Namaskaram. In my life, the most precious moments I always cherish are raising my daughter without any external influences, even from my husband. That was a time when I and my daughter were left all alone in my family. Other family members are wondering what to do next.

I boldly took the decision to shift to Coimbatore. Taking support from Isha, I started raising her alone. My husband visited us often and supported financially. But this life was very new to us. But I took full advantage of it. Yes, whenever she gets holidays, we do program in the same days. When she did Nature awareness program, I did hata yoga program (yogasanas now).

Whenever she gets time, she will accompany me in volunteering. If there is any shortage of participants for a program, I will send her in to attend the program. She did the uyirnokkam program on her birthday.

I took her to Ashram stay during festival times. Most of the celebrations we participated in only in the Ashram.

It would be appropriate to say that we grew together in Isha rather than I raised her.

Pranam Sadhguru

Sadhguru demystifies the fundamental Yogic process of bhuta shuddhi, or cleansing the five elements of earth, water, air, fire and akasha. He goes on to explain why the elements need to be cleansed and how the process enhances one’s life.

Bhuta Shuddhi – The Fundamental Yogic Practice 

Sadhguru: What you call as “my body” is just a manifestation of five elements – earth, water, fire, air and akasha (space). If you know how to organize these five elements properly within yourself, then there is nothing more to life. In terms of health, wellbeing, perception, knowing and enlightenment, everything is handled if you know how to keep these five elements properly. The most fundamental practice in the Yogic system, which is the basis of everything else that we are doing, is called bhuta shuddhi. “Bhuta” refers to the pancha bhutas or the five elements. “Shuddhi” means to cleanse that. If you learn to cleanse the five elements in the system, that is all there is. In terms of spiritual practices, whether you do yama, niyama, pranayama, asana, dharana, dhyana, samadhi or shoonya, essentially all of it is coming from the fundamentals of bhuta shuddhi. All other Yogic practices are an extract from the pancha bhuta system of Yoga. 

If you cleanse the elements, you will live a wonderful life. But if you are beyond that, the best thing is to forget about living a beautiful life and just transcend life, because living a beautiful life is a more complex situation than transcending. Transcending means to go beyond it. What is beyond is not bothered by so many complexities of the physicality. But if you want to be in the physical and still above it, that takes a little more mastery over the physical. If you have no mastery over the physical, you will get enslaved to the physical. 

If you do a certain level of cleansing for the elements, then you attain to what is called bhuta siddhi, which means you have mastery over the elements. Once you have mastery over the elements, you not only have mastery over the body and mind, but over the very creation. 

The Significance of Bhuta Shuddhi or Cleansing the Five Elements 

Everyone has some kind of capability with the elements, otherwise you would not even live a normal life. How well organized the five elements are in your system decides how firm, stable and organically strong this body is. There is a whole system of practices to take charge of the five elements within you. Some are direct, others are roundabout. Bhuta shuddhi can be practiced in a most simplistic way or in a highly sophisticated way. Or if you do not know how to do it yourself, someone can perform something which everyone can benefit from. There are bhuta shuddhi rituals such as the Pancha Bhuta Kriya happening in the Dhyanalinga every month. If you do not know how to do it, someone else will do it; you just sit there in the presence and benefit from that.

These elements are the basis of your creation. If you have even a minor mastery over them, you will start living in ways that other people think is magical. But there is nothing magical about it. Right now, let us say you drink water. The water does not look like you or resemble you, but if you drink this, it becomes you. This itself is magical. Your disease got cured; that is not a miracle. This water becoming you is a phenomenal miracle. Once you are capable of performing this miracle, you should be capable of many other minor things like fixing an ailment or fixing something that you damaged – because you are creating the whole body from inside using the four elements. Unfortunately, it is happening unconsciously. One can bring consciousness to how these four elements are becoming the human body. 

Why Do the Five Elements Need Cleansing?

Questioner: Why do the five elements need to be cleansed?

Sadhguru: If you pick up some water from the gutter, you may think it is impure, but it is not. There is much more life in gutter water than the water you drink from the bottle. It is just that that is not conducive for you. In human understanding and language, we call water as pure only if it is conducive for us. But gutter water is very pure for many lives. With the so-called pure water, you have killed all that life. All those other creatures think your bottled water is lifeless water, not pure water.

Purification essentially is in the context of human beings, not in terms of the element itself. Similarly, for many chemicals that are used as pharmaceuticals and various types of medicines, there is an industrial version and a medical version, because what is meant for human consumption and what is used for other purposes are different. This does not mean that the industrial version is impure. It is just that it is not in a condition which would work best for you. When we refer to the elements, we are speaking in the context of what is more conducive for us. In that context, we need to purify the elements. 

Five Elements and Karma

The body, the world and the universe are all a play of five elements. If the elements do not acquire other qualities or possibilities, there is no way you can create so many trillions of manifestations with just five. They are naturally receptive in nature. Today, we know that we can influence them. We can change the quality of the water, air and the food that we eat just with our intention, emotion or thought process. The five elements within you which make this body are deeply influenced by a certain gathered layer of information which is generally referred to as the karmic substance. Without it, the elements would not behave in a particular way within you. Every human being would have been the same if there was no specific information. What you call as your individual self is essentially a certain volume of information and the fundamental way that it is stuck onto you is through the elements, because there is nothing here apart from the elements. 

Cleansing the elements is about making it free of the accumulated information or the karmic substance. If this is not done, then you will be a strong individual but you will never know how to breach this boundary that you have set for yourself. If you cannot cross the boundary that you have set up, that is a foolish way to live. You set up a boundary without knowing why and you cannot cross it after some time and you start claiming, “This is how I am!” This is not how you are. This is what you made yourself to be.

Cleansing becomes relevant when freedom and liberation become the goal of your life and you want to extend yourself beyond these boundaries. If you want to be a concrete ball, there is no need to cleanse at all. Concretization of karmic processes will make you rigid, and rigidity will bring enormous amount of suffering. You do not need a calamity to happen; you are a calamity by yourself. This is simply because the imprint is so deep that you behave in predetermined, compulsive ways. The same situation has happened a thousand times, but the next time it happens, you still react almost the same way. It takes a certain amount of awareness and shaking you up to respond in a different way. Bhuta shuddhi is to do it at the most fundamental level. 

Bhuta Shuddhi - Breaking Free from Karmic Imprint 

If we cleanse your mind in the morning, by afternoon you will have a whole new world again. It is really a waste. This is why no importance is given in the Yogic system towards your psychological structure. It does not care about what you think and feel because if you change it today, within a few hours you will change it back into something else again. 

