Engineering Myself with Sadhguru

When I booked my tickets for India, I knew I had to visit Sadhguru’s Ashram in Coimbatore and to my fortune, there were places available for the Inner Engineering Retreat.

One of my closest childhood friends, Raghav, came for the Retreat with me and as we made our way to the Ashram on the first day, we could feel the grandeur of Sadhguru.

Isha Yoga Centre was spread across acres of land but what occupied the land was mostly learning centers, temples & open grasslands, set against the backdrop of Velliangiri Hills, with a thriving flora & fauna.

Day 1:

The sessions were neatly divided into conceptual & experiential learning, where Sadhguru’s recordings were played on certain subjects of life forming the conceptual part of the learning. From the learnings, what really stuck with me was his discourse on human desire. Sadhguru spoke about the desire of human beings that makes them want to keep achieving goals, assisting them in the simplest decisions (like what made you choose between icecream & a brownie). It is this desire that determines our actions but it’s also the pitfall when left unchecked for by nature it wants the infinite — one goal after the other so instead of renunciating desire (which makes you who you are by the pure logic that desire drives all your actions), understand who you truly are to understand what your TRUE DESIRE really is, untarnished by the conditioning of the world. True desire is not the car you want or the house you want which is your environment’s conditioning.

At first, it presents itself as a paradox that one can’t really get rid of their desire because it makes them who they are but it’s the desire that also leads one to their downfall. At closer glance, it’s the truest of desires underneath all the acquired ones that needs to be understood and followed through. This also reminded me of the quote I read in the Upanishads

“You are what your deep, driving desire is. As you desire, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.”

As Raghav and I got together to share the marvels of our day, we went down the memory lane of 13 years (it’s 13 years ago we first met each other). We have evolved together since we were teenagers and have stayed consistently in awe of each other’s evolution ever since. I kept drifting away to moments in our friendship where he was the singular greatest factor of things taking a turn for the better in my life. In that moment, I knew that if there was any one I knew (and loved) who would ride the highs and lows of life to eventually meet me at this spiritual juncture, it was him. We would be parked here, together, long enough to give us fuel for another handful of years and that was enough.

Day 2:

The name of the meditation we were being taught (which lasts 21 minutes) was Shambhavi Mahamudra Kriya but the preparation for this meditation itself took more than 30 hours. The physical preparation for the meditation consisted of a lot of different movements which we repeated quite a few times over the course of this program. The idea was to prepare our bodies as vessels to receive during our meditation or simply put, be physically able to do what the meditation demanded from the body.

Experiences & learnings that stood out this day:

