What is the significance of Jeeva Samadhi? Sadhguru

Ratnabali - Rama - Music Video

Guru Ki Mahima Koi Najane (By Chitra Roy)

Something precious from Yogananda

“If a man wants to be a concert pianist,” the Master told us, “he must practice playing for twelve hours a day. One who pecks halfheartedly at the keyboard a few minutes at a time, then gets up and eats something, will never become a true musician. That isn’t the way to seek God. You can’t expect to find Him by only half trying!

Sadhguru on Neem & Turmeric, Fasting, Cancer

Sadhguru

. . . Yes if you take it everyday, one thing is you will never get any kind of, see people have various kinds of minor stomach infections. Which may not actually cause a disease, it may not be noticeable, but most people have minor stomach infections all the time. Which affects the effectiveness of your digestive system in so many ways. If you daily consume neem and turmeric, those things are very well taken care of, and you will never have any kind of parasites. They want you to be sweet, but if you're bitter in the morning, they'll go to coffee drinkers. (laughs)

Now, another aspect of it is, neem and turmeric together lowers the number of cancerous cells in your body, and about this spacing out the meal also. You must be aware of these things these days, see cancer means, it is not a disease really. It is your own cells turning against yourself. It is like criminals in a society, so, some cells have turned truant, they are playing their own games, they are not going with the game of the system, they are beginning to play their own individual games. That is a cancerous cell. They are highly energetic, and they need much more food than an ordinary cell does. Generally they say it needs over 50 times more food, than an ordinary cell, normal healthy cell does.

So one simple way of lowering the number of cancerous cells in your body. All of you have cancerous cells, yes, your aware of this? It is just that when the number of criminal's increase and they gang up together, it becomes a disease. Till then they are there but they don't really cause, see there are criminals in every society, they pick one pocket here there, that's all. But, if hundred of them get together, oh, then they can cause havoc in the town. So when they get together, is when you have cancer as a disease. Till then, there may be 100 cells which are moving around but if 100 get together for some reason. Usually, if there are certain disturbances in your energy system, naturally they will gather at that point. When that happens, it becomes disease.

So if you just give sufficient space between one meal and the other, everyday if you experience certain amount of hunger, many of these cancer cells will die, because they need a lot more food, than other cells. If you deprive yourself of food, the first cells that will die are the cancerous cells. So this is a simple way, with yoga and ayurveda, if you just go on periodic fasting here and there, you will just keep the cancerous cells below the safety limit. It is not like if you have cancer you start fasting, that's not it. But as a part of your life, if you do these things, it takes care of your general well being.

Osho speaks on Ramana's experience of the pain of the body

Happiness and suffering happen due to our past actions. So do not think that physical suffering or happiness will not happen to those who have become liberated while living.

Ramana Maharshi died of cancer. It was very painful, naturally. It was a deep malady -- there was no way of escaping it. Many doctors came, and they were very puzzled because the whole body was torn with pain but there was no sign of any pain in his eyes. His eyes remained the same serene lakes as ever. Through his eyes only the witnessing self arose; it was the witnessing self that looked, that observed.

Doctors would ask, "You must be in great pain?" Ramana would reply, "Yes there is great pain, but it is not happening to me. I am aware that there is great pain happening to the body; I know that there is great pain happening. I am seeing it, but it is not happening to me."

A question arises in the minds of many people as to how a man like Ramana, who is liberated and enlightened, get a disease like cancer.

This sutra has the answer to it. Happiness and sufferings will be happening to the body, even to those who are liberated while living, because these are related to past actions and their impressions, they are related to whatsoever has been done before becoming awakened.

Understand it this way: if I have sown some seeds in a field and then I become awakened, the seeds are bound to sprout. Had I remained sleeping, then too the seeds would have sprouted, flowered and come to fruition. Now too they will sprout, flower and come to fruition. There will only be one difference: had I been still asleep I would think it to be my crop and keep it close to my chest. Now that I am awake, I will understand that the seeds were already sown and now they are reaching their destiny; nothing of it is mine, I will just go on witnessing. If I had remained asleep I would have harvested the crop and preserved the new seeds so that I could sow them next year. Now that I am awake I will just go on witnessing: seeds will sprout, flowers will come, fruits will grow, but I will not gather them. Those fruits will grow and fall off on their own accord and die. My relationship with them will snap. My relationship with them before was of having sown them -- now I will not do that again. Thus no further relationship will be formed.

So happiness and suffering keep coming to the liberated one also, but such a person knows that these are part of the chain of his past actions and now he has nothing to do with them: he will just go on witnessing.

