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Please click on an article or scroll downwards to read this month's Sadhguru Speaks:
A Kavita Media Presentation. Please email comments here.
Thank you again for the overwhelming response to my continuing conversations with Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, the founder of Isha foundation. Q My younger brother, a staunch follower of Isha Yoga is going through rough times for a few a months now and is in a critical state. In the first week of March he noticed some pain in his right calf muscle and thought that its just a simple strain. Since the pain did not go away even after a week he consulted his primary care doc. She suspected something and asked him to go for an MRI. The results revealed that he has couple of blood clots. He has been prescribed blood thinners and even after taking it for 3 months he still has a lot of pain and clot formation is continuing and it seems the blood thinners prescribed are not working and the clot size has gone up. The latest scan says, he is in danger of losing his life. A. If the clots are only in the calf area and if he is currently in reasonably good health then we can definitely help him at the rejuvenation center. If his condition is still critical or serious then I recommend he stays under medical care as they have the means to dissolve the clots or block them from traveling through crucial areas in the body which may cause serious problems, A - If you made somebody a part of yourself-then where is there a question of having this so called “Other”? When I attended wholeness program at Isha Yoga Centre, I wanted to talk when the program concluded. But when my turn came, I could not get the opportunity. Initially, I was hesitant to speak but later on, I wanted to speak but by that time, the time stipulated for this was over. Some lethargy/hesitancy creeps me up when I have to give a public speech and I don't know how to overcome though I make attempts to overcome it. Another time I wanted to get an autograph from you on the final day on your book "encounter the enlightened" but you again have not given me an opportunity. Is there any message for me in the above two scenarios or is it only my mind making them bigger? I sincerely feel there is some message when you deny something for somebody as I may not deserve them from you. .- Name withheld on request A - When I sign a book, I never put a person’s name on it. People have asked me why. I always say the blessing is for anybody who opens the book so when I sign the book for you, its not necessary it is meant for you. Someone else may get more out of it than you may. In the Bhagwad Gita Krishna has said that even more than murder hesitation is the biggest crime. If you go on hesitating, before you know it, your life will be over-forget about the Wholeness program or the book signing. If you didn’t ask the question and hesitated then obviously the question was either not that important or you made it unimportant by hesitation. Hesitation will make you miss your entire life and so don’t commit that crime. Again whether you got an autograph or not is totally irrelevant. You did the wholeness program you got the book which has so much in it- only the decoration-this one autograph was missing. You are focusing on the unimportant and not realizing what was important. That is how it seems to be with most people. We have a life, we have our limbs in place and yet we start complaining about some great thing that is missing. Everything that is worthwhile has come to you. The program, the book and you ignored that. In your book "mystic musings", I found that, "it's wonderful if we choose to have children not with compulsion" ( If someone does not have that inclusive attitude). If my partner is not sensitive to the nature/inclusiveness, should one aspire for children by including her as part of myself? By not having children, I am creating a lot of unhappiness in my wife as she wants children just for society sake and may be she wants to have kids as this gives her fulfillment. I am confused in this regard as, should someone seek kids if one does not have that inclusive nature? Having kids will lead to further entanglement as it binds me further (already bound). Not having children might create problems further not only to me but to others surrounded by me as well. I am ready to pay the price on my own for this but why my whole family should undergo that suffering if I don't opt for kids? .- Name withheld on request A - Unless you really want a child, you MUST NOT have one. People say the world has so many problems. In truth, the world has only one problem-that of having too many humans on the planet and not enough animal or plant life. It is projected that by 2050 human population will be over 9 billion. If your wife still wants a child, adopt one instead of producing one of your own. A child is not a plaything for you to produce and play with for a few years. It is a life time’s responsibility and ideally should be a consensual agreement between two people. Individual choices on matters like these are killing the planet and affecting the way the rest of the humanity lives. So don’t have a child under societal or other pressures. Dear Sadhguru, In meditation it's like entering into another world. Things are happening in their own way. It is almost like sleeping but I am aware of things that are happening during meditation, some times I am lost there. The moment I come out of meditation, I could see the material world smiling at me. Is there any separate creation for me alone, which I am experiencing in meditation as well as experiencing in my own way in physical world? My mind cannot even understand this question and it is just trying to give its own logical answer. Am I sinking in imagination or am I going insane or what is thing that is happening? Regards, Prashanth Ramanujam A - Meditation is not a new world. It is a deeper look into the same world that we are living in. Either you live on the surface or you decide to know the depth and the core of it. Meditation is just an instrument to access the core and if the core tastes different from the surface, don’t be surprised, because it is very different. You say you are asleep and aware at the same time. In truth you always are in that state. If everything within you was asleep who is keeping the heart beating, the blood circulating and so on? Even when you are asleep something within you has stayed awake. It has always been that way. If you have now come in to touch with it, its wonderful because unless you become conscious of that which is awake within you, you will live a very limited life. Once you become aware of both dimensions-one that never sleeps, you will also know that which never dies.. Dearest Sadhguru, I am in difficulty, please help me out. I come from Jain religion, which is basically a Hindi speaking community. Though I have attended the programs in English and reaped the benefits, there are many others, for whom I feel that language will become a barrier.. I am bursting with love and joy and I want everyone of them to enjoy the same. Is it possible to arrange programs in Chennai in Hindi? After I attended the recent B.S.P. Program, people look at me with hopeful eyes, that I will show them the way. As an alternative, I have been giving small suggestions to people, but I still remember your words that DON'T TRY TO TEACH YOGA TO PEOPLE, INSTEAD TELL THEM TO JOIN THE PROGRAMS. –Name withheld on request. You must understand that you were able to access the program because someone stood up and volunteered to teach this program in English. Similarly if this means so much to you, why don’t you volunteer to be trained by us and teach this program in Hindi? If there is anything in life that you feel can be of value and will help another human being, you must share it. For the very first time, in the history of mankind we have the necessary capability, the technology and the resources to address and solve every human problem on the planet. What is missing is human consciousness and we need more humans who are willing to dedicate themselves to work towards raising this human consciousness. We must not do it in some new age fanciful way but in a scientific way in which it works without misleading people. Its very very important because today everything is in place-except the human being. People (including the Isha volunteers) are deeply disturbed when they see me wearing Rudraksh in my left hand ankle. I accept my body wholly. Everything has been resonating with joy around me. So, I have never thought of changing the location of the Rudraksh. Dear Sadhguru, Can you please throw some light on whether there is any significance on which part of the body the Rudraksh should be worn?-Name withheld on request. Its great that you accept your whole body as sacred. So, from tomorrow, why don’t you try eating with your ears, or your nose or even your eyes and see what happens? The body is made in a particular way. It is neither sacred nor is it filthy. Its just a wonderful machine which unless you operate it the right way, can malfunction. The Rudraksh has to be on a certain part of the body-and for people like you living in the normal society and family life, the ideal placement is around the neck. But that is relevant only if you do believe that the Rudraksh has a certain capability of creating a vibrancy and balance in your body and if you wore it in the wrong place, it will take your body out of alignment and that is why you were asked it to wear a certain way.
