Phrenic

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Posts posted by Phrenic

  2. Posted

    On 3/21/2024 at 1:09 PM, Leo Gura said:

    No amount of spiritual practice will make you free from your genetics and chemistry.

    It's so strange to see abrupt posts like this when the ABCs of Hindu sadhana imply that Surya, Chandra (the Sun and the Moon) are responsible for physical genetics and that there are simple practices geared towards distancing from genetics systematically. The very basic practice anybody can find online is called Surya Namaskar, Isha offers Surya Kriya. Experience things before making claims.

    Likewise there's no spiritual matrix or paradigm at Isha, they just experience and understand that physical responsibilities are an extension of their Being, it's non-duality without the philosophical fuzz neglecting or suppressing real-life concerns, meanwhile ranting about making girls horny and essentially survival stage spiral dynamics with regards to physiological energy.

    Quote

    So yogis are not simply people who meditate to be happy, peaceful, you gain some level of control over reality with those yogic practices specialy your own body, energetic system, and Sadhguru does make some radical claims to have extraordinary abilities in his exclusive vids, so either those are all nonsense and he can get sick and die like any normal person or theres something wrong I dont understand.

    Look into Hindu sadhana so that your spiritual understanding isn't lopsided, the body's energy is comprised of varying levels of real, tangible sheathes/koshas such as the five elements, prana and the mental/physical body. This isn't just philosophy, anybody who undertakes any simple practice can experience physical benefits and tie it in with rudimentary Hindu concepts. This is the least you would expect of a spiritual forum but things are too far on the side of non-dual experience and neglecting/misunderstanding other aspects of life. You would do better to outright ignore Leo and put yourself out there to really experience things.

    Quote

     The main issue with this entire thread is we're all both begging the question of Sadhguru's condition, around with methodology between traditional spirituality versus psychedelics to achieve awakenings or other mystical spiritual experiences, and the second fallacy is a bunch of reworded ad hominems to Sadhguru despite the health crisis he's going through. Have some patience, compassion, and some HUMAN DECENCY FOR GOODNESS SAKE! We're all having this argument and debating about spirituality this versus psychedelics that, or over working versus laziness, having these passive aggressive implied insults to Sadhguru when he's in the middle of a health crisis. 

    I think it goes without saying that everybody is empathetic with Sadhguru's situation and wishes him a speedy recovery, this is an internet forum and the discussions do not have to be track-minded. You can do two things.

  4. Posted · Edited by Phrenic

    37 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    Again, so what?

    There is no good reason for Sadhguru to work these people to death along with him.

    When someone works more than 8hrs per day for free, that's not "voulenteering" anymore, that's exploitation. That's disingenious spiritual horseshit.

    If you're so spiritual, start by paying people for their labor rather than exploiting their admiration of you. This is legit cult behavior. Exactly what Scientology does.

    No one is going to awaken working 8hr+ a day for Sadhguru.

    Isha is a lived in experience that a lot of people have committed their entire life to. Spiritual foundations and cults tow the line and due to the nature of the work that can be no other way, it can only be something so profoundly life-changing that causes these people to commit themselves to a foundation full time, or brainwashing as you're alluding to. All of the advanced programmes are conducted for free and Isha has struggled for money in the past. People volunteer for free for non-profit animal sanctuaries, it isn't an uncommon practice if people think the work is worthwhile

    I've gone through the programmes and experience their benefits myself so I'm only pointing out how important and invaluable experiencing potent yoga outside of substances can be. To put multiple paths into perspective it's important not to crystallize yourself in one or the other, and as much as I'd urge people to try new things and take a long break from psychedelics it's still important to remain consciously critical. Psychedelics open the gates and have an invaluable place along our journey in that regard

  5. Posted · Edited by Phrenic

    25 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    Religious people have spiritual experiences too. So what?

    Many of the practices taught in Isha exist way outside of its scope, one of the case studies I'm linking explains that Shambhavi Mahamudra is a combination of breathing exercises that exist in many Hindu teachings. The Hatha yoga pradipika, nadi shuddhi, kumbhaka to name a few

    Spiritual foundations tend to be non-profit and have volunteers, and people volunteer for specific campaigns regarding Save Soil, Cauvery Calling and so on. I've volunteered for Inner Engineering programmes in the past as a point of contact for practice corrections, and I did it because Shambhavi was very helpful in my life, and there are case studies for this introductory practice that you can look into - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5871312/, https://innerengineering.sadhguru.org/research

    There are people on your forum that have testified towards Isha's practices helping them too

    Quote

    Religious people have spiritual experiences too. So what? I am not arguing that yoga doesn't work.

    On the outset Isha can very easily look like a cult, Yogananda's kriya yoga teachings were taught through a Christian lense at times and he often used religious terminology. All of the money gets funneled back into the foundation as a non-profit, but there have been times where Sadhguru has collaborated with celebrities for money during COVID. With the level of involvement they have and the programmes they run worldwide it is easy to see where the money goes

    There are Hatha yoga instructors that take it up imparting yoga as self-employement, and all of the advanced Isha programmes are conducted for free past the introductory programmes

  7. Posted · Edited by Phrenic

    48 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    How about teaching spirituality in a way where the teacher doesn't kill himself with work?

    That would be the conscious way.

    Workaholism is a problem regardless of whether it is material or spiritual.

