My first encounter with Sadhguru was on youtube. I particularly remember something that he said in the video,
“Live your life consciously, at the least do one thing in a day consciously”.
That struck home for me. My first question was, “Who is this man with a beard and weird clothing and how does he know for sure?”
Listening to him furthermore, who is he, did not matter but what really mattered was the sense it all was making to me.
For the very first time in my life, I actually paused for a moment to feel that I was actually breathing. I had never consciously felt my own breath. Then all of a sudden, a fountain of peace rose within me and my entire being was soaked in calmness. Never before I had felt this joy of life, never before I had experienced this side of the existence.
Sometime later when I finally met him at one of his programs, there again he said something that stimulated my curiosity, “You are not the mind and you are not the body”. Okay! this was a little too much for me to understand. That made me question myself, Then who am I? From there the journey to the inner-self started.
Then I became a stalker of Sadhguru , following him everywhere I could and trying to understand every word he said. There came a day when I went to Isha Foundation at Coimbatore for a leadership programme called ‘Isha Insight’. I was mesmerized by the place. Right at the foothills of Velangiri mountains, this place was a true embodiment of PEACE. When I got up the next day to attend the programme, as I was walking my way to the hall, at some distance I saw Sadhguru. That same look of a bearded man and the same peculiar clothing, walking towards me smiling while adjusting his stole. At that moment, all my nervousness for the event and all my queries went away. Now in retrospection when I think of that moment, as ironical as it sounds, I had experienced “thoughtlessness” for the very first time and I got goosebumps.
The leadership course was conducted by various learned people, sharing their experiences and learning one after another. Sadhguru, with his wit and wisdom, filled out the rest spaces for all of us. When it was his time to speak, I was sitting just a few feet away from him. I was hearing him speak in person for the first time. He went on, “We need to build our inner self first before we go on to build an external empire. Body, mind and emotions have to be stable”. Then he also exhibited few ways to seek a balance between the mind and the body. His scientific knowledge was quite evident by his scientific inputs about mind and matter. Isha foundation ashram is another example of this reverence for science as it very carefully designed to enhance the human capabilities.
In between the learning when we came out for a break, we caught Sadhguru playing Frisbee. Being his usual self, he exhibited small yet profound joy in smallest of the things like playing a Frisbee.
Later when Sadhguru was sitting on a bench in the garden and everyone surrounded him, I too went running.
I managed to ask him a question, “Why do we feel thoughtlessness around him and how can we retain this peace and calmness?”.
He answered, “Think of the Universe, Galaxies, Earth, India, a City and now think of Yourself. Now think of how big are you against the larger scheme of things, you are just an individual spec against a larger backdrop.” That changed my life, the way I looked at life. That helped me build a new perspective on all kinds of life around me.
The last day of the course was scheduled as “A day with Sadhguru in the jungle”. In the course of the day when we went around in the jungle with him, we confided in him about our desire of building a company and business.
“With all the practical example he could show us, he taught the importance of the natural course of life and advised us to build a company which works like an organism and not like an organization.”
This advice from him has indeed been pivotal in the way we built Repos. We realized that people make companies and how important it is for people to be happy in the space that they find themselves in. This made us provide our own people with an environment that allowed them to grow in a healthy space rather than in some rigid organizational structure.
Today, Sadhguru is understood and seen in many ways by different people. To some, he is a religious holy man, a preacher for someone else, an activist for someone and some see him as a spiritual leader. While what we see him as is not that important but how he has inspired us in many ways has been very important to us. Today Isha foundation is involved in many activities that have an influence over millions of people. With the help of community and Isha, Sadhguru endeavors to practice what he preaches. With ‘Rally for rivers’, he is advocating better maintenance of our rivers, with ‘Youth and Truth’, he wants to engage the youth of this country and engage them in building of the communities, with ‘Greenhands’ he wishes to restore the environment and ecological balance, with “ Isha Insight” he works to create future leadership. Above all it is this quality of Sadhguru’s, to touch each life around him positively, that has left a lasting impression on us.
A few months back we wrote to him about the positive changes that we are trying to bring in the Energy sector and after some while, one of his team came to visit us in Pune to know more. This reaffirmed our belief that however knowledgeable he is, he still wants to learn and know more.
If we ever ponder over what we really learned from him, it often boils down to this, “Life is Life, just look at it the way it is, don’t judge, interpret or assume, experience life and then life will unveil its miracles to you.”