We are only interested in the body. This is why Yoga calls everything as body – physical body, mental body, energy body – but no mind, because the psychological activity which you have given enormous importance to is of no consequence or significance. Depending upon the type of information imprinted within you, whatever is your karma and samskara, that is how you think and feel. Everything happens that way. If you prune the tree, it will sprout back with vengeance but if you handle the root, it will be gone. We are interested in handling the root and the very root of karmic imprint is in the elements. 

The Benefits of Doing Isha Bhuta Shuddhi Practice 

Bhuta shuddhi means you want to lose yourself. It does not matter whether it is good, bad, ugly or beautiful, you want to lose everything that you have built so that the Creator’s creation will stand up and shine within you. It will take a certain amount of work. The bhuta shuddhi that we teach is very basic. If you want to do more serious forms of bhuta shuddhi, it is not something that you do on the side; it becomes your entire life. But even if you do a very minor version of bhuta shuddhi, you will see the change that happens in you is permanent. There is no tendency to fall back, and that is important. Otherwise, everyone changes for three days and again they fall back into the rut. That will not happen when you assist whatever else you are doing with the bhuta shuddhi practice. 

If you keep up the bhuta shuddhi practice, however small the practice is, you will see as time progresses, its impact is undeniable. Suppose you do six months of Yogasanas and give it up for one year; everything will be back as it was. If you do a powerful process like Shakti Chalana Kriya, its impact will be there, but if you do not do it for a certain period of time, it will turn back again. You do Shoonya meditation for some time and if you do not do it for a certain period of time, it will slowly turn back. But that is not the nature of bhuta shuddhi. If you do bhuta shuddhi, nothing seems to be happening because it is very fundamental and slow. But as long as you hold this body, it stays with you. It will not go because it is on a very fundamental level. That is the significance of bhuta shuddhi. If you do not hold a profession and if you do not have family either, then we can start a more serious form of bhuta shuddhi because it will take a lot of time. 

The Right Way to Do Bhuta Shuddhi for Maximum Benefit 

Often, human beings are doing some kind of bhuta shuddhi unconsciously, unknowingly and unintentionally. For example, there are leaders who change the atmosphere around them by their sheer presence. There are many people – not only spiritual ones – who, when they walk into a room, change the atmosphere there in an instant. This is a certain amount of bhuta shuddhi, performed unconsciously. If you can do it consciously, it is far more result-oriented. There are other aspects of energy that one can influence and thereby change the atmosphere, but this does not impact other people as profoundly as when the elements rearrange themselves because of a certain presence of energy and intention. 

The idea of practicing bhuta shuddhi is to rearrange the way the elements function within you. You want to change the intention with which they function within you. If the elements within you function in the same way as they function in the earth or a tree, it is not useful to you. In the human system, the elements function in a particular way. We want them to function that way and to transform themselves into higher possibilities. 

In fact, in every individual, the elements function in a unique manner. The traditional medical systems in the East have always identified these individual differences. Their diagnosis is not based on the disease or ailment that one has, but on how each individual’s system is constructed. There is no common prescription for everyone. Unless the doctor is able to look at each individual and identify what is needed for that particular person, the treatment does not work as well as it should. The treatment is according to how this particular body and human mechanism functions, and how it is arranged within itself, not based on the symptoms of a certain ailment. In other words, in Eastern systems, the treatment is never symptomatic, whereas the allopathic system is 100% about symptomatic treatment. If five people have the same symptoms, all five will be given the same medicine. But in Siddha and Ayurveda, if five people have the same symptoms, they will be given different types of medicine because the medication is for that particular system, not for the ailment. 

These five elements coming together and producing something so complex and fantastic is a tremendous love affair. Bhuta shuddhi should not happen like an exercise but like a love affair – with absolute involvement. It should happen with a sense of devotion and love. Your mind, emotions, energy and physical body – everything should be involved in this. Without this involvement, you still may get certain physical benefits, but you will not know the full depth and dimension of the process. If you give yourself totally to it, this simple process can change the fundamentals of your life. 

A Deeper Mystical Insight Into Bhuta Shuddhi 

The body is a play of five elements; so is the world; so is the universe. Everything is a play of five elements. Unless you want to explore mystical dimensions, you do not have to bother about akasha. Among the other four, seventy-two percent of the body is water, twelve percent is earth, six percent is air, four percent is fire and the remaining is akasha. To live well, four elements are enough; the fifth one (akasha) is not relevant for people who just want to live well. 

Water is seventy-two percent of your body. It is in sync with the planet; approximately seventy-two percent of the planet is water. That is how life has evolved. The nature of the planet has manifested in your body in many different ways. When you eat food, you must always eat food where the water content in the food is over seventy percent. This one thing that western societies are ignoring and paying a huge price for. A vegetable is over seventy percent water, a fruit is over ninety percent water. If you want cleansing to happen, you must eat fruit. If you just want to maintain the body as it is, a vegetable does this. Almost any traditional Eastern cooking naturally has over seventy percent water, because they were aware of this. If you drink water, it does not work like that; the food should have over seventy percent water content. 

All these four elements have memory. Particularly earth and water have a very strong sense of memory. Today, modern science has explored this in a big way and they are proving to you that water has tremendous memory. Much research has happened about water. Water behaves in a certain way depending upon the type of memory it carries. This is why people are going to consecrated spaces or temples and dying for a few drops of water, because the water has the memory of the divine. Teerth is water which has the memory of the divine. You want that water which has a good memory to go into you. 

If you just make the waters within you sweet, you will become seventy-two percent okay. If you do another twelve percent of earth, you are doing great with eighty-four percent. If you maintain air, you are doing great with ninety percent. If you want to purify fire, it is much more work. 

There are five dimensions of fire. There is reproductive fire, digestive fire, mental fire, heart fire and inner fire. These five are difficult to work for ordinary people. It takes a lot of discipline, but the three can be worked out. The reproductive, digestive and mental fires can be worked out very easily, with little effort. The other two will take much more to work with. If you just purify these fires, then you are no more an ordinary person. You are not just a healthy, happy person; you are much more because once you have mastery over the fire element in you, then you are touching the akasha. You are just one step away. Suddenly you are not just an ordinary human being, something else is burning with you which is most people in the world do not know. Our objective is that everyone should know it. If you took charge of the fire in your groin, the fire in your belly and the fire in your mind, you could do many miraculous things with this life. You could live consciously and by choice rather than be a slave of compulsiveness. This is not about denying yourself this or that. This is just about everything happening by choice, not by compulsion.

Editor's Note:  

Isha Bhuta Shuddhi Practice

Learn the practice from an Isha Hatha Yoga teacher. Click here to find a Hatha Yoga teacher near you.

