My Magic , My Miracle

The fluctuations of the mental 
                      firmament
Set forth chemical throes
                     of pleasure and torment
Sensations bitter and sweet 
                     make you fret and pant.
These cycles of pleasure or torment 
                     are rave and rant of enslavement
Letting you go beyond this cycle 
Is my only Magic and Miracle .

Love and Blessings
Sadhguru

SOURCE;  FOREST FLOWER APRIL 2010
LINK  ;http://www.ishafoundation.org/Get-Involved/isha-forest-flower-magazine.isa                

What is samadhi ?

The word ‘samadhi’ has been largely misunderstood. People think it means a death-like situation. The word literally means ‘sama’ and ‘dhi’. ‘Sama’ means equanimity and ‘dhi’ denotes ‘buddhi’. If you reach that kind of equanamous state of intellect, it is known as ‘samadhi’. What it means by equanamous state of intellect is this: only when the intellect is functioning, you are able to discriminate between one thing and the other. The discrimination that this is this and this is that is there only because the intellect is functioning. The moment you drop the intellect or transcend the intellect, this discrimination does not exist. Now everything becomes one whole, which is a reality.

Everything just becomes one whole. In this state, there is no time and space. You may think the man had been in samadhi for three days. For him, it was just a few moments – it just passes off like that. Lifetimes can pass off like this.

There are legends where it is said that there have been yogis who lived up to 400-500 years and that some of them are still alive. This 400-500 years – is such a thing possible? Theoretically, it is possible. Whether there is such a person or not, is not the point, but it is definitely possible. This 400-500 years is according to your calculation. For him, it might have been just a few minutes.

If you want to understand these things, you have to pull yourself out of the world. Staying in this world, whichever way you look at it, you cannot understand, because you are bound by time and space. When there is no time and space there are no physical quantities. This world, as you understand it today, as you see it today, as you experience it today, is a complete falsehood. It seems to be there, but it is not really there. It just seems to be there, including yourself, just seem to be there.

Now the whole struggle is to see that it is just nonsense. The whole thing is just an illusion. What it means by ‘maya’ is just this. It just seems to be there. Today your physics is proving it beyond any doubt that there is no such thing as matter in existence. Everything is relative. It just seems to be there but not there. But it is so real, isn’t it? It seems very real. Who is going to believe this story that it is not there?

It is there, very much there. The whole existence, the many forms of creation, can you say it is not there? It is very much there. It is there only as long as the intellect is there. The moment you dissolve your intellect, everything dissolves into one.

Extracted from the book ‘Mystics Musings’ – Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

SOURCE : CHENNAI ONLINE 

LINK :http://archives.chennaionline.com/health/yoga/2004/01samadhi.asp 

LINK:http://www.ishafoundation.org/ 

"Looking at death"

Today you are here, and everything is so real - you, your wife, your child, your property, your work, your ideas, your ego - everything is so real. Today you are here, appearing so real. Tomorrow morning, if you are dead, what will happen to you? Where are you? Where did you go? Your body is a nuisance. Once you are dead, would anybody want to keep your body? Even the most loved ones in your family, if he or she dies, will you keep the body in your bedroom? Like Sankara says, “Bharya Bibyathi Tasmin Kaye.” It means, “Tomorrow if you die, that person who loved you very much or who seemed to love you, even she will be scared of this one (the body).”

This is only a body, so don’t get attached. 

You do know that if we bury you here, you become earth. If we burn you, immediately the results are there for you to see. If we bury you, it takes a little longer. But what happens to you? So, it needs probing. It needs looking at. Definitely, needs to be looked at, isn’t it? Because this man who is here today, so real, tomorrow if he can suddenly evaporate and disappear, it is your business to know, because it is going to happen to you also. Definitely, it is everybody’s business to know, isn’t it? So, that’s where the first step is.

The first step is, you start looking at death; then you become spiritual. If you start looking at your own death, you will definitely become spiritual; there is no other way. Unfortunately, today, in society, you avoid the word death itself. Even children cannot use that word. You say “Rama, Shiva.” But the word “death” is banned at home, because you are scared. Just the word, the reminder, scares you. Many people are scared to even see a funeral passing by in their streets because it reminds them of their own death. Whatever you may shut yourself off to, are you really going to shut off death?

Once you are in physical form, there are certain laws, because the whole physical matter have to be under a certain law. The very creation happens with a certain basis. How long the life of the body extends depends on various factors - there are many karmic factors, there are physical factors and energy factors. And there is another thing, the ultimate thing, that the time is over. There is no business for that being to be here anymore. It is finished.