When somebody comes and offers flowers at the feet of Ramana, he just goes on watching -- it must be a part of some past chain of actions that prompt this person to give him happiness. But Ramana does not take the happiness; the person gives, but he does not take it. Should he take, the journey of a new action will begin. He does not prevent the person from offering flowers -- "Don't give happiness to me, don't offer flowers to me, don't touch my feet" -- he does not prevent him, because that prevention too would be an action and another chain of action would begin.

Try to understand this. This man has come to offer flowers to Ramana; he has put a garland round his neck, he has put his head at his feet. And what is Ramana doing within? He is just watching: "There must be a past transaction with this man, some past impressions of action; the man is now completing it. But now the transaction has to come to an end, no further chain has to be created. This matter is finished here, it will not continue."

So he will just sit there and will not prevent that man from doing anything... because what will 'preventing' really mean? It will mean first, that you are not ready to take back the past action where you had given, and which you would have to take back when preventing this man's action. And second, you are creating another chain of relationship with this man by asking him not to do a certain thing. Now when will this new relationship end? You are creating another action; you are reacting.

No, Ramana will just go on watching, whether a man brings flowers to him or cancer comes. He will even watch the cancer happening.

Sadhguru on Leadership

Nirvana Shatakam - Sounds of Isha.wmv

The Masters work and our body - J.Krishnamurthi

Between the right and wrong it should not be difficult to choose, for those who wish to follow the Master
have already decided to take the right at all costs. But the body and the man are two, and the man's will is not always what the body wishes. When your body wishes something, stop and think whether you
really wish it. For you are God, and you will only what God wills; but you must dig deep down into
yourself to find the God within you, and listen to His voice, which is your voice. Do not mistake your
bodies for yourself-neither the physical body, nor the astral, nor the mental. Each one of them will
pretend to be the Self, in order to gain what it wants. But you must know them all, and know yourself as
their master.

When there is work that must be done, the physical body wants to rest, to go out walking, to eat and
drink; and the man who does not know says to himself: " I want to do these things, and I must do them."
But the man who knows says: "This that wants is not I, and it must wait awhile." Often when there is an
opportunity to help some one, the body feels: "How much trouble it will be for me; let some one else do
it." But the man replies to his body: "You shall not hinder me in doing good work."

The body is your animal- the horse upon which you ride. Therefore you must treat it well, and take good
care of it; you must not overwork it, you must feed it properly on pure food and drink only, and keep it
strictly clean always, even from the minutest speck of dirt. For without a perfectly clean and healthy body
you cannot do the arduous work of preparation, you cannot bear its ceaseless strain. But it must always
be you who controls that body, not it that controls you.

The astral body has its desires- dozens of them; it wants you to be angry, to say sharp words, to feel
jealous, to be greedy for money, to envy other people their possessions, to yield yourself to depression.
All these things it wants, and many more, not because it wishes to harm you, but because it likes violent
vibrations, and likes to change them constantly. But you want none of these things, and therefore you
must discriminate between your wants and your body's.

Your mental body wishes to think itself proudly separate, to think much of itself and little of others. Even
when you have turned it away from worldly things, it still tries to calculate for self, to make you think of
your own progress, instead of thinking of the Master's work and of helping others. When you meditate, it
will try to make you think of the many different things which it wants instead of the one thing which you
want. You are not this mind, but it is yours to use; so here again discrimination is necessary. You must
watch unceasingly, or you will fail.

Between right and wrong, Occultism knows no compromise. At whatever apparent cost, that which is
right you must do, that which is wrong you must not do, no matter what the ignorant may think or say.
You must study deeply the hidden laws of Nature, and when you know them arrange your life according
to them, using always reason and common sense.

You must discriminate between the important and the unimportant. Firm as a rock where right and wrong
are concerned, yield always to others in things which do not matter. For you must be always gentle and
kindly, reasonable and accommodating, leaving to others the same full liberty which you need for
yourself.

Try to see what is worth doing: and remember that you must not judge by the size of the thing. A small thing which is directly useful in the Master's work is far better worth doing than a large thing which the
world would call good. You must distinguish not only the useful from the useless, but the more useful
from the less useful. To feed the poor is a good and noble and useful work; yet to feed their souls is
nobler and more useful than to feed their bodies. Any rich man can feed the body, but only those who
know can feed the soul. If you know, it is your duty to help others to know.

My Conversations with the Mystic - Shekhar Kapur with Sadhguru - 22 Nov ...

Bull Fight - A realization

"And suddenly, I looked at the bull. He had this innocence that all animals have in their eyes, and he looked at me with this pleading. It was like a cry for justice, deep down inside of me. I describe it as being like a prayer - because if one confesses, it is hoped, that one is forgiven. I felt like the worst shit on earth."