    The crazy schedule Sadhguru keeps, keeps him from savouring his life.

    All this goes to show that many of the traps of materialism are paralelled again in the field of spirituality. Brute forcing your way in spirituality can be as problemic as brute forcing your way in materialism.

    It seems as though it has been very effective if Isha has 9+ million volunteers. Sadhguru often mentions in his books that the Brahmacharyas worked up to 24 hours a day, and he himself slept 5 hours a night

    It isn't hard to see that potent yoga might allow you to use your body in a superhuman way, and he only seems to have had a handful of serious emergencies documented throughout his entire life. There's a degree of complacency to account for if he genuinely has the purported capacity to self-recover

    I also highly doubt he sees helping people on a psychological victim-rescuer level. Many many people are not ready to experience non-dual states, and this is where a more proactive material approach becomes relevant as an expression of grosser aspects of life. This is written all throughout Hinduism and also why practices that deal with grosser dimensions are relevant

  8. Posted · Edited by Phrenic

    2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

    Doesn't really matter. Since he's as addicted to his work as Elon Musk.

    Saving people spiritually is also a kind of illusion. Going to Mars vs teaching yoga, it's all the same rat race. The notion that the world needs you to save it is a grand illusion. I would hope Sadhguru sees through it.

    I have attended an Isha event. And what I saw was spiritual brainwashing.

    Helping people in any way is as much as an illusion as tending to your own life, your dietary needs, or even posting on this forum. Limiting your experience with non-dualistic loops shows a lack of understanding in more illusory/relative levels of life. Of course it is an illusion, and so is feeding yourself properly, caring for your kids or earning a living. Whilst we are embodied we help people as an extension of ourselves, and our lives and karma are a reflection of our embodied responsibilities whilst we are here and interconnected with the world at large. Our relative lives are still important so long as we are here to live them, if not why put up this game of talking?

    The whole stipulation of coming full circle is realizing that life's karma is to uplift ourselves and therefore others, so unless we're deciding to leave our very existence is a natural response to life. Sadhguru's lifestyle is a result of his response to life or reality as an extension of himself, and by practicing a form of potent yoga and purification you open yourself up to that kind of connectivity. It isn't that he's mentally motivated to saving others, any less than a flower is motivated to bloom. The article I linked talks about the place that non-duality has on the path and how it can lead people towards a disconnect from grosser aspects of their own karma/life, inducing higher levels of consciousness does not mean that there are not relative and more materialistic forms of responsibility which are as just as integral as anything perceived as higher. This is why Isha and Hinduism as a whole emphasizes purifying grosser aspects of your subtler physiology, without a holistic approach non-dual consciousness, and especially stimulatory induced non-dual consciousness, can create disconnect from grosser aspects of life and create top-heavy psychological loops to uphold itself

    One big problem here is being self-convinced that people like Sadhguru are not experiencing states brought about by 5-MeO-DMT, and whilst you may have attended a single introductory Isha event, there are countless people who have passed through the Actualized pipeline and come out at the other end of the psychological tangle. In the same vein as needlessly claiming there's infinite states of consciousness after emptiness, substance intake creates psychological loops that take away from deeper states of emptiness/shoonya, which would lead towards more sensitive states of consciousness, subtlety and responsiveness to life on all levels, not just those that lock you in a state of non-dualistic, psychologically reinforced transcendence as God

    Your videos are very helpful on a psychological level by providing pointers towards non-dual experience and this is reinforced by experience with substances, but it need not be experienced as stimulatory self-referencing loops which can potentially later translate to psychological loops. Correctly initiated, potent yoga is far more scientific, subtle, purificatory and will open you up as just as much to those experiences. To come full circle again is to really admit that you know nothing, not to stick to a path or plant a flag in the ground for the sake of security

  9. Posted · Edited by Phrenic

    7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

    No different than a materialist workaholic like Elon Musk or Mr Beast.

    The end-goal isn't a materialistic outcome though. It isn't making more of a difference to promote an intellect-oriented focus on non-duality and 100s of videos repeating the same things. Having a profound crown level experience of reality, talking about it for 1000s of hours and reversing the experience of formlessness to form due to the nature of substances is not a more holistic approach, it is reversing the nature of spiritual progress because stimulants still limit things outside of the experiences they induce (they're not sattvic)

    After experiencing Isha's practices and 5-MeO-DMT years prior it is very clear to me that substances come with detrimental, limiting effects. Holistic transformation requires activity on all levels, physical yoga is a means to an end and you have to cater to materialism to some degree in a relative, materialistic world

    If you stepped outside of this and attended any Isha event you would easily grasp any of what Isha, or what Sadhguru subtly imparts into the world asides from any experiential realizations wrought by 5-MeO-DMT

    This article propounds upon the place that non-duality and a crown level of spirituality has in the world, there are realizations to be had outside of this which are related to purifying grosser aspects so that your progress is grounded and not limited to the "highest" levels of experience

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    Similarly, if you just show people where that tinge of ecstasy is, people may start walking just that and miss out on everything else. As I said, if you are well established and there is a tinge of ecstasy, it is fantastic. But if you only seek that, it is still fantastic but a bit too fantastic and you may move from reality to lala land. You may be a little lala  – wonderful for you – but it needs to be rooted in this world because there are things to be done here too. - https://isha.sadhguru.org/en/wisdom/article/sahasrar-chakra-inebriation-ecstasy

     

    Instead of sharing an opinion just for the sake of having one, it would be helpful to experience some of what Isha has taught outside of any first impressions from videos or articles.

