Sadhguru to Rude ‘Secular’ Journalist – Journalism is Trash!
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is an Enlightened Being of a rare quality. It is not about what he knows and what he imparts in terms of Spiritual process alone. He lives that and he has been able to articulate all that in a contemporary way in a living paradigm. One of his cherished work was to ensure that the world knew of how Yoga originated. With little understanding and no dedication to the facts or lineage, people probably think that BKS Iyenger or Deepak Chopra started Yoga. Or worse still Madonna! Yoga, on the other hand, originated from an amazing being called Shiva, who is known as the Adi Yogi. The first Yogi. In an attempt to ensure the originator of Yoga gets the recognition he deserves, Sadhguru has embarked on a journey to create Adi Yogi temples with his statues globally. The Adi Yogi statue in the Isha Yoga Center, in the Velliangiri mountains is the largest – 112 feet tall. This has been a major issue with those religious and ideological groups who have a vested interest in “harvesting souls”.
When the time for Mahashivarathri comes every year, Sadhguru has a large celebration where a million people get involved. The idea is to bring alive the consciousness of as many people as can be. That also is a problem with those whose work in “harvesting souls” gets impacted because those souls get a chance to discover their true self. Once they find their anchor, the path to falsehoods of harvesting ends. That is where last year during Mahashivarathri, some religious groups feigning as “environmentalists” tried to hit Isha and Sadhguru with a law suit in the High Court in Tamil Nadu. This was used by many obliging “journalists” to rake the name of Sadhguru and throw dirt at his efforts.
Targeting of Indian Gurus by Those who “Harvest Souls”
It has now become customary to malign all Spiritual work that is done within India by the Spiritual Gurus. And, even though most of the Gurus work in the Dharmic framework, they are maligned by people of all the religions. Not all the Gurus are bad or charlatans – just like the doctors. This country and culture has been the spiritual guide for the world. Dharmic Spirituality has been based on Guru-Shishya way, where the Gurus have always been sacred for the disciples. More importantly, this culture has always told us to respect a wise man and specially an Enlightened being and even more an Enlightened Master, even when he is not your Guru. Why? Because such a Master is a reflection and in touch with the source! And here we are in times, when those who can help us connect to our inner self, are abused. Worse any work by them is blocked for no reason other than ideology. Its not as if those who oppose spiritual work thinking it is religious are sans ideology themselves. Far from it! They have made their entire livelihood on selling one ideology or the other.
The American Evangelist Organizations have been targeting India for a long time and have been bringing in money – against the laws of India – for conversion and planting Churches under the guise of “public service”.
Kerala-based Ayana Charitable Trust, the new name under which US charity Gospel for Asia is reportedly funding projects in India, has emerged on top of the list of Indian NGOs with the highest foreign funding in 2015-16.
It is one of three Christian evangelical NGOs — the other two being Believers Church India and World Vision India — that figure among the top four foreign contribution grossers in the country last fiscal.
It is such organizations that see this as a “turf war”. In a bid to convert the people from other countries and – with their supremacist ideas intact – enlist them as ideological slaves who will forever do their bidding in the name of a god, who was just a ruse to colonize in the first place. In this war for colonization, they attack the Masters who provide a direction to people for touching the source of this creation. It is important to note that none of the Indian Gurus worth their name have ever tried to convert anyone when they could have converted millions easily.
It is in this context that some organizations in Tamil Nadu attacked Sadhguru’s attempt to celebrate Mahashivarathri. It was alleged – with the help of obliging journalists – that Isha Foundation was “encroaching on the land” – which was their private land in the first place purchase with proper approvals – AND “endangering the environment”. A being who has worked tirelessly and set a world record in an attempt to make Tamil Nadu green was being alleged to have endangered the environment in his own Ashram by creating a tall statue of Shiva, the Adi Yogi!
Sadhguru in Conversation with Indian Express Journalists
Sadhguru is embarking on a nation-wide campaign to “Rally for Rivers”, which is to bring alive India’s dying rivers. And in that attempt, he was interacting with journalists at a seminar organized by Indian Express. And here someone asked the question on that same issue. And Sadhguru gave her back in his own style that clearly brought out the hypocrisy and the falsehoods that are peddled by the journalists.
You can check the entire interaction in the full video below.
What are the Facts of the case?
The whole idea of the place being “Wet lands” or “Dry Lands” or whatever term these uselessly undereducated and unlearned “journalists” come up with is completely hypocritical because this was the land where vested political interests and forest loggers were cutting trees illegally and had made the whole mountain barren. Once in the hands of Isha, this entire mountain was made green again with the Project Greenhands!
Project GreenHands (PGH) is a grassroots ecological initiative of Isha Foundation that has, since its inception on June 5 2004, enabled the planting of 23.81 million saplings by over 2 million volunteers across South India.
PGH had its root in the Vanashree Eco Project, which was started in 2002 to conserve and protect the Velliangiri Mountain range, where Isha Yoga Center is located. Isha volunteers have sown lakhs of seeds to propagate the native species in the area to revive the ecology and biodiversity of the mountains.
First of all – as this satellite image from 2006 shows – Adiyogi Statue was NOT built on “forest land” but on Agriculture land which was purchased from farmers and after all necessary permissions from Govt converted to non Agriculture land.
Secondly, Isha Foundation had received the necessary clearances to build the Adi Yogi Statue.
For a detailed response from Sadhguru, please see this video:
In their response Isha Foundation explained their position clearly! Till date nothing that these folks alleged has ever been followed up. They filed something false and fed these illiterate and lazy journalists who peddle nothing but trash – as Sadhguru clearly calls out – to just create the effect and the most foolish amongst them keep bringing this trash up.
The accusations laid down in the petitions filed against Isha Foundation in the Madras High Court are frivolous and a compilation of twisted allegations. We would like to clarify that it is a 112-feet statue of Adiyogi Shiva (the Source of Yoga). The petitioner, incited by vested interestgroups, is willfully trying to create a sensation by misrepresenting facts.
We have obtained the approval of the necessary authorities, including the District Collector, Coimbatore, the Forest Department and BSNL. A structural stability certificate from a government certified engineer has also been obtained for the 112-ft Adiyogi statue. A “No Objection Certificate” from the District Collector, Coimbatore for using wetlands for non-agricultural purposes has also been obtained. So the question of violation does not even arise.
These vested interest groups have been working actively to stop Mahashivratri celebrations. Even in 2013, a group has brought in a petition to stay Mahashivratri celebrations at Isha. The High Court then ordered the district authorities to file a report on the impact of Mahashivratri celebrations on ecology. Upon this directive, a team of district officials led by the Revenue Divisional Officer were present at the Mahashivratri venue to inspect various parameters and its impact on the ecology. The final report filed by the district authorities reiterated the truth that there was no violation observed at the Mahashivratri celebrations. The same was also reported in dailies like Times of India dated 12.03.2013.
Here is the No objection Certificate from the DC.
As Sadhguru says – if there is any truth in what people are saying, then they should come out and show their evidence.
Featured Image: Courtesy Sadhguru.org