We’re Part Of A Living, Breathing Cosmos

By: Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

With all the advances made in science and technology, today we have tools that are powerful enough to make or break the planet several times over. That the United Nations declared June 5 as World Environment Day is a reminder to us all to live more mindfully, and wherever required, to take urgent measures to reverse any process that is causing ecological harm, the effects of which could impact all life on the planet. However, human consciousness has become so fragmented that most people have forgotten that what you consider to be your ‘body’ is not just a piece of the planet, but much more.

Interdependence is not just a philosophical theory. It is a reality. Your physical existence is possible only because of your body’s seamless ability to respond to the entire universe. Without this, you wouldn’t be able to exist for a moment. 

I lived on a farm for a few years. There was a man in the locality with a hearing impairment, an object of ridicule for the villagers. I employed him to help me on the farm. He was a nice companion because I wasn’t particularly interested in talking, and he couldn’t talk because he could not hear. So, no problem! 

In those days before tractors, life on the farm was all about bullocks and ploughs. One day, suddenly, at four o’clock in the morning, I saw him preparing the plough and asked him what he was doing. He said, ‘It will rain today. I am preparing to plough.’ I looked up. It was an absolutely clear sky. I said, ‘What? Where is the rain?’ He said, ‘No, sir, it will rain.’ And it did. 

I sat up for days and nights after this. Why couldn’t I feel what this man could feel? I sat, holding my hand in different positions, trying to feel the moisture, the temperature, trying to read the sky. I read all kinds of books on meteorology, but was up against a wall. But gradually, with careful observation of my own body and environment, I discovered the fundamental mistake that most of us make: the fact that we view the ingredients which constitute our body, like earth, water, air and food, as commodities and not as an organic part of the life process. 

If it is to rain today, some change will happen in your body. Most urban-dwellers cannot feel it, but many rural folk all over the world, sense this. This is not astrology or magic, but a surmise based on the minute observation of a completely different level of the human system and its ongoing transaction with the cosmos. Most insects, birds and animals can feel it. A tree for sure knows it. 

Modern physics has established that the universe is a great dance of energy, and every subatomic particle in your body is in constant dialogue with the entire cosmos. The aim of the spiritual process is to make this scientific fact an experiential reality for you. 

Yoga reminds us that the physical body is just an accumulation of food -- or what is called annamayakosha. The food that you eat is just the produce of the earth, which, in turn, is a fragment of the universe. You are a small outcrop of this planet, claiming to be an autonomous entity! But with some inner work, a dimensional shift occurs. Suddenly, the human body becomes what it was always intended to be – an instrument of extraordinary refinement, a barometer, an antenna capable of downloading the entire cosmos. We realise that we inhabit a living cosmos.

Being stingy is the problem, not greedy

By Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev Economic Times

Once, it happened that a newly married woman went back to her mother’s place and said, “My husband is such a wonderful man. He gives me whatever I ask for.”

The worldly-wise mother looked at her and said, “Obviously, you are not asking for enough.”

A human being should seek nothing less than everything. Greed is the rule. When he seeks everything, small things will not keep his attention. He will not be thinking of food, currency, or pieces of property — he will be thinking of the largest possibility.

If you desire for everything, would ten crore rupees be a big thing on your mind? It would be nothing for you. The planet Earth would also not be a very big object in your mind. It is a tiny piece of nothing in this vast galaxy.

If you become absolutely greedy, then you become spiritual. If you are stingy in your greediness, you just become materially greedy. It is stinginess which is the problem, not greed.

You are so stingy that you will not smile fully, laugh fully, cry fully, dance fully, sing fully, or do anything fully. This is stinginess, not greed. If you are greedy, you would aspire that not just you, but everything in the existence should be well.

(Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is a prominent spiritual leader, author and poet www.ishafoundation.org)

Disease of Modern Society

ISHA FOUNDATION

Cancer is not really an ailment in the standard understanding of what an ailment is. In some way, the cells in our own body are turning against us; it could be stimulated or instigated from outside situations. The number of stimulations or instigations from the outside has considerably increased in these so-called “modern societies,” and there are innumerable reasons why this happens. To look at it in a very fundamental way, it is a bad organization of the five elements – earth, water, fire, wind and space. The way we consume food, drink water, and the type of air that we breathe are affecting our system and forcing it to turn against itself. Genetic factors may set a predisposition, but it is not the actual cause of cancer.

