would never do that because you go on trying to hit the ball that you cannot hit.

You spoke about the concept of memory-less intelligence. How can a marketer access his ‘chittha’?

Marketers cannot access that. Human beings can. When I was at the World Economic Forum people kept referring to India as an emerging market. I say we are not a marketplace. Once you look at a country as a marketplace, you are going to put some nonsense that you have created and then try to convince them that they must drink this, eat this, or use this. If I saw you as a human being and I am concerned about you and your well-being I would see what you need. If I made what you need, I need not market it. Manufacturing is all that would be needed.

Right now you are doing things that people do not need and you have to convince them that they need it. You may end up convincing a generation. Older generations were convinced that smoking tobacco was a must – otherwise you are not man enough. But now suddenly it is not so good. This is what a marketing man will do.

In that world, what does marketing become?

Both you and I are manufacturing something that consumers want. But now I am trying to tell consumers that what I am manufacturing is what he really wants. Not what you are doing. Actually, that’s the truth (laughs).

This transcript of our conversation was edited by the wonderful Prasad Sangaweshmaran of The Hindu Business Line, who has been kind enough to let me re-share it with you here.

Recognizing the Adiyogi

Recognizing the Adiyogi

The Adiyogi brought the possibility that a human being need not be contained in the defined limitations of our species. 

There is a way to be contained in physicality but not to belong to it. There is a way to inhabit the body but never become the body. There is a way to use your mind in the highest possible way but still never know the miseries of the mind. 

Whatever dimension of existence you are in right now, you can go beyond that – there is another way to live. He said, “You can evolve beyond your present limitations if you do the necessary work upon yourself.” And he gave methods as to how to evolve. That is the significance of the Adiyogi.

Before I fall dead, I want to make sure that His contribution to humanity is recognized across the world. We are in various stages of doing this. One thing is we are building Adiyogi shrines. It is a twenty-one foot tall bronze Adiyogi with a consecrated linga in front of Him. It is a powerful space. The first one is coming up in our ashram in the United States, in Tennessee.

Everybody on the planet should know that He is the one who offered this science to the world. In the last five to six years, four major books were published in Europe contesting that yoga did not come from India, but is the evolution of European exercise systems. 

If they write another ten to fifteen books like this, that will become the truth. Whatever you read in your textbook as history, you believe is the truth. It is not, I am telling you, it is just written by some vested interest largely. 

So if they write twenty-five to fifty books like this in the next ten to fifteen years, after some time everyone will say yoga came from United States or from California, or that Madonna invented yoga. 

It is not a laughing matter, it can easily be done. There are people who are willing to write anything. Some very famous books are saying this. 

Dan Brown, in his book Angels and Demons, says yoga is an ancient Buddhist art. Gautama is only twenty-five hundred years, Adiyogi is fifteen thousand years. Now you say Gautama, tomorrow you will say Madonna. If you write a few books that will become the truth. So I want to make sure, before I am dead, that everybody should know yoga came from Him, nobody else but Him.

Everybody on the planet should know that He is the one who offered this science to the world.

We need to do this because the ethos of India is that of seekers. We are not believers, we are seekers of liberation. That is all that is holding us together. 

If you travel one hundred kilometers, people look different, speak different, eat different, dress different, everything about them is different. Though politically we were over two hundred pieces at one time, outside people say this is “Hindustan” or this is “Bharath” because the strangeness of this existence was that they were a land of seekers, not believers.

It does not matter what Rama said, what Krishna said, what the Vedas say, what the Upanishads say, it does not matter who says what – still, every person born in this land is supposed to seek his own truth. 

You are supposed to seek your own liberation. Because they were a land of seekers, they were never conquerors. If you make the whole humanity on this planet seekers, not believers, there will be no conquest. The basic incentive for violence is gone. People may fight for small things, but the big fight is over. Because I believe one thing, you believe another thing – there is endless fight.

If you see you do not know the nature of the universe – as scientists are admitting today – who are you going to fight with? “No, my God created the universe, not yours.” That is the problem. A seeker means one who has realized that he does not know. If this one thing happens to humanity, ninety percent of the incentive for violence will be gone.

So to bring this back, there is no better inspiration than Adiyogi. And we want to manifest Him in many ways.

Love & Grace,

Asleep but Aware – Is It Possible?

Asleep but Aware – Is It Possible?

Is it possible to be asleep and remain aware and conscious? Sadhguru speaks of Shoonya, sushupti, and what it takes to experience this state.

Questioner: Namaskaram, Sadhguru. During sleep, we are usually unconscious. Is there a way we can stay aware during sleep?

Sadhguru: When you sleep, just sleep. Don’t try to do something else. There is a beautiful story. For many, many years, the Saptarishis, the seven sages, lived with the Adiyogi, doing sadhana, learning, and absolutely bonding with him. The sharing was so profound that they did not know any other life but him. 

But one day, he said, “It’s time to go. You have to take this to the world.” He told them to go to faraway places. One to Central Asia, one to North Africa, one to South America, one to Southeast Asia, one to South India, and one to what is today the Indian part of the Himalayas. Only one stayed back with him.

Only if you are not identified with the body, will sleeping consciously become a possibility.

If 15,000 years ago, you asked a man to go to South America, it was as good as asking him to go to another galaxy. 

The Saptarishis said, “We don’t know where we are going, what kind of people exist there, how they will receive us, and whether they are ready for this or not. If we are in danger, or if we cannot transmit this as you wish, will you be there for us?” 

The Adiyogi looked at them incredulously and said, “If you are in trouble, if your life is in danger or your work is in danger, I will sleep.” They got the point. But if I say this to you, you will feel terribly insecure and insulted. “I tell him my difficulties, and he says he sleeps on it!”

To sleep consciously, you should have no sense of body. Only if your identification with the body is completely broken, will you sleep consciously. 

When we are awake, we are conscious, but our energies are involved and engaged in many things. We have to sit up, we have to speak, we have to do some work, we have to do something else. 

But if I sleep consciously, my energies are completely consolidated, and I am still conscious – that means I am at my peak performance level. 

So when Shiva says, “If you are in trouble, I will sleep,” it means, “I will do the best possible thing for you,” because then he is at his best.

Those of you who have been initiated into shoonya meditation may have experienced a few moments here and there of what in yoga is calledsushupti – that means being fast asleep but wide awake. The day this state of sushupti lasts for even just two to three seconds, you will not be able to sleep at night. You will be bright and alert.

Only if you are not identified with the body, will sleeping consciously become a possibility. On a certain day, a baby turtle, with great effort, meticulously, slowly, taking 24 hours, climbed up a tree, leapt off the branch, and fell flat. Again, slowly, taking another 24 hours, it crawled up, leapt, fell flat – again and again. After four days, one of the two birds who were sitting in the opposite tree said, “I think it’s time we tell him he is adopted.” 

So I thought it’s time to tell you, to sleep consciously, striving is needed, but it is not enough. The most important thing is that you distance yourself from your physical nature.


Editor’s Note: Find more of Sadhguru’s insights in the ebook “Of Mystics and Mistakes”, available on Isha Downloads.

A version of this article was originally published in Isha Forest Flower.

http://www.ishafoundation.org/blog/yoga-meditation/demystifying-yoga/asleep-but-aware-possible/