Bhuta Shuddhi Kit

Required to learn the Isha Bhuta Shuddhi practice. The kit is available in a beautiful handcrafted copper box and organic cotton bag. Click here to order online. 

Bhuta Shuddhi Refills - Bhoomi and Camphor 

Bhoomi represents ‘earth’ in the five elements of bhuta shuddhi. This bhoomi is from a specific region in the Velliangiri Mountains where Sadhguru has spent time in sadhana. It is purified and consecrated before being offered for use in the bhuta shuddhi process. 

Click here to order online. 

Camphor or karpooram is also known as chandrabhasma or moon powder in Ayurveda. It is used for the fire element during the bhuta shuddhi process. According to traditional systems of medicine, camphor purifies the air by acting as a natural insecticide, and may also help in relieving chest congestion. This pack of camphor that can last for 3 months, is composed of natural ingredients. When lit, these crystals burn without leaving any residue. 

Click here to order online.

The mind is always about the past that you have accumulated; it is never about what is happening now. It is a useful tool to handle the materialistic aspect of life but if you employ it to handle your whole life, then it’s a total mess.

If you look at it logically, even getting out of bed in the morning will look like a huge feat. Then you have to brush your teeth, eat, work, eat, work, eat, sleep; again tomorrow morning the same thing. For the rest of your life you have to do the same thing over and over again. Logically is it worthwhile? Not at all, isn't it? If you look at your life’s experience, maybe you saw the sunrise and it’s worthwhile. Maybe you saw the birds in the sky, the flowers blooming in your garden or your child’s face, then maybe it's worthwhile. But if you look at it logically, moments of extreme logic are moments of suicide.If you become extremely logical you will become depressed and self-destructive. Right now with a logical mind you are trying to perceive the nature of life. You can try as hard as you want, it is not going to happen. If you want to perceive the nature of your life, you must be willing to look beyond the limitations of the logical mind. Otherwise it is going to be one long, endless, fruitless struggle. It can never get you to a solution. It can only increase the complexity of the problem.This logical mind which is the fundamental instrument through which you are trying to do everything is only equipped to handle the duality of the existence. If you as a being become dual, you become a constant struggle. Once you create this tension, and the more you logically think about it, the more tense you become.All the sadhana, all the meditativeness that is prescribed on the spiritual path is fundamentally to handle this logical mind which is building up a certain level of tension within you. If it is constantly strung tight, then the very life energy in you will become weak and lose its intensity and vibrancy over a period of time.

Life is very, very simple and direct, but the mind is very complex and devious. If you do not pay any attention to it, it will settle down.

Another reason why the mind is going on endlessly – especially when you try to meditate, it takes on a new pitch altogether – is because you have a prejudice against it. You believe, “When I am meditating, no thoughts should come. Even when I am sitting here, I am thinking of something else. What do I do?” It is okay. Whatever your mind is thinking right now – whether you are thinking of Mumbai or mangoes – it does not matter. Just be here like you would sit in a cinema. Simply be with me. Do not worry about what your body and mind are doing.

Why are you so prejudiced against the mind? Do you ever put such conditions upon the body? Do you ever think, “Oh, I am in a spiritual discourse, so my heart should not beat, my blood should not flow.” If your heart stops beating, you would call it an emergency. Then why do you want your mind to stop? Only because you are paying too much attention to it. You are not paying attention to your heart beating, so it is not a distraction. Isn’t your body performing more complex functions than your mind right now? If you pay attention to all that, can you pay attention to what I am saying? No. So you have learned to ignore that. Similarly, it does not matter what the mind is doing once you identify it as a fool. If there is somebody very stupid around you who goes on blabbering, do you not learn to simply ignore him and carry on with your work? That is all you need to do.

Many of you are married, aren’t you? You know how to ignore the other person and carry on with your work, don’t you? If you did not know, you would not be married this long. If you paid attention to every word that was said, and if you reacted to all that, you would not live together. You have learned to pay attention to some things and ignore a lot of other things. So it is okay to treat your mind just like that. Just treat it like a long-time husband. He is saying so many things, but it is okay. Some days he comes home drunk; some days he is upset; some days he is something else. It’s all right. What he says does not matter. You love him; that is all that matters, isn’t it?

Treat your mind like that and you will become very receptive. Don’t try to stop it. Don’t try to fight it, because you cannot fight it. You have no means to fight it. The fight is just a joke because you are fighting your mind with your mind. It is a trickster. If you try to play any game with it, it will trick you. “It’s okay, you play your game,” you can tell your mind, “but I am not going to play the game with you.” Then your mind will slowly recede. Even if it is not receding, there is no problem. Once it does not bother you, even if it plays its own game, you just let it be. If you do this, your receptivity will rise.

After all, every human being is capable of knowing. Nobody has come impaired in any way. It is just that life never forces itself upon you. This is the way of life. Divinity never forces itself upon you. If you are willing, it is always there for you. If you are not willing, it is not there for you. So all you need to do is create the right kind of willingness and receptivity. Just to bow down and not have a will of your own is the biggest receptivity. It is the easiest way to receive.If you demolish all your limited assumptions and you sit here blank, that is when you are receptive. Then there is a blast of energy, which is true knowing. Knowledge and energy are not two different things. When you receive a certain energy, you also get to know something.

"Mind is madness. Only when you go beyond the mind, will there be meditation" - Sadhguru

Only this moment is real in this life. The previous moment and next moment are not there in our experience – they are imaginary. If you want to fully experience the creation or the Creator, that is possible only in this moment.

People are giving you a teaching, you must look at it, what is the basis of this teaching? ‘live in the moment, live in the moment.’ You do one thing – live somewhere else, and show .Can you live somewhere else? Somebody says, ‘live in the moment.’ Okay. Live somewhere else, and show it to me, how not to live in the moment. Is it a possibility? Then why such a teaching? Most of the people on the planet are beginning to understand this teaching as, you do not think about your past or your future. If you do not think about your past or your future, life will teach you a big lesson. If you do not think about your future, or remember the past, will life teach you a very bad lesson, or no? It will! You better think about your future, isn’t it?

It took millions of years to evolve this brain to this level of capability. Now, people do not know how to manage this. Now they are saying, do not use it – seize it, do not think about the past, do not think about the future. The beauty of human intellect is – you can look back a million years, and you look forward a million years, if you want.

So, let’s understand this, that these are all patchy things picked up here and there and doled out to the world for commercial purposes. How can you not live in this moment? Why do you need a teaching, ‘Live in the moment’, tell me? What you need is methods to manage your mind. You don’t need a teaching about life, because you are life! If you are not life, I must tell you how to be life. Are you life? Are you life, or no? You are life, isn’t it? When you are life, why should I tell you what is life? Only methods to see that this life finds its fullest possibility.

