Inspiring Biography of Sadhguru

Sadhguru is an Indian mystic, yogi, philanthropist and author.

Introduction –

Jaggi Vasudev (Sadhguru) was born on 3 September 1957 in Mysore, Karnataka, India.

Until the age of 19 years, Sadhguru did not speak much and was very silent.

Sadhguru did not speak much because he realised that he didn’t know about anything.

He realised this when he was 4 years old.

The complete attention-

Sadhguru spent most part of his childhood paying attention to whatever he encountered.

If he saw a glass of water, he used to stare at it for hours and during night he used to gaze at the darkness for the whole night.

And when Sadhguru opened a book to read, he would immerse himself in focussing on a small tiny dot on a page for several hours and he would fail to read even a single word.

But Sadhguru wouldn’t lift his head from the book instead he used to focus on the dot intensely.

Encountering yoga-

When Sadhguru was a child, he accidentally encountered yoga.

During the summer vacations Sadhguru and his cousins, brothers and sisters used to assemble in their ancestral home, located in their village.

The boys of the family used to play in the well, located in the backyard of the home.

They used to jump in the well which was around 8 feet in diameter and 50 feet in depth and eventually they used to climb to the surface, just by holding the rocks in the well because there were no ladders or steps in the well.

This particular sport was tough but because the children were young and very energetic, they did not have any issue in playing this sport.

The old teacher-

Once, Sadhguru saw a 70 years old man near the well, he was silently watching Sadhguru playing in the well.

After sometime, this old man jumped into the well.

Almost everyone thought that he committed suicide by jumping into the well.

But to everyone’s surprise, the old man climbed to the surface at a lightning speed, faster than the young boys.

Sadhguru was stunned with the swiftness of the old man and so out of curiosity he enquired the reason for his endurance, to which the old man took Sadhguru along with him and taught him yoga.

When Sadhguru was 12 years old, he met Malladihalli Raghavendra, the founder of Anatha Sevashrama Trust and he taught Sadhguru some simple yoga asanas.

Then, he started to practice yoga continuously from then on.

This act of practicing yoga led him to explore another dimension of life.

Education-

As his father was a physician (ophthalmologist in Indian Railways), his family decided to make him a physician too.

Most people think either to become a doctor or an engineer.

But when Sadhguru turned 16, he decided to discontinue his further education after his high school; instead he thought to educate himself.

This decision was not welcomed by his family because in India it is rare to discontinue studying.

But due to family pressure, Sadhguru was admitted to Mysore University.

Befriending books-

In the university, Sadhguru used to spend most of his time reading books at the library.

He used to read books on almost all topics like philosophy, mechanics, poetry, history, geography, etc.

This reading was important to engage him because during those times Sadhguru was physically active and very energetic and thus he drove that energy to gain knowledge by reading books.

Sadhguru used his entire day starting from 8:30 in the morning till 8 in the evening in the library accumulating knowledge on various topics.

Taking a different route-

Sadhguru did not attend regular classes because he realised that the teachers at his university were just dictating the notes all the time and the students were just jotting down the notes which were dictated.

He found this practice unnecessary and instead of writing notes he decided to photocopy the notes.

So, Sadhguru made a deal with all his teachers to not attend the classes and he collected the notes by photocopying.

Another reason for him to not attend the regular classes was that he had millions of questions regarding everything in the world, which the classes failed to answer.

Instead of providing answers, the classes only had ready-made notes about subjects.

Becoming an advisor-

In addition to spending his time in the library, Sadhguru also used to sit in the garden of his university.

Here, many students used to approach him and tell him about their problems relating to studies, families, relationships, etc. and request Sadhguru for advice.

After listening to thousands of students for three years, he realised that most of the human beings are riddled with problems but he was the only one who had no problems.

So, at times Sadhguru used to give those students his own solutions, most of his solutions were silly.

And he realised that human beings encounter problems in all situations.

Sadhguru says that now-a-days, the attitude of complaining has become rampant.

He graduated from the University of Mysore with a bachelor’s degree in English literature.

During his college days, Sadhguru developed a passion for travelling and riding motorcycles.

The great realisation-

After completing his graduation, he opened a dozen businesses like a construction business, poultry farm, brickworks, etc. and was able to run all his business very successfully.

He became very successful in his business within a very short duration.
Nobody around him expected him to become that successful.

