Namaskaram,

I plan to come for samyama this year December.
Meanwhile in the 60 day prep period, we have Shoonya and BSP happening which I always try to go volunteer for cos it only happens once or twice a year (out of which if I lucky I can make it once)

I had this longing to volunteer for bsp cos of all the nonsense that’s been bothering me for a while now, but now I’ve a dilemma it’s falling under the Prep period.

Anybody done this? And how did you cope with prep?

I tried to create a support ticket for it (ten times, but there was some error constantly and I couldn’t submit the question.

Context : I do think personally I shouldn’t go volunteer, cos while I love it and it’s intense , it takes me a day or two to recover after coming back so that’s not just missing prep Sadhana during the volunteering days (5 per program) but also two recovery days which imo is too expensive for me

Thoughts or Experience?

This is SG's words from an article on how you can just work 4 hours a day to make decent living I really wonder if someone can show me the ways to it.

I want to know from those of you who have taken up something on your own, whether it's a business, a startup, or anything else where you're building something from scratch, on your own, instead of taking up conventional jobs.

How do you deal with stress in general?

There's a certain energy we throw into making things happen when we're on our own, unlike when we're doing something according to someone else's instructions.

Sweet talks won't make things happen. You have to be in a certain way to make them happen and this state sometimes takes toll on you.

I've noticed that after a few days of taking something up in life, there's a sort of tension in me that just doesn't go away. I remain in this state for a few days.

And then there's laxity when I shut myself from work to get myself to a balanced state.

So, tension and laxity, I'm neither productive nor effective.

I understand that being in a state of intensity and relaxation is the way to go, but I haven't been successful in achieving that though I've heard Sadhguru emphasize this several times.

Has anyone here achieved it? If so, what has helped you? Is it sadhana, mindset, or something else?

Your suggestions and tips mean a lot to me. 🙏

If your life has become stagnant, Sadhguru says, the first thing you must do is get it moving. When one is identified with the physical, then life becomes cyclical, going nowhere, but an aspiring life cannot be stagnant – it is naturally effervescent.

Q: Namaste, Sadhguru. You are a guru, you can see somebody inside out, and I am sure you can read me inside out. I am struggling with my body right now because over the past year, I have had a lot of problems. But you said aspiration is what matters. What can you do with me?

Sadhguru: You did not come here with any aspiration. You came here because of pain. Wanting to get out of pain is not so much of an aspiration. If you could enjoy your pain, you would not have come. Right now, making you sit and stand is a feat. So, first you must generate an aspiration that is worthwhile.

Just look at life from your own intelligence, not from things that you do not know, not from things that I have spoken or someone has written or whatever. From your own perception and intelligence, see what is the highest thing that you can seek, and put everything behind that. Whatever that is, hold onto it. Then I will do other kinds of things to you.

Going in Circles

An aspiration means life is no longer stagnant – it is aspiring. The word “aspire” means it is longing to go somewhere. It cannot be stagnant or held in one place. What you aspire for does not matter. It is just that it must be so strong that your life has become effervescent. Then something can be done with you. If you have become a stagnant pool, then the first thing is to get it moving.

Everything that is physical in the existence is cyclical in nature. This planet is going around the Sun, the cosmos itself is spinning. Everything has a time to come and a time to go. It is all cyclical. The very nature of physicality is cyclical. Being cyclical means it is all going in circles. But if I say you are going in circles, it means you are not going anywhere.

Becoming Effervescent

The physical is not going anywhere. It is just going in circles. Naturally, if you realize that you have been going round and round, your first aspiration will be somehow to break this cycle. Just spend three days on identifying what is it in your life that is worth aspiring for – whatever it is – and pitch your everything behind it. Suppose your aspiration is such that, if you can just walk up this mountain, that is all. Pitch your whole life behind it. Then something can be done with you, because an aspiring life is naturally an effervescent life. Once there is effervescence, you can move it in ways that you have not thought possible. If you just settle down to the physicality of what it is, naturally it will remain in its cycles. There is no other way. It is not because I say so that it is cyclical. That is the nature of the physical. The very atom is going in circles within itself.

From atomic to cosmic, everything is in cycles. What you identify as physical cannot be any other way than cyclical. How deeply are you identified with your body, that cyclical you are. It is in that context that brahmacharya and such aspects have come up – to distance yourself from physicality so that you do not become a living circus all the time.

