Encounter

Encounter

Enlightened
In a milieu, where life is seen as toil, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev opens an entirely new possibility to play with life whichever way you want, to live life intensely but go through it unscarred. Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, is an enlightened master, yogi and profound mystic of our times. In this book, he approaches the reader through rational thought and nudges one beyond the limitations of rational thinking to begin the journey of discovering the Self, to discover the unbounded and singular nature of all existence.

the

Enlightened

the

Encounter the Enlightened

Sadhguru, a profound Mystic of our times

"You can go through life untouched, you can play with life whichever way you want and still life cannot do anything to you, life does not leave scars on you. That is the miracle that we are working to manifest in everybody's life." "Anybody who sits with me for one moment sincerely - he cannot go untouched." "Being a master and being a butcher are not far away. He must be that kind who brings things up lovingly and then slaughters them when it is necessary." Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

Isha Foundation
www.ishafoundation.org

Conversations with the Master

At the Masters Feet

At the Masters Feet

The Master-disciple relationship: very intimate, very subtle. A three-month intensive wholeness program took place in 1994, the first ever in-house program to be conducted at the newly formed Isha Yoga Center. Amidst the fury of the rain and winds, in a temporary thatched structure and the barest of necessities, disciples encountered the Master in all his compassion and fierceness.

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encounter the ENLIGHTENED

At the Masters Feet

I really want to do some big energy experiments with you, but I dont

know if we sufficiently impressed upon you sixty to ninety days ago that the physical body has to be in a good shape. I dont know if it has been sufficiently impressed upon you. The whole purpose of why we want to go on a high-energy trip is because only when your energies are really high, you have total control over your needs. All the petty needs, which are important now, do not matter anymore when your energy is high. You are sitting here now and there is a strong need to stretch your legs. If you dont fulfill this need life becomes a misery. This is a very, very small need, this wanting to stretch your legs. It is such a small thing in your life, but it can change the very way you experience your life today. When the energy is high enough, these small needs like food, sleep, eating, standing, do not matter; they are not important anymore. Only when a person is able to transcend these small needs, then we can look at something else, something totally different. When I say different, I am not saying something different from the reality. Reality is something different from the illusions that you have woven around yourselves. You have built a whole cocoon of illusory experiences around yourselves. Using the sense organs and the mind, you have built a very nice coating around yourselves, which makes you believe that nonsense because it is experientially true. Your hunger is experientially true, but that is not the truth. To break the whole cocoon that you have woven around yourself, to transcend that one of the very first steps of sadhana is to transcend the sense organs themselves, not using the sense organs and the motor organs. There are five for each of these two. The sense organs are the eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin. The motor organs involve movement: the legs, the hands, speech and all the other movements in the body.
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At the Masters Feet

