I’m a 32 y/o who has just pulled out of the rat race, absolutely burnt out and clueless about what I am outside of my previous job, what I want and what I wanna be. I was raised religious, but I’m a scientist who slowly became an atheist over the years and I’d consider myself agnostic now.
I’ve been researching ways to change the way I think, to reduce the crushing pessimism that I live with - I’ve tried everything from therapy to silent retreats, but to no necessary avail. Isha’s Inner Engineering Retreat caught my eye, but there isn’t enough information online for me to understand what the programme is like. Additionally, Reddit posts and testimonials are full of terms that I don’t understand (Kriya, shambhavi, mandala etc) and I’m hoping somebody would help me out and dumb things down for a newbie :)

- People talk about ‘doing the kriya’ - is this meditation? Yoga?
- Does the programme essentially teach you some form of meditation that you can do everyday to ground yourself a bit better? If yes, I think I’d highly benefit from it.
- Are attendees allowed to use phones/iPads etc.? I journal on my iPad and would love to have it with me.

I’m hoping to go to the Isha Yoga Center in India, so I can also go to Rishikesh for maybe a week for a yoga retreat (suggestions welcome!)

​

Sadhguru is coming to Switzerland this November, which is wonderful. I have been volunteering with Isha Foundation for some time, and there is something about the current ticketing system that I genuinely struggle with.

A few years ago, everyone paid the same ticket price. Even volunteers had to pay, which I was completely fine with. If you wanted to sit closer to Sadhguru, you simply arrived early and found a place closer to the front.

Now the system seems very different. There are Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond and Black tickets, with the most expensive tickets reportedly costing around €1,200 and giving access to the seats closest to Sadhguru.

I honestly wonder: what is the reasoning behind this system?

It creates the impression that the people who can afford the most money are given privileged physical access to Sadhguru, while those with less financial means are placed further away.

I find this difficult to reconcile with the spiritual values that Isha promotes. If this is a spiritual gathering, shouldn't access to Sadhguru be based on participation rather than purchasing power?

I would genuinely like to understand the reasoning behind this change. Has Isha Foundation considered whether a tiered system like this creates an unnecessary distinction between people based on their financial circumstances?

Is spirituality becoming something where the wealthy can literally buy a place closer to the Guru?

How does this fit with the values of equality and inclusiveness?

Namaskaram,

I came across this statement from Sadhguru:

>

I’m trying to understand what he means by “hand over your life to me.”

Does this mean complete surrender to the Guru?

Thank you

One day, while watching a video on devotion on Sadhguru Exclusive, I heard Sadhguru talking about devotion itself. What I heard was somewhat like......

If we keep living through our memory and imagination, we are, in a way, living too much for ourselves. A devotee is someone who can put that aside and see everything as a part of the Divine, with a sense of reverence.

I later saw an Instagram reel where an Isha hat yoga teacher was talking about how, in spiritual growth, continuously attaching ourselves to the past or repeatedly reliving it can become like taking a backward step.She has also heard it from Sadhguru.

This made me look at my own mind.

Maybe the mind has its own ways of constantly pulling our attention back into its play. It brings memories from the past, creates images of the future, and makes us live inside a psychological time that exists mainly within itself.

Interestingly, the mind also seems to create its own space or time. Which is future or past.

Reality, as it is happening now, is simply what is happening. And it happens now But the mind immediately adds its interpretations and values to it: good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, right or wrong, success or failure, moral or immoral, life or death.

The event itself may be neutral. But through memory and imagination, we give it meaning, colour and emotional weight.

And then we may start living more in our interpretation of life than in life itself.

What I can actually experience is always happening in the present.

The past exists as memory. The future exists as imagination.

But what is happening right now is complete in itself.

Perhaps the incompleteness I keep experiencing is not actually in life.

Perhaps it is something the mind creates and then keeps trying to complete.

Maybe devotion is, at least partly, the willingness to stop constantly making everything about "me" and simply see what is here, with reverence.

What do you think, does sadhna and seva help in living now? Please share your thoughts.

We feel it's dependent on outside situations. That's how our perception builds up as we grow.

To experience it as independent from outside, first we have to be free from outside situations.

As long as we experience ourselves only as persons then this possibility seems almost impossible phenomenon to happen.

As long as we are only some persons then if other person goes away we feel helpless, we feel we are unable to have that pleasant emotion without them. We feel broken inside. As if some part of us have been torn apart from us.

Whereas as be-ing, we feel fulfilled within. What are we, the other person is also the same. Coming, appearing and going all are expression of same reality. And we are that.

So, how we can be without experiencing Love. We shall always experience that.

What is black magic? Is black magic real? Sadhguru tells us about the black magic that others can do to us, and shares a simple tool for black magic removal.

