I continue from my previous post Atheism 18-26. Do read it if you want the context to this. Even otherwise I hope that this post stands on its own.
I think the programme was called the ‘Isha Yoga Program’ then. It is called ‘Inner Engineering’ now I guess. It was a 10-day program from Monday to the Tuesday of next week with the intervening full day on Sunday to be spent as per their schedule. We were taught a certain type of Yoga that required us to sit in vajrasana [Link] and do various forms of breathing exercises including some chanting and Kapalabhathi [Link]. This was a roughly 25-30 min kriya [Link] that one could do. It also involved howling like a dog for a few times. I used to do it in my bachelor pad and somehow none of my roommates ever made fun of it even though it must have looked damn funny!
The experience of the course was something I had never had before in my life. I had never sat still for 30 mins other than my snoozefests during the Inorganic Chemistry classes. The initiation experience on Sunday was magical. I could feel myself shaking and trembling through the so-called initiation into meditation. I was told that was the awakening of the Kundalini dimension [Link] inside me. It was dormant within me, now it was activated and awakened by a living Guru.
I was overjoyed. Some dimension in me was awake that I didn’t even know was there. I felt lighter and was generally feeling better. I even attributed the disappearance of a recurring sinusitis problem to the regular practice of Isha Yoga. During the program we are told that if we follow this practice of doing it twice a day for 40 days (?!), then it would become a lifelong habit. I had become more flexible, but my fielding was still the same. I then had the grand realisation that I don’t like fielding!
This association with Isha was proving to be the elusive link I was looking for connecting my literature review and theoretical understanding of spirituality and the experiential realm of the same. The tears that Ramakrishna Paramahamsa had standing in the middle of the field and collapsed in the midst of it or the experience of Maa Kali in her temple in the form of blinding light or Ramana Maharishi’s simple pearls of wisdom – where the simpler it got I automatically attributed more wisdom to it. Sadhguru was combining all of this for me in a nice capsule.
I did not quite realise when but Isha Foundation and Sadhguru became a life support system for me. I began attending all their courses and took every opportunity I could find to meet and listen to Sadhguru live. They have a hierarchy of courses which you can complete if you are interested and the finale is called ‘Samyama’ [Link]. It is a 8-day fully residential silence program. I was done with all of them by 2010 I think. I was now close to Nirvana. What else was there? Tell me. You ask me to touch my head to my knees – I could do that. You ask me to sit still for an hour – done. I had had tears and the experience of light and all those that those so-called rishis and saints had written about – now I had seen them all. What was left?
I had pushed a few family members and close friends into Isha during this time. One of them has gone on to become an important cog in the Isha organization. Here is a podcast featuring him where he also speaks about me [Link] at the 25:50 and at 28:00. And me being me, was inconsistent with my practices and slowly lost touch with the practices.
However, I would fiercely defend the ashram against any public outrage. It could be the elephant corridor, land grabbing, case of Maas’ (the bald headed women who wear saffron), etc.
It was also because of forcing myself to practice an Isha Hatha Yoga programme that I triggered a slip disc of my upper spine. And suffered a lot of pain due to that. It is now a thing of the past. And am able to do normal daily activities.
I used to consume Sadhguru in the form of books, CDs, and live satsanghs. I used to go and stay in the ashram for 3 days and 4 days at a length to just get a glimpse of him. His perspectives on many matters helped me get a grip on my own thoughts and emotions. I became a much better person because of his insights into spiritual life and many other things in general. And I used to go to the Satsanghs and also volunteered on many occasions for the foundation. Surrounded by people from chennai and TN, I thought he was someone who was very genuine because he didn’t prefer to go big (scale). In fact, he would speak in tamil (not a language he knew well. In fact he would constantly search for words and seek help publicly) to ensure he connected with the local populace.
It was through his talks that I developed a framework for thinking for myself. The objective of which was to attain clarity and not confidence and that if you had clarity on the subject you were talking about, confidence would follow.
