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SADHGURU
Saving the world
The remarkable achieve-ments of a remarkableman: Sadhguru
JaggiVasudevWords: Martin Gill
India is a great nation, steeped in a rich cultural heritage
that has providedfour of the world's major religions (Hinduism,
Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism),17 major languages, and ancient
spiritual practices including yoga and medita-tion. After China, it
is the most populated country in the world, with thefourth-largest
economy in purchasing power and the second-fastest growingeconomy,
which is expected to continue through the rapid growth of
informa-tion technologies. Despite this economic stability the
country is facing a severecrisis. Statistics report that that
almost 400 million of its 1 billion populationlive in poverty, 75%
of which occupy the rural areas, and at least 40% of Indianpeople
are illiterate*.
However, there is one man who is at the forefront in the efforts
to changethis. He is a modern-day guru who dresses in jeans and
rides motorbikes, andattracts crowds in excess of 100,000 people
who flock from across the globe tohear his lectures on Inner
Engineering or attend his Isha Yoga programmes.Sadhguru Jaggi
Vasudev effortlessly touches the lives of the people he
meets;whether addressing the United Nations Millennium Peace
Summit, charringbusiness events such as the World Economic Forum
and the Indian EconomicSummit, working with the business community
for which he delivers InnerWellbeing programmes to powerful
organisations such as Time-Warner andMicrosoft, or working with
society's most hardened criminals as part of hisPrison Outreach
programme that runs in America and India.
* www.indiaonestop.com/povertyindia
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Sadhguru grew up as an intelligent child whoexperienced
meditative states at a young age. Hebecame utterly disinterested
with school life andclassed teachers as "talking about something
thatdidn't mean anything in their life. It was just a jobthey were
doing," Refusing to enroll in Universityand follow in his father's
footsteps of becoming adoctor, Sadhguru decided to educate himself
andspent a whole year in the library of the local univer-sity for
this purpose.
Eventually, when he did decide to enroll in col-lege and obtain
a degree, he chose English litera-ture. Whilst he missed most of
the lectures andspent times in the college gardens, he formed
theBanyan Tree Club with his friends, where theywould share their
passion for motorcycles and planhow to make the world a better
place. He thenspent time travelling India on his motorbike
andexploring nature, before passing his final collegeyear exams
without attending any of the classes.Instead of furthering his
studies, Sadhguru thoughtabout making some money which would
enablehim to travel, and so set up a successful poultryfarm, much
to the dismay of his family and friends.
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He is a modern-day guru who dresses in jeansand rides
motorbikes, and attracts crowdsin excess of 1 00,000 people who
flock fromacross the globe to hear his lectures
This lifestyle enabled him to spend time reading and writing
poetry,meditating and being by himself which gave him time to
explore whathad begun happening to him a few years later. It was
not long after thisthat his spiritual transformation began, which
occurred on the 23rd ofSeptember 1981.
According to his book, Mystic Musings, Sadhguru entered a
medita-tive state and felt himself become part of the environment
and the envi-ronment become part of him. This experience was
attributed as beingthat of samadhi, which literally means the
"merging of the subject andthe object." These "states" became more
frequent and lasted as long as13 days. People who witnessed
Sadhguru in these "states" held him inreverence, trying to touch
his feet and adorn him with garlands. During
this period, Sadhguru's body began to physically alter, and
"changed sodrastically that people around me could clearly see that
something washappening to me." Sadhguru was overwhelmed with
"lifetimes of mem-
ory" and the sceptic within him led him to meet the people and
explorethe places that he had previously lived. The experiences
began to recurmore frequently and became a permanent reality. He
clearly saw that itwas possible for every other human being to also
experience these states,and began searching for methods to make
this happen. This led to theformulation of the Isha Yoga and Inner
Engineering programmes. For awhile, he spent half his time divided
between farming and travelling tovarious cities and towns offering
these programmes to people. Oncethere was a sufficient number of
people who wanted to experience yogafull-time, and plunge deeper
and deeper in search of the ultimate, hecreated Isha Foundation as
an appropriate social mechanism to fulfillthe needs and aspirations
of the people.