     

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      56 minutes ago, Jayson G said:

    There are a few things which I can't fully contest but I am suspicious about. Like the 4 hours of sleep thing. Weirdly enough, there is literally a genetic condition which brings down your sleep quota to only about 4 hours, so maybe he actually has that, so that's actually more believable. But there was one time where he talked about how he healed his ankle just by sitting with it or something, like a sped up healing process.

    Through classical Hatha yoga or any of the yoga that Isha teaches you'd experience something similar, your sleep quota going down is related to how at ease your body is and its connection to the larger body, Hatha yoga is about aligning yourself with the sun and the moon and achieving a level of physical rapport with the rest of existence. Hatha yoga is not exclusive to Isha either, but it isn't unexpected that this community has a limited understanding of the importance of yoga in our day and age

    There is an exhaustive list of things that this forum do not understand due to the nature of spiritual progress through substances, crystallizing yourself here is a mistake and I'd urge every single one of you to experience anything that Isha has to offer first and foremost. One easy topic to extrapolate with is sex, if you're experiencing a level of subtlety of body by working at and purifying things through any potent Hatha yoga or any requiring initiation such as in Isha's, you'd connect the dots in articles like this - https://isha.sadhguru.org/en/wisdom/article/body-memories-washing-of-runanubandha, explaining the body's accumulation of memory and the detrimental effects of promiscuity

    There are many dimensions to spirituality outside of non-dual experiences of oneness, love and God, and we require the grounding of purificatory practices that deal with very real aspects of our subtle physiology like the five elements (bhuta shuddhi), the pranic/genetic body (hatha yoga) and further to nothingness or shoonya, to apply our non-dual experiences and understandings to the rest of the world in a holistic light

  10. Posted · Edited by Phrenic

    6 hours ago, freejoy said:

    I don't doubt he had some good karma going for him.

    I'm not putting him down, he seems to cater to the masses. They sometimes need an Enlightened One to know everything. So he has to play his part.

    But he doesn't seem to be getting many people Enlightened.

    How do you that his methods are not a reliable path to enlightenment?, where are these statistics that you are pulling out of your ass? 

    This video was released on Sadhguru Exclusive, and as such it is fancified and made to look appealing for the seekers that are thirsty enough to pay and watch

    What you are saying shows that you haven't bothered to try any practices yourself, or began to understand Hindu spirituality and the way in which it encompasses every area of life. Be careful with your own biases and dogma, a genuine Guru will be able to flick the switch for you in an instant, and that is the nature of Tantra and yoga. Comparing Sadhguru to non-dual teachers is a bit silly, if you experience his presence or any of the advanced programmes that Isha offers you will see that he is everything any Western or non-dual teacher can be and much, much more. Nobody you know compares or is close to being the same league with regards to their capability to enlighten other beings 

    It is one thing to approach things through substances, or to transcend and reach through self-inquiry and meditation, and it is quite another thing to have the inner capability to consecrate the Dhyanalinga, which upholds every dimension of life at the highest possible peak. Give the technology a try before knocking it, or at least make an effort to understand Hindu spirituality before sharing publically gross and misrepresentative caricatures. These are not things that you talk about without experience or understanding, tens of thousands of years of spiritual culture and culmination do not exclude what you have experienced up to now. Yoga simply means conscious action, it isn't "accidental", or one method or path which excludes other methods, it is by its nature inclusive and non-discriminatory. In this context, nothing is more reliable than a Guru and the science to attain

  11. Posted

    16 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

    I'm telling you, the vast majority of spirituality is genetic. Doubt me if you want, but it is what it is.

    It's the elephant in the room no teacher dare speak. Yet the facts bear it out. It's not for lack of techniques that creatures lack God-realization. If you are born an ant, you're fucked.

    Simple and obvious really. You just don't want to accept it. And none of your rationales or excuses will change this.

    But hey, I will not try to debate it or prove it to you. Find out for yourselves.

    Here is a brief example of the spiritual approach towards genetics through Hatha yoga -

     

  12. Posted

    43 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    I'm telling you, the vast majority of spirituality is genetic. Doubt me if you want, but it is what it is.

    It's the elephant in the room no teacher dare speak. Yet the facts bear it out. It's not for lack of techniques that creatures lack God-realization. If you are born an ant, you're fucked.

    Simple and obvious really. You just don't want to accept it. And none of your rationales or excuses will change this.

    But hey, I will not try to debate it or prove it to you. Find out for yourselves.

    That is precisely why potent Hatha yoga is taught in genuine spiritual foundations, in Hinduism it is the intermediate transmission of energy from our parents through prana which genetically encodes the physical body. Hatha means Sun and Moon, it is a means to reconstruct the physical body and to purify and distance yourself from genetic information, because the source of our physical manifestation ultimately comes from the solar system

    In Isha potent Hatha yoga like Surya Kriya and Yogasanas are building blocks and rudimentary steps, but also a means to ride the cycles of nature and rise above any form of energetic influence in family or society and so on. Surya Kriya is described as a means to align your physiology with the sun's cycles, and according to yogic lore this purification carries over from previous lifetimes

    All other practices are geared towards realization and there is essentially no limit to the potency of these practices if you look in the right places, Isha being one of them. You would be surprised how these things fit together if you care to try or look into it

  14. Posted

    8 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    What nonsense is this?