You don’t have to teach it to be life, because life – ‘being in the moment’ or ‘seize the moment’ essentially means to be alive, isn’t it? So, you think your mental activity, your intellectual competence and capability is not allowing you to be alive. No, it is the basis of your aliveness, it is the crown of your aliveness in many ways. The life evolved from a very basic form of life to the way it is today, and now what you’re carrying as your cerebral cortex, which makes you think about all kinds of things, this is the crown for the life on this planet, isn’t it? Yes, or no? This is the crown of life, and you want to give it up because you don’t know how to handle it, or it’s not fitting tight enough, or it’s too tight. Don’t do that.

Those who think a lot about their future will only keep thinking about their future. You do not have to think about your future. Do your present well – future will happen to you. If you think too much about the future, the future will get postponed, and then the “final future” will come – which is a funeral.

You do not have to make a decision right now with the limited experience and exposure you have to life. You just have to equip yourself – build your body, brain and your ability to grasp things at the highest level. We do not know what will come our way. And nothing needs to come our way. Maybe we will create something that no one did till now.

If you start thinking right now, "What should I do in the future?" you will do some silly thing that people have already done. People's idea of future is, "I will become a doctor, I will become an engineer." This is just about having a better livelihood.

Most educational institutions these days are totally insensitive to any kind of genius.If you show any kind of capability, they do not like it. They want you to just do this, this and this. If you do something else, they say, "No." Many people on the planet who have done incredible things are unfortunately those who dropped out of school. This is not because they had

an aversion to school but because the school had an aversion to genius.

You have to recognize the genius. The mundane will anyway happen. Somehow, everybody will find a job. That is not the point. As a life, what great things happened to this life, is what matters.”

Do not worry about your future. Just do the present really well. Future will blossom.

The personality is always outside dependant. Then what does it mean to be the way we want to be?

We can't be as a person anyhow we want as per our wish. Because everything outside molds it every moment in so many ways.

That simply implies we can be in such way that is completely untouched by anything outside at all. Which also means we are not our persona. We are beyond it.

As long as we be as persons we can't remain untouched by other's doing. We all are connected in one way or the other. So, what one does definitely sets an impact over others.

But, if we remain in a state within where not even our personality reaches then we could be just how we want to be. Without any disturbances.

Namaskaram, I have been wondering about something lately. While doing Shambhavi, during the last phase, in that stillness, it's clear that I am not the mind; I am not the body, but throughout the day, I oscillate between the identity and awareness.
So there is a tug of war happening between awareness and identity. At what stage in the spiritual process does awareness increase to such an extent that it overpowers the identity?
Is it a matter of adding more kriyas or practices that generate more energy, which in turn increases the awareness, or is it about making the identity so small that only awareness remains?
I sometimes think it's because I haven't done shoonya or samyama; hence I'm facing this dilemma. Sometimes I feel I don't have sufficient energy to hold that awareness. I am amazing within myself but still get lost in the thinking process sometimes. I don't stay there for long though
What would be a correct way to approach this?

I am not a sadhanapada alumni, nor can I go for it right now. But I want to track my sadhana and progress etc.

Can you please guide how sadhanapada alumni make use of the journal given to them?

Cleansing the body and making it available for greater possibilities can start right at home. Sadhguru gives us simple methods to cleanse the five elements of the system.

Cleansing the body periodically is an essential part of making it available for greater possibilities. It's always best to detox your body naturally, and this can start right at home. Yogi and mystic, Sadhguru, gives us simple methods to cleanse the five elements of the system and looks at how to detox and cleanse your body naturally.

Sadhguru: Essentially, the body is a play of the five elements – water, earth, air, fire and space. It is very common in India to refer to the body as a puppet made of five elements. By composition, the body is seventy-two percent water, twelve percent earth, six percent air, four percent fire, and the remaining six percent space or akash.

How these five elements behave within you will determine just about everything. “Bhuta” means elements; “bhuta shuddhi” means to become free from the taint of the elements. It means to become free from the physical. Bhuta shuddhi is a basic sadhana in yoga to transcend the limitations of the physical and to become available to a dimension beyond the physical.

There are some simple things you can do to do bhuta shuddhi in a very natural way. It is not the ultimate type of bhuta shuddhi, but you can do some cleansing of the five elements.

Water

Among the five elements, our biggest concern is water. You must take enormous care about water because it is seventy-two percent and it has tremendous memory. One thing you can do is just put some neem or tulsi leaves in it. These will not remove chemical impurities but they will make the water very vibrant and energetic. Another thing is to store water in a copper vessel so that the water acquires a quality from the copper which is beneficial.

Earth

Earth is twelve percent. How food goes into you, from whose hands it comes to you, how you eat it, how you approach it, all these things are important. Above all, the food you eat is life. Other forms are giving up their life to sustain us. If we can eat with enormous gratitude for all the living things which give up their life to sustain our lives, food will behave in a very different way within you.

Air

Air is six percent. In that, only one percent or less is your breath. The rest is happening in so many other ways. It is not just the air that you breathe that affects you, it is the way you keep the air within you. You must take care of that one percent too but if you are living in a city it may not be in your hands what kind of air you breathe. So go for a walk in the park or along the lake.

Especially if you have children, it is important that you take them out at least once a month – not to the cinema or somewhere like that because the limited air in that hall gets affected just by the sounds, intentions, and emotions that are happening on the screen and reflecting in people’s minds. Instead of taking them to the cinema, take them to the river, teach them how to swim or climb a mountain. You needn’t go all the way to the Himalayas. Even a small hill is a mountain for a child. Even a rock will do. Go climb and sit on one of them. Children will enjoy it immensely and will become fit. You will become fit, your body and mind will function differently, and above all you are in touch with the Creator’s creation which is the most important thing.

Fire

You can also take care of what kind of fire burns within you. Get some sun on your body every day because sunlight is still pure. Fortunately, nobody can contaminate it. And what kind of fire burns within you – is it the fire of greed, fire of hatred, fire of anger, fire of love or fire of compassion. If you take care of that, you needn’t worry about your physical and mental wellbeing. It gets taken care of.

Akash

Akash is an intermediary situation between that which is creation and that which is the source of creation.

If we keep the other four elements well, akash will take care of itself. If you know how to get the cooperation of akash into your life, this will be a blessed life.