From this point, Sadhguru's mission was to develop Dhyanalinga.
InSanskrit, Dhyana means meditation and Linga the form. When a
per-son enters a deep state of meditativeness within, the spiritual
energy
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SADHGURU
Participants from all over the worldgather at Isha Yoga Centre
to attend theWholeness Programme with Sadhguru
takes the shape of a Linga. Linga means perfect ellipsoid which
is scien-tifically the only shape that can serve as a perennial
storehouse of ener-gy. The construction of the Dhyanalinga
Multi-Religious shrine wascompleted in 1999, the first of its kind
in over 2000 years. It was conse-crated by Sadhguru through a 3
year intense period of prana prathista,where the energies of all
the 7 chakras were raised to the peak andlocked to prevent
dissipation over time. It is expected that the energiesof the
Dhyanalinga will last for at least 5,000 years. In the tradition it
isalways said that for one to experience meditation or dhyana, one
has tobe initiated by a Guru. Seekers do much penance or sadhana
just toreceive this grace. But, the uniqueness of the Dhyanalinga
is that eventhose who are unaware of meditation can experience deep
states ofmeditativeness and feel the divine energy that radiates
from the shrine.
The basic thrust of the Dhyanalinga is to foster spiritual
growth andevolution of a person. However, the shrine emanates 7
different: quali-ties of life on the 7 days of the week, by which
one may derive variousbenefits including synchronicity with nature,
concentration, and thequickening in the dissolution of karmic
bondage.
Sadhguru formed a yoga programme called Isha Yoga which
gavebirth to the Isha Yoga Centre and Ashram near Coimbatore,
TamilNadu, in South India in 1992. From this base, he further
establishedthe Isha Foundation, a non-religious, non-political,
non-profit makingorganisation that set up a number of social and
environmental projectsplanned to address India's problems. Its aim
was to help the mostunderprivileged people in the rural communities
with the basic humanrequirements of food, shelter and medical help
and education. Besides
Even those who are unaware of meditation canexperience deep
states of meditativeness and feelthe divine energy that radiates
from the shrine.As Sadhguru states, "Anyone who comes within the
sphere ofDhyanalinga cannot escape the sowing of the spiritual seed
of libera-tion." According to Sadhguru the Dhyanalinga sows the
spiritual seedinto the individual's etheric body which lasts
forever, compared to otherpractices which work on the physical,
mental or energy bodies that onlyproduce a Temporary transformation
that can be lost anytime in life.
Isha Foundation's Project GreenHands is a grassroots
environmental initiative that aims at restoring lostecological
resources through large-scale tree planting and nature awareness
campaigns
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providing these necessities, the core of each project was based
onSadhguru's notion of Inner Wellbeing as a holistic approach of
unitingthe mind, body, spirit and emotion to create inner harmony
amongstindividuals and communities as the key to coping with
difficult situa-tions they will inevitably face in life. One such
project is the Action forRural Rejuvenation (ARR) which was set up
in 2003 to provide imme-
diate medical care and support for rural com-munities. The
methods of Inner Wellbeingfocused on reinstating herb gardens for
homeremedies which will eventually reduce ruraldependence on
allopathic medicines, yoga pro-grammes to improve inner wellbeing,
and theintroduction of games and tournaments todevelop a sense of
community. The ARR hasalso been specifically designed to educate
thevillagers to become more self-sufficient and totake
responsibility for their own lives and thatof the community, which
serves as a model ofempowerment through participation.
