WANT TO BE A MYSTIC? A mystic doesn’t know… by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev


LivingNow had the pleasure of attending a talk given by Sadhguru last year. He is an entirely captivating speaker with funny stories. However, as you’ll see when you read this, he is also a ‘dinkum’ Indian mystic – the real thing. As his story unfolds you will also be enthralled. Ed.


THE ONLY REALITY that you can right now experience is outward and inward. You have to exploit this. Can I tell you a small story about myself? This happened to me when I was three, four years of age. I suddenly realised that I don’t know anything at all. If they give me a glass of water, I will stare at this water for three hours at a stretch because I don’t know what water is. Well, I know that if I drink it, it will quench my thirst and all the other things you can do with water, but I do not know what water is. Do you know what water is? With all this science and scientific knowledge, do we even know a single atom in its entirety? We know how to use it, but we don’t know what it is. And the deeper we look at it, the more it freaks us. And I realised, I don’t know anything.


If I see a leaf, I just sit there looking at it for six, seven hours. I sit up in my bed staring at the darkness the whole night. My dear father, (laughs) being a physician, started thinking that I need a psychiatric evaluation. My problem was not that I had a psychiatric problem; my problem is that I did not know this. (referring to himself). Then how do I shift my attention to that? When I went to school, I just stared; I


paid absolute attention (laughter). Initially I heard the words and I understood what they were trying to say. Then I realised they are only making all kinds of sounds, and I am making up the meanings in my head. Even now, I’m only making sounds. You are making up the meanings in your head because you assume you know the English language. Yes or no? If I start


speaking in some other language that you do not understand, as far as you’re concerned they will be just noises, isn’t it? Once I realised that, I stopped


making the meanings, and just listened to the sounds. It became very amusing, just listening to somebody, da da da du da da du… I just listened and a big smile spread on my face. I was still staring, with a big smile on my face – they were not amused at all (laughter). So I kept staring. After some time I wouldn’t even hear the sound. I just started seeing all kinds of patterns spewing out of them. After some time, I wouldn’t even see the person. I would be just staring at some kind of phenomena going on there. Till now, my problem was that I


did not know what anything was. I was confused about everything in Creation. This (referring to himself) one creature was stable. I tried to stare at this (referring to himself). It didn’t work; so I sat with my eyes closed. Once I sat with my eyes closed for hours on end, sometimes days on end, then people who were thinking that I needed psychiatric evaluation started saying, ‘Oh, he’s becoming a yogi’. See, I’m just telling you a simple


trick – don’t stare at somebody; stare at yourself. People will revere you, you know. If you stare at somebody they will take you to a psychiatric clinic. If you stare at yourself – I’m telling you a simple trick, how to become a mystic (laughter). I finished school – passed all my


classes just so I wouldn’t get stuck there – finished university, then got into business because, by then, I had crisscrossed India on my motorcycle and I wanted to travel around the world. For that you need money. So I thought I would do some business quickly and I’ll be off. I started a construction industry and a few other things and became very successful, far more successful than people would expect, in a short period of time. And


when everything is successful, when everything is happening the way you want it, you slowly begin to think the planets are not going around the sun, but actually going around you (laughter). So I’m in that kind of condition where I am super confident about everything. One afternoon, between two business


meetings when I had nothing to do, I went to a small hill in the city. This is a hill I know well. Right from my childhood I’ve been on it; I camped on it. At least at that time for a youth in Mysore, if we want to test our motorcycles, we ride up the hill. If we want to have a party, we go to the hill. If we fall in love, we go to the hill (laughter). If you fall out, you have to go (laughter). If you had nothing to do, you obviously go up the hill. So I had nothing to do, and I had fallen out, and I rode up the hill. I parked my vehicle and sat on a rock that was familiar to me. Till that moment, I always thought


this is me – that is somebody else. I had no issues with that somebody, but this is me; that is somebody else. Suddenly, I did not know which is me


and which is not me. What was me was all over the place. The very air that I breathe, the rock upon which I’m sitting, the atmosphere around me, just everything was me. This insanity I thought lasted for five, ten minutes. But when I came back to my normal senses, about four and a half hours had passed. I’m sitting right there, eyes open, fully conscious – it’s just that time had flipped. I went there just after 3pm; it was over 7.30. Sun has set. I am sitting right there, eyes open, for the first time in my adult life, tears. Me and tears were impossible. I


hadn’t shed a single tear since I was 12. And here I was, tears just flowing out of my eyes. I’ve always been peaceful and happy; that’s not been an issue. But every cell in my body is bursting with ecstasy. And I try to shake my sceptical mind.


You know, I did not grow up on any spiritual process; I grew up on European philosophy – Dostoevsky, Camus, Kafka – this kind of stuff. I am super sceptic. I have not even


entered a temple; never prayed. Here I am, exploding in ecstasy. I just shake myself and ask, ‘Okay, what’s happening to me?’ The only thing that my mind can tell me is, ‘Maybe you are going off your rocker’. When I asked the closest of my friends, when I shared something is happening to me, the only questions that came to me were, ‘What did you drink? Did you pop something?’ So I was exploding with something


and I had no context, nobody to tell me what’s happening. The next time it happened, it was significant because there were people around me. I went and sat at the dinner table with my family. I actually thought it’s two minutes, but seven hours had gone by. I am sitting right there. In my experience, time would just ... poof ... would just go off. I am fully conscious. Another day I just sat down, I thought


I sat for 25, 30 minutes. When I opened my eyes, there was a crowd in front of me, there were garlands around me, people trying to grab my feet. This is an Indian problem. Somebody wants to know about his business. Somebody wants to know when his daughters will get married. Somebody wants to know something. I am just gaping at them, ‘What happened? I just closed my eyes and where did all these people come from?’ I was sitting there for 13 days. I thought I sat there for 25, 30 minutes. By then it’s become talk of the town. Why I am telling you this is because it


is very simple. Crossing the boundaries of the dimension in which you exist is very simple if you just do the right things.


Sadhguru will be in Melbourne again this August. 16 july 2012


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