The whole world itself is going through a unique kind of neurosis, which was not there in the past. This is simply because modern man has stopped using his body to a large extent. In the past, when you intensely involved yourself in physical activity, a lot of your neurosis was worked out. Your nervous energy got spent. I know many people, especially young people, who had psychological problems. They just started swimming or playing some sport daily and then everything became okay; because of enough activity, the energy was expended.
Today, man has become physically inactive like never before – he could not afford to be so physically inactive before, he had to do so many things physically, just to survive. So he has become more neurotic than in the past. As a general phenomenon, there were neurotic people then also, but not in these numbers. Today, it has become a common phenomenon in society that everybody is in some level of neurosis. This is simply because your energy is not worked out; it’s trapped. You have not transcended your madness and at the same time you’re not working it out. The therapy also is not there. If you went out and chopped wood for the whole day – if you chopped a hundred logs a day – a lot of your energy would be spent, and life would be peaceful; but today it’s not like that. You are not using your body the way it used to be used, so you go on generating all kinds of diseases, like never before. This builds up into your system over a period of time. Then your physical and emotional energy need some outlet. That is how your bars, your clubs and your discotheques have come into place. People have to work out their neurosis somewhere, somehow. These discos look like madness, you can’t even breathe inside. They are full of smoke and sweat but people are just going wild. You can’t even dance, everybody is bumping into everybody else, but it doesn’t matter, you have to work it out, otherwise you will go crazy. So on Saturday, you go work out your neurosis for the week. Then the piling up starts once more and once again the Saturday night fever comes. There is another way to drop this madness and go ahead. Completely leaving it behind and going ahead where you are no more a part of it. This is what meditation is all about. Now, if you dance, you simply dance for the joy of it, and not because there is something to work out. If you’re dancing to work out something, maybe it is therapeutic. It is good therapy all right, but there is a certain ugliness about it. It is lusty; you cannot dance out of love. You can only dance out of lust. Do you know the difference between love and lust? Lust is a strong need, love is not a need. When you love, you settle down, nothing more is needed. You can just sit here for a lifetime. With lust you can’t sit anywhere, you either get into some mad action, or you are bound to go crazy. When there is a certain neurosis, certain madness within yourself, you can only be in lust. Your lust can be for sex, for food or for some particular activity or some hobby, it doesn’t matter what it is, but you develop lust for something. Without that lust you cannot live. Even your work is an effective way of throwing out your lust. It’s just that it is the most popular and accepted way in the world. Today people just go on working, working and working. Not because they are creating something fantastic, but simply because they have to work, otherwise they don’t know what to do with themselves. You have to guard that madness cautiously. Nobody ever knows that you have this within yourself and you yourself would like to forget it. You do everything possible to forget it. All the entertainment in the world has come just to hide your madness. If you were perfectly sane, you would not need entertainment. You need entertainment just to cover your madness. If we take away your entertainment, you will go crazy. Man needs entertainment simply to hide his madness. If he was perfectly sane, he would not need entertainment. He could just sit and watch this bamboo grow. He does not really need entertainment. For more information about Sadhguru, please visit www.ishafoundation.org Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is an international speaker, author and peace advocate with profound spiritual and cultural insights on health and human potential. He addresses over 500,000 people annually at his public forums. Sadhguru is a realized master and yogi who has practiced yoga since age 13 and authored four books on the essential nature of yoga. Sadhguru has synthesized the science of yoga into a dynamic program that allows people to restore and maintain optimum health and inner balance. Through his books, columns, articles and interviews aired and published in a host of international media, Sadhguru is considered an authority on yogic science whose teachings help people gain an inner understanding of the issues and events that happen to themselves and the world around them. Sadhguru is founder of the Isha Foundation, a non-profit organization advancing physical, mental and spiritual health through yoga and self-transformation. The Foundation administers over 100 yoga centers, an ashram, residential complex and medical center in India, and conducts public programs around the world. His humanitarian initiatives for world peace and his outreach programs for Tsunami relief, prisoners, children and Action for Rural Rejuvenation in India are examples of his determination to improve the human condition for all people. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in these columns are solely those of the writers and do not necessarily represent those of the editor/publisher.
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