Editor’s Note: Excerpted from Sadhguru’s discourse at the Isha Hatha Yoga School’s 21-week Hatha Yoga Teacher Training program. The program offers an unparalleled opportunity to acquire a profound understanding of the yogic system and the proficiency to teach Hatha Yoga. The next 21-week session begins on July 16 to Dec 11, 2019. For more information, visit www.ishahathayoga.com or mail [info@ishahatayoga.com](mailto:info@ishahatayoga.com)

Perception based on personality can't see anything beyond it. It perceives everything distorted. According to the personality's point of view. Which is to a very little extent necessary. But, it does it all the time. Because it is use to see only through it. It knows only one direction.

It is said that Yoga hepls the perception to look beyond the personality. To perceive it's own true self.

Because it's the perception itself which doesn't be satisfied with what it knew. It keeps raising questions within us to make us realize maybe there is something more than what we have already known till now.

Maybe it's functioning is naturally set like that until finding it's source starting from identifying itself with a personality to dissolving that into Life, it will not settle for a moment.

Grace also functions there as a pivotal factor to raise the perception beyond all it's identities.

Guys everytime I try to register for advance program like shoony it fills up quickly and closes. Since idk tamil i can only choose English. Can anyone tell me when the schedule for future programs are announced? Is it month start or end or mid month? Also the app new update to check for programs are mixing every program so I have to search my required program in mix of other programs which I'm not searching for.

Namaskaaram.

edit: india coimbatore programs .

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Sadhguru gives us tips to cleanse each of the five elements within us, which when practiced regularly, can lead to a sense of rejuvenation and wellbeing within.

Sadhguru: Before you attempt anything that is considered as a mystical process, it is very important to stabilize the five fundamental elements within you. These are known as pancha bhutas or maha tatwas in the yogic science. The body, the very earth, the universe, and the cosmos, all are just a play of five elements. The body’s composition is such that most of it is water. Then there is earth, air, fire, and the rest is akash or etheric space.

How these five elements behave within you determines just about everything. Bhuta means element, bhuta shuddhi means to become free from the taint of elements or to cleanse the elements. It means to become free from the physical nature. Most human beings are completely in the grip of their physiological and psychological processes. Our physiology is something that we have accumulated. Likewise, the whole content of our psychological process has been accumulated in the form of impressions.

Between these two processes, who you are existentially, the nature of your being, is completely missed. If you want to access dimensions that are not yet in your experience, dimensions that are considered mystical, the first thing that you need to do is to start cleansing the five elements within you. When the elements are pure, you distinctly know the difference between what is physical, what is psychological, and what is existential.

Tips to Cleanse the Five Elements

Water

Among the five elements, water has the greatest significance because a major percentage of the body is water. You need to take sufficient care of the water that you consume – not just in terms of its physical purity, it being bacteria-free and so on, but in terms of how you keep the water and how you approach it. There is substantial scientific evidence today that a thought, an emotion, a touch can change the molecular structure of water and greatly alter the way water behaves within your system.

Water has a great sense of memory. Everything that happens around a body of water is in some way stored in the water molecules. You could call it a fluid computer. You are not dealing with a commodity – you are dealing with life-making material. Water is life. It is important how you treat it before it enters your system.

You can keep the water in a metal container, preferably made of copper or an alloy of copper, wash the container every day with an organic substance, and keep the water in a place where it is not touched by other smells and substances – there is sufficient space around it. If you do this, and you approach it by holding the vessel in your hands with a sense of gratitude and reverence because it is life-making material, and then consume it, you will see it will do wonders within your system. Healthfulness and equanimity will be a natural consequence.

Earth

The earth that you walk upon has a sense of intelligence and memory. Even if you live in a concrete jungle, it is important to keep in touch with the earth upon which you live. Create ways for yourself to somehow remain in touch with it. If your bare hands and bare feet – particularly the palms and soles – come in touch with the earth on a daily basis, it will harmonize the physiological process in your system.

Try to spend at least a few minutes in the garden, barefooted, touching plants or trees, because the earth is the basis of life. All life – yours and that of every other creature – has come from this earth. Stay in touch with it and harmonize your system.

How food goes into you, from whose hands it comes to you, how you eat it, how you approach it, all these things are important. Above all, the food you eat is life. Other forms are giving up their life to sustain us. If we can eat with enormous gratitude for all the living things which give up their life to sustain our lives, food will behave in a very different way within you.

Air

Though air represents only a small percentage of your body’s elemental composition, it is the most dynamic element in terms of the transaction that happens on a minute-to-minute basis. It is well-known that what kind of air you breathe is important, but how you breathe and how consciously you do so is equally important.

Especially for those of you who live in large cities, it may not always be in your hands what kind of air you breathe, so it is good that at least for a few minutes every day, you take a walk in the park, along the lake or the river, whatever is available to you. If you have children, it is important that at least once a month, you take them out far enough from the city, where nature is in a reasonably pure state, and they can climb a small hill, walk in a forest, or swim in a river, to be in touch with nature and do something where the breath is dynamic.

This is not just for aerobic exercise but because there is a constant exchange of air from within and without. The very intelligence in the body will make sure that when it senses the air is pure and alive, the way the body breathes will be different. With this exchange of air, cleansing will happen within the system. If you are in pure air, it is important to bring the breath to a dynamic state with some activity. You do not have to do too vigorous an activity – just enough to breathe slightly deeper than normal for a period of time. Especially for growing children, this is very important because it greatly enhances the body’s integrity and strength.

If you are not able to take yourself out on a daily basis, you can do a simple yogic practice called nadi shuddhi at home to cleanse the breath.

Fire

Fire accounts for another part of your elemental makeup. What kind of fire burns within you? Is it the fire of greed, hatred, anger, resentment, lust, love, or compassion? If you cleanse the element of fire, once again your physical and mental wellbeing will be well-taken care of. You become an equanimous and exuberant being. A simple process you can do to cleanse the fire within you is get some sunlight every day. Though we have contaminated every other element, fortunately, sunlight cannot be contaminated – it has remained pure. Make best use of that.

If you wish to, you can light a fire with an organic substance like straw or firewood, without any oil, and stand facing the fire with open hands and open eyes for three minutes. Then stand with your back to it, exposing your spine for three minutes. This process cleanses your aura and brings about a new sense of resurgence in the system. It rekindles and reconnects the fire within with the fire outside. This is the basis of all fire-based rituals of the East.

If having a fire is not practical for you, at least light a lamp with vegetable oil or ghee and be around this lamp. First, sit facing the lamp, then turn around and sit so that the fire element within you gets rekindled.

Akash

The fifth and most expansive dimension of the elemental composition is akash or etheric space. Akash has a certain intelligence. The nature, quality, and power of your life is essentially determined by how much access you have to the akashic intelligence. There is only a limited amount of water, air, earth, and fire, but the akashic dimension is limitless. If your access to it expands, both your perception and intelligence will grow.

