Janet Attwood: Over the past year and a half, I've spent more than eight months in India and Nepal, and have had the great fortune to meet many masters revered for their wisdom and enlightenment. Every one of these masters was extraordinary, and I was deeply moved by the master who is our guest.
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is revered by devotees throughout the world. He is a member of the Millennium World Peace Summit of religious and spiritual leaders, which he attended at the United Nations in 2000. As an active supporter of the World Council of Religious and Spiritual
Leaders' efforts to relieve suffering, foster harmony and promote the dignity of all life, Sadhguru works to introduce people to essential changes in thought and action that support peaceful possibilities. His initiatives for world peace and his outreach programs for life-term prisoners, destitute woman and rural rejuvenation are internationally renowned.
By working in harmony with all spiritual traditions, Sadhguru helps transform individuals as a lasting way to establish a peaceful and prosperous global society. Born in Mysore at Karnataka, he graduated from Mysore University. He started Yogic practices like Pranayams and Asanas under Shri Raghavendra Rao, popularly known as Malladihalli Swami.
At the age of 25, he had a spontaneous experience of the self, divine or pure consciousness that completely changed his life. His source of wisdom comes from direct, inner experience. In Sanskrit, guru means "dispeller of darkness" and sad means "within."
Sadhguru developed Isha yoga, yoga of the divine, as a spiritual science for hundreds of thousands of initiates around the world, to transcend the body and the mind in order to reach the ultimate reality, the awareness of the essential divine nature within all human beings.
Sadhguru is the author of four books, including Dhyanalinga: The Silent Revolution, Encounter the Enlightened, Eternal Echoes, and a new release, Mystic Musings. He is a great teacher, a humanitarian who tirelessly devotes his life to advanced human consciousness by helping individuals break through limitations into their natural, unbounded state.
In his own words, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev distinctly defines his life and work: "This life for me is an endeavor to help people experience and express their divinity." Sadhguru, it's such an honor and privilege to be with you. Thank you so much for joining us.
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev: It's wonderful to be with you too.
Janet Attwood: "How can I have a balance of materialistic life and spiritual life, and in order to achieve that, where would I get a teacher and/or guru to invoke spirituality within me?"
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev: You won't find a balance. There never will be a balance, because there are no two such things. There is no such thing as material life and spiritual life. The moment you make this distinction between what is material and what is spiritual, you will never know any balance in your life.
There is no such distinction in reality. It is a misunderstanding that people are trying to draw a line between what is materialistic and what is spiritual. When we take an individual human being as a unit of life, you are body, you are mind, you are emotion, and you are a certain amount of life energy, and there seems to be something beyond that.
With all these things together, normally we refer to these as the five elements within you-these are the five bodies in yoga:
- Your physical body
- Your mental body
- Your energy body Your etheric body
- Your bliss body.
So there are five basic ingredients with which you are made. Anything beyond the physical is referred to as spiritual. The first three layers of you-physical, mental and energy body-are physical in nature. The last two are not physical, so that which is beyond the physical is referred to as the spiritual.
How can we separate the three versus two? You come here as a composite creation. Whatever is the basis of creation has made all this together as one composition. Because of your misunderstanding, because of a keyhole vision towards life, you have separated it.
This is just like you are looking out of your keyhole and let's say a tiger is passing. Then you make the connection, because first you see its mouth and then its face and then the head, the neck and the body, and then the tail.
So you make a philosophy, a conclusion or theory: if the snout comes, the face will come; if the face comes, the head will come; if the head comes, the neck will come; if the neck comes, the body will come; and then the tail will come.
That is not so. The tiger is a composite unit-it's life as it is. Similarly, when you look at yourself as life, you are all these things together. There is no separation in this. You cannot separate these. You cannot exist here as just a body, nor can you exist here as just a spirit. Do you want to exist here as just a spirit? That's easy-we just have to shoot you.
You are a composite unit. The moment you make this distinction, you are unnecessarily creating an imaginary conflict between the two. The body has no purpose of its own. In a sense, the body is like the peel of the fruit. The peel has no purpose of its own-only as a protective layer to the fruit, the peel means something. The moment you eat the fruit, the peel goes straight to the trash can.