Then came the era of social media. It was a frenzy. Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. And the PR and media blitz. Sadhguru became a national phenomenon. Appearing on NDTV and taking on Barkha Dutts and the like. In very quick time, he became someone the country’s elite began to refer to on various important issues.
It was during the run up to the 2014 elections that Sadhguru slowly began to reveal his politics. He went on stage in the India Against Corruption movement with Kejriwal-AnnaHazare and called it a ‘movement of the masses’. (That there are hundred times more people gathering for the CAA-NRC protests escaped his attention!) And went on to speak in very intelligently guarded terms about Modi and and the Gandhis. Post BJP coming to power, in many cases he deliberately ran down Congress and upheld Modi as the saviour of the country without ever mentioning them by their names.
As BJP came to power, Sadhguru and brand Isha grew manifold. The speeches were now being translated into Tamil and Hindi. Sadhguru’s appeal was now pan-India. This reflected in the crowd at the Ashram too. You could now hear Hindi being spoken in tamil heartland. Sadhguru began to offer seemingly logical arguments for everything that BJP did. And you could clearly see that people who ran miles from Godmen and gurus before, now sucked up to Sadhguru because he was filling the much needed gap of logic in the belief system of Hindutva supporters. Just to explain how deep the rot ran, Sambit Patra is one of the frequent visitors to the ashram. I have seen him in flesh and blood there.
Growing Sadhguru was also in BJP’s favour because the target segment was the same. And to demonstrate support, Modi came to inaugurate the Adiyogi statue. Venkaiah Naidu (the erstwhile BJP party president) was the chief guest at international day of yoga. The then President (who was signing those atrocious 370, CAA/NRC, Farm Laws, etc) came for Mahashivaratri. Isha foundation and Sadhguru were now global brands. I was a mute spectator with my stomach churning making me feel nauseated at the mixture of politics and spirituality.
With doubts in my mind, I strived to keep his politics different from his yoga and spirituality. And I would consciously tell myself that it is his business to support who he wants and I should focus on gaining the most for myself out of his yoga and spirituality. In order to not lose touch with his programmes, I did a Shivanga programme in January of 2018. This is similar to the Sabarimala sadhana and involves climbing a back-breaking set of 7 hills called the Velliangiri range (Sadhguru christened it as Kailash of the south).
This was post his support to demonetisation when I was really upset with the government. My feeling came from the BJP’s penchant for troubling the poor for visibly no outcome except to score a political victory by showing that they could take strong decisions. Apparently, the UPA-2 was weak. BJP-1 was strong. People died. But Sadhguru supported this. I was distraught. So, Shivanga was my attempt at holding on.
Sadhguru started off a series of programmes called ‘Youth and Truth’. In this series, he would travel across the country into educational institutions and enlighten the students with ‘truth’. I remember attending two of these programmes which appeared clearly like propaganda for the BJP. I remember during the Mysore programme, Sadhguru randomly brought up the story of Lord Rama in the middle of the answer to some unrelated question and likened him to Modi (again without mentioning his name clearly). To just make it clearer, this is what he said (paraphrasing), “… do you want someone as a ruler who will wage a war for you and cross seas and come to rescue you (referring to Sita but indirectly asking the questioner) or sit back in his house and say my family’s (reference to Gandhi family) interests come first?”.
‘Youth and truth’ reeked of electoral politics. It was clear that in 2019 elections, the first time voters would be game changers. And this segment was savvy and would rationalise and criticise every move. It’s purely karma that the same segment was running the government to the ground with their protests. So BJP decided to unleash their mystic and spiritual guru cloaked in logic and cold rationale on this segment so that he could infiltrate their minds and influence their vote. It is another matter altogether that the logic wouldn’t stand two filters of historical accuracy and religious bias.
