Speaker: This was in Mangalore and she had come from Mysore with a few volunteers from Mysore. So in the morning when we went for the games, there were a few new people and there was this one person who was everywhere who was doing all this long to Frisbee throws with Sadhguru, who was in the ballgame everywhere, who was pointedly bent upon getting Sadhguru out. Until then nobody knew who she was. At the end of the program, Sadhguru introduced her to all of us as an Isha yoga teacher.
Speaker: And that’s a time she was working in a bank. She was so aligned to Sadhguru and always being around him.
Speaker: I remember how she shared about her marriage. When asked Vijji, how did it all happen? She said that when she met Sadhguru, in that very first meet, we knew each other. That’s it, and that’s marriage for me.
Speaker: It was a very simple wedding in a small Shiva temple in Iruppu Falls.
Speaker: At that time Sadhguru was, he was developing a farm. Everything that happened in the farm, she would know, she would be there whenever she could. He would spend half the month in his farm and another half the month he would teach a class, either in Hyderabad or in Mangalore or Coimabatore or Tirupur or one of these towns. Every weekend, Vijji would travel to the initiation from Mysore. And whoever knew Sadhguru or Vijji they always knew them as Jaggi and Vijji. They were always together everywhere in everything that they did.
Speaker: They nurtured each other, played together, traveled extensively like gypsies. Such was their companionship.
She [Vijji Maa] did yoga only because it means something to me [Sadhguru]
Sadhguru: She did yoga only because it means something to me. She didn’t do yoga for her health. She didn’t do yoga for her well-being. She didn’t care about her well-being. She did yoga only because it means something to me, I am talking about it, so she was doing it. Any number of times she openly spoke about it to people, she wants to do something that means something to me. For Vijji, who is my wife, but most of the time she more existed as my child than my wife because she was like that. But still, we had a very engaging and engrossed kind of relationship all the time. She was like my shadow all the time, twelve years she just was everywhere that I was. She organizes the yoga program. She goes around works throughout the day. She does everything.
Speaker: Every time that she saw Sadhguru off, it’s not that she will say bye and you know, she’ll go back to whatever she was doing. She has to see him get onto the vehicle, she has to see him start she has to wave and she has to keep waving until, you know he is out of sight. Even after ten, twelve years after marriage, every day almost every day this situation is happening.
She was very deeply devoted to Sadhguru as a person
Speaker: She was very deeply devoted to Sadhguru as a person. She also constantly maintained an old posture that she had nothing to do with spirituality. She was only interested in Sadhguru the person who happened to be her husband and that was her only interest. But I mean, one can’t exist around Sadhguru unless in one way or the other one is deeply tied to, committed to one’s own spiritual growth.
Even though she said that she’s not on the spiritual path, it’s not for her and all that, I think constantly right from the beginning, she couldn’t help but to make progress on this path. Few moments and few incidents that I saw in Sadhguru and in my own life, these moments have had such deep impact. This must have happened with Vijji continuously, in so many ways, which obviously had big impact.
She would go to any extent, to kind of stand up for something, anything that was happening she was there not because Sadhguru was there and she had to be there as a wife and things like that. No, she felt it because she was also equally wanting that good things happen with people and people benefit from Sadhguru and make use of that.
Even after a long time, she would still remember and ask, “You did not come to meet him, Sadhguru came and met everyone, but you did not come, Why?” We should interact with these people, not interact with those people… there was no such thing. She was loving with everyone.
Speaker: Like she’s very soft in her heart, like somebody has to say something, she has no hesitation even to take a bangle and give it to them and to solve the problem. Very, very relatable and affectionate woman I’ve ever come across.
Radhe Jaggi: Just like three days, two days before I had to go to school like, “Amma, I need to do home-work, I need to do home-work”. Last three days, I would be writing with my right hand, she would be writing something else with left hand just to make it seem like it was my work.
Speaker: At times Sadhguru has made this clear to Vijji in many ways that he never really, you know kind of uses this word or talks about it openly but to her he had communicated, to her that his disciples, their well-being and what needs to happen to them, it was far more important than what his commitments were to her.
Sadhguru: Swami Nirmalananda was somebody I knew for a long time. I have met him almost twenty years ago or more in a very strange kind of atmosphere. And ever since then, some kind of, we’ve been little dallying with each other. ‘96 sometime early, we went to B.R Hills, me and Vijji went there. Radhe was also there at that time. We’re talking to him and he said the next year, January, when the uttarayana comes I want to leave. I asked him why. He said, “I’ve lived as a yogi, but I don’t want to live as a rogi. I want to die as a yogi.”
He was asking me, “I, I really not clear about how to leave?” He had built a small Samadhi for himself, “Will it work? What will happen” this and that? That’s the first time I opened up to a completely different thing and I spoke to him certain details about what, what is it that stops a person from leaving, what is it that makes a person leave?
Vijji was there, she was listening to all this and she burst out into tears and she cried and cried and cried. So I just ignored her and spoke, continued to speak to him. Then he was he was also weeping off and on and asking me questions and questions. And we went into great detail of many things, which usually I’ve never spoken anywhere.
