When it’s time, if you can gracefully exit without anybody pushing you out, when I say
anybody, nobody need to kill you, no disease need to come, no organism need to invade your
body, by yourself you gracefully exited, because you understand it’s time for you, then we
say this is Mahasamadhi, that means absolute equanimity has come to you.
This is not new in this country, in every generation we’ve seen hundreds of people.
We’ve talked about Nirmalananda, I must tell you about Nirmalananda.
Like…
I was probably just around twenty or twenty-one years of age, I’m living wild, I largely
either I’m on a motorcycle or I’m in the jungle sleeping in… upon trees and existing
(by?) myself, surviving in the jungle all by myself.
It’s one of those days where about...
I’ve been in the Biligiriranga…
Biligiriranga Betta which is a very fantastic forest, you must see that, it’s full of
wildlife.
I’m staying in the jungle for about four days, and it’s rainy season.
I usually don’t have any arrangement you know, all I have is a motorcycle and gas,
that’s it!
So I survive in the jungle, I know how to survive.
But being rainy season I’ve become very hungry, almost for nearly thirty-two hours
I’ve not eaten anything.
And I’m head to toe in mud because it’s raining; wherever I sit down and get up, I’ve
become all mud.
Then I came up the hill on my motorcycle.
There were no restaurants, there were no nothing at that time in that place, there was just
one temple and the temple was closed.
There was no food anywhere.
Then I saw this little ashram, four acre ashram, then I rode in.
Those are times even in college I never got out of the motorcycle, even to first floor
I went on my motorcycle (Laughter), okay?
In our house going into the house, coming out of the house we always went on the motorcycle
and come out… came out of the motorcycle, steps and everything.
So I rode up and there were about six, seven steps to go to his little hermitage that was
there, I rode up that and…
I’m explaining this simply to make you understand how whacky the mind is, always our motorcycle
will never have a stand, okay?
It’ll not have a stand, it’ll not have a battery, it’ll not have many things which
we think is extra weight, we’ve made it minimal.
So I go and park the motorcycle leaning on his cottage like this (Gestures) and I get
down and I’m wearing ankle length boots full of mud from head to toe, I take off my
helmet and look at him.
He just looks at me like this (Gestures) and laughs and laughs and tears start coming in
his eyes, I said, “What’s wrong with the old man, you know?”
He’s like in his seventies, I’m twenty-one or so.
Then I said “I need to eat, I’m extremely hungry,” I was ready to eat him (Laughter)!
Then he did something that I could never do!
Never in my life I’d bowed down to anybody, forget about that, I’ve never been to a
temple, I’ve not done this even in front of God, my mother says hold it like this (Gestures),
no!
I’ll stand like this (Gestures), I won’t do this (Gestures) (Few laugh).
I’m a confirmed whatever (Laughs) (Few laugh).
So this man comes and falls at my feet and my muddy boots, he holds it in his hands and
weeps.
I just kind of, you know, it was just… shook me because this is a seventy-year-old man.
Then I said, “No, what are you doing?
I just need to eat, I don’t need this (Few laugh).”
Then he took me inside, he tried to unlace my boots, I said “don’t do that” and
I put my boots outside and went inside and sat.
He baked me some bread, he had nothing else, he bakes his own bread, he baked bread and
he gave me a jar of honey.
So I ate it up and then we started talking.
Then whenever I went that way, because I saw that he had nothing much at all, I would take
him a bunch of bananas or some apples or whatever fruits that was there and he always give me…
gave me a can of honey to carry back.
So this became a quiet… because he was not speaking.
He was for fourteen years on silence, so he will only write.
So I will speak and he will write, it became a relationship over a number of years.
Then, this is ’96…
Kangna Ranaut: This was a big controversy, where… where…
Sadhguru: Yes, yes, that’s what I’m saying, in ’96…
Kangna Ranaut: It was everywhere on the TV where he was, he… all his life he worked
towards wanting to get Mahasamadhi and when he found you and you told him the techniques.
And when he was about to get there, apparently the government got involved and like you cannot
do that.
Sadhguru: Yes.
In 1996…
In 1996 he announced “I’m seventy-four years of age right now, I don’t want to
die as a rogi, I want to die as a yogi.
So when the Uttarayana comes, that is after the winter solstice happens, I will leave
my body.”
He announced in the month of April or May, I’m not very sure about the time.
Kangna Ranaut: And media got to know.
Sadhguru: No media... later media came.
Then at that time I was there and he told me this and we discussed a few things, and
my wife Vijji and my daughter were sitting there.
And we went into all kinds of details which we never speak about.
So when this was over, he was all very emotional about it, and then we were driving back.
Then I saw my wife was weeping.
I said “Why?”
She said, “I also want to leave like that.”
Then I was joking with her, “Okay!
When are you going to leave?”
(Laughs) But then she said, “No, I’m very serious, I want to…
I want to go like him, what he was saying was fantastic, and what you were explaining
to him, that’s how I want to leave.”
I said “Why do you want to leave?
Because twelve years of marriage, we’ve traveling, traveling, traveling!”