The first step to transcend these illusory experiences is to limit these ten organs both sensory and motor that is the whole purpose of sitting. For someone who is not aware, sitting down simply for hours together during meditation may seem boring and dull, but once you stop these ten functions totally, then the reality opens up. Once this opens up, the person is in a totally different level of consciousness where there is no comfort or discomfort. That is the first goal or the first step that you have to take. Now if you want to limit the functions of your sense organs and motor organs, one thing is the body has to be fit and another thing is your energy has to be sufficiently high. Why a triangle within a circle has been chosen as the symbol for Isha is because this is the most fundamental yantra. Yantra means a certain form, which has a certain vibration. A fundamental yantra means the basic yantra. In both the tantric and the yogic cultures it is said that the whole existence is created out of this yantra. First it was nothingness. This nothingness became sound. The first form that was created was this, and from this all beings and all existence were created. There is a scientific basis for why it is so, but right now let us look at it symbolically. Let us look at it as a symbol. What is this yantra? This yantra describes you; in the center there is a small dot. This is supposed to be your being, whatever you call it. In some schools of philosophy, they call it a being and in some others they call it a non-being. They call it the atma, soul or whatever you want to call it. That is the basis, it is emptiness, but because people wont be able to see it, we have put a dot. I thought it would be better to put a small circle; it suggests a little emptiness. And inside there is a triangle. In the triangle, the left side of the triangle, the slanting line is the body. The one on the right is mind. The bottom line is the prana. Now that segment of the circle which is in correspondence to the bodyline is your physical activity which includes the sense organs and the motor organs. The segment of the circle which is in
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correspondence with the mind line is the thought process, the whole range of mental activity. The bottom segment is the life process or the pranic activity within the system. This yantra or this symbolism is supposed to represent a whole human being. We first start our work with the body and the bodys activity, then the mind and the minds activity and lastly the prana and the pranic activity. If we have some amount of mastery over these three aspects of activity, the bodys activity, the thought process and the pranic activity to some extent if you have some mastery over them - then the gates will open to the inner dimension. If you know a little bit of engineering, then you will know that the triangle is the most stable form. Of all the forms that you can create, the triangle is the strongest form. If you build an aircraft, everything is a triangle inside it, the structural part of it. It is understood that the triangle is the hardest structure even by your engineers. So the fundamental yantra is a triangle. The way your body, mind and pranic system are made comes from that. It is very firm and tremendously strong. If you use it properly, you can do incredible things with it. Now with the asanas and the simple stretching stuff that we are doing here, the body seems to struggle. You will see after a weeks time that the body is capable of coping with not only this but a little more and more and more. Once a person stretches this body there is no limit to it; he can go on stretching it. One example that I would like to talk about is Malladi Halli Swami from whom I first learned my yogic practices. In his sadhana he used to do four thousand and one surya namaskars every morning. The body can be pushed like this! When he was at his peak, he was doing these four thousand and one effortlessly. He could have done more but only for lack of time he was stopping there. Otherwise, he would have stretched himself to ten thousand also. Just because it took too much time, he stopped at four thousand and one.
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A l l t h e c h a k r a s , t h e p r a n i c c h a k r a s a r e a l l t r i a n g l e s . We c a l l t h e mc h a k r a s b e c a u s ei t s y m b o l i z e s m o v e m e n t , g r o w t h , b u t i t i s a c t u a l l yat r i a n g l e . N o ww e m u s t s t a r t w i t ht h e b o d y . I nt h e m o r n i n gy o uh a v e d o n e y o u r a s a n a s w i t ht h eb o d y . T h er i g h t w a yt og oi f y o ug oa c c o r d i n gt ot h e n a t u r a l p r o g r e s s i o n , i st h em i n d , b u t w ew i l l g ow i t ht h ep r a n a y a m a , s i m p l y b e c a u s e t h e n a t u r e o f t h e m i n d i s s u c h . T h e m i n d i s a v e r y c u n n i n g p e r s o n b y h i m s e l f ; w h a t e v e r y o u t r y t o d o w i t h h i mh e w i l l d o s o m e t h i n g e l s e . T h i s i s s i m p l y b e c a u s e y o u r d e p e n d e n c e o n t h e m i n d i s s u c h t h a t t h e w h o l e p r o c e s s o f g r o w i n g u p , t h e s o c i a l e x p o s u r e , e v e r y t h i n g i s s u c h t h a t y o u b e c o m e t o o d e p e n d e n t o n t h e m i n d . I f y o u s i m p l y l i v e i n t h e f o r e s t , y o uw o u l d n t u s ey o u rm i n ds om u c h , a n dy o uw o u l ds t i l l b ev e r y i n t e l l i g e n t . I f y o u h a v e b e e n i n t o a f o r e s t w i t h a t r i b a l , t h e w a y h e u s e s h i s b o d y a n d h i s i n t e l l i g e n c ei s t r e m e n d o u s . Y o uw i l l f e e l l i k eaf o o l . T h ec i t ym a n f e e l s l i k e a n i d i o t i n f r o n t o f a t r i b a l w h o s e e s a n d h e a r s s o m a n y t h i n g s t h a t h ei sn o t e v e na w a r eo f . H es e e se v e r y t h i n gb u t y o ud o n t s e e a n y t h i n g . E v e n i f t h e r e i s a n a n i m a l n e a r b y a n d t h i s m a n p o i n t s h i s f i n g e r i n t h a t d i r e c t i o n , t h e c i t y m a n w o u l d s t i l l b e s e a r c h i n g . T h e t r i b a l s e y e s a n db o d yh a v e b e c o m e l i k e t h a t ; h e s e n s e s e v e r y t h i n g . T h e a n i m a l s a r e m u c hd e e p e r i n t ot h i s . T h e i r b o d i e s a r es oe x t r e m e l ys e n s i t i v et h a t a n e l e p h a n t c a nh e a r s o u n d s a c r o s s t h r e eh u n d r e dt of o u r h u n d r e dm i l e s . T h e yc o m m u n i c a t et h r e eh u n d r e dt of o u r h u n d r e dm i l e s w i t hs u b s o n i c s o u n d s . Y o uc a n n o t h e a r t h o s es o u n d s . Wh a l e s c o m m u n i c a t eo v e r t e n t h o u s a n dm i l e s a c r o s s t h eo c e a n s . T h e i r b o d i e s h a v eb e c o m et h em a i n i n s t r u m e n t s i n t h e i r l i v e s . Wi t h m a n , t h e m i n d h a s d e v e l o p e d t o a c e r t a i n e x t e n t , a n d t h i s m i n d i s s u c ht h a t i t c a ne i t h e r g ot h i s w a yo r t h a t w a y . I t c a nb e d e v e l o p e di n a v e r yl o p s i d e dw a y . T h e m i n dh a s a c e r t a i nf l u i d i t yw h i c ht h e b o d y d o e s n o t h a v e . Y o uc a no n l yd e v e l o pt h e b o d yi na p a r t i c u l a r w a y , i n t e r m so fs t r e n g t ha n df l e x i b i l i t y . Y o uc a n n o t d e v e l o pt h eb o d yi n t e r ms o f s o mel o p s i d e dd e v e l o p me n t . Ma y b ey o uc a nt os o me

