“People cannot handle situations without inner strength” said Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev, the mystic who founded Isha Foundation to promote spiritual values. Isha Foundation is planning to set up a meditation center in the city very soon. Over the years, Sadguru’s journey has enabled him to achieve success on all fronts, spiritually as well as socially.
“We not only provide the necessary tools for inner engineering but also focus on various service activities. We are now planning to start our centre and are in the process of finding a suitable place. As part of our initiative, we have planted over 17 million trees on private lands in Tamil Nadu and the green cover in the state has increased by around 10 per cent,” said Sadguru.
To spread the need for quality education, the foundation has done much for the rural areas. In fact, to reach out to more poor students, they started adopting different government schools. “We have set a goal to adopt 3,000 government schools in Tamil Nadu in the next 10 years. We have centres in different places across the globe. Our proposed centre will initially have facilities for meditation and infrastructure for imparting spiritual knowledge. And, our services will gradually increase along with spiritual activities,” said Sadguru.
He also feels that people cannot handle situations without inner strength. And, he believes that one has to look inward and weed out the dirt that is within to gain inner strength. Till two generations ago, people of this country used to swear by different spiritual practices on their own as these practices were inculcated in them by the society in which they lived. Therefore, people were mentally strong and peaceful. Today, he strongly feels that they had lost those practices in their materialistic pursuits.
“When I was young, I used to be oblivious of my surroundings and the instructions of my teachers as I used to be lost in contemplating those things that mattered the most. Once I closed my eyes and went into a state of trance, thirteen days had elapsed without me realising about it. When I opened my eyes, people had gathered around me and had put many garlands on my neck. I had experienced something that cannot be described. My anatomy and intellect underwent a drastic change within a period of six months. I have been trying to help people to refine their inner dimensions since then, which in turn will help them increase their mental strength,” he said and further added that human development will not happen just with economic development.
Some decades ago, the illiteracy rate in America was 87 per cent. Sadguru said that the American government soon developed infrastructure to impart education and they were able to achieve 100 per cent literacy in no time. “We are trying to emulate America by creating the required infrastructure to provide spiritual education to as many people as possible. Our efforts to start a centre in Bangalore is part of that goal. We have not invented anything. Everything is already revealed by the Adi Yogi (Lord Shiva) and we are trying to revive what has been forgotten. Unlike others who are steeped in philosophical polemics, our teachings are based on our personal experiences. They are scientific and can be tested,” he said.