Questioner: The Yoga you teach is so unique and powerful. Even though on the outside it looks similar to what I learnt elsewhere. What is the trick?
Sadhguru: First thing is, there is no trick. The problem is in the transmission, the way it is transmitted. If I give you a flower. It is alive, full of life. You will have to care for it in a certain way. When I find you don’t know how to hold a flower – there are people like this, I give them a flower, they will grab it like this. Those who don’t know what it is, they will grab it like this. Flower will die right there in their hands. So then, what to do? Then we will give you a plastic flower. Now you have a piece of plastic, which you think is flower. So this is what is happening to yoga.
Without the subjectivity, just the instructions are going. So you have a stillbirth. Isn’t it better not to get pregnant, than to have a stillbirth? So if fitness is what you’re looking for, please go swim in the yellow river, play tennis, climb a mountain, do something for fitness. Yoga definitely gives you fitness. Not just physical fitness, it gives you fitness in all levels, but that is not the reason why you practice it. You practice yoga because you want to become one with everything.
So in the transmission there must be subjectivity. Right now, we have become slaves of objectivity. Because we are not using any other form of intelligence within us, except the intellect. If you use only the intellect – is it true that intellect is useful only if it’s sharp like a knife? You want a dull intellect or a sharp intellect? Sharp. So it’s a knife. Now you use a knife to stitch, you will only tear it further. Knife is not an appropriate instrument to stitch. If you want to stitch, you need something else. But now you’re using a knife to stitch, it’s not going to work.
So yoga, unfortunately, is going through this phase around the world, that only the physical aspect – a stillborn child is being delivered. It still looks like a baby, of course. But it’s not alive, it’s not going to grow. If you have a plastic flower, it’s not going to blossom, isn’t it? So this is not going to blossom. Maybe you will get abs if you stretch and turn enough. But you are strengthening the wall, instead of opening up the wall.
How it is transmitted is vital but, how you receive it, is also important. How you practice it, is also important. Without bringing those dimensions into the process, if you just bring a bunch of instructions, then it becomes a very objectified yoga. With this you may get physical fitness, but that is like using an airplane like a bullock cart.