    An enlightened entity is infinitely spread over the whole Universe.

    There are no multiple entities. There is only YOU -- God.

    When you fully awaken you become everyone and everything.

    Life can be experienced from various dimensions, whether those dimensions are illusive or not

    It is a trickery of language to pretend that other dimensions of energy and deities and so on do not exist, they do exist in the practically relevant sense that your physical body exists, and are therefore a relevant aspect of life

    You cannot apply higher modes of consciousness to yourself and every single problem that exists in the world, that is not a practical or scientific approach, the illusion has to be purified from varying levels to be dealt with from its various existing levels

    Not all people are willing to transcend the illusion of life in this manner, in the same way that the Buddha failed to transform the world's population into monks, life as it exists is a multi-faceted illusion and has to be approached as such

  15. Posted

    1 hour ago, Inliytened1 said:

    Understood - the statement was not meant to imply that it was entirely ego development, though perhaps the statement came out that way....but rather that it certainly must be included as a component.  If not, we are creating yet another duality.   It also depends  on one's  definition of ego.  I consider the ego to be one's entire sense of self - this includes the physical body but also their conceptual identity and everything that comprises that identity.  So keeping the body fit, for example, would be considered development.  As would be "Having all the technologies at hand" as in the quote, or "being good both ways, making them a "guru" and not a "saint", etc etc.  Or such things as expanding one's view on the world, or even working towards selflessness.  There is nothing inheritently "wrong" with any of this of course.

    This is a misunderstanding, because by that definition simply having a body and living are also a form of ego. If somebody is fully enlightened but also tends to to the body in a particular way, there does not have to be an identity involved. If we are limiting ourselves to higher states of consciousness from the crown chakra, which is one dimension of experience, whether we refer to it through no-dual language as nothingness, reality, love and so on, then we won't necessarily selflessly embrace other modalities of life and energy and attend to them in a relative manner, as a multi-faceted energy form. Living as nothingness, reality, love and embodying higher levels of reality is not a practical solution for all of the world's problems on the outset, because like the world, our physical bodies comprise of pranic physiology and the five elements, lifetimes of karmic impurities on various levels which exist regardless of our state of consciousness. If we are in touch with things in this spiritually holistic and sober sense, the realistic pace at which we can help ourselves and other people, especially those outside of the spiritual community who are not willing to immediately transcend everything, will be more obvious. It is important to attain to non-dual states through ground up purification, so that energy can function from other dimensions without an identity. I agree with you that prana is a duality, masculine and feminine, the five elements, these are all dualities, but it is our purity in prana and the elements which determines how dualistic our experience of life is. Taking 5-MeO-DMT and transcending the karma existing in these physiological bodies is not a scientific approach, and we risk lopsiding our spiritual development. Look at the Dhyanalinga for example, it has no karma or identity, but it is reverberating as all of the 7 chakras and dimensions of life, it is a fully developed energetic form with the non-dual dimension of sahasrara at the highest possible peak

    Likewise, the energetic forms of the Divine Mother do not have an ego or identity, they exist as deities in the form of the pure five elements, so that people can surrender and make use of them to purify themselves. Language makes this difficult. Isha's practices work to strip you of your identity very early on, which is also what I meant when I said that they allow you to function from subtler energetic sheathes, to purify and transcend gross forms of karma in mind and body

  16. Posted

    35 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

    @Phrenic cool...sounds like these teachings and practices can lead to enlightenment but at the same don't dwell on it as the primary focus (which paradoxically can lead to it quicker) but rather a sense of balance for all things - both duality and non-duality.  So that one can enjoy a deeper sense of well being.  Personally  I am of the same view as Sadhguru in that I have no issue with form or bias towards formlessness.  This  does mean I will have bias towards form in some fashion but that's awesome ?  this is how ego development and spirituality unite.

    I would be careful ascribing it to ego development. It is more that full spiritual development is inclusive of all dimensions of life, and our present and past lifetimes of impurity in the elements, in our prana and so on have created a tremendous backlog of karmic information. For higher modes of consciousness to be grounded in physical form, and for us to be connected to our own and the world's issues, those dimensions of karma are most important. Without that purification we'll overly analyze everything which disagrees with our subtler mode of consciousness, but no amount of videos and mental explanation will help people become more rounded and capable in these dimensions of reality. All dimensions of reality are spiritual, and purification of the elements and prana ground our higher modes of consciousness within other dimensions of life. The feminine quality of the Moon is no less spiritual than the dissolution and masculine quality of the Sun, for example

    If anybody commits to any of Isha's practices they will see that these subtler sheathes of energy become more dominant than grosser manifestations of karma, or mind and emotion. The impact that we have on the world and others is related to these dimensions of energy, and is a natural consequence of our state of Being. This is opposed to making a mental effort to apply higher states of consciousness to everything else, and in doing so coaxing people to limit themselves to transcendence

  17. Posted

    35 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

    @Phrenic yes regarding  his quote above - this is where you essentially eliminate any bias or leaning  towards a particular finite form or self.  You just remain in a state of selflessness.   That would  include eating and drinking..  But here one must be careful that it is not the ego secretly shifting bias 

    So this also means it will expedite  the "death" of the finite  form or the finite mind  in which consciousness  has been localized.   This "self" which is imaginary, will very quickly cease when all bias is removed.   If there is still any attachment to form - or to formlessness - then this will not happen.  

