BTN News: In the Western world, many misconceptions surround yoga. It’s not just about performing impossible poses seen on social media, nor is it a philosophy or belief system. It’s not a religion or an ancient teaching locked in the past, even though it has been practiced for millennia. “Yoga is a technology,” says Jaggi Vasudev, widely known as Sadhguru. “You don’t have to believe in it; you just need to learn how to use it. Regardless of your religion, race, identity, or origin, if you learn to use it, it will benefit you.” Sadhguru, a spiritual leader from Mysore, Karnataka, India, born on September 3, 1957, is renowned for attracting Bollywood actors, athletes, and top business figures, and filling international forums, including the United Nations General Assembly and prestigious universities. He believes yoga is the activity of the future.
According to Sadhguru, the widespread adoption of yoga isn’t due to campaigns or enforcement but education. He predicts the next generation will be more competent than the past as intellect strengthens globally. “As people become more logical, they rely more on science and its result: technology,” he says. “This is why asanas, or yoga postures, are just a small part of yoga. They manipulate your energies in various ways, but there are many other aspects.”
Sadhguru explains that logical people seek logical solutions for everything. “The more logical people become, the more they depend on science and its outcomes: technology.” Hence, he emphasizes that asanas are just a small component of yoga. They influence your energies in different ways, but there are many other methods. For instance, anyone over 15 can practice Shambhavi Mahamudra Kriya, which combines meditation with breathing techniques by focusing the gaze at the center of the eyebrows. However, he warns that learning yoga from books or online can be harmful. “Unfortunately, yoga is often taught frivolously,” he notes. Sadhguru compares yoga to artificial intelligence, stating, “It has a tremendous transformative power but can cause harm if misused.”
Sadhguru has been practicing yoga since he was 12. During his youth, he developed a deep interest in nature, spending time outdoors engaging in activities like motorcycling and trekking. “At a very young age, I realized that I knew nothing and had no assumptions about anything. Once you realize you don’t know, you pay attention,” he says. This led him to celebrate every moment of life without any spirituality. “I was a skeptic among skeptics. During university, I traveled across India on a motorcycle, and my only dream was to ride around the world.” After graduating, he entered the poultry farming business to make some money. “Meanwhile, the businesses I had started took off, and by the age of 25, they were all thriving,” he recalls.
One afternoon between meetings, Sadhguru rode his motorcycle up Chamundi Hill and sat with his eyes open on a large rock, his usual spot. “What I was became everything: the air I breathed, the ground I sat on, the atmosphere around me… Everything became me. I thought it lasted five to ten minutes, but when I returned to my normal consciousness, the sun had set: four and a half hours had passed,” he recounts of his mystical experience. Since that revelation, there was no turning back. “Just as there is a science and technology for creating external comfort, there is a whole science and technology for creating inner well-being. My dream is that, if I walk down the street anywhere, I would like to see enlightened beings.”
Sadhguru emphasizes that physical and mental health is the responsibility of each individual. “Surgeons will tell you that if you avoid red meat, eat the right foods, and exercise, you won’t end up on the operating table.” Similarly, he argues that anxiety, stress, and depression afflict us because we haven’t learned to manage our intelligence. “As you become more meditative, you become the master, and your mind becomes the servant.”
Sadhguru’s view on meditation and yoga is practical. “Meditating with your eyes closed doesn’t mean anything to me,” he says. “You can do many things, or you might have mastered the art of sleeping in vertical postures! Meditation is an aspect of yoga. It’s a quality, not an act you can do.” This perspective makes it easier to understand why many people find it difficult and believe it’s impossible to clear their minds. “If you let the mind rule, it’s a terrible master. It will make you suffer endlessly. But as a servant, the mind is wonderful: it’s miraculous. If you cultivate your body, mind, energies, and emotions to a certain level of maturity, meditation happens naturally.”
Sadhguru uses a metaphor to describe creating the right environment for meditation: “If you keep the soil fertile, give it the necessary compost and water, and if the seed is the right type, it will grow into flowers and fruits. Similarly, if you create the necessary environment within yourself, meditation blooms naturally inside you. A certain fragrance that one can enjoy within themselves.”
In today’s modern world, many wealthy nations suffer from a terrible sense of inner dissatisfaction, he observes. This is why people travel to India to learn the basics of yoga. “Before individuals move towards external achievements, they must attain a sense of inner well-being; only then can humans go beyond personal ambition and aspire to a broader vision. This is extremely important now because, for the first time as a generation, we have all the resources, capacity, and technology needed to address all the human problems on the planet.” He believes all that’s missing is “inclusive consciousness.”
Given today’s fast-paced lives, is yoga more necessary than ever? Sadhguru thinks so. “The World Health Organization talks about a mental health pandemic today. In the United States, one in two people feels lonely. This isn’t just happening in the U.S.; it’s starting to happen worldwide. Once loneliness sets in, it’s the incubation period for psychological illnesses. Maintaining psychological health will become a huge challenge.”
The human body is the most complex chemical factory in the world, Sadhguru says. “The question is: Are you a great manager or a lousy manager of this factory? If you were a great manager, you would keep yourself blissful all the time with the right chemistry. If you’re a lousy manager, you produce bad chemistry, but you think it’s because of someone else.”
In this effort, he offers simple yogic practices that people can do to bring some balance to their chemistry and calm to their neurological system. “The human body can produce endocannabinoids (substances similar to the THC in marijuana that humans produce). When they are high, you naturally feel blissful all the time.”
Sadhguru calls this inner engineering. Studies by professors and scientists from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Rutgers University, and Indiana University have shown that “in 90 days of daily practice, endocannabinoid secretion in the body increases by 70%. People come out of depressive states and other anxiety situations.”
Sadhguru compares the intellect to a knife: “If you hold it firmly in your hand, you can use it however you want. If your hand isn’t steady, it can cut you or someone else. Unless we work to create a stable physiological and chemical balance, our own mind will torture us; no one needs to torture us from the outside.” This, he says, is the reason for yoga. “To create a steady hand so that this sharp knife of the intellect can be used as we want. When you’re a problem to yourself, what other problem can you handle? Everything becomes stressful. As you take on more activities in the world, the challenges will multiply endlessly. That’s why your own body, mind, emotions, and energy must work for you, not be obstacles in your life.”
Yoga means union, Sadhguru concludes. “Union means the distinction between the individual and the universal has disappeared. When everything becomes you, that means you are in yoga. Not because you imagined something, but because you perceived it. Learning to hold this body well is like tuning your antenna: if it’s held well, the entire existence pours into you. It’s a tremendous instrument of perception.”
The Transformative Power of Yoga
Sadhguru’s insights into yoga shed light on its profound potential to transform lives. He advocates for the practice to be recognized as a science and technology for inner well-being, urging people to look beyond its physical postures. His vision is for a world where individuals attain inner peace and clarity, which in turn fosters a harmonious society.
Yoga, as presented by Sadhguru, is more relevant than ever in addressing the mental health challenges of the modern world. By cultivating the right inner environment, individuals can achieve a state of bliss and mental clarity, leading to a healthier, more fulfilling life.