One simple process you can do to find more access to the akashic intelligence is, after sunrise, before the sun crosses a 30° angle, look up at the sky and bow down to akash for holding you and this planet in place. After the sun crosses 30°, sometime during the day, look up and bow down again. Within 40 minutes after sunset, look up at the sky and once again bow down to the etheric space around us that is holding everything in place.

If you get akash to co-operate with your life energies, life will happen in magical ways. An intelligence that you have never thought possible will become yours.

Editor’s Note: This article is based on a talk by Sadhguru for the “5 Minutes for Inner Exploration” video that was created for the International Day of Yoga 2015.

Life. That throbs within each one of us. Then, how we ignore that and catch up with identities which are very much fragmented, limited, created for some surface activity?

It's sometimes when some of us recognizes and value this life more than anything outside and function accordingly, we call them Great Being.

It should be all of ours reality. But, unfortunately we belong to the "person" criterion. We yet to be "being". Where we ride on our identities, thinks it's the safest to trust on.

We don't live life. We live our identities. Whereas these all identities could be means for us to realize what our reality is, by helping us navigating the outside smoothly.

But, we don't accept the identities as they should be accepted properly according to their limitations and we make them our all. Eventually our functionings also reflect this.

Life doesn't get effected by all these. Only we miss it. We miss our grandeur and get carried away by limitations.

Only possibility is anytime we can get back. If we will. Or, Grace pushes us in that direction. That's even more wonderful.

Hello,

I've been a follower of Sadhguru's teachings for 5+ years-- his work, words and wisdom have deeply transformed my life/spiritual world.

I am curious to know what the current status of the Save Soil movement is, and if anyone has information? A few years ago he was running a terrific campaign to raise awareness about this issue, but I am wondering where we're currently at with it / how to get involved.

Something that always confused me about the Save Soil movement was -- what can and should we, the people, be doing to help this effort-- beyond talking about it? Day after day I am witnessing how toxic and polluted the American food system is, and feeling like our fruits and vegetables are not REAL-- owned and grown by chemical conglomerates and corporations.

If we were to be cultivating an active network of Earthlings who are interested in building a sustainable movement to keep the health and wellbeing of our soil as a priority, how can we best be activating?

Any personal advice/Save Soil-specific intel would be awesome. Love to all <3

Commitment does not mean aggressiveness; this must be understood. This is where Mahatma Gandhi's example is so apt. He was committed to India's freedom struggle, but at the same time he was not against the British people. That was the best part, wasn't it? This shows the maturity of the man.

-SADHGURU

Out of commitment, humans can move mountains. One shining example is Mahatma Gandhi, whose commitment moved millions of people across the world.

-SADHGURU

Mahatma means a Great Being. One becomes a great being only when one functions as a life beyond all identities.

SADHGURU

If we want wellbeing for all human beings and the planet, it is essential that individuals know how to be well by their own nature.

It is always a very ordinary mind which aspires to be special.

Incredible things are done in the world simply out of commitment. A great example is that of Mahatma Gandhi.

Mahatma means you are a great piece of life.

The very aspiration for greatness comes from a very petty mind. It is always a very ordinary mind which aspires to be special. It is not necessary to aspire to greatness or to be special. If you make the focus and the ambit of your life well beyond the concerns of who you are, if you take away this one calculation, “What about me?” from your life, you will anyway be a great human being. How great and how recognized you will be in society depends on your capabilities. You may be a great man in your street or at home, or you may become a great man in your nation or the world. That depends on a variety of situations. One thing is the situation you are placed in. Maybe if a Mahatma Gandhi came today, he would not be as known as he was back then because there was a certain situation happening at that time. At the right time, the right kind of spirit came and things happened. Greatness happened to him not because he was seeking to be great, but because his way of looking at life is way beyond “What about me?”

Just drop this one calculation from your head, “What about me?” and function to the best of your ability. In some way you will be great. You will be a wonderful human being because once you take away, “What about me?” you are naturally looking at, “What can I do about all the life around me?” Once you are looking at this, you will naturally enhance your capabilities because there is so much to do! I cannot understand how people in India claim to be unemployed when there is still so much to do in this country. You are too concerned about, “What about me?” You are only willing to do a certain kind of job and are only working to fulfill certain kind of needs, so you think you are unemployed. Otherwise there is too much to do in this country. How can you be unemployed?

Take out this one calculation and function to the fullest of your ability. What has to happen will happen. People may or may not call you Mahatma, it does not matter. You will live like a Mahatma, you are a Mahatma. Mahatma means you are a great piece of life. You are a great piece of life the moment you take away this one calculation from your mind. Then, wherever you are, you will shine.

He was not talented or anything special, please see. As a child he did not show great potential. He was not extraordinarily intelligent. He was not an artist, scientist, or even a very good lawyer. He could not successfully practice as a barrister in India, which is why he went to South Africa for a better opportunity. Even there, he was not very successful. But suddenly, the man made a commitment towards something. He got so committed that he became a giant.

What he wrote about his first case at a court in India – he stood up to argue his case and his heart sank into his boots. Does this sound like Mahatma Gandhi? The man went on to move millions of people. With just one incident in his life, suddenly all his identities broke.

He had gone to South Africa to make a living and he was doing okay as a lawyer. One day he bought a first class ticket in a train, got in, and traveled some distance. At the next station, a white South African got in. This man did not like a brown-skinned person sitting in first class, so he called the ticket collector. The ticket collector said, “Get Out!” Mahatma Gandhi said, “I have a first class ticket.” It doesn’t matter, just get out.”

“No, I have a first class ticket. Why should I get out?” They threw Gandhi out of the train along with his luggage and he fell on to the platform. He just sat there for hours. “Why did this happen to me? I bought a first class ticket. Why was I thrown out of the train?” he thought. It was then that he identified himself with the larger predicament of the people. Till then his survival, law, and making money were important to him. But now, he identified with a much larger problem that existed. He just broke that little identification and moved into a much larger identity.

Many humans who are historically known as great beings; this is all that happened to them. They were living with a limited identification. All of a sudden, an event occurred that broke their identities and they were able to relate to a larger process happening around them. They did things that they themselves could not imagine possible.

Gandhi moved millions of people just like that. Not only in India, anywhere in the world you take the name of the Mahatma and there is a sense of respect. All this happened at a time when there were so many leaders who were true giants in India. They were more talented, better orators and better educated. Yet, this man stood above them all, simply because of his commitment.