Another noble crusade, The Isha Vidhyaproject, focused on
combating India's bleakeducational future. At present, there is a
short-age of skilled men between the ages of 18 and50, and this
alarming "trend" shows no hopeof change, as backed up by the
damning ASERreport in 2005, which concluded, amongstother findings
that 40% of children agedbetween 6 and 11 are deprived of
primary
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One of the boats made by the In-Home BoatManufacturing Unit to
help tsunami
survivors to restore their livelihood
education. The first Isha Vidhya School was set up in June 2006,
inSandegounden Palayam, Coimbatore. This groundbreaking
institutioncaters for over 260 children, all of whose scholarships
are paid for bythe Isha Foundation. The school intends to empower
the next genera-tion of rural Indian children through education,
preparing them to beable to compete on a global platform by
producing English speaking,computer literate students. Although
Sadhguru understands the impor-tance of westernised learning, the
schools will maintain its Indian her-itage through traditional
dress and having the students sitting on matswhilst in class. This
model of "educational empowerment" serves as ablueprint for many
more schools that will surely follow: in fact the IshaVidhya have
confidently set a target of opening 206 schools (one foreach of the
talks Tamil Nadu) within 5 years. Once running theseschools will be
offering much needed education and hope for over
Pupils with oneof the many tools
used in IshaVidhya, a proj-ect to empower
underprivilegedrural children
with world-classeducation
250,000 Indian children at once. It also aims to eventually
provide onecomputer between every 5 students, and to build up a
library of learn-ing materials of print, audio and visual content,
as well as eventuallydeveloping their own teacher training centre
and learning materials.
Besides these and countless other social projects, the Isha
Foundationis also committed to tackling environmental concerns, the
most auda-cious being Project Green Hands. Project Green Hands
began in 2005 asa costal protection project to ensure in the future
that rural villageswould have the same protection as that afforded
to villages saved fromthe tsunami devastation because of their
green-belt cover. The projectalerted the Isha Foundation to the
desertification across Tamil Nadu, andin October 2006 the project
was launched to reinstate 10% of greencover. The project aims to
plant over 114 million trees over the next 10years, and if planting
this number of trees sounds like a tall order, it isworth
mentioning that 852,587 trees were planted in one day; a feat
thatis expected to enter the Guinness Book Of World Records. Such
is theinspiration of Sadhguru, that through the Isha Foundation
over 200thousand volunteers helped with the planting of the trees
which werecarefully selected to provide timber, shade, fruit and
medicines for thecommunities. With such a massive operation, the
Isha Foundationrecognised the importance of involving the
volunteers on all levels,including setting up children's eco-clubs
and encouraging those whoplanted the saplings to care for them for
the next few years, reinforcingan attitude of "caring
participation" in their own environment and thewider world. If this
project becomes a success there are plans to intro-duce the scheme
in other under-developed parts of the world.
It is clear to see that the Isha Foundation is addressing the
most fun-damentally long-term problems that India faces. But
despite this com-mitted effort the Isha Foundation is ready to help
with more immediateemergencies, as demonstrated with their heavy
involvement with thetsunami relief work, where its volunteers
provided food, shelter and
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SADHGURU
medical assistance on the very first day of the tragedy. Not
only wasSadhguru responsible for leading the teams of volunteers
and coordinat-ing the relief work, he took a hands-on approach and
designed newhousing for the survivors which were specifically
created to withstandthe threat of any potentially destructive
waves. Sadhguru also intro-duced strategies of organising village
volleyball tournaments and yogaprogrammes to balance the "inside"
and to combat the mental traumasthat the survivors faced.
As with all of the Isha Foundation's projects, money is raised
throughIsha fundraising events, corporate sponsors and individual
donationsand therefore places no financial burdens on the Indian
government.The Isha Foundation has forged strong links with
national and interna-tional organisations such as the Times
Foundation of New Delhi andthe Covantas Energy Corporation of
America, enabling projects such asthe ARR to secure subsidised
health care, and provide mobile healthclinics and teams of medical
staff. Through these business links theARR plans to implement a
second phase of building "rural developmentcentres" of libraries,
pharmacists, gymnasiums and health clinics. It isamazing to
recognise that one man is responsible for organising numer-ous
social projects with such vision and commitment. Sadhguru is trulya
great humanitarian, a modern-day saint.