Because Sadhguru was into many businesses, he was running a very hectic schedule from morning 5:30 AM to 11 PM in the night.

The young Sadhguru was insensitive and failed to notice many small things in his life.

The life changing event on the Chamundi Hills–

On one afternoon at around 3 PM, Sadhguru got a break between two business meetings.

So, he went on to the Chamundi Hills.

Sadhguru regularly used to visit that hill for riding bikes, meditating, meeting people, etc.

During that day, he sat on a rock in the Chamundi Hills and suddenly he experienced an intense feeling, by which he felt connected with nature.

He himself felt as an integral part of nature and was feeling that his distinct personal identity was getting replaced with a whole identity of nature and he felt himself as a part of nature.

His eyes were wide open and he was fully conscious when this realisation happened.

Sadhguru found himself in the air he inhaled, the rock on which he sat and in his surrounding atmosphere.

He thought that this lasted for around 5 to 10 minutes but when he regained his senses, he was surprised to notice that he spent almost four and half hours in that state.

By that time, it became dark.

And for the first time in his adult life, Sadhguru found his shirt wet with tears of ecstasy, which resulted because of realising something invaluable.

Breaking his own promise-

When Sadhguru was around 8 years old, something happened at the school by which he cried.

At that moment, he determined that never again in his life a tear drop will come from his eyes.

But this determination gave away on that day in the Chamundi Hills.

This spiritual thing was completely unexpected, as Sadhguru did not grow up in a spiritual setting, he never heard of such things and also he was not exposed to any spiritual things.

But despite all these, he was subjected to extraordinary spiritual feelings.

Sadhguru had his first spiritual experience in life at the age of 25 on the Chamundi Hills.

Two weeks as half-an-hour-

For the second time, Sadhguru again came to the Chamundi Hills to experience the spiritual feelings.

But during the second time, the time passed very quickly.

This time his eyes were wide open and he was fully conscious but he had no record of time.

Sadhguru thought that he sat for around half-an-hour and was surprised to see a big crowd before him.

He saw himself garlanded by those people and the people started to request solutions for their problems.

Sadhguru was surprised by their reaction and enquired why they are asking all these questions, to which some people in the crowd replied that he had been sitting here for thirteen long days.

Sadhguru then tried to open his legs but was unable to do so because his knee joints got struck from sitting in the same position for so many days.

This made him realise that he had spent many days sitting there, he did not know the passage of time but his body recorded the time.

So, the people around him massaged his knees with hot water and after massaging for one and half hour, Sadhguru was able to open his knees.

After which, he quickly left the place to avoid the tension and attention of the people.

The spiritual change begins-

Within a period of six weeks, he noticed numerous changes occurring in his body, like changes in his way of walking and the tone of his voice.

The people around him also noticed that something fundamental in Sadhguru was changing.

Sadhguru said that the lifetimes of memory have descended on him which was the reason for the changes in him.

And after this incident, he travelled for a year and half to ascertain if this was true.

To his surprise, Sadhguru found that whatever came to his memory was absolutely true.

Teaching yoga to the masses-

In 1983, Sadhguru conducted his first yoga class with seven participants in Mysore.

And eventually, he started to conduct yoga classes to even more people; he used to travel from one class to another class on his motorcycle.

His books-

Sadhguru has also authored many books like-

• Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy.
• Adiyogi: The Source of Yoga.
• Mystic’s Musings.
• Encounter the Enlightened.
• Life and Death in One Breath.
• Mind is your Business.
• Flowers on the Path.
• Of Mystics & Mistakes.

His contributions-

He founded a non-profit, spiritual organization in 1992, by name, Isha Foundation, which offers yoga programs all over the world.

Additionally, Sadhguru also found Project Green Hands, an ecological environmental initiative in India.

In 2012, Sadhguru was voted among the hundred most powerful Indians for his contributions in the field of environmental protection.

And in the same year, he initiated the Isha INSIGHT: The DNA of Success program. This program helps in the scaling up of small businesses.

Sadhguru also gets involved in one-to-one interaction as a part of the In Conversation with the Mystic program, where he interacts with the celebrities.

He was awarded Padma Vibhushan in 2017.

Also read-

Inspiring Biography of Gaur Gopal Das

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Featured image credit- Isha Foundation/Wikimedia Commons