This photo shows the collapse of Torrero Alvaro Munera, as he realized in the middle of the his last fight... the injustice to the animal. From that day forward he became an opponent of bullfights.

Chamundi Sacred Walks - English

Ramana Maharshi's Mother Enlightenment

There were other ways also in which the mother (Ramana Maharshi Mother) was made to realize that he who had been born her son was a Divine Incarnation. Once as she sat before him he disappeared and she saw instead a lingam (column) of pure light. Thinking this to mean that he had discarded his human form, she burst into tears,but soon the lingam vanished and he reappeared as before. On another occasion she saw him garlanded and surrounded with serpents like the conventional representations of Siva.

She cried to him: “Send them away! I am frightened of them!” After this she begged him to appear to her henceforth only in his human form. The purpose of the visions had been served; she had realized that the form she knew and loved as her son was as illusory as any other he might assume. In 1920 the health of the mother began to fail. She was able to work less in the service of the Ashram and was obliged to rest more. During her illness Sri Bhagavan attended on her constantly, often sitting up at night with her.

In silence and meditation her understanding matured. The end came in 1922 on the festival of Bahula Navami, which fell that year on May 19th. Sri Bhagavan and a few others waited on her the whole day without eating. About sunset a meal was prepared and Sri Bhagavan asked the others to go and eat, but he himself did not. In the evening a group of devotees sat chanting the Vedas beside her while others invoked the name of Ram.

For more than two hours she lay there, her chest heaving and her breath coming in loud gasps, and all this while Sri Bhagavan sat beside her, his right hand on her heart and his left on her head. This time there was no question of prolonging life but only of quieting the mind so that death could be Mahasamadhi, absorption in the Self. At eight o’clock in the evening she was finally released from the body. Sri Bhagavan immediately rose, quite cheerful. “Now we can eat,” he said; “come along, there is no pollution.”

There was deep meaning in this. A Hindu death entails ritualistic pollution calling for purificatory rites, but this had not been a death but a reabsorption. There was no disembodied soul but perfect Union with the Self and therefore no purificatory rites were needed. Some days later Sri Bhagavan confirmed this: when someone referred to the passing away of the mother he corrected him curtly, “She did not pass away, she was absorbed.”

Describing the process afterwards, he said: “Innate tendencies and the subtle memory of past experiences leading to future possibilities became very active. Scene after scene rolled before her in the subtle consciousness, the outer senses having already gone. The soul was passing through a series of experiences, thus avoiding the need for rebirth and making possible Union with the Spirit. The soul was at last disrobed of the subtle sheaths before it reached the final Destination, the Supreme Peace of Liberation from which there is no return to ignorance.”

Potent as was the aid given by Sri Bhagavan, it was the saintliness of Alagammal, her previous renunciation of pride and attachment, that enabled her to benefit by it. He said later: “Yes, in her case it was a success; on a previous occasion I did the same for Palaniswami when the end was approaching, but it was a failure. He opened his eyes and passed away.” He added, however, that it was not a complete failure in the case of Palaniswami, for although the ego was not reabsorbed in the Self, the manner of its going was such as to indicate a good rebirth.

Often when devotees suffered bereavement Sri Bhagavan reminded them that it is only the body that dies and only the I-am-the-body illusion that makes death seem a tragedy. Now, at the time of his own bereavement, he showed no grief whatever. The whole night he and the devotees sat up singing devotional songs. This indifference to his mother’s physical death is the real commentary on his prayer at the time of her previous sickness. The question arose of the disposal of the body.

There was the testimony of Bhagavan himself that she had been absorbed into the Self and not remained to be reborn to the illusion of ego, but some doubt was felt whether the body of a woman Saint should be given burial instead of being cremated. Then it was recalled that in 1917 this very point had formed part of a series of questions put to Sri Bhagavan by Ganapati Sastri and his party and that he had answered affirmatively. “Since Jnana (Knowledge) and Mukti (Deliverance) do not differ with the difference of sex, the body of a woman Saint also need not be burnt. Her body also is the abode of God.”

In the case of her leaving the Ashram as in that of her joining it, none presumed to ask Sri Bhagavan himself for a decision, nor did he pronounce one. It seems not to have occurred to them that the answer had been given in his prayer of 1914: “Enfold my Mother in Thy Light and make her One with Thee! What need then for cremation?”

Sri Bhagavan stood silently looking on without participating. The body of the mother was interred at the foot of the hill at the southern point, between the Palitirtham Tank and the Dakshinamurti Mantapam (shrine).