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Question: Can energy be used in a negative manner, for example to do black magic? 

What is Black Magic ?

Sadhguru: You need to understand that energy is just energy; it is neither divine nor is it evil. You can make anything – a god or a devil – out of it. It is like electricity. Is electricity the divine or the devil? When it is lighting your house, it is the divine. If it becomes an electric chair, it is the devil. It just depends on who is operating it at that moment.

Actually, five thousand years ago, Arjuna asked Krishna the same question, “If you are saying everything is the same energy and everything is divine if it is the same godhood which exists in Duryodhana, why is he functioning like this?” Krishna laughed, because after all the teaching, Arjuna was still coming back to this simple, basic, childlike question. Krishna replied, “God is Nirguna, the divine is Nirguna. He has no attributes of his own.” That means it is just pure energy. You can make anything out of it. The tiger that comes to eat you also has the same energy, a god that may come and save you also has the same energy. They are just functioning in different ways. When you are driving your car, is it good or bad? It can make your life or take your life any moment, isn't it?

So can people do black magic? Definitely they can. If positive uses are there, negative uses are also there. One Veda, the Atharvana Veda is dedicated to the use of energies for both positive and negative. But what I have seen is, most of the time these things are psychological. A little bit of it may be there, but the rest of it is your own mind driving you crazy. If I want to drive you crazy, I do not have to do any actual black magic. Tomorrow morning when you come out of your house, suppose there is a skull and some blood all over the place, once you see this, that’s it! You will become ill, your business will go bad, everything negative will happen to you because of a certain fear grips you. No black magic has been done. Just certain symbols which indicate that this seems to be some kind of black magic will destroy your mind. So most of the time, it is just psychological. Even if black magic is done to you, only ten percent may be the real thing. The rest of it is you destroying yourself. That is why it comes with symbolism. They understood the impact of your own psychology on you. Once that symbolism is created, you just destroy yourself.

How to Remove Black Magic?

But yes, there is a science where one can use their energies negatively to cause harm to somebody else. What is the protection? One thing is, if you are on spiritual sadhana, you need not bother about all those things. You need not even think about those things. Another way is, you can wear certain protections like a rudraksha , which is like protection against any kind of negativity. But you need not worry about such things. Just keep your focus in life and keep going. If you are in sadhana, you just don’t bother; it will be taken care of.

The Dhyanalinga

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If you have been under such influences, you can come and sit in the sphere of the Dhyanalinga, because there are certain dimensions to the Dhyanalinga which nullify all this. If you fear that something like this has been done to you, sit there for just one day and go. It gets taken care of. But it is better that you not pay attention to those things because your mind does more “black magic” to you than anybody else can.

There are the Vanashree and Patanjali shrines at the entrance of the  Dhyanalinga. They are in the space of a fifteen-degree angle from the Dhyanalinga. That’s why they are located at that point. Otherwise, architecturally, I would have liked to locate them much closer. Generally, people who are possessed by some spirits or who are impacted by the occult and such problems are asked to sit either in a forward fifteen-degree angle or a rear side fifteen-degree angle, depending upon the type of problem that they have.

That space has been specially created like that so that people can make use of it. Whether you’re aware of it or not, the negative use of energy like black magic and others is there. The fifteen-degree angle is where the doorway is. Whether you know it or not, everyone who enters just drops the negative influences they are carrying. There have been thousands who have dropped such influences. That’s why people who have been to the Dhyanalinga  find that suddenly life has changed for them. This is because the negative impacts on their life have dropped.

When we say ‘negative impacts’, it’s not necessarily in terms of somebody doing something negative to you. In so many ways, you could have just taken in some negativity. See, it’s not necessary that somebody should poison fruit and give it to you. The fruit might have some natural poison in it, which enters my body when I eat it. Similarly, the negative aspects of life can enter you in so many ways. It is not necessary that somebody is sitting there and plotting against you. So the entrance of the Dhyanalinga, the first fifteen-degree angle, is created for this purpose, and before people seek anything else, these things are just taken care of. They just have to walk in that space, about sixty or seventy feet, and that by itself takes care of these negativities.

Editor’s Note: “Mystic’s Musings” includes more of Sadhguru’s insights on the human energy system. Read the free sample or purchase the ebook.

The calmness within lasted a day. I don't know when Ill do it again, hopefully sometime soon.

In His book, Sadhguru says, “Good and bad depend on what you are identified with.”

And the moment we identify something as good or bad, we are simply dividing the world.

In another talk, Sadhguru says, “In this vast existence, if you like only half a dozen things, how can you want to be spiritual? Isn’t spirituality about opening yourself to everything?

The moment we divide, there is zero possibility of inclusion.

And perhaps that is why the Hindu tradition gave us Shiva as such a profound representation of existence—Ugly, Terrible, Pleasant, Good and Bad.

