Creating a Wave of Consciousness around the World

Sadhguru answers a question on raising human consciousness and Isha’s role in this process.

Sadhguru: One tremendous thing today in the world is, for the first time, sitting here, we can talk to the whole world. Never before was such a thing possible. We have the technological capability to do that today. I’m sure the Adiyogi himself will envy me today because even he could not speak to the whole world. He had to send seven of his people. But today we can sit here and talk to the whole world, we can speak to them in their homes – they don’t even have to step out on the street. I can whisper what I want into the whole world’s ears. Technology has reached such a state.

This will not happen if we put too much emphasis on Isha. We don’t want to become like a governmental kind of setup. I don’t think an organization should grow. If you have such ambitions, you must keep them aside. We should make Isha into a powerful and effective tool to deliver what we want to deliver, but we have no intentions of making Isha a world-conquering institution or something like that. We are not some Mogambo, you know. Shambho, no Mogambo.

Raising consciousness does not mean teaching people something. Raising consciousness means to make them hungry for something more than food, money, wealth, pleasure, and these kinds of things – to make them hungry to know, to make them hungry to become accessible to something bigger than what they know right now. You just have to make them hungry enough, consciousness will rise by itself.

Modern technology, and the pleasures and distractions that the 21st century world can offer have been a serious challenge for raising consciousness. But at the same time, nations and societies which have seen these kinds of comforts, conveniences, and pleasures for a generation or two are slowly getting sick of it. It’s only the newly affluent societies which are running towards it. Others are trying to slowly run away from it. This is already beginning to happen in the world, we just have to increase the momentum. A lot of people in Western societies that have seen comfort, wellbeing, and pleasure for two generations are just disappointed with the way they are existing. But still there has not been a direction for them, as to which way to go.

Even the hippie movement was actually a spiritual wave, with a bad direction, a bad sense of leadership, bad goals – but the fundamental aspiration was good. They were trying to run away from the conventional way of building one’s life. But not knowing where to run, they ran into a pit, and after that, they are wary of one more wave like that. And it’s good – this is all a learning process for humanity. When such a big wave comes, it is very difficult to direct it. When a tsunami comes, you can’t take your boat on it and go where you want; you would just go and crash into something.

So it is good that with modern technology you can talk to people individually, not in a crowd. This is something people underestimate. We are doing Ananda Alai where I am talking to large crowds. This has a certain power about it, but in societies which are affluent and well-to-do, it is best that we talk to people individually. These are some of the ways to raise human consciousness. Somewhere down the line, when it picks up momentum, I will sleep for some time – and that will be the most powerful phase. Right now, I am on and active. When I sleep, it will become very big. Still we don’t have the necessary infrastructure – human and otherwise – set up in the world for me to go to sleep for some time. We got it all lined up, now we need to execute it. We need to build powerful teams of dedicated people to make this happen. We have to gear ourselves up to a different level of action. A different level need not necessarily mean more action, it simply means more incisive action.

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