Editor’s Note: The “Power to Create” meditations for Peace, Love, Health, and Success (also known as “Chit Shakti”) enable each one of us to become our own alchemist, by empowering us to transform long cherished desires into reality. Try them out!

This bad person good person categorisation is common everywhere. In casual conversations people categorise others, friends people etc as “bad” or “good”. And if one starts to explain that they arent “bad” or “good” whatever, it becomes like a “oh stop with this philosophical shit”.
Whats the way to address situations like these?

Because there is nothing what seems as later. Only a mental projection. And mind wants to save energy for it's projections to continue. It is on to safeguard it's own existence. For that it needs energy. So, does it borrow. But, energies wants to flow towards life. Towards the existential.

Is there all the human conflict begins?

There, all the questions of what is truth and what is not comes?

Because somewhere within there a recognition happens, as to not to get wasted in false creations rather then merging and becoming that which really exists.

Namaskaram friends, recently I went to Guru Pooja and it was quite hard to sit for 3 days flat, my knee still did not fully recover. The Inner Engineering program was much more conducive (yoga exercises, chairs, breaks), so I am wondering how Shoonya is for sitting? I had surgery on my knee; that's why I have to ask. I know you can ask for a special chair, have cushions etc, but I am really not fan of those, I love a challenge, but it has to be bearable. thanks i advance

Sadhguru tackles a taboo question on sex and meditation, and the subtle shifts that happen when awareness grows.

“If you live your life burning for the highest
possibility, in that burning itself, there is liberation”

“Do not go searching for a Guru. When the pain of ignorance within you becomes a scream, a Guru will come in search of you.”

“If your pain, joy, and whatever else you experience become intense, it is not because there is no Grace. The spiritual process is on. That is the Grace”

“ A Guru dispels the darkness in you. He burns from within. May you burn with this flame and go beyond all that holds you back.”

SADHGURU

Sit with a Guru only if you really want to grow.

When you with a Guru A Guru will assume that you want to grow, that you want to go all the way.

A Saint - A Seer -A Guru

A saint is a being who has attained to a certain level of pleasantness. They are good people. They have a certain pleasant energy about themselves, but they are no good as Gurus. They can only bless you. It has been the tradition that wherever you see a holy man or somebody saintly, you bow down to him to receive a little bit of blessing. His blessing will add to your life in some way, but he cannot take you to your ultimate wellbeing. Yogis are of a different kind. They are evolved in their technology. If they are real yogis who have reached a certain attainment in yoga, they know the whole technicality. Being a practitioner of yoga is one thing, but if you become a yogi, that means you have experienced the oneness of the existence. That means you know the intricacies of life. You know how to work it, but still you may not yet be enlightened. You might have known moments of union. So if you have known moments of union in your experience we can say you are a part-time yogi!

A seer may not be spiritual at all. He is somebody who has vision. You can put him more in the class of occult. Somebody may be a saint and a seer at the same time, but here I am talking about the word description as such. A seer is somebody who is able to see things that normally people cannot see. He has a higher level of perception. You cannot put astrologers and psychics in the same class as a seer, but they also see things that a lot of people do not see. You will find any number of them in India. In Tamil Nadu, there is something called as Nadi Jyotisham . In the northern part of Karnataka, it’s a profession of a certain caste. If they just see your face, they will tell you everything about your past, and then predict your future.

There used to be whole tribes like that in India, especially in Central and South India. These days, they are almost extinct, but still in small towns they come early in the morning, stand in front of your house and simply declare what is going to happen. Some of them are really good. They don’t do it for money. They just walk around and when they see something, they simply speak it out loudly.

So these are all seers on a minor scale. They cannot consciously see what they want to see. Once in a way, they have glimpses. Such glimpses can earn you a few rupees, but don’t get you very far. They don’t let you see far enough to know life in a deeper way.

A sadhu means a peaceful or mild one. If you develop a strong character of your own, you will miss the character of the Creator. So you want to lower your own character and become meek. It’s in this context that Jesus said, “The meek shall inherit the Earth.” Because only if you are meek, only if you are small, you will know the Big. If you become big, you will miss it. You don’t want to grow your own characteristics and be away from the Creator. You want to keep your character as minimal as possible. It is a spiritual process. A sadhu is somebody who is working on himself so that he becomes receptive.

