Study or Experience?

Sadhguru on Ways to Approach Consecrated Spaces

The following is an excerpt from a darshan with Sadhguru at the Isha Institute of Inner-sciences, Tennessee, USA, on 10 May 2011.

Questioner: Sadhguru, you have spoken about the importance of creating consecrated spaces. If a study was to be done about consecrated spaces, what sorts of things could they look for?

Sadhguru: The most fundamental question is not what sort of things to look for – what sort of people are looking for it is very important. People may have PhDs but they may have no sensitivity. They may have instruments that can measure this or that, but they may not have the needed instrument to measure subtler forces. Is there an instrument which can clearly measure whether you are alive or dead? There are instruments to measure whether your heart is beating; there are instruments to measure whether a certain kind of electrical activity is happening or not. But there are many yogis who can just stop these things for some time. In that case, is there an instrument to measure whether they are alive or not? If there is no instrument to measure that, does it mean they are not alive? No. But since there is no instrument to measure if one is alive or not, a lot of people have come to the stupid conclusion that life is just a sum of heartbeat, electrical activity and so on. They say life is just a multiplication of cells, and nothing more.

There are many ways to look at what consecration essentially means. One simple way of looking at it is consecration means making a physical space reverberate with a non-physical dimension of energy. In a way, that is what you are too: This body is a physical thing that is right now reverberating with a non-physical dimension of energy – otherwise the body cannot be alive for a moment. Only because that which is the source of life is throbbing, physicality has gathered. If you know how to touch the source of life within you, you don’t need any consecrated space, because then this human being is a consecrated space. But right now, whatever you try to do, you get involved and entangled with your body, your mind, and your emotions. You don’t get involved with that dimension of energy within you which is non-physical and which is the basis of all physicality. Whatever you see or do, you get involved and entangled with creation, but you are unable to see that which is the basis of creation. Since you are not able to touch this dimension, we want to create that kind of energy in a more palpable way.

There are various ways to make that energy available to people. Consecration is the science of bringing the basis of creation forth in such a way that you can almost touch it. But even for that, you need willingness. Even to see a sunrise which pokes you in the eye, you need willingness. You can just cover yourself up. The same here – even though the source of life is throbbing inside you, you don’t feel it because you are covered up with organic material. So we want to make it so palpable that you can feel it in the air that you breathe, that it hits you. It is more than any kind of drug or drink you would have seen because it is the drug. Everything that you see as creation, the whole universe is a small outcome of that which is the source of creation. To be able to touch that, to be able to breathe that, and to slowly become that is a possibility. This can be done in various ways. The same source of creation is standing there as a tree, is fluttering around as a butterfly, is sitting here as a human being, doing many, many things. Today science also agrees with this – it is all the same energy. Similarly, the same energy can be made to reverberate in many different ways, depending upon the intention.

I am skeptical about research teams because I know the limitations with which they come. Re-search means you are trying to find out something that is already there. It is like Columbus “discovering” America. Before he came, for thousands of years, millions of people were living there, but he “discovered” it. Research is just like that. You “discover” something that the insects and the worms already knew, and you get a Nobel Prize. Research means just that – it is not search, it is a re-search, already there. You just try to once again bring it to the surface and to people’s attention. This is useful, no question, but it would be better if the attitude about it changes. The reason you are searching for something is, somewhere you know that you do not know. But at the same time, you have so many conclusions about things that you do not know. What you do not know has to fit into what you know – otherwise you will reject it. This is the attitude of the scientific community. They come, make people dip into the Theerthakund, take them out, check their blood pressure and state that it has gone down. I am not interested whether somebody’s blood pressure is down or up. My concern is only where you are going within yourself, if you are going to blossom in this lifetime.

It is human experience which is most important. But the problem is that every human mind is capable of imagination and hallucination. The necessary work has not been done on human beings to make them in such way that they can clearly decipher what is true and what is not true. People have a loose mind and a loose body. Because of this, the whole human mechanism, which is the best gadget that is available on the planet, has been dismissed and we have settled for smaller gadgets. The not-so-trustworthy gadget produces another gadget, and that gadget is supposed to be trustworthy – how is that? Science has taken this attitude because there has been so much misuse and deception in the past.

To make people experience something a little bit, you have to grind them for seven days in the Isha Yoga program, initiate them, and then coax them into the Bhava Spandana program. A consecrated space is not like that. It is upgraded technology – no teaching, no orientation, no fees, nothing. You just walk in and it just takes you over. This is not some kind of magic, this is science – in a way that modern scientists are incapable of perceiving, unfortunately. For example, it is a known fact that there is a constant exchange between you and the sun; between you and a tree. What you exhale, the tree is inhaling; what the tree exhales, you are inhaling. It is happening, but you are unable to feel it because you lack the sensitivity. And if somebody has the sensitivity, it is branded as mumbo-jumbo. He is made to look like he is not scientific. But the science that others try to learn, he knows by experience.

Essentially, science is not about inventing something; science is about exploring the nature of the creation. And it does not matter what kind of science you do, fundamentally, the only instrument you have to analyze and perceive anything in the existence is just the human body and human mind. So, why is it that, instead of studying all kinds of rubbish, there is no work being done to improve the capability of this human body and mind, to become more sensitive, to perceive? Only what you perceive you can know. The rest is just imagination and conclusions. And all the logical conclusions that you arrived at can be proved wrong tomorrow morning. Every few years, they come up with a new theory of how creation was made.

If someone wants to really study consecrated spaces, they must work upon themselves in such a way that they will become available to the process and be able to experience it. Those who want to know must have the necessary dedication to do the needed preparation. Even if you wanted to climb a mountain, you would prepare your legs and lungs. You know, people go up pilgrimage places in the Himalayas. These pilgrimage places are way up in the mountains because generally, those who went there were spiritually oriented people, and they made it their business to just eat what is needed for their bodies and keep their bodies and minds in the best possible condition. They just walked up effortlessly. Now people who have kept themselves badly get carried by somebody else. You can get carried up there, but your experience of going there will never be the same as for somebody who walked up the mountain every step with great devotion. The same thing here. If you make yourself utterly sensitive and receptive and you walk into a consecrated space, what is your experience? And what is your experience if you go there with meters, check it out, and find out that your blood pressure goes down?

It really pains me to see that somewhere, human beings think the instruments that they have devised are better than the Creator’s instrument. Why don’t we tune that one up in such a way that it can feel everything? But this requires some work. If someone wants to experience a consecrated space, a certain amount of preparation is needed for them to be able to feel the power of what is around them. They just want a gadget that they can buy off the shelf. Still, we have to do it the way it works. So if you want to study, the temple and Theerthakund are open – I have no issue about it. But I cannot believe that somewhere, our trust in the Creator’s creation is so low, but our trust in small gadgets that we created, which keep getting outdated every six months these days, is so high.

The Theerthakund is a subterranean water body energized by a Rasalinga, made of solidified mercury. Suryakund, a new Theerthakund for men, will be consecrated by Sadhguru in the Dhyanalinga Yogic Temple Complex from 21 – 22 Dec 2012. For more information and to register, please click here.