e x t e n t , b u t i t i sn o t r e a l l ym u c h ; h o w e v e r , w i t ht h em i n dy o uc a n d e v i a t e v e r yf a r f r o mt h e n a t u r a l p a t h . T h e b o d yk e e p s y o ur o o t e dt o n a t u r e . T h e b o d yi s n a t u r e ; t h e m i n dt a k e s y o uf a r a w a yf r o mn a t u r e . S ot h i sa s p e c t i st h em a i nb a r r i e r b e t w e e ny o ua n dw h a t r e a l i t yi s b e c a u s e t h e m i n di s a g r e a t d i v e r g e n c e . I t c a ng oa n y w h e r e . Y o uc a n t r a i n i t t o g o a n y w h e r e . Y o u c a n t a k e i t i n a n y d i r e c t i o n , f a r a w a y f r o m T r u t h . T h e b o d y d o e s n o t g o , w h a t e v e r y o u d o , a f t e r s o m e t i m e i t w a n t s t o c o m e d o w n a n d s i t o n t h e g r o u n d . Y o u m a y b e j u m p i n g u p b u t y o u a l w a y s c o m e d o w n . T h e b o d y i s a l w a y s v e r y c l o s e t o n a t u r e b e c a u s e i t i s n a t u r e . T h e m i n di s c a p a b l e o f d i v e r g i n g . S ot h e m e n t a l a t t i t u d e i s s o m e t h i n gw ew a n t t ot u n ei nt of o r t h ef i r s t t h i r t yd a y s , s ot h a t i t d o e s n t g o a w a y , b u t i t c o m e s a s c l o s e a s p o s s i b l e . H o wd o e s o n e d o i t ? Q u e s t i o n e r : We w i l l c r e a t e m a n yd e v i c e s o nt h e w a y . T h e n e x t t h i n g S a d h g u r u : i s t h e p r a n a . We w i l l b e d o i n g m a n y t h i n g s w i t h t h e p r a n a . T h i s i s t h e q u i c k e s t w a yt od e v e l o p ; a t t h e s a m e t i m e i t h a s r i s k s i n v o l v e dw h i c h m e a n s i t n e e d s a l o t o f c a r e a n dp r e p a r a t i o n . L e t u s d ot h i s s e s s i o no f p r a n a y a m an o wa n da f t e r t h a t I w a n t t oc h e c ke a c ho n eo f y o ua n d d e c i d e w h oi s g o i n gt od ow h a t h e r e . I w i l l b e a s k i n ga f e wp e o p l e t o d oc e r t a i ns a d h a n a a n do t h e r s n o t t o . T h i s d o e s n o t m e a nt h e p e o p l e I h a v e a s k e d t o d o t h o s e t h i n g s a r e o n e s t e p h i g h e r t h a n t h e r e s t . I t i s n o t s o . Y o ua r e n ol e s s t h a nt h e m . D o n t t r yt od ow h a t I h a v e a s k e dy o u n o t t o d o i n s e c r e c y . D o n o t a t t e m p t s u c h t h i n g s . T h e r e i s n o s u c h t h i n g a s g r a d e s . We a r e j u s t s e e i n gw h a t i s m o r e s u i t a b l e f o r y o u . I f y o ud o s o m e t h i n gw h i c hi sn o t s u i t a b l ef o ry o u , i t c a nv e r ye a s i l yc a u s e d a m a g e .