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

SOURCE :CHENNAI ONLINE 

LINK :http://archives.chennaionline.com/health/yoga/2004/07yoga08.asp

LINK :http://www.ishafoundation.org/

1 million trees planted, Foundation Yves Rocher, France

as a leading international corporation in botanical beauty care, Foundation Yves Rocher has pledged 1 million trees in support of the Billion Tree Campaign led by the United Nation Environment Program. Consequently, Foundation Yves Rocher has committed to support Project GreenHands in the planting of 1,000,000 trees over 3 years to make one rural area in Tamil Nadu green, as part of its CSR program for global environmental care.
At the launch of the project, a team of employees accompanied Jacques Rocher, the Director of Sustainable Development of Foundation Yves Rocher on a tour with Project GreenHands team to the local villages to show their support for the local community of Tamil Nadu.
Over the past decade, the commitment of Foundation Yves Rocher, which started with 300,000 trees, through the project named “One School, One Arboretum” in France, has grown up to the plantation of 5 million trees through various organizations worldwide.
They are also encouraging their 30 million women customers worldwide to join their action through a marketing campaign and online donation facility passing on to customers the message that the world at large need trees to preserve water, biodiversity, wildlife habitat, combat soil erosion and desertification and provide natural resources to humanity.

SOURCE : PROJECT GREEN HANDS
LINK :http://www.projectgreenhands.org/our-partners/international-sponsors

"Target: 114 million trees in 10 years "

Sounds of Isha provided the inspiration for the launch of a massive greening project at a houseful Kamarajar Arangam on Friday.

Project Green Hands' target is the planting of 114 million trees through various mass initiatives in the next 10 years, an ambitious attempt to cover 33 per cent of Tamil Nadu with greenery.

Sounds of Isha, with a core band of members of the Isha Foundation of Coimbatore, offered a musical presentation from their third album `White Mountain.' The programme by Andrew Mark Adams on the guitar, Swami Vibhu, the lead vocalist, V. Sekar on the flute, Saran Muthusamy on the tabla, Jayashree Arvind on the veena and T.V. Anand on the guitar and the keyboard was a fund-raiser for `Project Green Hands,' which will be formally inaugurated by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, by planting a sapling on October 15.

Isha Foundation's founder Guru Jaggi Vasudev, giving a grim picture of the growing `desertification' of Tamil Nadu said, "Planting trees is not enough. India must cut down on the carbon exhausts and chemical pollution," he said adding that this was going to be even more difficult with the Indian industry and economy having just found its seat and all set to gallop in the next 25 years. Concrete ecological steps were needed now, he added. Project Green Hands also looks to set a Guinness Book of records for the maximum number of trees planted on one day on October 15. But "if somebody comes forward to break that record the next day, we will be only too happy," Guru Jaggi Vasudev said. N. Murali, Managing Director of The Hindu , said the project was a major step in halting environmental degradation. "... To reverse the desertification of Tamil Nadu, this will be a large movement under the inspirational leadership of Sadhguru," he said.

Noting that it was a happy augury that the Chief Minister would plant the first sapling, he said each person who plants three saplings on that day would be committed to nurturing them for two years. "I appeal to all responsible sections of society to see that the green cover of Tamil Nadu and consciousness is aroused to prevent environmental degradation," he said. M. Murali, Proprietor of Sri Krishna Sweets and comedy actor Vivek, also spoke.

Organic farmer Nammalwar, who is behind the project, was also present. 

SOURCE : THE HINDU (SAT ,SEPT 02 , 2006 )

LINK:http://www.hinduonnet.com/2006/09/02/stories/2006090221380500.htm
LINK:http://www.projectgreenhands.org/
LINK:http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=711826540&ref=profile#!/ishafoundation?ref=ts

"My meditation lies in planting trees"

Maneka Gandhi is a politician, animal rights activist and environmentalist
What does spirituality mean to you?
It is what allows me to find satisfaction from within, rather than needing reaffirmation from without. It brings the realisation that I own nothing yet everything is mine—the air, the earth, trees, animals, you. For me, the essence of spirituality is the ability to recognise the oneness of all life. I know why I have been put on earth and I know I am protected by all the gods that reside in each stone and ant. So I feel no fear at all.
What do you mean by “the gods”?
All the live energies that exist in every animate and inanimate creation. Do you think I would have come through such a life of turbulence with all my values intact if I were not protected by them? 