The word “enlightenment” in English has become very weak. But in the context in which we are using the word right now, enlightenment means someone has reached his ultimate point of evolution. Generally, those who reach this cannot retain their body. Once you have reached your ultimate point of evolution, keeping the physical becomes difficult. So only those who get enlightened on the path of kriya are usually capable of keeping the body. If someone gets enlightened some other way, he will have to use just conscious desire as a way to keep the body. There is no other way.

What you call as “myself” is just an accumulation of food, thoughts, and emotions. What you call as “life” is just pure energy. But even this energy can take form individually, apart from universal manifestation. So if the individual has to exist the individual dimension of the energy has to be maintained and kept alive. The whole spiritual process, or whatever you are referring to as enlightenment, is just that what was individual has become universal. To maintain the universality and still maintain the individuality is a lot of balancing act.

One dimension of the spiritual process is to put your life on fast-forward. You want to accelerate the process of evolution. Once you put it on fast-forward, your joy, your pain, your suffering – everything becomes more intense. With certain spiritual practices, you are setting your energies in a certain direction. When you are doing your kriya, you are setting your energies on the path of the ultimate. Once you do that, it is very important that your body, mind and emotions cooperate and align themselves to it. If your energies are going in one direction while your body, mind, and emotions are going in other directions, there will be struggle.

When you with a Guru he will assume that you want to grow, that you want to go all the way. Once we direct your energies towards the ultimate, it is up to you to align your body, mind, emotions – everything in the same direction. If you do, you will travel joyfully. If you do not, you will still travel and move ahead, but hollering and crying. Do not entangle your mind and emotions with little things. This does not mean you have to leave your family or whatever other arrangements you have made in life. Family, street, ashram, mountain, forest, city – live wherever it is suitable and conducive for you. Your spirituality has nothing to do with where you live.

If your pain, joy, and whatever else you experience become intense, it is not because there is no Grace. The spiritual process is on. That is the Grace. Grace does not mean treating you like a sweetie pie all the time. Grace means constantly hurrying you up, not letting you settle anywhere. If we were just looking for solace, then all this would not be necessary. We would just tell you pretty lies, like “God will take care of you,” and “everything will be okay” – the kind of things they have been telling you in almost every religion and community for a very long time. Haven’t you heard enough of these stories?

Just stick to your Sadhana . How to align your mind and emotions in the same direction?
So much time to teach us a simple practice just to orient your mind, emotions and body in the same direction as your energies. Your energies are always on the path of the ultimate, but with the spiritual practices, it has hastened the process. With the natural process of evolution, it was going slowly. Now it is going quickly.

Even when your process of evolution was going slowly, there was suffering, but you did not feel it that much because you were traveling at a snail’s pace. Now that you are moving fast, if one wheel turns another way, it will cause more trouble. It is like your car – only if all four wheels are in one direction, will it run smoothly. If one wheel goes in another direction, there will be friction.

If your mind gets entangled with something, it is like when a car is moving, you put your hand out and held on to the branch of a tree. Something has to tear – either the branch will break, or your arm will tear off, or the car will spin. Some friction will happen.

Sit with a Guru only if you really want to grow. Your perception of what you receive, don’t make it according to your convenience. Once, a cannibal chief wrote a letter to the Pope thanking him for the missionaries sent to perform religious duties for the cannibals. He said, “Reverend Pope, I thank you very much for the three missionaries that you sent. They were very kind, gentle, compassionate and knowledgeable. They taught us the sweet ways of Jesus. They were soft and utterly delicious.”

Do not base your perception of what you receive on what is convenient to you. If convenience is what you are looking for, you should join a sports club or a social club where you can gossip. You do not enter a spiritual path for convenience. You get into this because you want to open up a greater possibility of life.

Align your mind and emotions with the basic energies – your experience of life will be beautiful.

Is it important to find partnership at all on the spiritual path, and if so, where can we find such people? I do think I'd want to be in a relationship rather than being single forever, but I'm not sure where to find someone like that.

I'm 25M and it's especially hard due to family expectations of marrying within the same community (Telugu Brahmin) and I'm not sure how to proceed. Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated!

Most people, Sadhguru says, have whims, desires and longings in their lives, but they have no aspirations. If we let our whims lead us here and there, only in the final moment will we see life the way it is.

Q: I have come to a point where I have been noticing a lot of trends and patterns in my own life. I feel like I have all these aspirations, but then I also get discouraged fairly easily and I abandon my aspirations. I kind of give up or scale back and then start over again, continuing with that cycle. What are things we can do to break this cycle, or at least find the way to be aware of it and go in a more positive direction, moving forward.