At this moment, our bodies are very important. We have to feed them, clothe them, decorate them and pamper them in so many ways, but tomorrow morning, if that something inside this body, which you never really experience-if the fruit within you goes away-nobody wants to have any business with this body, because nobody is interested in the peel by itself.
Only because it contains the fruit, the peel has become important and has a certain significance. How do you separate the two? There is no way to separate the two-it happens only with death. There are yogic methods to separate the two, but the [more in your awareness] you separate this and live.
The more you understand that both are together, the more you experience both are integral parts. This is the reason why the first aspect of yoga starts with the body, because in the name of spirituality, we don't want to ignore the body. In being too enamored with the body, we don't want to ignore the spirit. All these things need to be taken care of and handled.
There is no question of imbalance between the two because there is no two; you are one. You are one, whole, composite unit, there is no two. When there is no two, the question of balance doesn't arise. Leading ourselves to the experience of oneness is the only way.
If you go by the logical mind, the reason why the two have risen is you are too much leaning on your logical mind, especially because of the nature of the modern education where the other dimension of the mind is completely suppressed. The logical dimension is all that's enhanced. You apply your logic to everything.
Logic can understand anything only by splitting everything in two. Right now, the whole modern science is evolving on the basis of the logical mind. You give them anything, they have to open it and see. You even split the atoms in two, so you have split yourself into two; it is not reality. In reality, you're one, but you have split yourself into two.
This has happened because you are constantly using the knife of logic. You do not know the domain of logic cannot go beyond a certain point. It will only lead to misperception and a misrepresentation of life if you take logic beyond a material dimension.
You can use logic effectively to handle the physical and material aspects of life, but if you extend logic to the very basis of your life, it will give you a completely wrong picture and that's all that's happened. There is really no conflict if a person begins to experience a deep sense of oneness within himself.
He will take care of the body, and he will take care of the other dimension too because they are not really separate. The very way I speak-the language itself-is split because when I speak, I have to speak logically, otherwise you won't listen, you will switch off the radio.
Janet Attwood: "When searching for the purpose, passion or life's mission, what are signs or feelings that we can experience to let us know we are on the correct path?"
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev: This has become a modern fad, that everybody is looking for life's mission. People who are on a mission are quite a handful and always dangerous in many ways. People who are fired up with some belief that they are fulfilling some mission are always dangerous people
Most tyrants always had missions, you know. The moment you have a mission of your own, you will be come a tyrant. I want you to know, one man who caused probably the maximum amount of pain and suffering on humanity, like Adolph Hitler, had a great mission. He wanted to created a super world, and just see the result.
Most missions have ended like this because from where do you get this idea that you need to have a mission of your own? Life is a mission-you [merging] and serving that is the only thing. If you are intone with the mission of life, it will take you to its ultimate. If you are not in tune with it, you will get crushed and rejected on the way.
No individual has any right to have his own mission. There is no mission. It is just that life is progressing in a certain way. Our business, our sense and our enlightenment are only in being in perfect tune with it. When I say life, it is not just about the physicality of life. That's just a small part of it.
The deeper life, to be in touch with it, to be in tune with it-that is the only thing. You have no business to have your own individual mission. About the purpose and passion-yes, if you don't have any passion for anything, you won't have any reason to get up from the bed in the morning. Your bed will become your grave.
From what basis do you choose what aspect of life deserves your attention and passion and another aspect of life does not deserve this? When everything is existence has come form the same source, when everything in the existence has been created by the same divine, who are you to decide that the flower needs more attention than the pond? It's not your business to decide that.
Your business is to be passionate with everything that you are in touch with right now. If you are like this, you will naturally, very easily, without any effort, discover what you are good at. It's better you do what you're good at, not trying to work at your mission-you may not be good at it. Am I very abrasive? I am.
