Sadhguru decodes spirituality, mortality, and intensity to share lifetech

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Sadhguru, a modern-day mystic and spiritual trailblazer, personifies the enigmatic spirit of Shiva in a contemporary avatar. Ranked among India’s 50 most influential people, he is a yogi, visionary, and New York Times bestselling author. Awarded the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India in 2017, Sadhguru is the founder of Conscious Planet – Save Soil, a global movement reaching over 4 billion people. Known for his candid conversations and boundary-pushing approach, Sadhguru challenges individuals to explore their true potential, whether they’re celebrities, journalists, or seekers.

In early 2024, a serious health scare demanded his resilience as a brain injury brought him to the brink before his recovery. Back at the helm of the worldwide Isha Foundation, his insights remain as profound and provocative as ever. In an exclusive email interview with Ashish Virmani, Sadhguru reflects on mortality, spiritual integrity, and why intensity is the key to human transformation.  Read on for his incisive answers to 10 questions.

1. What did you learn from your recent intimation of mortality? In which ways have you changed after that episode?

Sadhguru: I live every step of my life like this – always out of control, but with control. We are the sort of people who throw away our lives for small things. Many times, I have thrown my life out for little things, but it has yo-yoed back to me. It is just that this time, it became very public.

 The most fundamental thing about life is that we are mortal. You could fall dead right now. It is not my wish or curse that you are mortal, it is a reality. We want to plan and live a certain period, but there is no guarantee about how long we will live. You may be young or old, but you can fall dead right now. Please be conscious of this – not to create fear or paranoia, but to know the reality.

If you realize that your time is limited and you don’t know when it will end, you will have no time to do anything that doesn’t really matter to you. You will only do what you truly care for in your life. If every human being only did what truly mattered to them, this would be a fantastic world.

 A live Guru is essential – he mixes the right cocktail for you. Without this, there’s no punch in your spiritual journey, says Sadhguru.

2. Why are there so many differing spiritual disciplines and paths in the world? What is important for us to remember while following a particular spiritual path?

Sadhguru: If you are serious about going somewhere, start from where you are. The first thing is to see, experientially, where are you? Right now, your body, mind, emotion, and energy are your only realities. For these four, we have four basic yogas: Karma, Gnana, Bhakti, and Kriya.

You are a unique combination of body, mind, emotion, and energy, so you need the right combination of these four dimensions. This is why there is so much stress on a live Guru on the spiritual path. He mixes the right cocktail for you. Otherwise, there is no punch!

But unfortunately, integrity levels have come down today and funny things are happening in the name of spirituality. What you need to do is evaluate whether it works for you. Put what is offered to you into your life – if it works, keep it. If it does not work, throw it and look for something else.

3. Can you give us the central tenets of your spiritual message?

Sadhguru: The only way to experience true well-being is to turn inward because human experience is created from within. This is what Yoga means – not up, not out, but in. In is the only way out.

Earlier, in pursuit of well-being, people looked up. This brought hallucinations and continuous wars. In recent times, we have been seeking well-being from the outside, destroying the planet itself. But human well-being will not happen unless one turns inward. Once you realize this, Yoga becomes very relevant.

Yoga is not a teaching or philosophy. It is a technology for inner evolution, to hasten human evolution to its ultimate possibility. Anyone willing to make use of it can.

4. Who do you consider a good disciple?

Sadhguru: Once the spiritual longing has come, just making it intense is needed for the flowering. It is not about what you are doing, it is about how intensely it is being done. It is not because of what you do that you become beautiful. You become beautiful because of the intensity with which you do whatever you do – whether you sit, stand, eat, serve, sweep, or meditate. If people were intense enough, we would not have to work towards the ultimate for a lifetime – the work could be done today.

Earlier, for well-being, people looked up. That brought hallucinations and wars. Lately, we have been seeking well-being from the outside, destroying the planet. But human well-being will not happen unless we turn inward, states Sadhguru.

5. What role do personal faith and belief play in the spiritual process?

Sadhguru: Those who follow a religion are called believers, and those on a spiritual path are called seekers. Belief comes from an assumption about something that you do not know. Seeking comes from the sincerity of seeing ‘I do not know,’ so you want to know.

There is no room for belief in a spiritual process. You have to keep all your beliefs down. Seeking is only possible when you have no conclusions. Someone has become a theist, and another has become an atheist – both have made conclusions about something they do not know. These conclusions will not lead to truth. These conclusions will only lead to a fight between the two sides.

A spiritual aspirant must be straight enough to see, “What I know, I know. What I do not know, I do not know.”