From alcohol in the form of Kala Bhairava in Ujjain to the sacred Gangajal; from being Bholenath to being Rudranath; from embodying both feminine and masculine energies to moving from absolute stillness to the ecstatic Nataraja—Shiva encompasses it all.”

Nothing is excluded.

And maybe that is what spirituality truly means—not choosing only what we like, but opening ourselves to the entirety of existence.

Because the moment we stop dividing the world into good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant, beautiful and ugly, inclusion begins.

Our natural state of being, termed as happiness. And we get lost in mental analysis, become more based on the expression than the state itself.

Because somewhere along the way we have known it, that's our mind tell us.

Then mind starts trying to generate it by outside activity. But, in doing so we go further away from it. Become more mind than becoming it. Mind can't make it, so does fake it.

It's when we become free from mind, go beyond the analysis and calculations, that touches us.

It always waits for us to be free. From everything. Within.

Because it is everything in reality. So as long as we remain in contact with unreal everything, the real thing stays away from us.

Sadhguru explores the meaning of karma, defining it as a certain amount of information, and then goes on to explain the different types of karma and the role of karma in our life.

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Pre-order Sadhguru's new book - Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny

Table of Content
1. What is Karma?
2. Types Of Karma
2-1. Sanchita Karma
2-2. Prarabdha Karma
3. Break Free from Karma!
4. Spirituality and Karma

What is Karma?

**Sadhguru:**What you call as "my life" is a certain amount of energy controlled by a certain amount of information. This information, in today’s terms, can be called software. A certain amount of life energy is charged with a certain amount of information. Together, this information technology is you. You become a certain kind of character because of the type of information that has gone into you. 

From the moment you were born till this moment, the kind of family, home, friends, the things that you did and did not do – all these things are influencing you. Every thought, emotion and action comes only from past impressions that you have had within you. They decide who you are right now. The very way you think, feel and understand life is just the way you have assimilated inputs.

The past impressions of life go far beyond the moment you were born, but in your perception right now, at least from the moment you were born till today, what kind of parents, family, and education you had, what kind of religious and social background, what kind of cultural realities – all these impressions have gone in. Someone has become a different character simply because of the type of information that has gotten into him. This is what is karma. This information is traditionally called karma or karmic body or causal body – that which causes life.

Types Of Karma

This information is on many different levels. There are four dimensions of karma, two of which are not relevant right now. For understanding, we can talk about the other two.

Sanchita Karma

One is sanchita karma. This is the warehouse of karma which goes right back to a single-celled animal and even inanimate substances from where life evolved. All the information is there. If you close your eyes, become aware enough and look into yourself, you will know the nature of the universe – not because you are looking at it through your head, but simply because this information is present in the making of the body. There is a warehouse of information going back into creation. That is your sanchita karma. But you cannot take your warehouse and do retail business. You need to have a shop to do retail. That “retail shop,” which is for this life, is called prarabdha.

Prarabdha Karma

Prarabdha karma is a certain amount of information allotted for this life. Depending upon the vibrancy of your life, life allots for itself how much information it can take on. The creation is very compassionate. If it gives you the whole lot of karma that you have, you will be dead. Right now, many people are tortured by the simple memories from the 30-40 years of this lifetime. If they are given a hundred times that memory, they would not survive it. Nature allots prarabdha, an allotted memory that you could handle.

Break Free from Karma!

Whatever kind of karma you have, it is a limited possibility and that is what makes you into a limited person. Depending on what kind of impressions you took in, whether it was hatred and anger, or love and joy, you accordingly have a certain kind of personality – usually every human being is a complex mixture of these things. Once you allow this karmic structure to build beyond a certain point, there is really no such thing as freedom. Everything that you do is conditioned by the past. If you want to move in the direction of liberation, one of the first things that you need to do is to loosen the grip and shackle of karma. Otherwise, no movement will happen.

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How do you do that? One simple way is to break the karma physically. If your karma is to wake up at 8 o’clock in the morning, you set your alarm for 5 o’clock. Your body’s karma is that it will not want to get up. But you say, “No, I am going to get up.” Even if it gets up, your body will want to sip coffee. But you give it a cold shower. Now, you are just breaking the old karmic process by consciously doing something. What you like you can do it unconsciously, isn't it? What you dislike, you have to do it consciously. This is not the only way, there are other subtler and more effective ways, I am just telling you the crudest possible way.

Spirituality and Karma

Once you enter the spiritual path, you are making a statement, “I am in a hurry to get to my ultimate destination.” You do not want to take one hundred lifetimes. And in the process of this one hundred lifetimes you may gather enough karma to last out for another thousand lifetimes. You want to hurry it up. Once a spiritual process begins, if initiations are done in a certain way, it opens up dimensions which would not have opened up otherwise. You would have lived a more peaceful life if you were not spiritual, but a more lifeless life too, closer to death than life. Without anything fundamental being shaken within you, maybe you just passed comfortably.