Janet Attwood: Oh, no! You're very, very clear. No, it's beautiful, thank you-and I'm sure everyone else is agreeing. "How can I free myself effectively from the imprisonment of old beliefs?"
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev: First of all, why do we come to beliefs? Generally in a society, whatever the beliefs that people hold in a particular society have come because we work on helpless children, a defenseless child. We work upon them, imposing our nonsense upon them.
It doesn't matter what you believe in, you should not impose your nonsense, especially on a defenseless child. A child is looking up to a parent, an elder or an adult because he, himself, is on a certain level of incapability. At that time, you can only offer him your love and physical support around.
But he problem with people is right from the first day, they start working by imposing their beliefs, so most of the old beliefs-at least most of them, for most human beings on the planet-happened at that time when they were helpless, defenseless children.
Somebody took advantage of them, putting their ideas of world, God, heaven, hell and whatever else-every kind of belief-what is right, what is wrong-everything was put into them at that time because many people believe it's best to work when the child is defenseless, because later on, he may not listen to you anyway.
So these old beliefs-whatever the belief-have no life significance. Why do you, first of all, believe something? Do you believe that you have two eyes? Right now, you are on the radio, so do you believe you have ears, or do you know that you have ears?
Do you know that you have the ability to hear, or do you believe that you have the ability to hear? You know that you have it, isn't it? So why do you believe something? Because you're not sincere enough to admit that you do not know. You have not realized the immensity and the possibility of "I do not know."
Only when you see "I do not know," the possibility of knowing arises in your life. If you destroy the "I do no know" within you with a belief system that's imposed upon you by whomever, then you have destroyed the possibility of knowing too. The moment "I do not know" is gone, the longing to know is also gone with it; you just have some belief.
And all the beliefs are cultural. What you believe in this society is ridiculous somewhere else. What they believe there is absolutely hilarious for you. So what you believe is purely of social consequence, has no existence in consequence.
It's best for every human being to start with this fundamental-experientially, not intellectually. What you know intellectually doesn't mean anything because it can all be boring to you.
One thing we need to understand is if we work hard enough on you, we can make you believe just about anything. The weirdest of things, we can make you believe. So it doesn't mean anything-whatever you believe. So what you believe has come to you because somewhere, you are unwilling to admit that "I do not know."
It's best for a human being to sit down, look at his life experientially; not intellectually, not in terms of belief, and just see, experientially, what is the reality with me? What I know, I know. What I do not know, I do not know. If he sees this, his life will progress, because you can only start your journey from where you are.
If you try to start your journey from somewhere else… The thing is, that is not the point. God, himself, said this-or his son or his messenger said it-he might have said it from his experience of life. I'm not questioning what he said, but all I'm saying is you are not there yet. You start from where you are. Only then you will make the journey. Otherwise, you will just hallucinate and believe you are there, and it will crash someday.
If belief systems alone could handle the world, we have enough belief systems to bring absolute harmony and whatever. But you need to understand, the moment you believe in something which is not a living experience for you as yet, somebody else believes something else that is conflict.
So much religion in the world-at least 80% of the world's population is religious, but still, look at the conflict-and most of the time, religion is the basis of conflict. The moment you're religious, that should have been the end of conflict in your life, both within and outside. But unfortunately, that's become the source of major conflict on the planet.
Janet Attwood: "How can one know if he is moving forward on the path to enlightenment?"
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev: This is a real struggle. It is not really so complex. It is just that most people cannot understand the ultimate dimension of life can be the simplest too. This is a problem. This has been very beautifully expressed. You've heard of Krishna?
Janet Attwood: Yes.
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev: As Krishna goes about giving his teachings, his disciple [Arjuna] is all totally confused, as usually happens in the spiritual part. As he's trying to bring more clarity to him, he only gets more confused. Then out of great desperation, he asks, "What is this truth that you're talking about? Where is it, because if I ask you, 'Is it here?' you say yes. If I ask you, 'Is it there?' you say yes.
At another time, if I ask you, 'Is it here?' you say no. If I ask you 'Is it there?' you say no. What is this truth? What is the nature of this truth? Where is it?" Krishna laughs and says, "The ultimate truth of your existence is at the tip of your nose." Now, there are many schools of yoga who are intensely focusing on the tips of their noses.