6. Tell us about Dhyanalinga and why it is central to your life purpose on earth.

Sadhguru: Building structures that are tools for enlightenment, not just as teachings or practices that one can do but as living tools that people can walk through, has always been the desire of many Yogis. One of them who had such a desire – my Guru – fixed me up for the job.

Dhyanalinga is a living Guru with a full-fledged energy body. He has no physical body, but he is much more alive than anyone else. He is the highest possible being, with all the seven chakras energized to their peak, but without the encumbrance of physicality.

As long as a Guru has a physical body, there is a limit to how many people you can instruct. But because Dhyanalinga is a full-fledged human being without the burden of a physical body, large groups of people can do their sadhana in the intimacy of a Guru. Dhyanalinga can instruct millions of people straightaway; without a word, people can become meditative, which is the purpose.

Because old traditions are breaking up and live gurus are becoming increasingly scarce, Dhyanalinga is of paramount importance – a tremendous spiritual investment for the future.

7. Millions get into spiritual movements… has Isha Yoga studied how many carry on after the initial enthusiasm, and how many benefit?

Sadhguru: There is substantial scientific evidence today that the human body can produce various secretions, leading to different experiences within us. The body can produce endocannabinoids, which naturally make you feel blissful. Medical science says that if certain physiological biomarkers such as Brain Derived Neurotropic Factor (BDNF) are not present in the body in sufficient quantities, anxiety, depression, emotional exhaustion, and burnout happen.

With the Inner Engineering practices that we offer in Isha Yoga, it has been established by research scientists at the Harvard teaching hospital, the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Rutgers and Indiana universities that within 90 days of daily practice, the BDNF levels increase threefold, and the endocannabinoid secretion in the body goes up by 70%. People come out of their depressive modes and anxiety situations through Inner Engineering.

As you can engineer the outside, you can also engineer your interiority. As there is science and technology for creating external comfort and convenience, there is a whole science and technology for creating inner well-being. Every human being must have access to this.

8. What does enlightenment feel like?

Sadhguru: By the time I was eight years old, I already had a cloud of a billion questions around me. I could never find anyone who answered a single question without quoting someone else. I knew that the authority they invoked invariably quoted some other authority. When that authority was from another time, it was sanctified as ancient scriptural authority! This made no sense to me. I could never accept authority as truth. For me, the truth was the only authority.

When I was 25, I exploded into a state of boundless ignorance on Chamundi Hills (a sacred site in the Mysore district of Karnataka). Not that all my questions vanished, but I realized the folly of trying to capture the truth in installments. I saw that even if you read all the books on this planet, your knowledge would be minuscule compared to this utterly incredible cosmos.

Enlightenment does not mean you “know” everything in the universe. It means your perception is now so uncluttered that you see everything as it is. If you are cluttered with knowledge, you do not see anything as it is; you are prejudiced about everything. In a way, enlightenment is a celebration of ignorance, a blissful ignorance.

9. Are there any signs to ascertain if someone is enlightened?

Sadhguru: Do not go about judging who is enlightened and who is not. It will simply waste your time, mind, and energy because you cannot draw any conclusion. Whatever conclusion you draw will only be for self-satisfaction, but you will not know the truth because there is no way to recognize a dimension you do not even know.

10. Where do you think the world is headed?

Sadhguru: People ask me, “Sadhguru, what do you think will happen in the future?” I ask them, “Do you want a prediction or a plan?” All those who are incapable of a plan are looking for a prediction. The fact that creation gave you such big brains and the possibility to create many things means you should have a good plan, rather than wait for a stupid prediction.

This is our time on the planet. It is in our hands to make this the best or most irresponsible time ever. I wish we could make this the most responsible and wonderful time. For this to happen, you need to empower human beings beyond their body and mind. Something bigger needs to touch them. That is what we at Isha are doing.

The most important thing to consider is whether the teaching worked for the person offering it. If it has not worked for them, it is not worth anything. On the other hand, if you see it has worked brilliantly well for them, then even if you disagree with it intellectually, just do it, because it works. Not everything that looks great necessarily works. By contrast, something that does not look that great may work brilliantly.

Sadhguru Insights

“Those who follow a religion are called believers, and those on a spiritual path are called seekers. Belief comes from an assumption about something that you do not know. Seeking comes from the sincerity of seeing ‘I do not know,’ so you want to know.”

“Enlightenment does not mean you ‘know’ everything in the universe. It means your perception is now so uncluttered that you see everything as it is. In a way, enlightenment is a celebration of ignorance, a blissful ignorance.”

“This is our time on the planet. I wish we could make this the most responsible and wonderful time. For this to happen, you need to empower human beings beyond their body and mind. Something bigger needs to touch them. This is what we are doing at Isha.”