Meditator: Namaskaram, Sadhguru.
I just want to know the basic difference of the way of Shiva and the way of Buddha.
Sadhguru: It's very easy to talk about Buddha’s way because it's very logical,
it's quite simple actually, and it's very long-drawn-out process.
Generally the methods that Gautama gave to people were always a question of a few lifetimes.
You can clearly see this today, the Buddhists are always talking about this, particularly
the Tibetan Buddhists who are the best known Buddhists in the world today (Laughs)
for whatever political reasons.
They’re always talking about a few lifetimes of work.
So, if you have that kind of patience that you are willing to work for a few lifetimes,
Gautama’s way is a very efficient, very logical, scientific step-by-step process that
one can take, because this is a path of awareness.
The significance of walking the path of awareness is - there are milestones on the way
which tell you, you have come one mile, two miles, ten miles, it tells you where you are,
that is the most important aspect.
That is without too much trust or devotion you can still grow, because you have a method
to hang on to - you just keep doing it, keep doing it, keep doing it.
It clearly shows you that you're progressing, but with Shiva there is no such guarantee
and he doesn’t fix milestones.
You don't know whether you are going forward or backward but you are going somewhere, that's
all you know (Laughter) (Laughs).
It's like falling into a bottomless pit.
That sounds terrifying.
I want you to understand this - a bottomless pit is the safest place to fall into (Laughter/Applause).
A pit with a bottom is dangerous (Laughter).
A bottomless fit… pit is absolutely safe.
Your life is done, if you just jump into it, it's done; simply you fall.
If you ever do… has anybody done sky diving?
Hmm?
You did?
So, if you have a free fall, then if you do not open your parachute for a few thousand feet
you don't know whether you’re going down or going up, nothing, it just feels like
you’re floating around and it’s wonderful.
Only when you look down the damn planet is coming at you at a tremendous speed (Laughter).
If this planet is taken off, this is a great experience.
Only if you look down, it's just coming at you at tremendous speed, that’s the only problem
Falling is… don’t understand the falling as a negative thing.
Falling is a great thing.
Did you ever fall in love (Laughter)?
Only when you hit the bottom, then it gets bad (Laughs).
If you fell into a bottomless pit then there is no problem.
So, Shiva is a bottomless pit.
His methods are very different but you cannot limit him that way, because with seven different
disciples, the seven Sapta Rishis, the celebrated rishis of the yore, he taught seven basic ways
in which a human being can explore his consciousness.
From these seven, in multiples of seven it went further and one-hundred-and-twelve different ways
he explored and he said, ‘This is all.’
There is a beautiful story… no time for stories (Laughs).
So, he expounded one-hundred-and-twelve different ways as to how a human being can attain to his peak
and these one-hundred-and-twelve are the one-hundred-and-twelve chakras in
the body.
There are one-hundred-and-fourteen, but two of them are outside the physical body.
He left those two and he said one-hundred-and-twelve different ways of attaining when you are embodied.
That means every chakra in the body, every meeting point of the energy system -
one particular way of attaining.
So, he did not leave anything out.
So, Buddha is a small part of his work.
I want you to understand, Gautama himself didn’t go simply sit in the forest.
The eight years of his sadhana he spent with various teachers across the country and the
whole spine of this spiritual process, this knowledge, has essentially come from Shiva.
Wherever it is, whichever part of the world it is, the basic spiritual process comes from
this spine and it's been taken to different parts of the world in so many different forms.
They look so different because these one-hundred-and-twelve different ways look absolutely different from
one another.
So, what is the difference from Shiva and Buddha is not an appropriate question.
Which aspect of Shiva did Buddha explore?
He explored the path of awareness, which is one aspect.
It's very uni-dimensional but the significance of Gautam Buddha is- he is very scientific,
clinical.
He appeals to the logical mind, but he is like, (Gestures) (Laughter) he also sat like this
Many times he was an ascetic, he just sat unmoving but many times he was a mad dancing
drunk.
He was in all kinds of states because he didn’t limit himself to any particular dimension,
he just explored every aspect of life.
So, what you call as Buddha’s way is just one aspect of these one-hundred-and-twelve
different ways.
And so many others have brought so many other aspects, but individual ways.
Of these seven disciples, of these seven Sapta Rishis, the one who walked south…
south means anything South of Himalayas is south; I am talking to all the Mumbai people (Laughter).
Anything South of Himalayas is south.
So, Agastya walked south and he became particularly active beyond the Vindhya Mountains.
You know that story about Vindhya Mountains bowing down to Agastyamuni and he never came back
so you know that story.
No?
You must learn something about India (Laughter).
So, particularly the Deccan Plateau he spread himself in such a way, every human habitation
in Deccan Plateau he touched.
Wherever you see you will hear something about Agastyamuni and he started this
Action for Rural Rejuvenation, he did not leave a single human habitation; he brought spiritual process
to everybody’s life, the whole population.
They say he lived over 4000 years.
We don't know how long he lived but definitely his life span was not a normal span of life,
it was extraordinarily long.
When you just calculate the mileage that he covered, if you had put a speedometer on him
and seen how many miles he covered, you could see it's an extraordinarily length of time.
We don't know whether it's 400 years or 4000 years.
People say it's 4000, but definitely he lived very long and he touched every habitation
and made sure a spiritual process became a living reality for them.
We are still enjoying his work, I want you to know.
The Southern part of India is still enjoying his work.
A certain… without knowing why, a certain level of settled nature that you see is his work
because he brought yoga into people’s lives without a label, without a format,
just like life process.
As you wake up in the morning, brush your teeth, cook, eat, all this he made it into
a spiritual process and we are still enjoying the benefits of that (Applause).
If you look at any spiritual process anywhere on the planet you will see it is not outside
the one-hundred-and-twelve ways in which Shiva explored this.
So, comparing Gautama and Shiva is inappropriate.
I have great respect for Gautama.
He is a great being, no question.
His work is phenomenal.
He caused a huge spiritual wave which is still on after 2500 years but it is not comparable…
it is no way comparable.
All we can say is Shiva’s work contains Gautama’s work as a small element.
It is less than 1% because out of one-hundred-and-twelve, Gautama explored one and the important thing is
he marketed it well and he encouraged thousands of people to take the path - that’s his success
but Shiva is little too inebriated to do marketing (Laughter).
You should do marketing for him.
He is…
(Laughs) he won't do marketing, but still I have to… generally it's believed,
this is somewhere 40 to 60,000 years ago that he started his work but after 60,000 years or
40,000 years it is still alive, you can't kill it.
Hum?
You still can't kill it, isn't it?
By the time I am done with my life, I am sure I will leave him little more popular than
the way he is today (Applause).