1. Your responsibility is infinite: This was drilled down in us through one of the videos we watched. Sadhguru spoke about how your ability to respond is infinite, while your ability to act is finite. You have the will to react to any situation as you see fit and that’s truly what makes you who you are. It’s not what’s happening that is inherently bad or good, it’s your response to it that makes it so. It stands to reason therefore that any situation can be neutralized by an appropriate response. It reminded me of Joe Dispenza who also stresses that “Your response is your superpower” and I was really overjoyed at how learnings from such diverse spiritual people actually echoed the same message.
2. How beautiful a peacock really is: Animals and birds roamed around freely in the Ashram, being treated with reverence and dignity by all. A peafowl (a group of peacocks) would mark our early mornings as we heard them keow through the Ashram. Since Raghav and I were strictly not using our phones, it gave us the space we needed to appreciate what truly deserved appreciation. As I stared blankly at the peacock dance around the gardens, it hit me how beautiful the colors of a peacock were. I started to wonder how nature had constructed such vivid colors and how the royal blue color that adorned the peacock’s wings was so unbelievably beautiful. Talk about being inner engineered.
3. Sleeping on the open floor: We got some time between our sessions & meals to roam around the Ashram. Raghav and I went strolling through the Ashram when we decided to find a place to nap. There was an open hall that surrounded Surajkund (the holy bathing place for men). You could find people meditating in all open spaces such as this. We walked up the stairs to this spot that was selected for our precious afternoon nap. We could see the hills and the palm trees right before us from this spot and as we drifted to sleep on the bare floor, Raghav remarked “I could wake up to this view every day.” We were jolted back up to life half an hour later and as we made our way back to the hall, we remarked to each other how good that nap was. We didn’t need anything — just the bare floor and a good wind. It really hit me how adaptable human beings were in that moment and how they simply adapt to their environment, in their truest nature.
4. Walking barefeet: We would walk around everywhere bare feet and it was weirdly freeing. I have never felt so many different landscapes underneath my bare feet — pebbled paths, open grasslands, sandy paths, wooden bridges. For the first time, my feet were telling me how the landscape felt rather than my eyes creating the narrative of how it should feel.
5. Adiyogi’s show: Adiyogi’s massive statue has been constructed in the vicinity of the Ashram and it’s personified by Lord Shiva. It tells the story of the first Yogi to have written the Science of Yoga and devised 112 ways of attaining liberation. At first, the show began with a spiritual worship accompanied by a chant. Steadily, it descended into this magnificent light show that visually told the story of Adiyogi. What really stuck with me was the depiction of Adiyogi as half man and half woman, which is what truly made him who he was. The balance of feminine & masculine. As I looked at this grand statue that was no match for a tiny human being like me, I felt a fierce energy as grand or even grander than the statue during the show. What an experience to be a human being — trapped inside a tiny body carrying an essence that was as vast as your imagination!

Day 3:

It was amazing to see how by this day, my body was naturally waking up at 5.15am which on Day 1, felt like an imposition. I had fallen in love with the vegetarian food we were served all day and was frankly looking forward to everything by this point.

Experiences & learnings that stood out:

1. Playing in the river: We were made to believe that we would be walking down the stream in the Velliangiri Hills to connect with nature. While technically that was true, what happened during the walk was a little off the mark from what we expected. Firstly, I convinced Raghav to walk down the slope with me and as we did, he slipped. His pants were soiled and it was the only pair of pants he had for the entirety of the program. As he got up, he smiled and remarked “Sadhguru taught us that this moment right here is inevitable so this was meant to happen” and went on to walk, laughing. I was left awestruck at how beautifully he reacted to an inconvenient situation, took a mental note and began to walk behind him. We made our way to this spot in the river where our instructors made us scoop water from the stream and while we were unanimously thinking that we would be told to meditate or connect deeply, a water fight erupted. A wild water fight. We all started splashing water on each other and it went on till every single person was drenched. Later, we all sat in the water singing songs. We were a group of all kinds of diversity — age, experiences, backgrounds, education, you name it but we all connected in our desire to feel life and know life. People began to sing songs and tell their stories of why they came to the program. Without knowing each other’s first names even, we all connected. I guess that was the magic of this exercise afterall.
2. Pain is good: Sadhguru went on to teach us that pain is good. It’s our body’s mechanism to keep us alive. While fundamentally, it is physical in nature, it gets amplified in the mind so you can practice detaching yourself from the hallucination and isolate pain in it’s physical form.
3. This moment is inevitable: Sadhguru spoke about how being present is not a commandment as it’s made out to be. “BE PRESENT!” — that’s not it. Being present is an effortless quality that every one already has at their disposal. It’s the natural state of being. Our minds need to be trained for it since it’s the mind that continues to live in the fragments of past or continually design the future.
4. Night walk: I went on a walk with this guy I met at the Retreat, Anshul. He had certain events in life that led him to where he was and I loved listening to his take on his experiences. On our last night, we walked through the Ashram. Two absolute strangers who barely knew each other, sharing some of their deepest learnings of life with each other. I truly felt like I was enrolled in the School of Life, sharing my learnings with other students and making sense of theirs. I really admired how Anshul was so open to talking about his vulnerabilities with everyone and he admitted that it was something he had to work towards when he realized how easily people connected with each other over vulnerabilities.
5. Raghav vs. Anshul: On our last night, we were greeted with a candle-lit dinner. As we scooped the yummiest vegetarian food ever, I listened to Raghav & Anshul debate over Sadhguru. I loved how I was able to truly listen to them without feeling the need to interject and also silently admired how the essence of debate was being captured in this discussion. As both of them spoke about the veracity of the learnings and expressed skepticism/faith in them, we all got up from that table with a nuanced view of the subject and that’s when you know that the interchange of dialogue has been effective. Back in the meditation hall, I was grouped with one of the mid-aged uncles from Rajasthan whom I (along with all others) admired a lot, to share experiences of the day, where we were “truly aware” (which was our homework). As he went up on the stage to speak, he said “Guddiya Ashna said watching Anshul & Raghav debate was a moment when she was truly aware” and we all laughed & clapped, which concluded our last night.