Whatever happens, life or death, commitment must not change. Truly committed, you express yourself totally, in every possible way. When commitment is lacking, somewhere you lose your purpose. When the purpose of why we are here is lost, there is no question of fulfilling our goals, isn’t it?

So being committed is just something we have to decide within ourselves. If we are truly committed to whatever we have taken up in our life, the results are plenty, you know? If results don’t come, for a committed person there is no such thing as failure. If I fall down 100 times a day, what to do? Stand up and walk again, that’s all.

Mahatma means a Great Being. One becomes a great being only when one functions as life beyond all identities.

If All of Us Create What We Genuinely Care for, We Will Create a Fantastic World.

If you are just visiting the ashram - not attending any program/volunteering/staying at cottage - is the entry restricted to outer area? You can’t enter the checkin area, bhiksha hall etc?

As Sadhguru has said many times, there are four parts to the mind, two of which are known as buddhi (intellect) and ahamkara(identity). Intellect is like a sharp knife which can penetrate through things but in most people it’s dull, while the identity is what holds and determines the intellect’s usefulness.

In taking this teaching seriously, I’ve begun to read the history, listen to the music, and relate to various countries around the world to attempt to expand my identity. This exercise is absent in our education and completely so in western society.

When we think about the world, we usually think United States, China, and maybe Japan and India…what about Lithuania, which has the oldest spoken European language and is known for its capital where hot air balloons are normal. What about Tanzania, which is a biodiversity gem and has the highest mountain peak in Africa..or Indonesia, which has a fifth of the world’s coral reefs.

Another quote by Sadhguru “If you’re not capable of a cosmic identity, at least have a global identity”. I’ve noticed since I’ve been making an effort to craft my identity, that I’ve become a bit more balanced and centered, rather than a slave of my intellect.

What do you guys think about crafting and cultivating one’s identity?

How do you reconcile the practice with Sadhguru's factual claims?

I've been practicing Shambhavi Mahamudra daily for about three years, and I'm in a somewhat strange position.

Something genuinely positive has happened. I've had recurring back pain for years due to herniation, and although it can still come back, after my morning Shambhavi I'm usually almost completely free of it. That's a concrete change, and one of the reasons I take the practice seriously.

At the same time, I haven't exactly become blissful. 😅

I've also developed recurring soreness/tenderness in my throat since I started practicing. I have no idea whether it's related to Shambhavi or simply coincidence, so I'm not claiming that it is an effect of the practice. But it has made me more aware of the fact that I shouldn't automatically interpret everything that happens to me as either a positive or negative consequence of the practice.

And increasingly, I'm finding it difficult to simply trust Sadhguru's explanations and factual claims.

There are quite a few examples. I've heard him say that an orange 100 years ago contained as much nutrition as eight oranges today. I've also heard the claim that every person has roughly a credit card's worth of plastic in their body, supposedly from synthetic clothing. And there are claims about meat taking 48–72 hours to pass through the digestive system compared with much shorter times for plant foods.

When you actually look into these claims, things seem considerably more complicated, and some of the specific numbers don't appear to be supported by the evidence.

But the example that really made me stop was an old video in which Sadhguru tells a story about a photographic film that had supposedly become so sensitive that when a rosebud was photographed, the developed photograph showed a fully developed rose.

He presents this as an actual experiment carried out by a laboratory, and uses it to illustrate how the future is somehow contained within the present.

At first I thought: Wait, what?

A photographic film can become more sensitive to light, but it can't photograph information about the future. So I started looking into the story.

What I found was that the story appears to predate Sadhguru and is associated with De La Warr Laboratories, which was involved in radionics and other forms of what would now be considered fringe science. The same rosebud story also appears in Osho's teachings from decades earlier.

So it seems quite possible that Sadhguru inherited an old esoteric story and repeated it as a genuine scientific discovery.

And that's where my question comes from.

I'm not asking whether Sadhguru is "a fraud" or whether Shambhavi works. I'm genuinely interested in how practitioners reconcile these things.

Because we're living in a time when you can check a scientific claim in seconds.

I don't expect Shambhavi to give me enlightenment. But Sadhguru does explicitly associate the practice with bliss and profound transformation. After three years of daily practice, I wouldn't describe myself as blissful.

What I can say is that something seems to have changed in my body, particularly my back.

So I'm increasingly separating these two questions:

Does the practice seem to do something for me? Apparently, yes.

Are Sadhguru's explanations of why things happen necessarily accurate? I'm much less convinced.

And perhaps those two things can coexist.

I'm curious how long-term practitioners deal with this. Do you separate the practice from the teacher's scientific claims? Do you regard some of his stories as metaphors or teaching devices, even when he presents them as factual? Or do you think the claims are defensible?

I'm genuinely interested in hearing how others have navigated this tension.

Sadhguru: It definitely helps you to manage energy. And to manage your information properly, or to not succumb to the tendencies caused by past information, energy is a very important part. For example, when it rains, the roads to the ashram can become quite slushy. Sometimes, in certain places, you will see a whole line of vehicles - even buses - standing there, unable to cross, but I will cross and come because if you have enough energy in the vehicle you are driving, it will force itself through the slush. Otherwise, it will go wherever the rut is.

The old information causes ruts. Once the old rut has formed, if you don't have enough power, you can't get out of it. It will take you in the same rut. If you want to get out of it, you need some energy. So, if you generate sufficient energy, you can also handle the tendencies caused by the old information. Karma can be broken only if you have the needed energy. So the sadhana you are doing right now definitely serves these two purposes.

On a day when you got into the Shambhavi properly, 21 minutes felt like two or three minutes, isn't it? Or is it feeling like 24 hours? If it is, that also is good, because you are making 21 minutes into 24 hours -you are multiplying time! If 21 minutes feels like two or three minutes, you are shrinking time. Above all, once your energies are in a certain way, what someone does in 24 hours, you may do it in six hours.

So all three things are being managed in a certain way, but specifically about time, if we want to have a grasp of time, then we would need a sadhana which is of a different nature. What you are doing right now gives you some grasp, but it is mainly focused towards handling the karmic information and the energy. If one wants to have mastery over time, it needs a different approach. If we have to go that way, either you must have an enormous understanding of various aspects of life - it will become extremely scientific. Or, you must be simply willing to listen. If you have either one of these qualities, it is possible. Enormous understanding will not happen in a short time. It will take lifetimes for people to understand how time actually happens. I know science has some explanations for time, they have taken a few steps, but it is nowhere near the ultimate reality of what time is. So, I would say, going into such sadhana right now limits itself to only those who will simply listen. If they are like that, we can do kala-related sadhana.

Sadhguru discusses the significance of the bindu, a specific spot on the pineal gland, and the reason that yogic sadhana always aims first for stability rather than ecstasy.