    That makes sense, the point that I was making and the point that Sadhguru makes in referring to Saints and Gurus is that Saints limit themselves to realization and awareness, transcending grosser dimensions of energy and in essence neglecting large segments of life, so to speak. It isn't that techniques which are taught in Hinduism or Sadhguru are not transcendental in nature or geared towards realization, any potent practice will cultivate the necessary awareness and energy to transcend the self and attain to realizations of nothingness, non-duality and so forth, and this is one powerful facet of Isha's practices

    In Hinduism duality exists up to Agna, or the third eye, the crown chakra and beyond it are where higher consciousness and states of selflessness take place, but it is approaching spiritual growth with only one end of the stick and exaggerating the importance of realization alone, and not coupling our conscious experience with a deeper purification of the energetic bodies, which causes us to restrict ourselves to relatively disconnected, higher modes of consciousness

    This is why Shakti Chalana Kriya in Isha is coupled with Shoonya, an experiential initiation into nothingness. Likewise, purifying the elements with Bhuta Shuddhi and balancing them within the system causes you to transcend them. And also, with Hatha yoga and practices which purify the pranic body, total balance and synchronicity with the rest of the solar system leads to an undifferentiated and neutral state in which the five elements are transcended. The spinal channel, Sushumna, is neutralizing and lacks all dualistic qualities, and people who attain to Sushumna are refrerred to as being in a state of nirguna (lacking all qualities). The Shambhavi Mahamudra initiation is intended to awaken Sushumna, and during the programme Sadhguru will quote the Shiva sutras in which Shiva describes the quality and importance of Sushumna

    So it isn't that realization, selflessness, transcending the senses and so on is neglected in Isha's practices, it is just seen as a rudimentary and necessary step for us to be able to purify the many dimensions of life and our Being, and that is where the real work lies

    Sadhguru adds to his description of Saints and Gurus by saying this - 

    Quote

    That's the difference between a saint and a Guru. Saints somehow cross the border. They are wonderful people. They will bless you and their blessings are good to receive. A Guru is not somebody who is just a saint. A Guru is somebody who has the methods and technologies for everything. He's somebody who is good both ways. A Guru's ways will not be saintly at all. One moment he's this, the next that. He can be in so many ways. He is just playing a role because he has all the technologies in his hand. He's not always a good man; he can do anything, but a saint is always a good man, always gentle, always loving and always happy. A Guru is not like that. He will do what is needed. If needed, he can stand up and fight.

     

  18. Posted

    6 hours ago, m0hsen said:

    @Phrenic great explanations! Thanks! :)

    Which technique or practise one should follow if one's Lunar energy is way too dominant?

    My prana energy sometimes gets uncomfortably cold.

    Once after a session of working on the chakras on my hand, my hand did get really really cold and also looked lifeless and pale. What's the reason behind this?

    I did some purification techniques you recommend me before, it got better, i see improvements and enhancements in general over the whole energy system, but still the temperature of the energy is out of my control.

    I've never experienced energy getting hot. 

    Throughout the day the dominance between Ida and Pingala switches, if you are sensitive and in a sober and grounded state then you should be able to notice this. In Isha, practices like Surya Kriya combine the pranic duality of Solar and Lunar together to awaken Sushumna in the spine, which in turn leads to a total purification of the energy body and a natural attainment towards non-dual and higher states of consciousness

    There are many Saints whose various energetic bodies are undeveloped and impure, but they may be in higher states of consciousness. It is a blessed way to be if you only care about realization, but the application of such growth to the world is akin to applying stage turquoise in spiral dynamics to everything without development in the grosser centres

    Here is a nice excerpt from Mystic's Musings in which Sadhguru describes the Saint Ramakrishna's spiritual growth - 

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    He was in the bliss body; simply blissful. The physical body, he was not bothered, mental body, he was not bothered, pranic body, he was not bothered. When Ramana sat for meditation, he just sat for fourteen years and his whole body was full of sores and insect bites. Animals came and bit him and he just sat because he had nothing to do with the body. If it heals, it heals. If it doesn't heal, it doesn't heal. He treats the mind and mental body the same way. If cancer comes, he doesn't care. He doesn't even feel he has cancer because he feels it is not in him. Only people on the path of kriya yoga are capable of attending to the body in a scientific way. Others do not pay attention to it. Usually, they are incapable of too much activity. A Ramana or a Ramakrishna would not be able to trek with me to the Himalayas, let alone at my pace. Physically they are very incapable, because they were not bothered about taking care of their bodies. Their growth did not involve building a certain body. So they never attended to those things. They attained through their own intelligence and their own intensity, not following any system. Only people on the path of kriya, the Realized yogis, are physically very fit and their bodies will be properly kept. For them there is no problem. They cross the border and they come back. They smuggle things across (laughs). For them, it's a daily affair. That's the difference between a saint and a Guru.