We came down after meeting Nirmalananda, we just came and just after that place, I parked and I knew she was in some kind of mood, kind of mode. I just stood on the road and it’s an incredible view. So I just was standing on the road and Radhe was also playing around there. And she came and fell at my feet and said, “I also want to do what he’s doing.” I was just trying to joke and try to you know sort of dismiss the whole thing. She was crying and she was saying, “I want to go like him.” I said, “Okay, are you willing to do the sadhana? You do it, let’s see.” I never thought she’ll have the perseverance to stick on to it, like forever.
So I told her a few things “You do these things. Let me see. How seriously you do. If things come up to that stage we will see”. From that day, she just went like, she was another person all together. Suddenly, the last eight, nine months, she became all focused and like that. Because the way she was going. I saw she’s going so intensely. And after two, three months, she even started talking confidently that she’s going to leave in another… then I tried to slow her down a little bit. I said, “What’s the point now?”
All these twelve years of marriage, we were only traveling, only now just then we just had a place to live, she could call her own and cook and do things which meant a lot to her I knew so I said, “What is the hurry and the girl is just seven years old. I said “Things are working out well for you also, why now?” So she said, “Right now my inside is feeling absolutely beautiful and outside everybody’s wonderful to me. This is the time I want to leave. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to maintain this. All my life I’ve been confused, reveals everything. Right now I’m in a space where I want to be. I want to leave like this.”
So many times in my own ways, I tried to slow her down a little bit. The next December came, ‘96 December. Then we knew Nirmalananda will leave, from there we went on karma yatra. This is the final lap of Dhyanalinga consecration. So I wanted to clear up a few things for people involved. So I took them on a six, seven state tour.
Vijji: I have nothing much to say, this twelve days trip was, yeah I certainly experienced tremendous energy and I can say I’ve taken one or two steps towards my growth. And certainly it helped me, it has helped me to be, a little more mature person and I consider myself very lucky too. I only hope that I carry and be of use to everyone.
Sadhguru: By now after the karma yatra she was all glowing like a full moon. People who saw that few, last few weeks they could clearly notice she was like blown like a full moon. Then I had to tell them, “She says she’s going to go shortly.” They wouldn’t believe it. I said that’s how it is. December pournami onwards, she started serving the people. Three pournami’s she wanted to cook and serve and she wants to leave.
Then on 21st we dropped Radhe at school. And that’s when she, she was talking to Radhe already that, “I won’t be there after some time”. The girl was just about fine, she didn’t take that and we came back 21st Evening from Ooty. 23rd evening is when she left.
Speaker: Around eight in the morning Sadhguru called me and asked me to be with Vijji because she was on a certain sadhana and that whole day I was with her meditating and doing several other activities.
Sadhguru: Shambho, shambho, shambho finished. Just before that she went out about 06:11, 06:12 that’s the time. About six o’clock, she went out, she wanted a rose flower. So she wanted one of the bramacharis to get a rose flower. They ran to the vanaprastha ashram, got the rose flower and came, she held the rose flower in her hand, shambho, shambho, shambho, just seven, eight minutes, it was over.
Speaker: It’s only after three days, while sitting for a meditation, it really struck me that she had known this coming.
Speaker: It’s like her Mahasamadhi is just a promise to me. So if you really, that’s what you want it’s a possibility. Like if you’re so intensely seeking something as an ultimate, you can attain it.
Speaker: Definitely Vijji’s Mahasamadhi was a tremendous.. to my logical way of looking at life. Nobody saw her like that. But within her she was so intense and determined.
Speaker: The Mahasamadhi of course, proves something like that. You know, what, what was not visible, what was not overtly visible to people’s eyes. It’s almost like something else worked on, constantly something else was working with her and all the time.
Sadhguru: In the yogic traditions, and it is a very sacred day because many beings, either out intent or just sucked into it. Either chose or got induced into shedding their physical bodies on this day consciously. So many have done this, in this tradition. Even here at Isha we witnessed a great event. Well, Vijji who had neither any sadhana behind her nor did he, nor did she have great knowledge, with the simplicity of her emotion and the intensity of her focus towards what she wanted, this happened too effortlessly.
There are many ways to attain, through pure energy or awareness or absolute selflessness or through devotion
The effortlessness, which even accomplished yogis would go through a little bit of struggle to, do such things, it happened too effortlessly. There are many ways to attain, through pure energy or awareness or absolute selflessness or through devotion. Devotion I put last. But it’s the quickest way, I put it last because the line between devotion and deception is so fine, lot of people will miss it. As they get more and more overwhelmed with deeper and deeper bursts of energy within them, slowly they become devout. That’s good. The wisest ones are always devotees. It’s a different kind of wisdom which logical minds can never understand. They grasp life in a different way.
Vijji was bursts of devotion and confusion, devotion and confusion
Vijji was bursts of devotion and confusion, devotion and confusion. When she held on to a devotional spell for long enough she made it. That’s been the way, that was her way too. So three things that she would have been very happy and proud to see was, the glorious way in which Dhyanalinga consecration happened, in spite of her absence at that time and of course everything else that is happening with Isha and the last but for her it wouldn’t have been the least is that her daughter is, she has become a young woman.
