Spirituality for its own sake (Series -3)

First of all let me apologize for such a long gap between the previous post and this one. I know it should have followed in succession….but due to my laziness or being extremely preoccupied with things on my hand I wasn’t able to so it in the right time and in the right frame of mind.

I hope you understand my precarious position and read through this piece of writing and guide me through your comments and suggestions as always. Without a wasting time…let me proceed to the topic…!

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev or just simply Sadhguru means a world of wisdom and the profoundness that is hard to find.

I am indebted to him for giving me that extra edge over life’s issues and still be in cheer in all that I do.

I got introduced to Sadhguru, way back somewhere in 2002, then I did not know much about him or the foundation called Isha Yoga foundation. I was just a spectator there to the Dhynalingam that was in a very primitive stage and I instantly liked the place and the aura around the place.

Though there were lingering and haunting controversies about the place - which place or being does not have a tinge of madness and controversy attached with no constraints! J

I was drawn to the method of meditation and the offering to the god. I loved the exhibition of prayers to the almighty above there. I offered milk abishegam to the deity in the centre of the dome. I was drawn to the magnetism the place had, the object – the lingam had.

I was feeling something happen to me…I could not explain what. That is when I got introduced to this place and there begun a search unknown to me.

I promised to myself to come back to the place and explore more. I brought a book called, - ‘Encounter the Enlightened’ and that happened to be a reluctant copy brought and signed by the Manager of The New Indian Express, where I worked and few other colleagues with whom I had first visited that place as a mere place of interest.

It cost about 90 bucks. He said, “Why don’t you buy it yourself?” Spat the reply came from me, “No, I won’t buy if you want me to buy, you buy it for me and sign it…that way I can remember the place and you - I giggled!”

People along with us acknowledged what I said and that’s how I got the first introduction to Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev and his writings.

The book enthralled me...it was in the form of question and answers. The questions ranged from beliefs, customs, religions, life, death and various aspects of spirituality.

The answers were very much crude and to the point and it did not try to convince the soul that was asking the question. The answers were direct and it said clearly, this is the answer take it out leave it.

Let me introduce the man behind the aspect…!

Sadhguru is a yogi and profound mystic and also is a visionary humanitarian and a prominent spiritual leader.

At home, you can fine him clad in loincloth or in his blue jeans, barefoot on the Himalayas, or on a BMW motorcycle, Sadhguru is mystic himself.

Sadhguru has scientific methods for self-transformation, which are both direct and powerful. He is an icon of that multitude that you can easily connect with and at the same time wonder what the hell is happening around him.

Why do you feel so many transformations and why do you feel magnetic to this person?

There are various kinds of people and artifacts that are exhibited in the name of the ancient yogic sciences of our own heritage.

But, in all of that Sadhguru stands for his witty responses and the way he speaks to the layman. He speaks their language and they find it the better response than anything else.

He does not seem to flatter your ego further and tell you what you can or could have become…he tells you on your face you are not what you think you are and if you feel, what I am saying makes sense to you come over I will show you an beautiful experience that I could feel…you could also feel.

That’s how he speaks to you, he talks to you as a friend and lets you what you can do and brings you on a different level that you automatically set yourself to the liberation that we hear about it wherever we go but have to undergo through a lot of talks and procedures.

Sadhguru found his liberation sitting on a certain hill at a certain day…and when he found this particular experience happening to him exponentially and experience, he thought if he could feel it and experience it all of his friends could or would feel it.

He slowly thought things to people who got interested in what was happening to him and then he diverted this small happening into a larger perspective and founded the Isha Yoga Foundation, which stands tall and elegant at the foothills of Vellangiri Mountains, nearby Coimbatore.

The foundation is run completely by volunteers and the Isha Yoga Centre has a huge Dhyanalinga Yogic Temple or the Meditation Centre in which is in the form of a dome and it holds a Shivalingam that is very huge in size.

It has a Theerthakund, a rectangular space filled in with water and it too has a Lingam in the centre immersed in water. The specialty of this Lingam is that it is made up of ‘MERCURY’.

Yep, mercury solidified and immersed in water. It is believed that this water will enhance spiritual receptivity in a person and if you immerse yourself in the water, hold the lingam with your hands or clutch it for a few minutes and return to the sanctum to meditate, you gain positive vibrations.

There is more to this place than what we think, I have been to the place in its primitive stages and also after it has now been developed so much. Things haven’t changed much except for the fact that there are many a people now flock to this temple as a place of interest and awe.

The Isha Yoga Foundation conducts many a courses that cater to the inward journey of the soul and the journey to the Inner Management of a soul as well.

Like we say, charity begins at home; spirituality also begins at home…! Spirituality is not about giving up living it is about living right and in the right context.

You need to experience whatever I have experienced to know the difference between a good and relative feeling that happens within a soul, whenever we try to differentiate…things.

Hope, you get inspired to do one, reading this or at least tell me about it.

What's Yours?!

Some people have this amazing passion and zeal to do things and go to the extent of even giving up their soul for the purpose of it…! I am surprised and amazed by and I really wonder what stirs them…!?

Really, I have no clue…I always have found to give my 99% of myself to every aspect I do…there is still that 1% that holds on to me and never lets go even after I have that immense trust and faith on that aspect of life.

I say, soul here, coz that is what represents you…isn’t it?! This body that you have is a temporary arrangement as long as you breathe air into it.

You stop breathing, you cease to exist.

