Sadhguru

What is the Absolute? Does God exist?

The source of creation is not a man in the sky: it is within

An impersonal AbsoluteInferred from their doctrine

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, founder of the Isha Foundation, sidesteps in his books and talks the question of believing or not believing in God: he proposes being a seeker rather than a believer, and says that not knowing is the honest starting point. When he describes the ultimate, he does so in impersonal terms: a source of creation operating within every being and a boundless emptiness from which all arises, which the yogic tradition calls Shiva, «that which is not». In Inner Engineering (2016) he presents yoga as a technology for experiencing that dimension, not as adherence to a doctrine. In Adiyogi (2017) he presents Shiva as the first yogi, a figure he uses in a mythic and pedagogical register. The divine is for him not someone who judges but a dimension of life accessed through experience.

Who am I? Is there a true self?

You are not the body or the mind: what you are has no boundaries

The Self is the AbsoluteInferred from their doctrine

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev teaches, in line with classical yoga, that body and mind are accumulations: the body is accumulated food and the mind accumulated impressions. What one accumulates may be one's own, but it cannot be oneself. In Inner Engineering (2016) he presents the scheme of the five sheaths (koshas), from the physical to the blissful, and the experience of one who stops identifying with them. He recounts that in 1982, seated on a rock on Chamundi Hill, in Mysore, he no longer knew where he ended and the rest began. The aim of yoga, in his language, is to dissolve the boundaries of individual identity until unity with everything is experienced. The true self is not the person but the boundlessness the person encloses.

Why do we suffer?

We suffer what has passed and what has not yet happened: memory and imagination

Thought and psychological timeInferred from their doctrine

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev repeats in his books and talks a central idea: almost all human suffering is manufactured by one's own mind. We suffer less from what happens than from what we remember, what happened years ago, and what we imagine, what might happen tomorrow; memory and imagination, two valuable faculties, turn against us when we do not govern them. In Inner Engineering (2016) he holds that every human experience, joy or misery, is produced within, and can therefore be managed from within, with yogic tools that bring order to body, mind and energy. He also distinguishes physical pain, which is inevitable, from suffering, which he considers optional. His approach is practical rather than metaphysical: taking responsibility for one's own experience.

What happens after death?

At death the body is lost; karmic information seeks another

Rebirth according to karmaStated explicitly

Sadhguru speaks of death often and devoted a book to it, Death: An Inside Story (2020). He describes the human being as layers: the physical, mental and energy bodies and subtler dimensions, held together by karmic memory. At death the physical body is lost, but the subtle structure, laden with tendencies, persists for a time and seeks a new womb according to its karma. He insists that the way one dies matters: a conscious death, prepared through practice, makes it possible to pass through the process lucidly, and in the yogic tradition he cites the realised master leaves the body at will (mahasamadhi). What he proposes is not a belief about the beyond but an exploration: whoever knows the non-physical dimension of themselves in life stops fearing the end of the body, and liberation (mukti) is the dissolution of the karmic accumulation that compels rebirth.

How is liberation or salvation attained?

Yoga as inner technology: with method and practice, liberation is possible for everyone

Through disciplined practiceStated explicitly

In Inner Engineering, Sadhguru (Jaggi Vasudev) presents yoga not as belief but as a technology for wellbeing and, ultimately, for liberation (mukti), which he defines as freedom from the limits of body and mind. His approach is that human experience is determined from within and that, with the right tools, anyone can reorganise their body, mind, emotions and energy. Those tools are concrete practices, such as Shambhavi Mahamudra, which the Isha Foundation transmits by initiation, along with postures, breathing and meditation. Sadhguru combines this technical language with a strong emphasis on the guru's grace, which he regards as the factor that makes practice bear fruit.

Is a teacher necessary?

The guru does not teach information: he is a presence opening a new dimension

IndispensableInferred from their doctrine

Sadhguru (Jaggi Vasudev) presents himself as a guru and his teaching revolves around that figure. In his talks and books he holds that the guru is not a teacher transmitting information but someone who dispels darkness, according to the traditional etymology he often invokes, and who opens in the disciple a dimension of experience he could not reach alone. That is why the Isha Foundation's central practices are transmitted by initiation, and Sadhguru attributes a decisive role to the guru's grace. At the same time, in Inner Engineering he insists on personal responsibility and on each person being the source of their own experience, which qualifies any passive dependence.

Is the world real?

Sense perception is limited: the world is real, but not the ultimate truth

Appearance over the one realityInferred from their doctrine

Sadhguru (Jaggi Vasudev) approaches the question from the yogic tradition rather than from a written metaphysics. In his talks and in Inner Engineering he holds that what a person calls the world is their experience of it, and that this experience is determined by the senses and the mind, which perceive only the physical and in a limited way. The term maya, as he explains it, does not mean that the world does not exist but that ordinary perception takes a part for the whole. Beyond the physical there is a formless dimension, which he often names with the yogic term Shiva, «that which is not», from which creation arises.

What is love?

