sadhguru jaggi vasudev – (photo from wikipedia by isha foundation)
sadhguru jaggi vasudev is an enlightened mystic still living in body. he is founder of isha foundation which offers courses in yoga, self transformation, self healing and emotional well being. jaggi vasudev has authored many books. in his discourses he gives insights to modern men on right living, relationship, walking on spiritual path, occult and living in harmony with nature.
jaggi vasudev main emphasis is on increasing your awareness or consciousness. living in present moment (living here now), living totally and joyfully. he encourages living in harmony with mother earth and has taken lot of initiative in planting trees.ย jaggi vasudev ashram is in coimbatore, tamil nadu.
for more info check jaggi vasudev youtube videos,ย sadhguruย website and isha foundation website.
photo credit – from wikipedia article on jaggi vasudev.
sadhguru jaggi vasudev quotes and sayings:
1.ย fundamentally, the only thing you can give is yourself.
2. in reality there is only Now. if you know how to handle this moment you know how to handle the whole eternity.
3.ย when you wanting to know some thing is so Intense that you are willing to die for it, then knowing is not far away.
4. when any being calls or really yearns, the existence answers. if the thirst within you is strong enough, god always answers.
5.ย in relinquishing the limited, the unlimited becomes yours, but the price is, what is YOU does not exist anymore.
6. when your sadhana (Spiritual Practice) is based on hope and fear, you won’t attain to anything.
7. only if one makes himself available to higher and higher possibilies, then grace can descend and do something that you yourself could never do.
8.ย what you can do and what you cannot do outside is always a question of capability. but when it comes to the inside it is just a question of willingness.
9. the word โguruโ means dispeller of darkness.
10. if you are not half hearted, if you are a full blooded involvement with everything that you are doing you will see every simple thing is a miracle.
11. you are not using your intelligence to reach the peak of your consciousness, to become peaceful and loving. you are using your intelligence to drive yourself crazy.
12. your desires and passions are just like this. if you try and fight with them, if you chop them, they will spill blood, and with every drop, a hundred or a thousand will come up. there is no point fighting them. just educate your passions, educate your desires to flow in the right direction, that is all. you can never fight them. fighting them will be futile, it will be a waste of life.
13. everyday, twice a day if you are reminded that you will also die, then naturally you will move towards knowing higher dimensions of perception.
14.ย what you know as the highest, you just seek that. it doesnโt matter whether it is going to happen or not going to happen, simply living with the vision itself is very elevating, is itself very liberating, is itself a very joyous process for any person.
15.ย a devotee has no other goal except to dissolve into his object of devotion. but you have your own personal agenda and still you call yourself a devotee.
16.ย when you just look at the long term span of this creation, you are just a tiny happening. but you think too much of yourself, that is the biggest problem.
17.ย when we say everything is maya or illusion, maya does not mean it does not exist, maya simply means that you are not seeing it the way it is.
18.ย one reason why people go through so much stress in their day-to-day lives is they try to figure out everything logically.
19.ย if you donโt know what youโre talking about, the best thing is to shut up. silence will breed wisdom.
20.ย food is not a commodity โ food is life.
21.ย the same energy manifests in a million different ways: as a stone, a tree, an animal, a human being, or in its subtlest form โ the divine.
jaggi vasudev quotes on meditation:
1.ย higher dimensions of awareness means higher dimensions of energy.
2. once you know how to be aware, once the neccessary awareness – to be away from your own body, to be away from your own mind – has come to you, don’t even bother about your karmas. just see how to deepen this awareness.
3. do not try to live by morals, ethics, slogans. these are all very poor substitutes for awareness. be conscious and aware, you will see life the way it is.
4. every human being is a unique human being.
5. if you cultivate your body, mind, emotion and energy in the right direction, mediation will happen. it is not something that you do, it is a quality.
6.ย the sign of intelligence is that you are constantly wondering. idiots are always dead sure about every damn thing they are doing in their life.
7. when you become meditative, you will see, your intellectual capabilities will increase many times more than what it is right now. not because meditation makes you intelligent, but because meditation clears up the mess, the muck thatโs gathered on the glass of the flashlight. as your meditation deepens, it just clears up the muck more and more and the flashlight becomes more and more powerful. it shows you things more and more clearly.
8. once the stillness comes into your life, then the mind also becomes absolutely still. when your mind becomes still, your intelligence explodes.