    I would recommend any of Isha's Hatha yoga techniques if you want to purify and balance prana, but the household practice Surya Namaskar will also work wonders for you over time and assist you with your meditative endeavors. Here is a recently released video which sheds some light on Surya Namaskar and Surya Kriya - 

     

  19. Posted · Edited by Phrenic

    Claiming that the practices which Sadhguru offers are 'weaksauce' or anything of the sort comes from misunderstanding spiritual sadhana and the nature of purification. Our Being consists of different  sheathes of energy which are connected to reality from different dimensions, transcending those modalities with a psychedelic like 5-MeO-DMT is not a way to tend to or purify those aspects of reality, if anything we're likely to neglect them if we only focus on short-term alteration of consciousness through substances or practices

    The purpose of every Isha practice is to put present and past life karma on fast forward by purifying the energy physiology from the different sheathes, purification of the mind is only seen as a consequence of this and no importance is even placed upon the mind or higher states of consciousness in yoga because it is the purification of our gross and sober state which determines how free our consciousness becomes in any permanent regard. Substances, excluding a few which are more rooted in gross dimensions and the earth element such as Ayahuasca and mushrooms, only tend to higher consciousness and states of mind and it can be very easy to neglect the rest of reality through that approach. Purification through Ayahuasca and mushrooms is likewise quite unreliable and arbitrary, and that is why yogic practices which purify the energetic sheathes are important. Yoga is rooted in the purification of the five elements and purification of prana (solar and lunar energy). Our sober connection to the purity of the five elements determines how pure our body and mind are. Solar and lunar energy are represented as Father and Mother in yoga because those are the energy channels/intermediaries through which our actual Father and Mother transmit information to us to condition and create the body genetically. The five elements are the very basis of creation and without them we would not exist, on top of that it is solar and lunar energy which creates and encodes life to take a physical form, so both of these dimensions are extremely important in Hinduism. By purifying our connection to the solar system through Hatha yoga we are purifying our connection to the original Father and Mother, the original source of our physical manifestation, and this purifies grosser dimensions of information and conditioning in the mind and body

    It is our past (sanchita) and present (parabdha) karma which keeps our consciousness compulsive in a sober state, and to exhaust that backlog of gross information yoga incorporates the purification of elements and prana. Purifying the mind is the easiest thing that we can do, through substances or through intense kriya yoga, but purifying the mind does not tend to grosser dimensions of energy and that is what we need to purify to free our consciousness from the grips of karma in our sober state. It isn't for no reason at all that Hatha yoga exists, or that deities which represent the sun and moon as Surya and various forms of the Divine Mother exist. If we want deep and permanent spiritual progress which isn't restricted to exaggerated states of mind and consciousness, and which isn't disconnected from the gross problems in the world and the dimensions through which they exist, yoga becomes important. You will see that teachers like Leo and others who focus on transcendence, nothingness and so on are mentally masturbating over those states, and that is because they are neglecting real spiritual science in the name of substances which stimulate the gross bodies and exaggerate the application of higher mind and consciousness, without addressing the origins of these impurities which are being transcended

    Coming to Shambhavi, the purpose of Shambhavi is to purify the pranic channels (Ida/moon and Pingala/sun) and to awaken the central spinal channel known as Sushumna. The potency of Shambhavi lies in the fact that it causes the etheric body (the subtlest energetic sheathe) to become the most dominant sheathe in our experience, which in turn causes all other gross manifestations of karma in the energetic, mental and physical body to exhaust over time. Mahamudra means a seal, and it is the sealing aspect of Shambhavi which locks the physiological changes which the practice makes in place. This grosser purification allows you to attain to meditativeness in a holistic and organic way, exhausting the karmic impurities in the energetic physiology so that your entire system becomes meditative

    Yoga from Isha is different from kriya yoga because it aims to achieve higher states of consciousness through permanent purification of the elements and energy body, instead of transcending and neglecting them. A lot of people in the world will not take Leo's path of transcending those dimensions through substances, or the Buddhist path of transcending those dimensions through awareness alone, and that is why attaining to awareness and consciousness through these methods is a more holistic and purificatory approach. In Isha's most advanced practice, Shakti Chalana Kriya, you can attain to a state of non-duality by purifying and taking charge of the body's five Pancha Vayus. The practice causes the Pancha Vayus to recede from the body as they would at death, which is therefore more physiologically accurate and purifying than death through any transcendental mode of consciousness. Shambhavi is very intense if you are initiated, and it is a kind of intensity which needs to be understood from the right perspective

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    All yogic practices, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, whether you do asana, yama, niyama, pranayama, asana, whatever dharana, dhyana, samadhi, shoonya, whatever you may be doing, essentially all of it is coming from the fundamentals of bootha suddhi or cleansing the elements or if you cannot cleanse, if you’re such a hopeless case, transcending the elements. - Sadhguru

     

  21. Posted · Edited by Phrenic

    49 minutes ago, m0hsen said:

    I actually emailed them for Sadhguru's exclusive videos but they directed me to Inner Engineering program! Should you participate in this program before being able to watch exclusive stuff?

    I'm really not interested in this program since i feel its mostly for beginners.

    I wish i could have access to exclusive videos without attaining to that program first.