Love is the longing to include the other until becoming one with all

Longing and unionInferred from their doctrine

Sadhguru describes love not as something given or received but as an inner quality. He often defines it as a longing to include the other as part of oneself: in a love relationship that impulse is limited to one person, whereas in devotion and in yoga, which for him means union, it extends until it embraces the whole of existence. In Inner Engineering he holds that love, like joy, is a form of inner chemistry that each person can generate, and that making it depend on others leads to need and conflict. He values devotion (bhakti) as the fastest way to dissolve the limits of the individual, because the devotee ceases to be the centre. Mature love does not demand reciprocity: it is a way of being offered without conditions.

Are we free, or is everything determined?

Karma is not fate: it is memory, and each person can write their own

Karma and choiceStated explicitly

Sadhguru devotes a whole book to the question: *Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny* (2021). His argument is that karma is not a system of rewards and punishments but memory accumulated in body, mind and energy, which conditions how one responds to life. As long as one acts compulsively, that memory decides; but a human being can establish a distance from it and respond consciously, and then becomes the author of his destiny. In *Inner Engineering* (2016) he formulates the same idea as responsibility: the ability to respond to everything that happens. He does not deny conditioning, but turns it into material for work through yogic practices.

Why meditate or pray?

Creating distance from body and mind: I am not what I accumulate

Returning to the source of the IStated explicitly

Sadhguru insists that meditation is not an act one performs but a quality one becomes: one cannot «do» meditation, but one can cultivate body, energy and mind so that this quality flowers. To that end he teaches concrete practices, such as the *Shambhavi Mahamudra* of his *Inner Engineering* programme or the *Isha Kriya*, which he offers freely and publicly. The latter includes the affirmation of being neither the body nor even the mind. Its declared aim is to establish a distance between oneself and what one has accumulated —body, thoughts, emotions—, so that one's own nature beyond them is perceived.

Can reason know the ultimate?

The intellect cuts and divides: the ultimate is perceived, not thought

The ultimate lies beyond the mindInferred from their doctrine

Sadhguru often compares the intellect to a knife: useful for dissecting and handling the world, but unable to grasp the whole, because its nature is to divide. In *Inner Engineering* (2016) he holds that the intellect works with information accumulated in memory and, however sharpened, cannot go beyond it. He is equally wary of belief: he invites people neither to believe nor to disbelieve, but to seek and test in their own experience. The ultimate is not an object of thought but of perception, and perception is widened through yogic work on body, energy and mind. Reason is indispensable in practical life, but it is not the door to what lies beyond the senses.

Withdraw from the world or transform it?

From inner well-being to campaigns for rivers and soil

Engage with the worldStated explicitly

Sadhguru does not frame spiritual life as withdrawal. The Isha Foundation, which he created in 1992 near Coimbatore, combines yoga and meditation programmes with social and environmental projects: Project GreenHands, for mass tree planting; Rally for Rivers (2017), for the restoration of India's rivers; Save Soil (2022), an international campaign for the health of agricultural soils; as well as rural schools and health programmes. His argument is that inner transformation and action in the world are not opposed: a person who has attained inner well-being acts with greater clarity and less compulsion, and responsibility, which he defines as the ability to respond, has no limits. In Inner Engineering he presents practice as a tool for living effectively in any sphere, including business and politics, whose leaders he frequently addresses.

Velliangiri, cerca de Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu · India

Isha Yoga Center, Coimbatore

Isha Foundation

The Isha Yoga Center is the headquarters of the Isha Foundation, established by Sadhguru at the foot of the Velliangiri mountains, some thirty kilometres from Coimbatore. It brings together the spaces that define his work: the Dhyanalinga, a consecrated space for silent meditation; the Linga Bhairavi temple; the 112-foot Adiyogi statue; and halls for hatha yoga practice. It offers beginner and advanced programmes, yoga teacher training and volunteering, as well as cottage accommodation. It is the main place to experience Sadhguru's work at first hand, and the setting for large gatherings such as Mahashivratri.

En línea y en centros Isha · Internacional

Inner Engineering

Isha Foundation

Inner Engineering is Sadhguru's foundational programme, presenting tools for the body, mind, emotions and energy. It culminates in the transmission of Shambhavi Mahamudra Kriya, a daily practice of about twenty minutes, and also teaches Upa-Yoga. The conceptual part is followed online at one's own pace and the kriya is transmitted live over a weekend; there is also a four-day residential retreat format and instructor-led sessions at centres around the world. It is offered in around ten languages, Spanish included, and is the prerequisite for Isha's advanced programmes and residential retreats.

McMinnville, Tennessee · Estados Unidos

Isha Institute of Inner-sciences (Tennessee)

Isha Foundation

The Isha Institute of Inner-sciences is the Isha Foundation's retreat centre in North America, a 1,400-acre mountain campus on Tennessee's Cumberland Plateau. Its heart is Mahima, a large domed meditation hall that hosts many of the programmes, together with the Adiyogi space, which is open to visitors. It offers beginner and advanced classical yoga and meditation programmes, individual wellness retreats, overnight stays with early-morning practice and special events with Sadhguru. The centre itself stresses that it is not a place of worship, religion, philosophy or belief system, but a space for inner wellbeing.