Thursday, April 7, 2016

Isha Yoga - Inner Engineering

Yesterday was my first day at the 'Isha Yoga - Inner Engineering' program.

It's banner read 'Welcome to the Silent Revolution of Self Realization'

The program is conducted by the Isha Foundation, the organization founded by Jaggi Vasudev, better known as Sadhguru.

For those who've never heard of him; Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, philanthropist and spiritual guru. While the foundation center is in Coimbatore, it offers the traditional Hatha yoga program around the world. The Foundation is also involved in various very interesting social and community development activities, currently in Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh.

“Transformation means nothing of the old should remain; something absolutely new should happen.” - Sadhguru

          

          

          

Some context:

I attended a session of Sadhguru's in Hyderabad a few years ago.  I was amazed to find that he had the entire hall of over a thousand participants completely mesmerized, some even in stages of trance and intense emotion. Such is his energy being. 

What he spoke resonated really well with me and ever since, I've been wanting to visit his ashram at Coimbatore to understand and learn, as also to 'feel' the energy of the place, of which I've heard much.  That has yet not come to be.

Then, a couple months back I was pleasantly surprised to find the Isha Foundation center in Bangalore open right in the lane where I live. I strolled in the other day, and well, here I am attending their program.

The philosophy behind the Inner Engineering Program:

Inner Engineering is offered as an intensive program for personal growth. The program and its environment establish the possibility to explore the higher dimensions of life and offer tools to engineer oneself through the inner science of yoga.

Inner Engineering can be thought of as a synthesis of holistic sciences.

It consists of simple but powerful processes from yogic science to purify the system and increase health and inner wellbeing. The program includes guided meditations and transmission of the sacred Shambhavi Mahamudra, which, once learnt, can be practiced regularly at home.

Yoga transforms and liberates human beings so that they can reach this unbounded state. Humans, unlike animals, are not merely existing. They are becoming. To evolve as a human being is to become aware of one's limitations; to strive, with intense passion, towards the transcendence for which we all have the potential.

Spirituality aside, I also love his sense of humor, that quiet ripple of laughter that seems to run through his whole body, and it comes up at almost anything, even the most serious of spaces. It's wonderful. His answer to one question:

q: What kind of a job is it being a Spiritual Guru and Yogi? Do you enjoy it?
a: 'Being a yogi is great, life is wonderful; but being a guru....that's very frustrating, because I can keep saying the same thing over and over and over again and in so many different ways, but people just don't seem to get it.'

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