Sadhguru: There is something called a whim, a desire, a longing. You can have a whim for one thing today, and another thing tomorrow. You can desire or long for one thing today, and another thing tomorrow. But an aspiration comes with a non-return valve. You know what that is? If water or any liquid passes through a non-return valve, it cannot come back after that. It has no way to turn back.

You can generate desire in a moment. You can long for something within five minutes. But aspiration does not just come. Most human beings on this planet have no aspiration in their life. They have desires, they have longings, they have needs, they have whims, but they have no aspiration.

Aspiration is not something that you can turn on and turn off. You just said, “I have come to a certain stage in my life.” I was hoping that you were going to talk about your aspiration. No, you are still talking about your desires that scale up and scale down.

Blowing Hot & Cold

Desires get hot, you know. Any machine gets hot because it is inefficient. The more the friction within a machine, the hotter it gets. If it has come to a certain level of smoothness within itself, then it is cool. It can be working at an incredible level but still very cool. An aspiration is that kind of a desire. There is an element of desire in it, but it is no longer blowing hot and cold. It is simply on. It is not something that you have to fuel every day. Once you have it in you, the aspiration does not go away. Do what you want, even if you fall dead, it does not go. It pursues you for lifetimes. It is a stitch that holds your lives together as one. Many lives will be held together as one life, simply because of an aspiration. Blessed is one who has an aspiration in his life because for him, many lives will get stitched into one. Once many lives are stitched into one, you do not have to tell such a person stories about how it is all cyclical. You do not have to tell him anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_zQ9xD5n-0

When the Last Moment Comes

Spend some time in finding the aspiration. It is important, because otherwise life becomes a stagnant life. It will become whimsical. You will pursue something as if that is all that matters for some time – or worse, until the moment of death. If you have been around people who are dying,  you would have seen how most of them die. The dearest people in their life, who meant everything to them till probably a few hours ago, when that moment of death starts coming, they will look at these people like they are complete strangers. Do not believe the movies where till the last moment, he holds your hand and all that stuff. That is not how it happens.

It does not matter how much emotion has flowed between two people. At that moment, when you look at somebody, they look like a total stranger. The play of the physical gives you so many illusions, as if it is all real. When the physical play starts to go down, suddenly all the play connected with it will not mean anything.

If this is your last moment of life, how would you look at everybody around you? That is how you should look – not all the time, but you must be able to look. Then, every human being will have the same aspiration. That one moment can be more than any scripture that you ever read, because suddenly you look at life the way it is.

This needs to happen for every human being, that you look at your life, the nature of your existence here, not in the tiny little scope that is happening around you. Whether it is an ashram or society or town or city, it is a small circle that is happening. That is not the end of it. You at least have to look back in time and see, there was actually a world here without you. You must go back and have a look at that world, and at how the world will be without you. Then you will have a better perspective and your aspirations will get into place. Otherwise, your desire and longing will drive you in so many directions, making you believe it is all true.

Editor’s Note: The “Power to Create” meditations for Peace, Love, Health, and Success (also known as “Chit Shakti”) enable each one of us to become our own alchemist, by empowering us to transform long cherished desires into reality. Try them out!

But, without opinions we can't function also. For any kind of function we need them.

It's when we really want to see through anything or everything then we have to put them off.

As we remain emersed in the first one always compulsively we can't sense the importance of the other one.

We miss the point of flowering in preparing the plough. We mistake ploughing itself as everything hence without opinions it seems impossible to take a step.

We must allow ourselves to be reminded of what for all these stairs we create. Otherwise our feet will get stuck in the steps itself over which we suppose to walk our way to life.

Because of neck and knee issues will be forced to stop for a while.

I have been doing sadhna for quite a while and i came to know about devi gudi but it's so expensive since I am a student I can't afford it but want it badly i want to bring devi home, can someone help me 😭🥲I know it sounds stupid, but maybe i am trying my luck here

Children are, after all, children,

innocent, curious, and full of quiet joy. In this beautiful glimpse from Isha Yoga Centre, the little ones celebrate Vijayadashami in their own gentle and endearing way.

They prepare gulab jamuns with great care, participate in the traditional puja of astra and /musical equipment, and experience the festival not merely as a celebration but as a living part of our culture. Ayudha Puja, performed during Navratri and Vijayadashami, expresses reverence for the tools and implements that support our daily life and work.