Does this mean that all negative things happen to you once you are on the spiritual path? That is not how it is. It is just that when life moves at a tremendous pace – a pace much faster than that of people around you – you think some tragedy is happening to you. No tragedy is happening to you. It is just that they are going at normal speed but your life is rolling on fast-forward.

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Many people have this wrong notion that once you enter a spiritual path, you will become peaceful and everything will be clear. If you take on a convenient belief system and become a single-track mind, then everything seems to be clear. But if you are genuinely on the spiritual path, nothing will be clear. Everything will be a blur. The faster you travel the more of a blur it becomes.

A few years ago, I happened to be in Germany and after we finished the program, I had to drive to France, which was about 440 km from where I was. Usually the journey takes five hours. I had no intention of staying on the road for five hours so I just pushed it and we were doing something like 200 kmph. The countryside was supposed to be beautiful in this region, and I thought I would look at it. I tried to roll my eyeballs but everything was a blur and I could not take my eyes off the road for a moment. It was snowing and we were driving crazy speeds.

The faster you go, everything becomes a blur and you cannot take your eyes off what you are doing for a moment. If you want to enjoy the countryside, you must go easy and slow. If you are in a hurry to reach your destination, you gas it. You see nothing. You are just going. The spiritual path is like this. If you are really on the spiritual path, everything is in turmoil all around you. But you are still going, so it is okay. Is this alright? If it is not alright, you can go at the evolutionary pace. Maybe it will take a million years and you will get there.

For those who are in a hurry, there is one kind of path. For those who are not in a hurry, there is another kind of path. You must be clear about what you want. If you get onto the fast track and try to go slow, you will be run over. If you are on the slow path and try to go fast, you will get a ticket. Every seeker must always decide – does he want to just enjoy the road or does he want to get to the destination quick?

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Editor's Note: In this video, Sadhguru speaks on the nature of memory and how it influences not just our mind and emotion, but also our body.

Explore and share Karma Quotes from Sadhguru

Namaskaram🙏. I have been doing Shambhavi once a day for 4 years. After so much of struggle because of my own resistance (“instincts of self preservation” as Sadhguru calls it), I am aware enough to see that my day could be so much better if my mind took instructions from me instead of the other way around.

Whenever I do the IE crash course and I am more aware, I feel so in control of my life. But I have not been able to maintain it for a long period of time as of yet.

I’m always in and out of awareness.

Over time my level of awareness has definitely increased a lot, but now I am craving even more awareness. Because I am looking at the way I am functioning in life, and I want to be so much better than how I am being right now.

In order to be in the driving seat of my life journey, I have decided to do Isha Kriya twice a day for at least one mandala. Making the time for it is going to be really hard, but I’m going to do my best and see how it goes. How many mandalas of Isha Kriya is recommended to get to a place where I would feel like I am completely in control of the way I respond to life? Are there any other simpler steps that I could take to get there?

Thank you 🙏

Namaskaram,

Has anyone had laparoscopic surgery on abdomen and know what to do for Shambhavi Mahamudra during recovery?

I’ve submitted a practice help request with Isha Foundation and haven’t heard back yet. I’m having a Laparoscopic surgery for endometriosis this Friday and I want to know if I can continue doing the Shambhavi practice in any capacity while I’m recovering. This includes if simply visualizing it is enough since my mobility will be limited. Thank you

Dearest Gentle Readers,

It’s been a year since I first heard this through various talks and quotes, yet not a single time did I truly feel it.

I thought, maybe, maybe I would never be able to feel it. Maybe I didn’t have that devotion. All I knew was to follow the process. Whether I liked it or not, I had to follow the process. And all it needed was a little bit of consistency.

Time flies. I kept doing my process, and one fine day, this happened - I watched another Sadhguru video on devotion, but this time, it sank into me.

Dissolving is not about doing rituals all the time. It is about shedding, part by part, the different parts of yourself through the process.

And by shedding, I mean — what I am doesn’t even matter.

Pilgrimage is one of the best examples of this.
You walk towards a temple, and somewhere along the way, you discover something new about yourself. By the time you reach the temple, perhaps you have left behind a little piece of who you thought you were.
And, this I have realised while walking up and down in 12 hrs to Vaishno Devi and completing 108 km in 4 Days to Baba Dham ( Kanwar Yatra, deoghar)

I always find it very difficult to restart my sadhana after a travel or so. It’s such a challenge from the body and mind, waking up in the morning etc. Even when you know, things will be great when you’re back to the flow.
How do y’all overcome it? Any tips or tricks to force yourself to start or so?😅🙏🏻