Question: I am just very grateful to have the opportunity to ask you a question today. My question for you Sadhguru is, do you in the Indian culture have a dance, that is also considered a medicine dance or you know, do you guys consider dance to be something that can have healing properties to it? So, thank you so much and have a safe journey.
Sadhguru: Namaskaram Michele. Wonderful to be talking to you. Dance eh! I must tell you this, my daughter, who is 30 now, just turned 30. She is a classical, Indian classical dancer. It’s a very intricate and sophisticated form of dance, which largely at one time evolved in the temples of India, as a form of worship, as a form of offering. But today, it is also being done on stage.
So, our Indian dances in some way connected to our spirituality, or Indian dancers in some way healing or signify something more than just entertainment? 100%, because all the dancers, the classical dancers in India do not treat dance as an entertainment process. It is treated as a sacred duty, and a sacred process.
Well, it’s very different from what you have here, but a very very sophisticated way of movements, and offerings, and very complex stories being depicted through the dance. So I would like to send you some video so that you can acquaint yourself with that, or you can look it up anyway on the net.
India all our Gods, all the Gods who are worshipped are all dancing Gods
Having said that, I want you to know this that in India all our Gods, all the Gods who are worshipped are all dancing Gods. If they cannot dance, we do not consider them Gods. How’s that for you? Because dance is about the exuberance of your physical form. If your life energies, if your body is in an exuberant way it will naturally dance. What kind of dance may be cultural. But essentially dance is an outpouring of human exuberance. Where there is no outpouring of life, how can you be, how can such a entity qualify as God. So, all our Gods are dancing Gods. So, it is very much deeply embedded in our culture.
If your body refused to dance, it’s not about whether you can dance or not, it simply is a question of, do you have life energies spilling out of you or no
But when we say India, it is not like one thing. The vast country, it had over 19,000 languages at one time. Every few kilometers you drive, you will see people look different, eat different, dress different, their culture is different. Their music and dance is different. So, we are also struggling as to how to preserve all these things, because it’s too complex and too elaborate. But today quite a few forms are very well, you know, very much in practice. Lot of youth taking to it. And, it is on stage, it is being attended by people. People even pay to watch these dances. So, there is a whole revival of that in this generation.
It is very important to understand that, if your body refused to dance, it’s not about whether you can dance or not, it simply is a question of, do you have life energies spilling out of you or no. Are you an overflow of life energies, or are you a depleted life.
Bringing this dimension that we call as dance, at a very early age can be very wonderful to bring balance to children as they grow up
So, bringing this dimension that we call as dance, at a very early age can be very wonderful to bring balance to children as they grow up. Because whatever talents, whatever competencies we have, and whatever genius that is there in every human being, can unfold only if there is balance. And dance is a test of your balance in many ways. I’m not just saying physical balance, your inner balance also is determined, when you’re not balanced you cannot dance. So this is very important for every culture, it must be brought back.
And it’s great that you’re bringing back the native American dances. And I just saw a small video of yours, I wish we had met. Sometime you must come here to our center in Tennessee, and perform. It will be wonderful to see you dancing. I saw with all those heavy belts it must be quite a effort to do that, but you’re doing great. Congratulations and my blessings to you. Let this culture live.