Reversing this trend is not an easy process because society is lunging towards a certain type of lifestyle that is bound to disturb the human system in many different ways. Because of the use of chemicals and preservatives in food substances, and the air and water we have poisoned, the incidence of cancer is only geared to rise. One simple thing we can do is move into more natural atmospheres where we breathe fresh air, drink clean water from nature – not from the bottle – and eat food that is grown from land around us. In the yogic system, it was always said that you must only eat food from land near you, within a walking distance of one day. Today, such a thing is not possible. We are very proud of our apples from New Zealand and Australia, our grapes from China, something else is coming from somewhere else. We are proud of the way we have built our market capabilities. It is wonderful on one level, but it has its consequences.  

Medical science has found many solutions, but it does not matter how many solutions they find, there will be new problems because that is the nature of life. If you try to block something one way, it will find another way and another way. More and more complex forms of cancer will come as we learn to treat it with medication in its existing forms. This is something modern societies have to live with because being modern has become synonymous with being unnatural. If you live naturally, as nature dictates, you are considered archaic. Only if you are completely divorced from the natural process of life are you considered modern. The increase in the number of people being diagnosed with cancer is in part due to more efficient detection. Earlier, many people died without diagnosis. Still, until we change this fundamental idea of modernity, which works against our own well-being, the rise of cancer will continue.

The complex influences happening upon our body is not something one can yet figure out because too many things are happening around us, including the vibrations we have set forth in the form of telecommunications, microwaves and other varieties of transmissions. In Bengaluru, for example, the whole city is buzzing; you cannot hear anything apart from the disastrous traffic. In that region, there used to be millions of sparrows, but most of them have fallen dead due to the radiation effects and electromagnetic fields of mobile phone towers.  Human beings may be a slightly bigger form of life, but do not think the damage has not been done. Certain studies show what kind of damage these reverberations do to the human system.

Our exploration of technology is quite juvenile and childish.  Whatever we can do, we want to do, and only determine the consequences twenty-five years later. Until our science and technology matures into using only what is good for us and rejecting what is not, in spite of all the attraction, and its commercial value, the rise of cancer will continue. I know it is not possible in today’s life to avoid these things; even to read this Spot you are in front of your computer, so you are not only getting my vibes but the computer’s vibes! You can’t help it; it has become a part of life to go through this. But, to whatever extent possible, you can at least keep your areas of sleep and meditation free from these reverberations. It is not a one-hundred percent solution, but if we bring in yogic practices, and lifestyle choices that are more oriented towards our natural existence, we can definitely reduce the percentage of cancer.

Organise your thoughts, emotions and energies

Sadhguru

Everything we have created on this planet was essentially first created in our minds. All that you see which is human work on this planet first found expression in the mind, then it got manifested in the outside world.

A well established mind, a mind which is in a state of samyukthi, is referred to as a Kalpavriksha or wishing tree. If you organise your mind to a certain level, it, in turn, organises the whole system. Your body, your emotions, your energies, everything gets organised in that direction. If you do this you are a Kalpavriksha yourself. Anything that you wish will happen.

Once we are empowered with a potential like this, it is very important that our physical, emotional, mental and energy actions are controlled and properly directed. If it is not so, we become destructive, self-destructive.

Right now, that is our problem. The technology which is supposed to make our life beautiful and easy has become the source of several problems. What should have been a boon is turning out to be a curse. If life has to happen the way you think it should happen, first of all how you think and with how much focus you think, how much stability is there in your thought and how much reverberance is there in the thought process - all these will determine if your thought will become a reality or not.

Today, modern science is proving that the whole of existence is just a reverberation of energy. It is a vibration. Similarly, your thought is also a vibration. If you generate a powerful thought and let it out, it will always manifest itself.
To create what you really care for, first, what you want must be well manifested in your mind. Once you can maintain a steady stream of thought without changing direction, definitely this is going to happen in your life. It will definitely manifest as a reality in your life.

So, either you make this human form into a Kalpavriksha or you make it into one big mess. You must be clear as to what is it that you really want. If you do not know what you want, the question of creating it doesn't arise.

What every human being wants is to live joyfully, he wants to live peacefully, in terms of its relationship he wants to be loving and affectionate. All that any human being is seeking for is pleasantness within himself, pleasantness around him.

Once your mind gets organised, the way you think is the way you feel: your emotions will get organised. Once your thought and emotion are organised, your energies will go the same way. Then your very body will get organised. Once all these four are organised in one direction, your ability to create and manifest what you want is phenomenal.

You have the power to create, you are the Creator, in so many ways. The whole technology of Isha Yoga is just about this - transforming yourself from being just a piece of creation to the Creator himself. This is not in search of God, this is in search of becoming a God. This is not in search of Divine, this is in search of becoming Divine.