Shivanga Sadhana

The Shivanga sadhana is a powerful 42-day vrata (period of sadhana) for men. Shivanga initiations are now available at many cities around the world.

Sadhguru: Sadhana time is not a time for you to ask for all the arrangements to be made. Sadhana time means, this is a time to bring humility, this is a time to live like you’re just another creature on the planet, which you are. You may have ideas, but the reality is you’re just another creature on the planet. And being just another creature is not a bad thing, it’s a great blessing. Otherwise, you’re just a psychological case. The reality is you are a creature on the planet. If you are a creature on the planet, the hand of the creator has touched you. If you are a psychological case, it’s all just your rubbish. Whether you’re an ant, or an insect, or a cockroach, or a human being. If you are a creature on this planet - a creature means the creator has touched you. There’s no better blessing. If you are a psychological case, you are just a rubbish of your own.

This is a time to understand that you are just another creature, you’re not something else. The sadhana is devised to make this sink a little deeper into you because only a living thing can evolve. A psychological case, most probably will only regress. And if it evolves that means you are really getting sick. If your psychological condition, if it’s evolving that means you are really getting sick, but if a creature evolves it’s getting better and that cannot be stopped, anyway it will evolve. We are only trying to throttle it up, hasten it up. Make it happen little faster than the natural process. We don’t want to go at the Darwinian pace, we want to go little faster than what Charles Darwin is predicting for us.

This sadhana is structured this way, there are many aspects to this. One is, to use the body in a certain way. We left the ladies without any physical exercise because we thought they are already overworked in most families. There is a simple process called “Shiva Namaskar” which those who get into the sadhana will do. Another important part of the sadhana is, you must go out and beg from at least twenty-one people. When they give you something, you should not see what they are giving. Suppose they are just giving you a twenty-five paisa coin, you must stretch out your hands and look at their face in supplication. When they are giving, you must close your eyes, not see what they are giving.

Learning to receive, whether it is one rupee or one million, to receive it with the same sense. When you give you must see what you are giving, because anyway, you will be giving less than what you can give. But when you receive, you must close your eyes, whatever they give, whether it’s one rupee or one million rupees, you must receive it with the same sense of gratitude. Giving and taking can be just a mere transaction or can become a process of inclusion. Everything someone takes and gives to you can become a way of sharing and it can become much more. It can become a way of breaking the boundaries of who you are.

The sadhana is about this, whether they give you one paisa or one crore, to receive that one paisa you have to give away something of yours. Your pride, your sense of ego, your sense of who you are, to keep that aside and just go and ask for this, shirtless. If you wear a shirt you’ll become a big man. You have to go shirtless. And at least with twenty-one people – you can beg with 200 people if you want – at least twenty-one people you must go and ask for something. And whatever you gather will be used to feed so many people who are here on Mahashivratri and other days when people come.

So to approach someone just with utter humility, shirtless, going and asking somebody, “Please…” Just do this, it will make a lot of difference. Simply the body becomes still, no matter what is happening, and this ease is very, very important. If the body doesn’t come to ease, you need to understand this, what is not at ease is not willing to release you. What is not at ease will cling. Even if you want to be, “I am not the body, I am not the body, I am not the body,” the body doesn’t listen. It will not let you go. The body should come to ease. Then if you say, “I am not the body,” it says, “Yes, you are not.” If it doesn’t say yes, you have no way to get out.

So bringing this ease is very, very important. This phase, till Mahashivratri, is a significant phase for that, because in terms of elements, in terms of the way the planet is positioned, in terms of the sadhana that you do, if you do it with the necessary involvement, it will have the necessary impact and results.