There was a man in Mysore city. He was known to be some kind of a ghostbuster or tantric.
This guy has trapped ghosts in bottles.
So I was just befriending him, thinking I will steal one bottle, because I really wanted to see a ghost.
Has Sadhguru met a ghost?
Mohit: Sadhguru, you were talking about stories,
So, we were conversing and, you know, we were agreeing that when we were growing up,
some of the best stories that we used to hear from,
you know, family people or grandparents, or friends, senior people,
would be the ghost stories (Laughs).
And you know, somehow small, you know, kids, we love to get scared,
still they want to hear that ghost story.
You know, it’s one of their favorite things, you know, amongst all stories.
Do you have any ghost story from your experiences of traveling in the mountains (Applause)?
Sadhguru: Well (Laughs)… this is really getting me into trouble (Laughter).
See, the purpose of telling you ghost stories was not to scare you,
but to give you a hair-rising experience.
This happened. In a barber shop in Louisiana state,
the whole place was filled with all kinds of horror comics and ghost stories
and all kinds of things, only that – no newspapers,
no other magazines, only these things.
So, one day somebody asked the barber,
said, “Why have you put your whole place with these kind of stories in your salon?
You ... don’t have anything else?
Nothing about styles, about fashion – nothing, only ghost stories and horror stories, why?”
He said, “See, for my profession, if somebody’s hair is standing, it makes it much easier.”
(Laughter).
So the idea was to give you a hair-rising experience (Laughs), not to scare you.
And…
I must tell you, this fascinated me so much, that there was a man in Mysore city,
who was also working in the Mysore city corporation as some official,
but he was known to be some kind of a ghost buster or tantric… or whatever he is.
So somebody told me – I was always looking for these kinds of things – so somebody told me,
“This guy has trapped ghosts in bottles and kept it in his…” whatever,
it’s a shrine or a workshop, or whatever you want to call it.
So I want to go and that guy won’t allow us initially, but I was persistent and
then he took me inside and he showed me lots of bottles, he said,
“In this (Gestures) there is this kind of a ghost.
This (Gestures) is a woman.
This (Gestures) is a man.”
I looked, I could not see a man or a woman, I all… saw transparent bottles with corks.
So, I was just befriending him, thinking I will steal one bottle,
because I really wanted to see a ghost.
’Cause I had heard so many things, so many things means, unbelievable kind of stories.
Well, it only made me more and more curious, it did not raise my hair nor scare me,
but I became more and more curious.
I had spent months on end, continuously, every night, being in the cremation grounds,
wanting to see.
So, people come, burn the dead and you know, when... with firewood when the dead bodies burn,
it will burn for four, five, six hours.
People stay there for an hour or hour-and-a-half and then
they have other business to do.
They will cry and they will weep and they will go, when it’s still burning.
Normally what happens is, when as the fire burns,
one thing… because, you know, there is economic… always economic aspect to everything,
if they have not put enough fire long enough,
when this collapses – the outer part – first thing that will happen is,
because neck is such a small thing and it gets burnt and once the spine is burnt,
the burning head will roll away do, do, do, do, do,
so I am the one who picks it up with a stick and puts it back
and waits, “Where is the damn ghost?”
It doesn’t come.
Many, many months on end, I sat there, no ghost came.
Somebody said, “You put a nail in that tamarind tree, it will come.”
I would nail the damn tree again and again and again, nothing came.
Somebody said, “In this house there is a ghost.”
So I would beg them, “Please allow me, I want to sleep in that house and
see if the ghost comes.”
Did not happen.
So I went to this guy and when they said specifically, it’s in the bottle,
I wanted to steal a bottle.
But he was very protective about his bottles.
So, I didn’t see anything coming out, but he showed me one thing.
So, he made an elaborate design with rice flour,
the five corners of this, he kept one one egg.
He did all kinds of things and poof! he clapped his hand, all the five eggs burst
right in front of my eyes.
So, I thought, something, I don’t know whether it’s a ghost or it’s a thing, whatever,
but definitely he did not reach out to these five, he was standing away and (Gestures – Claps),
all the five eggs burst.
Then, this was working on me and I went…
I was walking in my house backyard, looking here and there,
then I saw guavas were hanging in the tree, the guava fruit.
I looked at the fruit (Gestures – Claps) the fruit fell (Laughter).
I, “What?”
I did it again and again, the fruit fell.
Then I brought my friends and, “Just you idiots, watch this.”
(Gestures – Claps).
Fruit fell.
They said, “What?”
Not once, five-ten times I did, so that it’s not an accident.
But then, in about three days’ time after I did this,
a revulsion – I've never experienced it ever in my life,
because I’ve never stepped into those areas,
a kind of revulsion went through my entire body,
that I knew that I had done something very fundamentally wrong.
Never again, I said, “You want the guavas, go up and get it (Laughs).
You want anything in your life, go and get it.”
These kinds of things we will never again do.
So, I realized something is fundamentally wrong, use your energies like that.
So, what is a ghost?
All of you are ghosts with a body.
Those who are walking, and sitting, everybody – you are ghosts with a body.
But suddenly, somebody lost their body, and you think they are something horrible – why?
They are just like you, they just lost the body.
Is it true that you gathered the body over a period of time?
Suppose… let’s say, you have lost control over how much you eat and you become this big,
and then you came to yoga program and whatever,
and slowly you shrank into half your size,
does it mean to say half of you has become a ghost?
Hello?
So if somebody lost the body, fifty-sixty kilograms of planet that we have picked up
and made into this, if they put it back, is that a ghost?
Then you are also a ghost with a body, isn't it?
So, this abnormal way of looking at life, that just because somebody lost their body,
they have become something evil, something fear… fearful, something terrible,
is a very abnormal way of looking at life.
The nature of life is such that whether …
See, right now, this is something, you must look at this – not intellectually,
really experientially – you’re breathing all of you, are you?
Hello?
I am just checking.
Hello, you are breathing?
Participants: Yes.
Sadhguru: So if you are breathing, let us say this was like a building or whatever,
right now we are in the quadrangle kind of place, so there is life here that you’re breathing,
you may call it air, but it’s actually life, because if I take away this,
this (Referring to oneself) will go.
Yes?
Your life will go.
It’s only in this transaction life is happening, isn't it?
So, it’s not just about air, oxygen, this, that – this is a living cosmos.
You are like a little bubble, you captured a little bit of life.
You know, did you blow soap bubbles when you were young at least?
Participants: Yes.
Sadhguru: So, when you blew your soap bubble, you got this big bubble, I got that big bubble, let us say,
we were looking at this, “Oh this is my bubble, this is your bubble.”
Then they went poop!
When they go poop, you don’t say, “This is my air, this is your air,” isn't it?
This is just like that.
This is just a bubble, you captured a certain amount of life and
it’s functioning in a certain way.
When this bubble bursts, there’s no such thing as your life and my life.
Well, you may not break the entire bubble,
you may break the outer surface of the bubble and
the inner surface of the bubble may still remain.
Just because the outer peel has dropped off, do you call that a ghost?
Tch, tch, tch, then you are a ghost with a body (Laughs) (Applause).