The final day:

This was the day were all our learnings culminated. Shambhavi Meditation. After all the physical preparation, the day had finally arrived. Since I’m writing this blog a few days after the Retreat, I shall transcribe the words from my journal, ad verbatim, for the experience of my meditation.

“I don’t have words for this short lived yet intensely profound experience. I felt an energy wrap my fingers, arms and for a few seconds make it’s way to my head. I kept telling myself to focus on my third eye spot, batting away the thoughts and trying NOT TO INTENTIONALLY create an experience through thought. I held onto Sadhguru’s image saying “I’m with you” and reminded myself that it’s safe to surrender to this experience. I felt a tingling sensation in my fingers and the warmth of the energy inside me. For a split few seconds, a maze opened up near my forehead. It was like the music that played in the background was the snake charmer to my inner energy. I felt my eye balls move fiercely and I was struggling to hold my head still. I felt a warmth travel up to my forehead and while I waited for my energy goddess to show me some more, she signalled it was time to go and started to recoil towards the base of my spine. I now believe I have something divine residing within me, the infinite waiting to be called upon. I felt her today. I felt the warmth and the split seconds of warmth made my whole body tremble.”

I got out from my meditation, glanced towards Raghav and saw him make his way out to the nature. As we met, I saw his teary eyes and knew he had an profound experience. We had food quietly after and made our way to the Dhyanalinga, the temple dedicated for meditation. If you read about it on Sadhguru’s website, it says the following:

“The whole process of yoga is to become less physical and more fluid, more subtle. For example, Samadhi is that state where the contact with the body is minimized to a single point and the rest of the energy is loose, no longer involved with the body. Once energy is like this, a lot can be done with it. When the energy is stuck and identified with the body, nothing much can be done with it. All you can do is produce thoughts, emotions and physical actions. But once the energy becomes free from physical identification and becomes fluid, so many unimaginable things can be done with it. Dhyanalinga is a miracle because it is a possibility to know life in it’s utmost depth, to experience life in its totality. The sphere and energy of Dhyanalinga will create a possibility for every human bein who comes in contact with it.”

As I sat there to meditate after a bath in the Chandrakund (holy bath for women), I felt myself wrapped in this intense energy which took to me a place so deep within, I was aware of nothing. I reveled in that nothing. I was aware I existed. I was also aware I was having this experience and yet the experience itself was just nothing. I felt a wave of deep relaxation spread over my body as I prepared to open my eyes. I smiled, bowed down to the Linga and walked out.

I was now ready for my well-deserved chai. As I made my way to the canteen, I spotted Anshul and we sat there on the floor, drinking our chai. Raghav came soon after and we made our way to the airport. Raghav and I sat talking at a cafe for a long time before we were ready to board. It’s like we wanted to milk every moment we had together before we really had to leave. As I sat watching him speak passionately about his dreams, aspirations, experiences, I made notes of certain things he said which I’d never want to forget, in the back of the book I carried.

“You can’t blame the journey that led you to where you are — if that’s where you wanted to be.”

“You and I will go the distance.”

I gave him the tightest hug imaginable and as I sat on the plane, I sent him a deep melodic track titled “The Rapture” to reflect on our experience together and he sent me “Live Your Life” by Rihanna………