    It is not a beginner program in the sense that it is any less relevant than meditative practice, I have been through Isha's advanced programs and the Hatha yoga like Bhuta Shuddhi is provided as a means to purify the root of your system. That was the difference I pointed out in attaining to realization by transcending the mind, and attaining to it as a result of purification which permanently grounds the subtler and higher dimensions within the gross. In all of Isha's programs they place emphasis on activating the muladhara before you begin your kriyas for the same reason. Transcending the mind and being gross in the rest of the body will be a lopsided development, purification allows realization to find expression in the rest of the system. Think spiral dynamics, if you are realized on the level of consciousness and not in energy then you will try to apply stage Turquoise to every other stage of life, whilst still having the gross compulsions from the other stages

    Oh, you should be able to access Sadhguru Exclusive without having attended any programs. It is a monthly subscription just like Netflix. Does this link work for you? - https://isha.sadhguru.org/watch-exclusive/

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    Thanks but unfortunately there's no Isha center in my country, i wish i could learn some of these techniques somewhere online.

    Where are you based?, there are Hatha yoga instructors in most countries, here is the teacher finder - https://www.ishayoga.org/hata/teachertraining/teacher-finder/

  22. Posted · Edited by Phrenic

    3 hours ago, m0hsen said:

    Sadhguru often mentions "do nothing"  meditation which you just sit and drop all mental and physical activities.  If you can do this you absolutely don't need anything else to grow in your spiritual path! :)

    That's what Osho says about meditation too.

    And what I'm trying to say is that if you are like me who cannot travel around the world and reach India to get a guru, your don't actually need to! All you have to do is start practicing simple Kriya Yoga techniques which everyone know about and still your mind and then practise "do nothing" or being aware of awarenesses. That's it! But you need to properly learn and understand the Kriya techniques with as much detail as possible! And never burn out your energy system, often have some breaks and let the system recover and rest if you feel you need to and then continue when you feel ready again.

    If the path of realization is all that you are seeking then what you are saying is absolutely fine. I think that you would benefit from some of the videos on Sadhguru exclusive, he discusses the difference between enlightenment on the level of consciousness and then enlightenment in energy, which aspects like the sun and the moon and the five elements are responsible for. Consciously attending to those dimensions will be a huge support for your other practices

    Your own experience is the only thing that matters, and realization cannot be demeaned because it is the very nature of things. The difference between Saints and Gurus was made because realization is one dimension of energy, and understanding that the world's problems manifest in many dimensions will open up the path more for you. Purification is multi-faceted and can be approached through various means, this is why in Isha they have created forms like the Linga Bhairavi, Suryakund and Chandrakund, and teach processes like Surya Kriya and Yogasanas and so on

    Even if you only learn the Bhuta Shuddhi process from Isha and then couple it with your meditative practice, that is huge step forwards in my experience - https://isha.sadhguru.org/yoga/yoga-programs/bhuta-shuddhi/

    I'm not sure where you are situated, but here are Hatha yoga instructors in most countries that teach Isha's processes - https://www.ishayoga.org/hata/teachertraining/teacher-finder/

    And for anybody interested, Isha will be streaming an online ritual to cleanse the five elements in March, it is quite a minimal fee and you will receive items to take part and experience this for yourself - https://isha.sadhguru.org/global/en/yoga-meditation/grace-of-yoga

    Here are some of the listed benefits  - 

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  23. Posted · Edited by Phrenic

    1 hour ago, m0hsen said:

    According to Ramana Maharshi's teaching: Ego is "I" thoughts, some examples.

    I'm this or that ( body or mind),

    I want to become healthy,

    I want to become a powerful full yogi and not a weak yogi,

    I want to become sexy,

    I want a hot witch girl friend,

    I want to become a millionaire,

    I want to explore other dimensions of life,

    I want to understand how creation works,

    I want to experience life beyond current realized dimension, and or manipulate reality,

    So he teaches to just seek the source of the thoughts which is "I", and keep your awareness  on "I-I" and you come to realize your true nature.

    So as long as "you" have fun exploring, understanding, enjoying higher conscious states there's still "you" and the external world apart from you. You cannot understand or think of your desires of any kind ( even spiritual desires) without an ego-mind.

    "Understanding is the greatest illusion"

    -Buddha

    All relativism between This and That, and the relevance of other dimensions of experience that are not non-dual drop away when you are established in non-duality, but transcendence of the ego and non-dual experience of life is still one dimension of experience

    The emphasis is on rising above the ego through purificatory means, which differs from transcendence because you naturally attain to non-duality when the grosser dimensions of who you are, the solar system being your extended body, and the five elements being the makeup for your physical body, are purified and the memory and karma in the form of the physical, mental, pranic and etheric bodies no longer determine who you are

    Transcendence of the mind's duality occurs on the outset when you are initiated into and commit to a potent system of yoga, and Isha's are exclusive in the sense that they work towards transcendence on the level of your awareness, which is what you are referring to, and by purifying the energy system's connection to reality on an elemental and pranic (solar) level so that your realization is grounded in all dimensions of experience

    The very reason for Sadhguru's description of Saints and Gurus and Ramana Maharshi not caring about the sheathes of the body, is to explain that realization through transcendence alone neglects other manifestations of reality, which causes you to mistake the psychologically transcendental, non-dual dimension of life to be an all encompassing solution towards the world's and life's problems

    Dharma, Vedanta and all mental forms of spiritual teachings exist to help us to connect to our Vijnanaamaya kosha (wisdom sheathe) in Hinduism or Dharmakaya (wisdom body) in Buddhism. By applying non-dual teaching you are connecting to a subtler bodily sheathe which is connected to reality from the level of your awareness, and transcending the elements within the mind-stream rather than purifying the root cause of your disconnection to reality in the form of elemental, pranic, mental and physical karma