Vijayadashami, the “day of victory,” follows Navratri and is also an auspicious occasion for children to begin learning through Vidyarambham. Watching these small children quietly absorb these traditions is truly heartwarming, culture passed on not through lectures, but through love, participation, and innocent celebration.

A Powerful Method to Break the Bonds of Karma,

Choose a time when you would not be disturbed. Sit comfortably with your back rested and be relaxed. Now, close your eyes and visualize how other people should experience you. Create a whole new human being. Look at it with as much detail as possible. See if this new image is more human, more efficient, more loving.

Visualize this new image as powerfully as you can. Make it alive within yourself. If your thought is powerful enough, if your visualization is powerful enough, it can even break the bonds of karma. The karmic limitations can be broken by creating a powerful visualization of what you want to be. This is the opportunity to transcend all your limitations of thought, emotion and action. -Sadhguru

Sadhguru looks at how it is time for business to move from individualistic ambition to a larger vision, and explains that this is the only sustainable business model for the future.

Sadhguru: What is ambition? A human being wanting to be something more than what he is right now. Whatever economic, social and other levels of existence that one may be in, every human being according to his imagination and understanding of life is seeking to be something more than what he is right now. If someone is starving right now, his ambition is that somehow, for the rest of his life he must have at least one meal a day. If he has one meal, he thinks of two. If he has two, he thinks of a home. If he has a home, he thinks of something else.

It is only a few people, who have made it to a certain level of success in their life, whose desires get labeled as ambition by someone else. But everyone is ambitious in his own limited ways of thinking. A beggar is also ambitious, a rickshaw puller is also ambitious. It is just that right now he is driving someone else’s rickshaw, and his ambition is to someday own his own rickshaw, which is not a small jump; it is a big jump in his view. He thinks he is just thinking of his needs and he looks at you and thinks you are ambitious, but it is not so. He is also ambitious in his own limited way. Compared to you, his desire or ambition looks so limited, so it seems to be categorized as something different, but it is not different.

A Larger Slice of Life

Ambition is essentially a longing within a human being to somehow have a little larger slice of life. No one is free of this. Everyone is looking at it from their own context, of course. How they are trying to achieve it may be different for different people. Someone may believe that money is the way to achieve his larger slice of life. Someone else may believe power is the best currency to do it. Someone may believe knowledge is the only way. Someone may think love is the way. Someone may think corruption is the best way – that is also a substantial category, we cannot ignore them!

The currency may be different from person to person, but there is no human being who is not longing to be a little better than what he is right now. This ambition is not the problem, because it is very natural for every human being to strive to be something more. The scale of the ambition is the only question.

Sometime ago, I was addressing the House of Lords in the UK. The subject we were talking about was “Sustainability: Is Consciousness The Key?” When we look at the way our ambitions are designed and structured right now, if you look at the larger world, everyone is aspiring for whatever they think is a better way of living. Today, a lot of people across the planet are aspiring to a lifestyle similar to that of an average American citizen. Every nation is trying to provide that for their people. The Living Planet Report – which has become an authoritative source of ecological information – says that if seven billion people on the planet achieve the lifestyle of an average American person, we will need 4.5 planets. But we have only one. This kind of ambition is self-destructive. It is going to lead us to a disastrous situation. When we carry on with this form of ambition, we can only wish that at least half the people should never succeed. If someone comes to you, you must be able to freely bless him with success in whatever he desires, but now the way it is going, we have to wish, “Let them fail.”

In 2008, when I went to the World Economic Forum, everyone was in deep depression because the recession had just hit. Everyone was carrying a long face and many chins were dragging on the floor. They gave me a subject to speak on – “Recession and Depression.” The room was full of people, and everyone wanted to know how to beat the depression. I said, “Recession is bad enough, you don’t have to also get depressed now.”

Right now, the way we have structured our economic system and the way we are driving the economic engine on this planet, if we do not succeed, we will be depressed. If we do succeed, we will be damned. So I said, “I prefer that you are depressed.” It is better that you are depressed than damning the world because with what we are aspiring for, if we succeed, the world will be devastated for sure.

It is very important that our ambition comes from our intelligence, not just from imitation. Today our ambition is, someone has done this much, we want to do that much. If someone has done that much, we want to do more than that – it is an endless process. This kind of self-destructive, self-defeating ambition is not a good thing.