People have been absolutely wonderful to us everywhere but there is no home as such, we’re
always on the move.
So just then we were building a small place to live.
I said “Just now you're getting a home after twelve years, and the girl was only seven
years of age,” I said “Why now?”
She said, “Right now, everything within me is wonderful, everything around me is just
the way I want it, this is the time I want to leave.
I don’t want to leave when things are wrong.
I don’t want to leave when I’m not well or something is not well.”
I just thought… because she was… she was not… she was…
She was intense!
Either she was at the peak of joy or at the dumps, she doesn’t know in-between.
She would hit the peak or she would go down but she never knew the in-between, and she’s
not a great practitioner of yoga or something, she was keeping her normal practice but nothing
much.
Only thing is, she was intense person.
There was no moment of dullness with her, she was always intense.
So, she took up the sadhana so intensely, from the month of August it started and she
started announcing to everybody in the month of February, “I will leave.”
I said, “Why are you talking about this rubbish?
People will make a joke out of you.”
She said, “No, I’m leaving in February.”
And she started telling the girl!
I said “Please don’t disturb the girl, what will she think?
Seven year old girl.”
But she brought the girl to that level of understanding, the girl’s birthday is in
March, this is in January.
Then we went to see Nirmalananda for the last time, he wrote a letter to me saying that
“This is the last letter I’m…” he was writing everyday hundred letters to people
all over the world, that’s his only communication.
So he wrote one letter to me saying “this is my last letter” and so we went to see
him.
He left on January 8th or 10th I don’t remember…
Kangna Ranaut: But Sadhguru there was a lot of resistance for that.
Sadhguru: I’ll come.
When he said he will leave on this date, the so-called rationalists got the… moved the
court.
Kangna Ranaut: Imagine the very day which you’ve been waiting for so many years (Both
Laugh).
Sadhguru: The rationalists moved the court and posted police in the Ashram.
This man I want to tell you how he lived - he has a small Ganapati temple, if he wants to
do pooja, he will wait for the flowers to fall down from the tree, he will not pluck.
He doesn’t want to hurt the tree.
Only if the flowers fall down, he will take that and worship.
Otherwise he will not do that worship, some leaf he will take and offer to the God that
he believes in.
This is the kind of man, they put police there.
So when I went there, end of December, with a group of our people, you know about hundred,
two hundred people we went there to see him because we knew it’s the last part of his
life.
He was still fit and well.
He just cried, he said, “See they’ve put police,” two constables were sitting there,
he said, “they’ve put police to watch me.”
I said “You don’t worry, what’s your problem?
They are just two people sitting there, you just don’t look at their uniform, leave
them alone.
You just focus on what you have to do.”
But he was deeply disturbed, he said, “How can they put police watching me?
Am I a thief?
Why are they putting police on me?”
Kangna Ranaut: I mean the very thing he should be respected for!
And these kind of…
We need to discuss this…
Sadhguru: See, in this culture such a man would be worshipped,
but unfortunately in today’s India, police were put…
Kangna Ranaut: But Sadhguru the very fact that he was healthy, why…
why one has to drag to their death , is what I don’t understand.
Like euthe… euthanasia, these people they will, like the ones who were fighting for
it to not be passed, they will even snatch your, you know, food
but they definitely have no love for somebody’s life but they are scared of death!
Sadhguru: See…
Kangna Ranaut: That is for sure.
Sadhguru: The culture has become in such a way that we are in a denial of death.
But you must understand this, the… the only reason why somebody turns spiritual is -
when they realize they are mortal.
If you're immortal, spiritual process would be meaningless.
By thinking about God, you will not become spiriti… spiritual, you will become fanciful,
you’ll become unrealistic.
You think there are shortcuts to life by believing in God, but the moment you see that you're
mortal, then you naturally want to know “what is
beyond this body?
What is the nature of my existence?”
These questions are very natural when you understand that you're mortal.
So in this culture, we’ve never hidden mortality, always death happened in open, you know?
When somebody is dying in your house, they’ll keep him outside, so that everybody can see
how he dies.
So, this is a thing that people will watch whether he dies gracefully,
whether he vacates his residence gracefully or he needs to be pushed out.
This was very, very important, unfortunately we’ve lost that.
We need to understand this, whatever we may be doing, it doesn’t matter what you're
doing, you’re making movies, I do something else,
somebody runs a state, it doesn’t matter what we’re doing, we’re
mortal, this is the fundamental reality of our existence.
If we forget this one thing, only by forgetting this one thing, we start doing idiotic things
on this planet.
We’ve done all these idiotic things simply because…
Today we have to talk about saving rivers, saving mountains, nonsense, this is all utter
nonsense to me - saving a river, saving the forest, this is
simply because we think we’re immortal.
We may not be actually thinking so, but we’re not conscious of our mortality.
If we understood that our stay here is just a brief amount of time,
we’re just baton carriers from previous generation to the next generation,
we’re temporary occupants of this planet, if this awareness was there within us every
day of our life, we would live completely differently.
It’s very, very important to be conscious of one’s mortality.