    Hinduism teaches that Buddhism is regressive and originally devised for monks because instead of purifying your lifetimes of karma, by purifying your system and permanently attaining to non-duality, you are ONLY transcending life so that you can cut off from all of your karma at death. Gautama's intention was to regress all of humanity into monks so that they could be liberated at death, rather than allowing people to live a full life by both transcending and purifying their karma 

    If you only establish yourself in non-duality by transcending all other modes of life, you exaggerate the application of that one dimension of life to all of the world's and life's problems, Gautama's mission failed by definition because he limited himself to this one dimension and application of spirituality for the larger public

    The Hindu approach is to transcend and purify your karma, and to rise above the cyclical limitations of the grosser bodies (physical, mental, energetic) so that the cyclical karma of your past lives is exhausted. This is what experiencing life fully means, rising above the limitations of the mind, body and energy system by purifying your connection to reality at the most fundamental levels (elemental, pranic), and experiencing all that there is to experience in life so that you also become liberated from the cycles of life and death. Hatha means to purify the elements (the subtlest space), and also to purify your energy's connection to the Sun and Moon so that your gross karma is exhausted and you evolve as a Being, freeing your consciousness from these cycles of creation

    There are very potent methods and processes towards attaining this, and Isha (and others if you look in the right places) initiate people into these processes. If you are a serious seeker then you should experience these processes first-hand alongside the grace of a Guru before you come to any real conclusions. Taking substances which explode you into high dimensions of experience and then cause you to come back down to the karmic cycles of your mental body, your psychological experience of reality, and exaggerate the importance of such experiences is a complete misunderstanding of spirituality

     

     

  24. Posted · Edited by Phrenic

    14 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

    I heard a talk from him about that and he said that he was a normal businessman, married, without mystical concerns, and that sitting on a hill looking at the landscape he had an experience of unity. also shadguru means guru without training right?

    Sadhguru means an ignorant guru, in the sense that nothing has been acquired in the form of mental knowledge, and that all that he knows is his inner experience. It does not mean somebody that hasn't practiced Yoga, because Yoga is just seen as conscious rather than unconscious action

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    But if you become a realized being like Ramana Maharshi, do you still retain certain egotistic preferences to live in a specific styles or condition like "powerfully" after you kill your ego? It's just doesn't make sense.

    I'm not sure how it is an egotistic preference, we are connected to the solar system and the five elements whether we have a preference towards it or not, it is more of a matter of purifying those dimensions of experience because without doing so, our experience of life will be limited to realized dimensions, without having grounded our realizations more ordinarily in a gross manner. This is why various forms of the Divine Mother represent different phases and faces of the moon, and also why the energetic form of the Divine Mother is pure in the five elements, allowing us to purify and THEN transcend the elements rather than just transcend them to attain to higher dimensions

    This was also something that Sadhguru said in relation to this, that "if you're a case you can transcend the elements, but if you want to live beautifully and go beyond them, purification is necessary". This excerpt sheds a bit of light on this too -

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    It is layers and layers of madness. This is not just something you gathered in a few years, it's an accumulation of many lifetimes. Layers and layers of madness have been accumulated. It has to be worked out. There is no other way. Either you drop the whole thing and walk away or slowly you cleanse the bag.

    Seeing Hindu practices and understandings of other dimensions of life as egotistical is a misunderstanding in the sense that we are intrinsically connected to these dimensions of reality. There is this explanation of Ramana Maharshi's progress which comes before the description of difference between a Saint and a Guru - 

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    He was in the bliss body; simply blissful. The physical body, he was not bothered, mental body, he was not bothered, pranic body, he was not bothered. When Ramana sat for meditation, he just sat for fourteen years and his whole body was full of sores and insect bites. Animals came and bit him and he just sat because he had nothing to do with the body. If it heals, it heals. If it doesn't heal, it doesn't heal. He treats the mind and mental body the same way. If cancer comes, he doesn't care. He doesn't even feel he has cancer because he feels it is not in him. Only people on the path of kriya yoga are capable of attending to the body in a scientific way. Others do not pay attention to it. Usually, they are incapable of too much activity. A Ramana or a Ramakrishna would not be able to trek with me to the Himalayas, let alone at my pace. Physically they are very incapable, because they were not bothered about taking care of their bodies. Their growth did not involve building a certain body. So they never attended to those things. They attained through their own intelligence and their own intensity, not following any system. Only people on the path of kriya, the Realized yogis, are physically very fit and their bodies will be properly kept. For them there is no problem. They cross the border and they come back. They smuggle things across (laughs). For them, it's a daily affair. That's the difference between a saint and a Guru.

     

  25. Posted · Edited by Phrenic

    3 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

    He always talks about the indispensable importance of a guru to wake up, but he woke up without a guru. 

    He was initiated into Surya Kriya and Yogasanas by a Yogi and had been practicing since 12 years of age, which led to his experience on the Chamundi hill, here is an excerpt from Mystic's Musings related to this - 

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    I had been practicing yoga since I was twelve years of age. I was not the kind of person who would do something because of discipline. Somehow it just happened; I got up in the morning and yoga happened for me. Every day, all these years, it just happened to me. Wherever I was—I could be trekking in the mountains and yoga would happen.