Please try it for two minutes and see you will get a headache. You will not get enlightened anyway. He is saying it's the tip of your nose because he is saying it is the most obvious. The ultimate nature is the most obvious reality in your existence.
But the problem is, your eyes are set elsewhere. This is the reason it seems to be so far away and you need all kinds of evaluation methods to know whether you are going forward or backward.
See, the reason why this confusion has come right now, your whole perception of life is limited to five senses: your sense of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. The world has entered you only through these five gates of senses. If these five sense organs go to sleep right now, you will have no experience, either of the world, or of yourself.
So if this talk is boring and you doze off, the world disappears and you disappear for a while. Are you dozing off?
Janet Attwood: No, we're totally involved!
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev: So it is the sense organs which are perceiving for you. It is through the agencies of the senses that you are perceiving life, both of the outside and of yourself. These senses, in the very nature of things, are outward bound so you can see what is outside. Can you roll your eyeballs inside and do an [imaray] upon yourself?
No. A pin drops, you can hear it. So much activity in the body, can you hear it? An ant crawls upon your hand, you can feel it. So much blood is flowing in the body, can you feel it? Because in the very nature of things, your sense organs are outward bound. Sense organs are not capable of perceiving what is within.
This is why the spiritual process looks so far away and you are asking for evaluation methods. "Am I going forward or backward?" You are neither going forward nor backward because there's only one step to take. There are no million miles to walk, there is just one step to take.
This step is not in the direction in which you are looking. That's why all this confusion. We have a common example in India that's constantly used for a spiritual process as this. Now you stand here, you have your own shadow in front of you and you want to go beyond that shadow, so you start running. You want to pass the shadow.
You started walking, then started running, then started really running. You run as fast as you want. Will you ever pass the shadow? Will you ever overtake the shadow? It is never going to happen, so what to do? You just have to run yourself to deal, that's all there is.
Or, if you simply turn around, the shadow will be behind you. It is this turnaround that needs to happen, not going somewhere. The spiritual process, or your enlightenment, is not an attainment, it's not an achievement, it's a homecoming. It's about falling back into yourself, not about going somewhere.
This is not an aspiration to go to heaven. This is when you simply fall into yourself. When you fall into original nature, when you're at home with your original nature, then you're enlightened because your original nature, the basis of your creation, is the basis of the existence itself in a sense.
See, when you were born, this body was so small. Now it has become this much. Definitely you did not go for any kind of weekly searching or something to make it big. That which is creating this body, the manufacturer of this body is functioning from within. So the source of creation is functioning from within.
That which is the source of creation, the source of all that is right now, is what you call as God or divine or many names that you have given to it. That dimension, which is the very basis and source of creation, is right now pulsing within you, waiting within you and constantly working within you.
But you have no access to it because your sense organs are giving you a perception of the outside only because sense organs were created only to take care of the survival process. Now that you have a longing to go beyond survival because somehow, however well you've survived, survival has not been enough.
Once you become a human being, this is a problem, survival is not enough. If you had come as any other creature, survival was good enough for you, but suddenly now survival is not good enough for you, you want enlightenment, but you don't have the necessary instruments.
Like you are a cowboy, you're riding a horse, but you've got a desire to go to the moon, somebody told you, "Whip the horse properly, you will get there," believe me, you will not get there. You will kill the horse probably, that's all. So this is the predicament of the people who are on the path of enlightenment.
"How far is it? Am I getting there?" It is not far, so you cannot get there. If you stop trying to get somewhere, you will be there. It is like now a tourist came. Where are you all, by the way? Which town are you in?
Janet Attwood: We're near the San Francisco area in California.
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev: Okay, that's a place where a lot of tourists go. A tourist is driving toward San Francisco and he stops and asks a young man on the road, "How far to San Francisco?" The young man says, "24,996 miles the way you're going, but if you turn around, it's just four miles." That is enlightenment.