9.ย intelligence is like a flashlight. if you flash it, itโll just show you whatโs in front. knowledge is like a projector; if you switch it on, it projects its own story. now, if you came with a flashlight and you flash it on these paintings here, you will see the paintings just the way they are. if you came with the projector, which also has light in it, and you turned it on; you donโt see the paintings. you will see something else, maybe jackie chan fighting. thatโs the difference between knowledge and intelligence.
10.ย everybody is making choices; even their compulsions are their choices. choices made in unawareness are compulsions. let us say you get angry right now. it is your choice, actually, to be angry. somewhere, you believe that’s the way to handle the situation, but the choice is made in such unawareness that is is a compulsion; it’s happening compulsively on a different level. so you are living by choice, but choices are made with out awareness – unconscious choices.
11.ย once you are meditative, music will naturally be a part of your life. everything is vibration โ everything is sound.
12.ย consciousness is not a bunch of thoughts or a certain level of understanding โ itโs a boundless dimension.
13.ย in everything that you do, you can give something that is โYou.โ
14.ย spiritual practice is like food. food only works for those who eat it. spiritual practice only works for those who do it.
jaggi vasudev quotes on life and living:
1. life is far beyond meaning, life is beyond meaning and that’s why it is so beautiful.
2. anything that does not enhance the possibility of life is of no consequence to the creation, or to the creator.
3. by fixing the outside, life can become comfortable and convenient. but human beings will not know well being unless they fix their interiority.
4. you know everything about the world, but you do not know anything about yourself. this is a ridiculous way to live.
5.ย the greatest crime that you can do to humanity is to teach your children that suffering is a part of their life. you have taken away the possibility of them being joyous human beings.
6.ย if you are rooted in reality there will be no fear.
7. the fear is simply because you are not living with life, you are living in your mind.
8. till something becomes a reality in our life, if we talk about it, it amounts to lying. the whole world is lying to themselves and to everybody about god.
9.ย if you really pay attention to life, life will blossom within you. if you do not pay attention, you are somewhere else, then life could go wrong.
10. wanting to be special is a sickness, it is taking a huge toll on life. in trying to be special, people are doing all kinds of ridiculous things.
11.ย if you have any intention of knowing or touching the ultimate in this life, then giving yourself in parts is no good.
12.ย just desire the highest in life. all your passions, direct them to the highest. even if you get angry, direct it only towards shiva. even with your passion, that’s the way to do it. every bit of energy that you have, you expend it by making it into desire, passion, fear, anger, and many other things. may be these emotions are not in your hands for now, but channeling them in one direction is in your hands.
13.ย you can be deeply involved with everything, but still not be identified with it any more.
14.ย when it is no more about you, you can live your life and do your life in total abandon; because there is nothing to gain nothing to lose.
15. if you are not seeing life the way it is, you can only live by accident. you are a potential calamity and fear and anxiety is very natural.
16.ย exploration is what is needed – not ideology. ideology means you have made your summary of life. if life can be summed up, it is not worth living.
jaggi vasudev quotes on love, happiness and bliss:
1.ย if you can bring love into your breath, into your step, into every act that you do, not towards anybody or anything; if you can just bring the longing to merge with everything around you, then creation will lead you on to the creator.
2. only when you are truly happy, you can be concerned about somebody. when you are unhappy you are only concerned about yourself.
3. whenever you are happy, the real source of happiness is within you. it bubbles up. it is just that you are looking for an external stimulus to make you happy.
4. you claim that you love somebody, but if they dont fulfill your needs, you wont love them. i dont call this love, I call this mutual benefit scheme.
5. every human being is capable of living absolutely blissfully within himself. they have denied themselves this because they never looked at themselves.
6.ย blissfulness is not a rare visitor in your life, blissfulness is your constant companion, because that is the nature of your being.
7. with every single action, consciously or unconsciously, people are trying to be happy. so one way, in this level of living, in this dimension of existence, happiness is the goal of everything that man is doing. but if you look at life, we have done so much in this world for our happiness. but all we have ended up with is creating more and more comfort and convenience-but not happiness.
8.ย the world is trying to do so many things. we’re trying to go to the moon, to mars, but, fundamentally, i feel the most important thing is human consciousness, the quality of life here. how happy we are here simply depends on how we are within ourselves.
9. if a man is intelligent everything that happens is an opportunity; if a man is stupid everything that happens is a disaster.
10. confidence can do things for you but confidence without clarity is a big disaster on the planet.
11.ย may be when you are angry then you cannot be loving, you cant suddenly turn your anger into love, but the anger itself can be directed.
12.ย if you want to know the joy of activity, first and foremost thing is that you must know how to give yourself to activity with total abandon.