As well as helping large communities at once, Sadhguru has
developedseveral Isha Yoga programmes that are designed to empower
individuals.The programmes are based on the ancient discipline of
Shakti ChalanaKriya yoga which are "powerful and purifying
breathing techniquesutilised to encourage the flow of vital energy
into the central channel, orsushumna." They implement deeply
self-transformative kriyas like theShambhavi Maha Mudra and Shoonya
Meditation "an effortless process ofconscious non-doing" which
releases the "physical, mental and emotionalblocks' which
"activates spontaneous expression of one's vital energy".Carried
out over a 13 day programme, Isha Yoga for adults "allows truth
tobe experienced, not just learned' and serves as "the corner stone
for IshaFoundation's Silent Revolution of Self-Realisation." Isha
Yoga forms the
core of the two other programmes; the Inner Engineering
programme andthe Wholeness programme. Inner Engineering is an
Intensive 3-day pro-gramme offered by Isha Centres around the
world. By contrast, theWholeness programme is an 8-day residential
programme led by Sadhguruat the Isha Yoga Centre, which
incorporates some simple preparatoryHathi yoga practices and offers
participants a deeper exploration, wherethe Kriyas can be described
as more foundational. Both programmes offersimple practices that
individuals can easily fit into their day, and aredesigned to
improve health, increase energy and promote clarity of mind.These
benefits are also provided by the Isha Yoga programme for
Childrenthat are run as an "exploration of fun, love and joy".
Several months after discovering the work of the Isha
Foundation, I
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received an invitation to attend one of his Inner Engineering -
Peak of
Wellbeing lectures and I naturally jumped at the chance to find
out
more about Sadhguru and the ethos behind the programmes. The
lecture
took place in Euston in London, and the smart-looking hall was
quickly
filled with hundreds of people of all ages, races and religions.
As 1 sat
there waiting for Sadhguru to enter, I must admit that on such a
beauti-
ful, sunny day, the thought of sitting inside for 2 hours filled
me with
dread, and I thought back to the times of many boring university
lec-
tures where 1 had to constantly battle to keep my attention
focused for
to be joyful, and he reinforced
the notion that being happy
and joyful is not the highest
goal in life, it is the "most fun-
damental goal." Sadhguru
serves as guide to encourage us
to use the natural tools that we
all possess to restore a sense of
joy in each of us, a joy that we
all naturally had as young chil-
dren, yet has diminished in the
majority of us as we grew older.
The ability to experience and
maintain a joyful state rests in
our own hands. Happiness is
just the ability to create our
own "inner situations the way we want it." Yet the majority of
us allow our
happiness to be controlled by other people, and external
situations and fac-
tors that are out of our hands. As Sadhguru stared, "We can
never control
these outside forces, but we can control the inner force of our
own mind,
body, spirit and emotions. When the outside is not going the way
that we
want it, is not important to make the inside go the way we want
it?" What
Sadhguru eloquently referred to as "controlling the interiority"
or "inner sci-
ence", and only when we have mastered this inner science to
maintain a
Only when we have mastered this inner scienceto maintain a
joyful state, can we truly be of anygood to other people and the
planet.longer than 10 minutes. How wrong I was. As soon as this
larger-than-
life, yet unimposing, man appeared, my concentration was fixed,
and
even though I was sitting about 30 feet away from the stage, I
could feel
a strong energy about him. The lecture flew by as I absorbed
every can-
did word, and at the end I wanted to immediately sit through it
again.
Sadhguru is a remarkable speaker, who illuminated his
philosophies with
moral fables, jokes and hilarious tales that would make the most
sea-
soned comedian go green with envy. He covered subjects ranging
from
religion to snakes, and everything in-between, and fielded
questions
from the audience with ease on subjects including meditation,
duality
and cults, offering guiding answers but at the same time
encouraging the
search for their own truths. His visionary approach of changing
the lives
of individuals and the world for the good of mankind was
narrated with
a mystical wisdom that was accessible and easy to
comprehend.