So is there such a thing as a guiding or protective force in your life?
I have felt blessed and protected all my life, with my mother intensely protected by the gods, with a guru constantly accompanying me, with leaves, grass, air and animals caressing me — all this protects me.
Besides, I have been given the greatest gift of all —the inability to recognise any form of danger until I am past it. I look back at my life and see lots of really frightening bits. I wonder how I came through them, without even recognising them, or consciously navigating them. I simply bathed in them like one does in the ocean and when the waves reached the shore, I came out.
But what about all the setbacks? Did you never “revolt” against the gods?
Where would I go after revolting? I am not a temple-going person, so I cannot stop doing something I do not do anyway. I can stop talking to them but how does one stop talking to a lotus? If there have been setbacks in my life, look at its achievements.
Do you have a strong sense of purpose and destiny?
I have a very strong sense of why I was created and what is the job I have been given. There is no other way to explain my life. I grew up in a completely apolitical army family even though my maternal grandfather was advisor to the government and like a son to Mahatma Gandhi. Our summer holidays at the Bhopal family home were a haze of picnics, books and lakes.
There is nothing that can explain my meeting Sanjay (Gandhi) at a cousin’s wedding and our instant recognition that this was meant to be. His integrity, strength and wisdom taught me courage and the ability to see beyond both flattery and criticism. Long after he is gone, I still draw upon his strength to see me through. Losing him killed a part of me but it also increased my compassion and understanding. Since then, I have felt impelled to reduce the suffering in this world to the maximum of my ability.
Would you say that all things are pre-ordained?
What happens to you is pre-ordained. How you react to it is perhaps your choice. Life after life you will be given the same sort of challenges until your responses are right. Then you get a ‘get-out- of-jail’ card!
As a child, what did you think you would become when
you grew up?
I was always like this, perhaps the ultimate existentialist, because I absolutely never think of the future. Until I was 30, I used to think of the past, till I realised it was too heavy a burden for me to carry. So I put it away and carried on with my journey.
Does prayer or meditation play a particular role in your life?
Absolutely. I wake up thanking the gods, I thank them about a million times each day and I sleep thanking them. My meditation lies in planting trees.
What were your spiritual inspirations?
I have met so many gurus —just knowing they are there, knowing that India is so amazingly blessed with so much readily available magic and thousands of enlightened people fills me with joy.
Was religion part of your childhood?
My mother’s family has always been close to gurus. But my childhood was simply going to gurudwaras. I am not sure I would call this religion but perhaps it gives one time to think in a harmonious, music-filled atmosphere.
If you could ask God one question, what would it be?
Not a question but a command —just keep Sanjay till I get there and extract an apology from him for checking out so early!
If you were to be reincarnated, what would you choose?
Reincarnation happens till you wear out all your attachments and desires, both of love and hate. I’ve reached a place where I do my duty, work for as much good for all creatures as possible but without any expectation of a reward or even attachment. My temper is legendary — but it has never manifested related to personal hurt or ego, only when I see pain being caused elsewhere. So, I want the ultimate gift from all the gods that look after me —not to be re-born.
What is your idea of happiness?
My heart lifts with the scent of raat ki rani, the koel and peacock’s cry, the taste of a mango, my feet squishing into wet grass, the dolphin leaping, the dog nuzzling my hand, the bees hovering on the bhang plant’s flowers, sunlight on a puddle, tamarind fruit, children shouting while they play, the hands of my guru when I kiss them, the diya on the puja table, the smile on my mother’s and son’s face… What else is important?

SOURCE : INDIAN EXPRESS
LINK :http://www.indianexpress.com/news/my-meditation-lies-in-planting-trees/493636/0

Stalin inaugurates Green Tirupur Movement

Deputy Chief Minister M. K. Stalin inaugurated the Green Tirupur Movement of Isha Foundation by planting a sapling on the Corporation Town Hall premises here on Sunday.
The Isha Foundation volunteers with the involvement of different stakeholders in the conservation of environment planted as many as 25,000 saplings of 34 plant species across the city.
The Green Tirupur Movement has been mooted under the Project Green Hands, an ecological initiative of the Isha Foundation aimed at reversing environmental degradation and increasing the green cover in the State.
At the inaugural, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, founder of Isha Foundation, called upon the people to joins hands with the Foundation’s efforts to keep the earth habitable to future generations.

Display responsibility  
“Each individual should display responsibility to maintain the trees and take steps to plant at least a few more saplings,” he said.
Ministers M. P. Saminathan, K. Ponmudy, Pongalur N. Palanisamy and Poongothai Aladi Aruna, Mayor K. Selvaraj, Collector C. Samayamoorthy, Inspector General of Police Pramod Kumar and District Revenue Officer K. V. Muralitharan, among others, were present.
A ‘Green Marathon’ was organised soon after the inauguration, to spread the message of importance of trees for sustainable living.

 The run was flagged off by film stars, Prakash Raj and Shreya.

SOURCE : THE HINDU
LINK : http://www.thehindu.com/2009/08/25/stories/2009082551470300.htm
LINK :http://www.projectgreenhands.org/home
LINK :https://www.ishafoundation.org/index.php?option=com_newscomponent&Itemid=242&act=view&id=2564