Relatives and friends arrived for the ceremony and large crowds came from the town. Sacred ashes, camphor, incense, were thrown into the pit around the body before it was filled up. A stone tomb was constructed and on it was installed a sacred lingam brought from Benares. Later a temple was raised on the spot, finally completed in 1949 and known as Matrubhuteswara Temple, the Temple of God Manifested as the Mother.

As the coming of the mother had marked an epoch in Ashram life, so also did her departure. Instead of being checked, the development increased. There were devotees who felt that, as Shakti or Creative Energy, her presence was more potent now than before. On one occasion Sri Bhagavan said: “Where has she gone? She is here.”

Source: from book "Ramana Maharshi and Path of self knowledge"

Training Teachers for Hatha Yoga - Sadhguru

Now that the Adiyogi Alayam is up, we are seriously going into a hata yoga school.* I grew up with an intense involvement with asanas and it did phenomenal things to me. I may not be so much into asanas these days, but those twenty four years of regular asanas are still holding me good because if you put that kind of sadhana into the system, it won’t let you down. You can take the grind of life quite effortlessly because whatever the physical exertion, there is another dimension of your body which will hold. All your muscle may be done with exertion, but even without rest or sleep, your physiological system still recovers after some time simply because your energy is kept in a certain way. There are various aspects to it, but hata yoga is definitely one important aspect of that.

If hata yoga is taught in a proper atmosphere and with a certain sense of humility and inclusiveness, it is a very fantastic process. The reason why it has become ugly is because people started teaching hata yoga like a circus. They want to do more to prove that they are better than somebody else. Not too long ago, I was in Southern California and I decided to play a round of golf, and they clubbed two young guys with me. Generally, when I am on the course, I try to dodge talking about spirituality because it doesn’t work like that. It needs a certain atmosphere. So, I pulled my cap really low and put on an unfriendly demeanor. These guys were trying to find out who I was and what I did, and the person who was accompanying me finally said, ‘Okay, he teaches yoga.’ The first thing one of them asked me was, ‘Can you teach me how to get a six pack?’ He thinks yoga is a way of flattening his belly.

This is not about sculpting your body and showing it off. Yoga is about making the body into a fantastic vessel, a fabulous device to receive the Divine. And hata yoga is a phenomenal process, but so many physical therapists and physical experts are writing books on hata yoga today and making people believe it is an exercise system. I am not trying to make it difficult. It is my wish that yoga reaches everybody in the world because it has to, but if people want to teach yoga they must show some dedication, they must show some willingness to spend the necessary time rather than just learning quick fix yoga. And not only that, people are so frivolous they want to modify it. For thousands of years, people who come from within, people who know the system absolutely well, have formulated these things. There is a lot more to it than just what is on the surface. Upstarts who do not know one thing from the other are modifying it. Today, there is aquatic yoga, sky diving yoga…This is absolutely irresponsible.

I have had at least eight to ten reasonably popular yoga teachers in the United States come to me with serious imbalances in their own system. One big mistake they are doing – which I think is happening generally – is that they are playing music. Another thing is, the teacher gets into different postures and speaks. You never utter a sound when you are in an asana; you have to be in a certain way. The teacher gets into some posture and speaks from that asana, which is asking for trouble for sure. So at least eight to ten people have come to us with serious imbalances which we have helped them with, and I think about four of them have given up their profession now because they realize what nonsense they were doing. For others, it is their livelihood and they won’t stop.
Yoga is a subtle technology of manipulating your inner energies to cause life to transcend its natural limitations. This has to be administered in a live form, but if that has to happen it needs a certain level of involvement from the teacher which is difficult in today’s world. We are an archaic lot because we demand that kind of dedication. We want human beings to make their journey starting with the body but moving towards their inner nature; we have to slowly grow people into another possibility.
We intend to make the Adiyogi Alayam a starting point to bring about that transition in the world. Here, we are not teaching yoga classes, we are training yoga teachers, particularly from the West. That is the intention and if we train a few thousand teachers in the next few years, they could first change the image of yoga, then the objective, goal, purpose and way yoga is delivered in the world. We could re-train studio yoga teachers to bring another dimension to their yoga. That is what we are intending. I would like to bring certain dimensions of hata yoga which are almost extinct today; it is a very, very powerful way of living. Not power over somebody else, power to access life. And to access life, you need the right kind of instrument. All you have is your body, either raise it to the peak of perception or just keep it as a mass of flesh and bone. An immense possibility or a basket of compulsions.


* The first Hata Yoga Teacher Training program will begin on the auspicious day of Guru Pournami, July 3rd, 2012, with Sadhguru initiating the students into the training.

Love and Grace,