And whenever he wants to run down other religions and cultures, Sadhguru would start by saying, “In this culture…”. He still does this without mentioning a word about anybody or anyone else. After listening to him for over one and a half decades I can safely say that he is referring to the Hindu culture and conveniently excludes everything else. It’s this smartness that I came to realise was drawing the crowds in. Because they would hear what they wanted and I could still take away what I wanted. Sadhguru was in the clear. It was our interpretations that were the problem. He was saying the right things.
Subsequently, he came out with videos (in the form of question and answer with celebrities and satsanghs) where he would expound on complex issues. He even justified tying a man to the jeep in Kashmir by the Indian army to escape stone pelting. His justification was that we don’t know what the reality of the army officer was who was on the ground there! My antennae went up. Here was a man who talks about compassion for every living thing and suddenly here was a statement in contravention. But hey, it was my interpretation. He is always right. Remember?
Abrogation of article 370. My interpretation was wrong. He was right.
I briefly kept away from him thinking it was me who was developing a lens of negativity about him. And I should really look at him the way I used to when I began in 2005. I was trying. But then he came up with the CAA-NRC video. I am aghast. I am stunned after watching 22mins of utter crap. Which failed those two filters of historical accuracy and religious bias.
The video was shared with me on whatsapp by my friend who is inside the ashram. As I was putting forth my opinion on the talk to him in that conversation, the PM retweeted this video stating this was a lucid explanation of the act. Modi ji is desperate for anyone to explain the act. Because his government machinery and the BJP IT cell have failed to convince the masses of their intentions through this misdirected and mistimed act. I refuse to buy into the theory that the Home Minister, PM and Sadhguru are working in cohorts to convince us. It just so happens that the underlying agreement is: if you scratch my back I scratch yours. So when Sadhguru gets asked a question, he has to take the side of the government. And quite clearly, he has failed to give us clarity which he preaches.
This video (you can read various articles ripping Sadhguru into bits and pieces) was my final nail in the coffin. It hit me at the place which I had found under his spiritual guidance. This was the place within of compassion and love for all. And how it didn’t depend on others. How he had played into the hands of propaganda calling students illiterate. Ironically, he had toured educational institutions across the country just a year ago. And here he was calling them names. These were students who were ambushed inside the library of their campus!
The video broke my heart. It was that last swinging hit of the axe to the tree of faith within me. I was feeling rudderless ever since I have had similar differences of opinion with close friends and family members. I didn’t know want to say to them. I opted out of whatsapp groups to keep myself away from unnecessarily communicating negatively about their beliefs for a politician and a political party. All of them seemed to display a preference for a politician over the loss of lives of fellow citizens. This is a prominent characteristic even in Sadhguru’s video. Now, the needle had moved from compassion for others to the other end which was I don’t care who got killed I support my political party. I translated this to deep rooted hatred for another religion. I failed to understand what could be driving such deep hatred for others. Just because you want one political party to win an election, you are willing to condone killings? And I called you people family. And Sadhguru my guru.
At this point, I feel rudderless. I grieve the death of this guru-shishya relationship. It’s a personal loss which was waiting to happen. I know people will line up to tell me that I was wrong to believe Sadhguru from the beginning. That all godmen are frauds. This has been a reality check. It’s like someone telling me again which I have heard all my life as my prominent weakness, “Adi, you are naive”.
I am attempting to be a kind person. I may never get there in my lifetime. But this man, Sadhguru, laid down the path for me. And he refused to walk on it!
Man, how does one abandon love and compassion so easily? Is this the truth Sadhguru wanted to disseminate? Where is the clarity? Why do you only go by confidence? Isn’t that what you taught me not to go by?! But seek. Seek clarity and truth. I did. And I know that I am not wrong because I am willing to lay down my life for the scrapping of the CAA/NRC Act. You, Sadhguru, are wrong. I have no interpretations. The truth is out. And so am I.
After letting go of my Guru, I was set on a path to find my truth. Little did I know that Covid-19 was round the corner. And my life was going to go in a direction I had never dreamt of. Will write about it in my next post – ‘Atheism 40-46’.