Jaggi Vasudev (born 3 September 1957), often referred to as Sadhguru, is an Indian yogi, mystic, poet and New York Times bestselling author.[1] He founded the Isha Foundation, a not for profit organization which offers yoga programs around the world, including India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Lebanon, Singapore, Canada, Malaysia, Uganda, China, Nepal, and Australia. The foundation is also involved in various social and community development activities, which have resulted in it being granted special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.[2] On 25 January 2017, the Government of India announced that he was being conferred the Padma Vibhushan award for his contribution towards spirituality.
Early life
Born in Mysore, Karnataka to Susheela and Dr. Vasudev, Jagadish was the youngest of four children – two boys and two girls. His father was an ophthalmologist with the Indian Railways and as a result, the family moved frequently. At the age of 12, he came in contact with Malladihalli Sri Raghavendra Swamiji who taught him a set of simple yoga asanas, the practice of which he regularly maintained.[4] He states that "without a single day's break, this simple yoga that was taught to me kept happening and led to a much deeper experience later."[5]:39
After his schooling at Demonstration School, Mysore in 1973, he graduated from the University of Mysore with a bachelor's degree in English literature.[6] During his college years, he developed an interest in travel and motorcycles. A frequent haunt of his and his friends was the Chamundi Hill near Mysore, where they often gathered and went for nocturnal drives. He also traveled to various places in the country on his motorcycle. This experience made him resolve "to earn some quick money," and just ride off to travel the world. In order to make money, he started several successful businesses after graduation, including a poultry farm, a brickworks and a construction business.
Spiritual experience
At the age of 25 on 23 September,[7] he rode up Chamundi Hill and sat on a rock, where he had a spiritual experience. He describes his experience as follows: "Till that moment in my life I always thought this is me and that's somebody else and something else. But for the first time I did not know which is me and which is not me. Suddenly, what was me was just all over the place. The very rock on which I was sitting, the air that I breathe, the very atmosphere around me, I had just exploded into everything. That sounds like utter insanity. This, I thought it lasted for ten to fifteen minutes but when I came back to my normal consciousness, it was about four-and-a-half-hours I was sitting there, fully conscious, eyes open, but time had just flipped."[8]:04:04 Six weeks after this experience, he left his business to his friend and travelled extensively in an effort to gain insight into his mystical experience. After about a year of meditation and travel, he decided to teach yoga to share his inner experience.[7]
In 1983, he conducted his first yoga class with seven participants in Mysore. Over time, he began conducting yoga classes across Karnataka and Hyderabad traveling from class to class on his motorcycle. He lived off the produce of his poultry farm rental and refused payment for the classes. A usual practice of his was to donate the collections received from participants to a local charity on the last day of the class.[7] These initial programs were the basic format on which the Isha Yoga classes were later built.