I guess I am deviating from the topic…Yeah! Some people have the immense energy concentrated on one aspect of life and that becomes their driving force!

There are various things that keep them going, such as music, books, love, hatred, beliefs, god, spirituality, yoga, search, travel, writing, talking, conversing, mediating, gardening, family, money, religion, so on and so forth….!

For example, if I had to describe ‘the passion for music’. People, listen to it, explode and be happy about it, get glued to it, write about it, speak about it, share it, ask people they know to listen to it….many dimensions to the same single aspect…some go on making the notes themselves, some try to sing it the same way…some play the track alone and enjoy, some get down to the notations of it to feel it….!

So, like this we can see various dimensions to a single aspect in life. What is yours?

If you ask about me, I am still searching for that one driving force…!

My Stint with Spiritualism

It’s been a long time, I have been hearing about a lot of Gods Men and their help to the distressed ‘Men Folk’ of the world. Raising them to the upper strata of life, enjoying and at the same time being happy within them.

It all translates into absolute bliss and there is so much of talk about relieving, stress therapies, and various centers of concentrated camps (Yeah, kind of!!!) where you can relax and learn to enjoy life in spite of your traumas.

There are various yoga centers and meditation centers mushrooming in the large cities and especially where there is wealth and prosperity for they are the easy targets for all these stints and they get hooked.

Now, being to a genre of the IT, can I be far away? Whenever I claim, I am stressed and over worked there are a number of mouths telling or advising me to various therapies from Ayurveda to Modern Sciences.

This is me, here but my husband is very much inclined to these things, not that I am not inclined. I feel it requires another form of living and two things cannot be mixed up.

He is influenced by the ISHA Yoga Centre, which is based in about 40 kilometers from Coimbatore, the cotton city of South India. He is so up to the mark that he did his research on the net about the place and the offerings and the preaching and something made him feel comfortable with the teachings of this person, who is known as, Jaggi Vasudev.

Hmm….anything under the sun is at the click of the mouse, irony here!!! Something live is driven out of the house. But still finds a place at your study table in an electronic form.

Ok, where was…I wasn’t mourning for the mouse. Yeah, so he had made up his mind to visit this place in Coimbatore, which is at about 4 hours journey from my hometown. We were waiting for an opportunity and there came a fabulous opportunity and we made our plans.

I have been to this place even before this trip together. This place is a very nice, quiet and calm and when I had been there it was just making a mark of its own. It had been just started and there were a lot of construction going on.

So, I was actually eager to see this place for a second time. Now, what is there in this place?

There it is at the foothills of the Velliangiri Mountains, is the Dhyanalinga Yogic Temple or the Meditation Centre in which is in the form of a dome and it holds a Shivalingam that is very huge in size.

It has a Theerthakund, a rectangular space filled in with water and it too has a Lingam in the centre immersed in water. The specialty of this Lingam is that it is made up of ‘MERCURY’.

Yep, mercury solidified and immersed in water. Man, this pool or kund, whatever you want to call has the purest form of water and though it is put to use by several disciplines and visitors. It is believed that this water will enhance spiritual receptivity in a person and if you immerse yourself in the water, hold the lingam with your hands or clutch it for a few minutes and return to the sanctum to meditate, you gain positive vibrations.

It is believed and being practiced. Whatever be the quality of the water not sure but the water has immense buoyant and density. It is clear and it is being replenished by a spring from the above that is on one side of the wall.

So this was something new to me…I was waiting to experience this. I haven’t been immersed in water and never been to a swimming pool. I did not know how to feel inside water or how it feels??!!

I had made up my mind; I will take a dip and following all the procedures that were read out to the group that goes in to the Theerthakund. It had about some several big steps that lead to the water.

I started descending the steps with an air and as I neared the water, I got literally scared. I know it was a water enclosure and there is no happening of an undue current even then I got scared and I stood on the last stair and was just helplessly seeing people in it.

There were a lot of ladies around the Lingam and they were all lost in meditation. I was just looking around for a savior. We were not supposed to talk in there, so I could not talk to anyone.

So all my efforts went in vain and finally I was standing on the steps looking at the place, the water, the people, and the stairs and thinking and making my mind towards taking a dip. My conscious was trying to tell me, “Kavitha, it is only an enclosure of water nothing will harm you, just try, and get in”

But my fear did not find it a good reason enough and was standing. There are people who help you around, so one such lady came down and was looking. She asked me to sit down on the step letting my legs drop in the water below. I sat down obediently and have just rested on the step, when a pair of hands just pushed me into the water.

That’s it, I wondered I am lost, I am drowned and I almost lost myself. I grabbed someone’s hand and held on to it like it was my last life line. But the effect was fabulous but my fear did not allow me to enjoy.

The first turned out to be a different one and still remember the lady who pushed me into the water and wondered what would have happened to me.

All physics had gone out of my mind and all my learning and survival techniques. I stood out of the water as if I had lost all and had nothing with me. It was an incomplete feeling, not describable. Then we had a deep meditation inside the meditation centre and went home talking about the dip in the water.

The next time I went after two months, I did the same and I enjoyed it. This time it was a different experience and it elated the inner soul and I promised to return to this place one more time.

Each day has a different meaning attached to here and they meditate in the sanctum with different experiences to it.

I did not get really moved and got into the ‘thing’ but certainly I feel a difference and this difference I am not able to explain.

Oh!! Oh!! Did I start the same thing again in a different form? Shucks!! No, yaar, enjoy life as long as you want.