13.ย if you can joyfully accept the consequence, do what you want; if it is that you will cry when the consequence comes, better be conscious about what you do.
14.ย when your happiness is dependent upon what is happening outside of you, constantly you live as a slave to the external situation.
15.ย the past experience of life is ruling you from within. unless you break this karmic grip there is no such thing as freedom in thought and action.
16.ย when you earn peopleโs love and respect by how you love and respect them, it not only enriches your business โ it enriches your life.
jaggi vasudev quotes on modern men and mind:
1. we know how to go to the moon, but the tragedy is that we still do not know how to live on planet earth.
2. aย humanity which has done nothing for its inner well being – how can it create external well being? how do you expect it to work?
3.ย without working on human consciousness, trying to change social or national or global realities means there is no serious intention.
4. when who you are and what you are is not decided by any external forces, then you are in dignity.
5. people have come to the conclusion that body means pain. and yet, just the right food, practices and a little change in attitude, and this body becomes a miracle.
6. positive thinking is about trying to escape reality. itโs about wanting to look at one side of life, and missing out on another. you may ignore the other, but the other will not ignore you. right now, you can choose to ignore a black cloud in the sky, but itโs not going to ignore you.
7.ย because you do not know how to keep your systems in balance, because you canโt handle reality, you succumb to positive thinking. you want to skip the negative and just think positive. what you pursue will not be the strongest point in you. what you try to avoid becomes the basis of your consciousness. positive thinking can have some psychological relevance, but no existential relevance whatsoever.
8. you being too involved with your mind and emotion means you are too enamored with your own creation, you have no time for the creation of the creator.
9. if you really want better situations to live in for yourself and everybody, you must stop playing petty politics within yourself and around yourself.
10. if you know that you are stupid, you wont attach too much importance to your thought. You will start looking at life and your intelligence will flower.
11. if you look at the organization, capability and the certainty with which a simple ant is conducting its life, you will see you are quite stupid.
12. the contradiction within a human being is simply because he is trying to mentally figure out things that he has not experienced.
13. you’re just an imitation of what is around you, it’s just that you don’t imitate one person; you take bits and pieces of hundred people and make yourself.
14. everybody has their own understanding, ideas, opinions of the world. they know these are not worth anything, yet they are not willing to keep it down.
15. once you have a thinking mind, a questioning mind, or a doubting mind, you should not talk about devotion. it just leads to enormous deception.
16.ย man needs entertainment simply to hide his madness. if he was perfectly sane, he would not need entertainment. he could just sit and watch this bamboo grow. he does not really need entertainment.
17. only when people begin to thing beyond their own well-being, something beautiful is possible in the society.
jaggi vasudev quotes on spirituality and seeker:
1. spirituality is about acting out of your inner humanity, if you go deeper, youโll be acting out of inner divinity.
2. spiritual process does not mean looking up, or looking down, or looking around. it is about looking inward.
3. if you are truly a seeker of truth, truth can not hide from you. it is in the lap of truth that you have happened. most people who claim to be seekers are only seeking security, solace, or the fulfillment of their desires.
4. whatever is your highest, you just contemplate upon that. your inner and outer purity will happen naturally.
5. if YOU are not there, enlightenment is instantaneous. if YOU are there, you have to walk till you wear out.
6. if you are aware that you are a nobody and you act out your role, this is enlightenment.
7. the moment you make a conclusion, as to what should be at the other end, you are no more a seeker you are a vested interest.
8. being with a master is never comfortable, because he will break all your limitations, all your ideologies.
9. the guru is someone who continuously punctures your ego, yet is your friend.
10. religions of the world are not bout one manโs belief against another, but an opportunity for all humans to each to their common ultimate source.
11. essence of spirituality is that we are constantly aware of the oneness of who we are, at the same time we celebrate the uniqueness of the individual.
12. as many colors of the rainbow are an outcome of one pure light, many religions of the world are an expression of the same divine source.
13. only when you truly start seeking what is beyond the physical body, the spiritual processes open up for you.
14.ย whether we are talking about kundalini or simple plain energy as in the english language, it’s basically about raising ourselves to a higher level of energy. what you call ‘life’ itself is energy. so, if you want to function on a higher plane of life, you need a higher level, a higher quality of energy.
15.ย a genuine seeker, a person who develops an urge within, will always find his guru. he may find it in a man, in a woman, or he may find it even in a rock. he will definitely find it somewhere, there is no doubt about it.
16. do your sadhana (Spiritual Practice) joyfully, not with the hope of making it or the fear of not making it. just do it joyfully.