Sadhguru answers a question about the significance of performing an arati to the Ganga at Rishikesh. Sadhguru speaks about the five elements, the pancha bhutas, and how the fundamental fabric of yoga is about bhuta shuddhi. He looks at how yogis performed various sadhanas for each of the five elements, to get mastery over and enhance these aspects.

Full Transcript:

Sadhguru: Now, is it… is it our emotion or is it genuinely so that different water have different impact on you? This would have been the argument about ten years ago that people would say, “Water is water. How can one water be different from another? If water is cleaned of impurities, e… all water is same.” This would have been the argument ten years ago but not anymore. Modern science is clearly saying that depending upon what the water has been in touch with, accordingly it behaves differently. This is an established fact now because water has memory. Now when we say gangajal, why it’s been important is – it is flowing through certain lands, it is flowing through certain terrain, which has a certain impact. And it is not for one or two generations, for hundreds of generations people have been doing spiritual sadhana, they’ve been in touch with this water. The quality of that is there in the water.

Sundarlal Bahuguna went about proving this to people and he died for it, nothing much happened unfortunately. But his own health got transformed tremendously just living on the Ganga bank. Now, is this just emotion? No. But at the same time, is the water what it used to be before in Ganga? No, because the water that you’re drinking today is held in a dam in two-three different places and one dam which holds it there for a long period of time and then let out. It is not the same thing anymore unfortunately. This is one thing we should have not done. If we want electricity, there are so many others ways to do it. This is one thing we should have not done because Ganga had a special quality. Now we put a dam across this in Himalayas, which is absolutely unnecessary, just for little bit of electricity.

Time 36:20

Anyway, the amount of sediment that comes in Himalayas, all these dams will be filled with sediment in no time, believe me. In another twenty-five years, these dams will be useless unless some major dredging activity has to happen and where will you put that. There’ll be… None of the dams we’ve been able to dredge successfully. Dams across Mahanadi, Hirakud, everything is totally loaded up, it’s useless and… now, simply because the s… amount of sediment. The amount of sediment that is coming in the Himalayan region is probably twenty-five times to fifty times higher than in a normal river, simply because of the terrain and the nature of the terrain. So, I think it was… it was a sacrilege that we put a dam on Ganga for electricity. We could have generated it in so many different ways.

Well, it is the necessity of the people, on the plains we do it. But that one river, which is the consciousness of this country, we could have left it alone. But most of the water that’s coming in Ganga river today flows through tunnels, it’s going through turbines and then coming. So, I cannot assure you that it’s the same quality now but still, whether you believe or you don’t believe, if you touch the water, you will see it’s very different. Because – I’ve trekked in Himalayas for twenty-seven years, continuously twenty-seven years I trekked, every year I went back. Many times I have seen – just a glass of water I drink, I don’t have to eat anything, whole day I’m walking. With just one glass of water, you drink a stomach-full of water, it just keeps you going, that won’t happen anywhere else.

Time 38:00

If you go to the upper regions, if you go towards Go… you know, Gomukh and those areas, the water is definitely special. As it comes down, with all these turbines and stuff, it’s not the same but still it is different from what you would find elsewhere. So, this is not an emotional aspect, there is a scientific basis to it. Unfortunately we are not maintaining that atmosphere. We are destroying the atmosphere and expect the water to be same, it won’t be after some time.