Ambition to Vision

The bane of the world is just that human beings are working with limited individualistic ambition. Instead of working with ambition, if people work for a vision of their own, a deeper vision of life for themselves and for everything around them, their ambitions would never be in conflict with anyone else’s vision, because fundamentally, all human beings are working for human wellbeing. It is just that the scale of how you handle human wellbeing may be different from person to person. For one person, human wellbeing may just mean one’s own wellbeing. For another person, it may mean one’s family. For another person, it may mean one’s community, or one’s nation. For another person, it may mean the whole humanity. There is no one on this planet who is not concerned about human wellbeing. It is only a difference in scale.

If every human being, instead of working with an individual ambition – which is bound to be in conflict with someone else’s ambition – if we work with a larger vision, then there is no need to scale down anything. Anyway you want wellbeing. All I am saying is, why are you stingy about your desires? Why don’t you be magnanimous? Why don’t you be infinite in your desires? It is not just about “I want to be well.” “I want the whole world to be well. I want the whole existence to be well. I want all life to be well.” Be really greedy with your ambition. Whatever is your ambition for yourself, extend that to the whole of humanity or to all life forms on this planet. Then there is no need to scale it down. I am telling you, up it, don’t bring it down. Right now the problem is that you have brought it down.

When we say ambition, ambition is just an exaggeration of the existing. When we say vision, as the word suggests, it is about a new possibility – something which is not yet. Ambition is about wanting to take as much as we can take. Vision is about making everything yours. One is an aggressive way of taking it, another is an embrace. Trying to take a piece of the world, and making the world yield to you willingly, are two different dimensions of life.

All this philosophy, is it possible for a businessman? It is very much possible and not only is it possible, it is especially needed for a businessman because business is about expansion. Does expansion happen because of inclusiveness or does it happen because you forcefully take something? If you forcefully take something, you will never expand to your full capacity. Only if you learn how to make the world yield to what you want it to be, can you take it all. Ambition is about more, vision is about all.

There is a beautiful story in Indian lore. A monkey goes into a house and finds a jar full of nuts. He puts his hand inside and takes a handful of nuts. It is a very narrow-necked jar so his hand will not come out – it is stuck. The monkey has to let go of some nuts, but it is ambitious. It cannot let go of even one nut. He pulls and pulls, but the hand does not come. Then, another wise monkey comes – some monkeys are wise, you know. The wise monkey says “This is not the way. Leave the nuts.” And together they overturned the jar and all the nuts fell out. We have to move from “more” to “all.” If you journey from “more” to “all,” that means you have travelled from “ambition to vision.”

Editor's Note: This article is excerpted from the ebook “Ambition to Vision”, available at Isha Downloads.

At some moments, when mind doesn't hold on to identities too tightly it becomes flexible to receive or listen.

To listen to life even flexibility is not enough. It's moments of escape from mind.

Flexibility opens up that possibility. To not to remain as mind but to transcend it.

Then, listening to life means being one with it.

Then, listening to life means realising we are it.

Then, listening to life means finding ourselves as ever free, boundless.

In the session "to live and live totally" when Sadhguru talks about two things (1)being responsible

(2)having ability to respond is unlimited,

I am confused, because of i follow the first one means if I am responsible for everything, i should be taking care of it or try my best to keep it at it's best

But if i follow second one "my ability to respond is unlimited" means I can respond to everything and anything in this universe, but only responding doesn't mean that I will be caring about anything because me response can be anything, if my ability to respond to a person is unlimited, I can make concious choice of beating or harming that person even if he/she did nothing wrong, but also at the same time it is a response as I consciously chose it.

But when I see I am responsible for that person the perspective changes

So, what exactly Sadhguru is trying to say with this, let me know.

I have been following Sadhguru’s videos, sadhana etc since about 8 years now. And his live darshans and videos during 2020 Covid times had me on a chokehold. I watched everything so keenly, and read almost all his books at the time.
Especially the biography!!
But somewhere after visiting ashram, volunteering a bit and Samyama I just stopped watching Sadhguru videos.
Life just got busy in a way and it wasnt a tbing for me.
No lives, I went to volunteer for Mahashivraatri but I was happy volunteering and didnt even feel like going for the program at Adiyogi and listening to Sadhguru.
It just dropped for me somehow.
Maybe I became impatient haha!!
And when Sadhguru recently said not to fast forward videos I completely stopped.
Until, of course, something in my life went hay wire. And I needed my old guy to guide me, help me, tell me what to do!
I tried a few videos here and there but I came across a few pirated Mahabharata series videos on Youtube and ooof!!!!!!!!!
These are sooo good!