He talked of a "natural human longing for expansion, not wanting
to set-
tle for what we've got." This longing, is the life that is
within us that desires
"Now I don't experience this place as a prison, but as a place
for
reflecting on my life. " Coimbatore - Central Inmate who
wasenrolled on the 'Inner Freedom for the Imprisoned' Programme
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SADHGURU
Isha holds the 'Rural Olympics' which brings together peoplefrom
all caste, creed, religion or economic status to promotesocial
bonding and reduce addictions
\Wk
joyful state, can we truly be of any good to other people and
the planet.The lecture was one of the most thought-provoking
experiences I'veever had, every word filled with great resonance
that will stay with meforever.
Afterwards, I chatted to numerous individuals who'd taken the
nextstep and enrolled on the Isha Foundation's programmes, and the
pro-found effects it had on their lives. Laurence Bloom talked
about theknowledge he'd received over the last 35 years from "many
spiritualteachers" but nothing compared to the lessons received
under his guid-ance. "Sadhguru is in another league in his ability
to transmit the expe-rience of oneness that is usually so elusive.
Having waited for such ateacher for a very long time, I can only
say that attending the three-dayprogramme was one of the best
decisions of my life."
Arun Patel talked about the transformations he'd experienced.
"TheInner Engineering programme opened up channels of energy that I
did-n't think I had in me. I found it easier to respond calmly to
situationsthat would have normally challenged me in a significant
way." I alsospoke with Roma Iskander, who enrolled on the Inner
Engineeringcourse after attending a lecture where she "heard and
felt Sadhguru". "Itwas more than I could ever have anticipated,"
she said. "It's had a hugeimpact on my life. I do feel more alive,
have more energy, and a senseof freedom. I've become more
passionate about climate change." Shethen referred to her quest to
acquire more knowledge about the envi-ronment, and how she has now
become "uninterested in makingmoney". Since then, Roma has now
become an Isha Foundation volun-teer and is currently involved with
looking at alternative therapies with-in the NHS and is hopeful of
developing an Isha Yoga programme for aLondon borough. The Isha
Foundation website is littered with count-less other statements
like these, bearing testament to the power of theirprogrammes and
the experience of meeting Sadhguru, as illustrated bythe Chairman
of Microsoft India, Ravi Venkatesan who described it as"the
defining moment in my life".
I was also fortunate enough to be granted a short, private
audiencewith Sadhguru, and I could sense an intoxicating and
captivating auraabout him. Within ten minutes of being in his
company I now under-stood why the Isha Foundation has over a
quarter of a million volun-teers across the world. There was a
great wisdom, compassion and joythat emanated from his eyes, and
the experience left me truly humbledwith the acknowledgment of
being in the presence of a truly great man;one who possesses an
unselfish dedication to not only tackling some ofIndia's most
challenging social, economic and environmental problems,but also
aiming to help us all achieve inner peace and prosperity. It
isevident in whatever Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is doing; he is doing
out oflove and a desire to share what he has experienced with every
other per-son in the world. It is his wish to bring true wellbeing
to every humanbeing and this drives every activity undertaken by
the Isha Foundation.
Sadhguru will be returning to London in 2007 to offer his
"InnerEngineering" programme, running from Friday the 2nd to
Sundaythe 4th February at the Piaisterers Hall in London. He will
also begiving two public lectures: "Inner Engineering — the Peak
ofWellbeing" on Monday the 29th of January at 7.30 pm, andMastering
Relationships" on Wednesday the 31st January at 7pm.Both events
will be held at the Conway Hall, near Holborn, CentralLondon. For
more information about these events go to www.ishayo-ga.org, email
[email protected] or telephone 07941 646877
www.ishafoundation.orgwww.ruralrejuvenation.orgwww.dhyanalinga.orgMystics
Musings: Sadhguru - A Profound Mystic Of Our limes.Published by
Wisdom Tree.For more information or to order a copy
visitwww.wisdomtreeindia.com.
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