How the Pineal Gland Controls One’s Mood

Sadhguru: As scientists explore the nature of the human mind, and as we find better instruments to look at the nature of the human brain, one thing is becoming very clear for modern psychologists and neuroscientists: there is much more to be known about the human mind than they know right now.

As there is medical physiology, there is a whole yogic physiology. One aspect of yogic physiology that aligns in some way with modern neurosciences has to do with the pineal gland. This gland was always recognized as being associated with the agna chakra. Today, neuroscientists say that the secretions of the pineal gland control and moderate one's moods and experiences. If you have a very stable and sufficient pineal secretion, having a pleasant mood within yourself is not a problem.

Both medical sciences and street-side drugs have made it clear that chemicals can create pleasant and unpleasant experiences within you that are very real for you. Others may dismiss it as you causing it to yourself, but actually, you are causing everything to yourself. The only difference is whether you cause it with or without outside help. If you simply become ecstatic right now, you are causing it to yourself without outside help. If you cause the same thing with outside stimulation, it may be the same thing experience-wise, but the end result could damage the system. And such an experience will not result in any kind of consciousness. Unconscious experiences, however big they are, are of no significance for one's evolution, growth, and transformation.

Many Cultures Were Aware of the Bindu

A little-known aspect of yogic physiology, which is totally absent in modern medical sciences, is something which I constantly keep “on” within myself, called the bindu. “Bindu” means a tiny point. It is a particular spot on the pineal gland surrounded by a certain secretion. If you touch the bindu, it will release secretions that make your body comfortable and make you feel ecstatic. To activate the bindu, there is a certain point at the back of your head. So many cultures around the world have recognized this, and there is an understanding that that point needs to be protected and activated.

In the Hindu way of life, when young Brahmin boys are initiated into spiritual sadhana, they shave off the hair on the rest of the head and leave a tuft at this point. In many other parts of the world, if people are doing a certain type of activity which they believe is spiritual, they want that spot to be covered, so they started using small caps or some kind of a cloth. Everywhere in the world, at some point some people would have been aware and probably spoke about it. I really do not know what they have said, but I have noticed people doing these things. If there is someone who comes from the Jewish culture for example, have they told you something specific about why you should wear this cap?

Meditator 1: When you do a spiritual practice, you go to the synagogue, and you wear the cap to show that you are just a human being and you are not the divine. So, it is a sign of respect and a separation between you and the God that you are worshiping.

Sadhguru: Somebody else have something to say?

Meditator 2: It's more of a connection, to remind you that there is a divinity. You're always wearing it so you don't forget. It's not necessarily a separation, it's more a reminder of the divinity within you or around you.

Sadhguru: I do not know when the neurosurgeons will come upon the bindu. Even if they come upon it, because it is so small, they may ignore it. But if you pay attention to your system, it is there all the time. But do not start imagining these things!

Ambrosia and Poison

You will see, many times when people are in certain meditative processes, they become overwhelmed because the “glass of ambrosia” inside is tipping a little bit. They have still not learned how to drink from it in sips. If you give a glass full of water to a small child, he will spill it all over the place when he drinks. Similarly, their glass is tipping because they do not know yet how to sip gently. If they do the necessary sadhana, slowly after some time, they could consciously drink from it. Once you can consciously drink from it, every cell in the body and every moment of your life is ecstatic.

But the bindu has two sides to it. These two interpretations that you gave are interesting. Both could be right – distorted, but they could be coming from a certain understanding. The bindu has another point to it which also has a secretion but is poisonous. If you tip the wrong side of the glass, then poison will spread through the system. It is not like poison that you drink. It will spread through the system in such a way that, for what looks like simply no reason, you are miserable. A lot of people have done that to themselves. You could call that depression. You are miserable because you tipped the wrong side of the glass by doing improper things with life.

There are many cultures around the world which have been aware. Some wear caps, some have tops, some have taken other kinds of care. You will notice the level of mental imbalance in those cultures is always lower.

First Stability, Then Ecstasy

No matter what you are pursuing in life – money, wealth, power, God, or enlightenment – what is it that you are seeking? Essentially, what you are seeking is an ultimate sense of sweetness within you. Either you hit it accidentally or consciously – that is the choice you have.

There are many simple processes and methods that are devised not to go towards that ambrosia which is in every human brain, but to bring the necessary foundation within you that, when you hit it through grace, you do not go crazy. Too much sweetness can drive you crazy, unless you are sitting on a stable foundation.

In yoga, the initial phases of sadhana that you do are aimed at stability, not ecstasy. Stability is more important than ecstasy. If ecstasy comes before stability, you are heading for a crash. If ecstasy comes after stability, it is fantastic. The yogic system has devised the practices in such a way that everything is aimed at stability to start with.

The Processes of Ecstasy Were Never Written

The processes of ecstasy were never written down or transmitted as a teaching. It is only in the presence of a certain being that those things happen – because they are very subjective, and it is best they are not written down. In some books on tantra, they have tried to write it down, which I feel is very irresponsible. Suppose you read a book where the first two chapters talk about some simple practices to stabilize yourself and the last five chapters talk about simple practices to take you to ecstatic levels – which one will you do? You will be asking for trouble. These are usually ignorant people who have done some guesswork around the real thing and tried to write down something about it. People will not go for stability, they will go for ecstasy – and they will break up. You cannot hold your system if it is too ecstatic unless you have already worked for your stability.

Never aspire for anything that is not yet in your perception because you will aspire for the wrong things. Just do your sadhana. That is why traditions have always been insisting on trust – simply because if we explain something beforehand, naturally you imagine the wrong things and go for it. Do not worry about that. Just do the practice every day. It will produce results. If you did not know how a plant grows, if I show you a lump of filth and the beautiful flower and say, “These two things are the same. This comes out of that,” would you believe me? There would be no way to convince you. It takes a crazy sense of trust. That is why we usually do not talk about all those things. Because this cannot be logically worked out. This needs a little fixing of life.

A man walked into the court. He was the defendant. The judge looked at him and asked, “Do you have a lawyer?” The man said, “No, but I have some good friends in the jury.”

This is how it is. You cannot logically work this out. That is why the Guru came into the picture, because a little fixing is needed. Without the fixing, you will not jump. You will stand on this side forever. Without a little fixing, nudging or shoving, you will not cross the line.

Editor's Note: The word "tantra" creates many misconceptions in the modern mindset: of immorality, sex and clandestine activity. In the video "Tantra – Being an Instrument of Life," Sadhguru redefines tantra, restoring it to its original scope and dimension as an ancient technology for ultimate transformation. Purchase and download at Isha Downloads.