The author, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is an enchanting self-proclaimed mystic who skillfully presents yoga as a technology of union of the body, mind, and energy. He is polished, charming, and bold, and perhaps clever. While I have seen his many YouTube talks at top universities and with celebrated journalists, this book is the first of his works I have reviewed.
Sadhguru’s genius shines in extracting the wisdom of thousands of years old philosophy as he presents its essence in this book. He is not just ambitious but also courageous. Fortunately for Sadhguru, yoga is so wildly misunderstood and misinterpreted that even a moderately crafted message can be deeply engaging and revealing. And Sadhguru’s book far exceeds this measure. The book weaves a colorful and intricate tapestry of philosophy, science, stories, traditions, and myths.
With thousands of books already written on this topic, Sudhguru differentiates his understanding of yoga by claiming experiential wisdom as a mystic. From early childhood, he found peace in nature and shunned all social structures including school, to answer unsettling questions about God and the universe. He sat in meditation for hours at a time, unaware of time. Once this lasted 13 days. He uses such experiences to separate himself from scholars and practitioners. Only recently, he says he dived into the books of yoga and that too to only read portions of them. He speaks of yoga from his own immersion, interpretation, and understanding.
Right at the start, he attacks fads about the West’s shallow understanding of yoga as a physical, feel-good, and look-good practice. Soon enough after the attacks, he opens the door to the vast teachings about yoga.
The following are the key points of the book:
1. It establishes yoga as a technology of transformation, of taking charge of our own body, mind, energy, and the ethereal connection. Specifically, the author reiterates throughout the book that yoga is not a religion and cements the purpose of yoga to align the body, mind, and emotions to raise the level of consciousness beyond that of the human experience.
2. The book describes four kinds of yoga and the domains they command:
– For the body, Karma yoga
– For the mind, Gyana yoga
– For the emotions, Bhakti yoga
– For the energy, Kriya yoga.
Sadhguru further describes how the practitioners of each kind of yoga see the other yogis. A Karma Yogi puts down other yogis as being lazy. A Gyana Yogi looks down upon others for not seeking intelligence, Bhakti Yogi pities the rest for being entangled in worthless pursuits, and the Kriya Yogi simply laughs at all the others for not seeking the ethereal union, the only worthy goal for life. The four kind of yogis, ironically, don’t unite and their pursuits even though all are embarked on achieving a mastery of self.
3. Sadhguru briefly addresses the mystery around Tantric Yoga. He restates the message that yoga is a technology to master our senses first so that the body, mind, Energy, and consciousness can’t be aligned and united. He reveals that the power and potency of Tantric yoga can do much good, and can also be abuse to cause harm. It is one of the occult sciences and disciplines. Responsible practitioners do not teach it until the follower has shown maturity.
4. The book squarely places the value and responsibility of creating and sustaining sacred pure energy on each of us. Both the outside and inside energies should be clean and need to be kept uncontaminated by daily mindful or ritualistic actions.
5. Sadhguru has included powerful exercises to improve focus, discover finding own purpose, clearing energy blockages, and redirecting energy. He discusses nutrition, sleep, and intention to learning our own patterns and how to break negative patterns to start practices for growth.
6. The book touches on a variety of other subjects, although briefly:
Vegetarianism, energy and vibration at the temples and places of worship, and that the only meaningful victory is the victory that starts by gaining control over the mind which when undisciplined scatters and splinters energy otherwise needed for the progress of an individual.
7. Sadhguru’s direct attack on scholars and practitioners opens him up to scrutiny himself. Is he the genius mystic who’s decoded the magic of Yoga for the masses, or is he too just another version of the self-help celebrities he chides in his talks and books? While he claims to have not read the centuries-old Vedas, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, and Ayurvedic or other texts, his mastery over the expansive yoga topics and their connection to these other texts is remarkable. Is his claim of knowledge as a mystic a clever shrowd for never needing to debate scholars?
No matter what the author’s reality is, this book is an enchanting serving of the message that has been packaged, repackaged, and retold for a new time and a new generation again and again. Sadhguru’s other good works include the service of the planet and humanity. They include his initiatives of the planting of 30 million trees in southern India, his campaign to clean the polluted rivers across the subcontinent, and his work to impart yoga-principles-based education.
Practitioners of yoga in the West will see new dimensions of uplifting life through the fundamentals of the yoga philosophy, novices of yoga will see inspiration through their own growth potential, and those who are unfamiliar with yoga will see amazement and wonderment and the revelation of the yogic philosophy that will prove compelling to their minds.