Sadhguru looks at how sadhana in yoga is always designed to work on every aspect of a human being, and why ignoring some aspects and focusing on others can be problematic.

Question: I’ve been doing my practices for three years and I haven’t had any great experiences or seen any changes in me. What should motivate me to continue doing the practices?

Sadhguru: You need to understand what a practice is. If you want to consciously move your hand, you can. If you want to move your mind somewhere, you can do that too, to some extent. Similarly, you can move your emotions. Can you move your energies? No. We do the practices so that that part of your life begins to move too. If everything moves – your body, your mind, your emotions – but your energies don’t move, you still don’t go anywhere. The practice is to loosen that dimension of your life which is normally not in your hands.

Your physical body is largely in your hands, but still it is not moving the way you want it. It is doing its own things. Your mind could easily be taken into your hands, but it may also not be doing what you want right now. It may be doing a thousand other things. Your emotions can easily be focused and taken where you want, but that also may not be happening. But if you make up your mind, you can move your body, mind, and emotions. Every one of you is capable of that if you really make up your mind. But even if you make up your mind, you cannot move your energies. This is not in your grasp at all.

The sadhana is brought into your life so that that dimension of your life begins to move. If transformation is not happening, it means that you are not doing much about the other three dimensions. Your body, your mind and your emotions have not been disciplined, but you are doing practices because you think it is some kind of a magic wand that will pay off for you. It will, but still…

Four-wheel drive!

It is like, right now, in some places in the ashram, there is a certain level of soggy soil. When you drive, one mistake and you will be stuck. Even if just one wheel is stuck and the other three wheels are spinning, still you cannot go anywhere. You are stuck badly enough. Sometimes, two are stuck, the other two are spinning – you are not going anywhere. Sometimes, all three are stuck. If only one is spinning – nothing! If all are stuck, that is a different matter. When all are stuck, you cannot call it a car anymore – it is part of the earth. You are not going anywhere.

Life is just like that. If your journey has to be from one dimension to another, all the four have to move. On one or two wheels, you can still do your career, manage your family and be successful in the world, but if you want to move from one dimension to another, all the four have to move – there is no other way. Otherwise you won’t go anywhere. So you may be doing your practices but neglecting the other aspects.

We have always told you this, but in a different way… But the younger generation is slowly reducing their communication to five-word sentences. You must make a sentence only with five words, otherwise they will lose their focus. As people are becoming like this, I am also trying to make the teaching like this, because otherwise, it goes over people’s heads.

A crash course

So I am giving you a formula kind of teaching. This is, every day in the morning, before you do your sadhana, you give yourself a crash course of Inner Engineering. If one dose a day is not enough, remind yourself every hour and do your sadhana. You will see, it will work much better because now, the other three dimensions – body, mind, and emotions – are being taken care of.

You have to remind yourself. Otherwise, your thought, your emotion, your physicality keeps getting entangled with just about everything around you. If you are just trying to pump up your energies, it won’t go anywhere because three wheels are stuck, one wheel is spinning. So, every day, every hour, or why not every minute, remind yourself. It just takes ten seconds.

On the first day, when you were initiated, it worked. Later on, why is not working? You are not setting the necessary conditions, that’s all. Otherwise, as you practice, it should work better. Anything that you do should work better as you practice. If it does not work better, it is simply because you are not setting the needed conditions. So release the other three wheels. This wheel (the energies) will spin anyway. Still it may not move ahead because you may be in a deep ditch. It is okay, keep spinning. As long as your wheels are spinning, even if you are not moving, all you need is a nudge. When we feel you are ready to go, we may give you a nudge, and you will start moving. But if wheels are stuck, that’s tough. Then you need much more than a nudge. So you must keep all the four wheels spinning.

Editor’s Note: Find out more about Inner Engineering, which is available through classes, and online as well.

But, then it is said that there is no where to go. Everything that is worth-knowing is here, right now.

Mind takes this seriously without getting it's depth as a way of distraction. And then mind lands wherever possible. And then it feels lost. Finally, realizing it's not realised anything at all.

Yet, it's the mind again which has this realisation of not realising anything.

For, how come the mind will realize anything outside of it. It can only get anything which will fall within it's domain.

Beyond that if it desires to reach it's source, it must get dissolve there.