Sadhguru speaks of Kedarnath, Tapovan, Kashi and Gupt Kashi, and about the specific nature of each of these spaces.

Sadhguru: Now, she is talking about overwhelming experiences in certain places, especially Guptakashi and Tapovan. If I could explain what is the basis of these experiences… These are two different kinds of spaces - Guptakashi and Tapovan. Tapovan, maybe because of the altitude you felt light-headed. It is a place which has been graced by many wonderful beings. Wherever they go, they leave their eggs, that’s their way of life. Now, if you leave your eggs in Bombay or in New York City or anywhere else, people will trample on it and go because they won’t have the sense to recognize what’s been left around. So, they go and leave their eggs, you know… have you… I don’t know if you have done this, most of you might not have done this, maybe a few of you. If you ever track birds, if you track birds, most of you won’t believe if you open your eyes and look around where you were trekking on the side, a cluster of stones… in that there were a couple of eggs. The birds would have laid their eggs right there.

October is a little late, they have all hatched. If you went to Himalayas, let’s say in May-June-July, you will see this, but most of you wouldn’t see it because it would lay its eggs in such a way that even the predators should not see it. What they see they pick up, what they do not see will fly. Or in South India, I don’t know much about the North American birds, I am just getting familiar with the human beings. They are… quite a birds they are. If you, between February and April, if you just walk on the dried tracks in South India, you will see in how many incredible ways the birds would have found nests, the birds which cannot build their own nests. Those birds which can build their own nests, they build wonderful nests in the trees and do it. The other birds who are not capable of architecture, such birds, they will find such small niches. Niches here and there - in stones, in pieces of wood, in mud, wherever and they will lay their eggs in such a way, even if you are looking for it, you can’t find it. In such a beautiful way they will arrange themselves, because they want the eggs to hatch. As I said, what the predators find becomes food, what the predators don’t find, fly.

So the yogis also, people who have the privilege and the burden of carrying a dimension which is not in the experience of common people… also wherever they sit and stand they lay their eggs, but why they always moved to hilly regions? Certain spaces which are identified as sacred is simply so that these eggs are not trampled upon, but rather experienced, made use of, so that something will fly out of it. So they choose places, Tapovan has been one bird’s nest where many, many yogis have chosen to lay their eggs, but the biggest pit of eggs is probably the Kedar. Kedar, every kind of bird laid its eggs, multicolored, and they gotten all mixed up.

Time 80:15

So if you have been initiated in a certain way, you become open to a certain aspect of experience. There are so many other things there which you are not open to, but if you are initiated in a particular way, you become open to that particular dimension. Let’s say we have initiated you in the peacock’s ways, you become open to only the colors of the peacock. A parrot is sitting right there, you don’t know. So depending upon the type of initiations you have gone through, you become open to certain dimensions of experience. How many of you…? Ok. We’ll leave that there.

So Tapovan is a tremendous possibility. Maybe Tapovan or beyond Tapovan there is a place called Nandanvan, which is about 17,200 or 17,400 altitude, which has many eggs. I am thinking some day, probably before I am too lazy to climb mountains, I want to go and spend a couple of weeks and sort out a few eggs there and spend some time, maybe because my eggs are all laid in the cities where some people experience, some people trample. I also want to lay some eggs which will live for a long time. One big egg I have laid that you can’t destroy is the Dhyanalinga. So that’s good enough, but still I thought that I should lay my eggs too, here and there where it will remain for a long time, where people will approach it with a certain reverence and become available to it.

Suppose we do it on the Times Square, I can lay my eggs on the Times Square, it is just that people who are walking there are not walking with an openness to experience that. In spite of that, there maybe somebody who maybe hit by it, but that’s rare because they are all going with self-protection. As the biggest… self preservation is the biggest thing when you are walking on the street. Now you go to Tapovan, you are going with a certain reverence, a certain openness that makes it a possibility. This is the basis of, the whole basis of creating temples in India is just this - a certain egg is laid and you are supposed to approach it in a certain way. For every deity, there is a certain type of approach so that you can experience that. So Tapovan is a complex, not as complex as Kedar, but still a complex mixture of things.

Time 83:47

Guptakashi is a wonderful place, the consecration of the lingam has been done very wonderfully. This is an area where Agasthyamuni walked, probably he even visited this temple; either himself or probably one of his people, because the nature of the lingam is such which is in line with Agasthiya’s way of doing things. I have already spoken about who is Agasthiya? I have. It is very much in the line with Agasthiya, so it is either himself or somebody like him, or in his line of duty who have concentrated this linga. That’s the reason why Sadhguru chose that particular temple. When they could not do things in Kedar because of weather conditions, the next immediate option was Guptakashi because it’s very much in the line of Agasthiya’s way of doing things which is pure kriya, which is 100% energy work. No other things, no mantras, no tantras, no nothing, it’s 100% energy work. That’s the way I am, that’s the only thing I know. I can just transform life from one dimension to another, simply on the basis of energy. I don’t know any chantings, I don’t know any rituals, I don’t know anything. Without any ritual, simply, you know, just switching the energy from one dimension to another. So that is the reason why Sadhguru chose Guptakashi.

You know what Guptakashi means? ‘Gupt’ means secret. ‘Kashi’ means… you know Varanasi? You have heard of Varanasi? Kashi is the holiest of holy cities, one of the most ancient cities of learning. This was a place where hundreds of enlightened beings lived at a time. Every street you walked, you had an enlightened being to meet. So, it became a tradition in this culture - if you want to die, you must die in Kashi. If you die in Kashi, your liberation is guaranteed because there are so many enlightened ones… every day, they come to have a bath in the Ganga. All you have to do is just have a glimpse of them, and when they see that your time is near, definitely they will help you and you’re through. So even today it is believed, when you come to a certain old age, people travel to Kashi, wait there to die. Mass cremations will happen on the river bank. Even now, you must go to this Manikarnik Ghat… if you go to Kashi, a dozen bodies will be burning right there, and a dozen bodies will be waiting in queue. That sounds horrible to you?

Most of them have come to die in Kashi, a few of them have died elsewhere and the relatives have brought them to Kashi because these are people who believe. You know even if somebody dear to you is dead, you still take them to the hospital, isn’t it? Isn’t it so? Yes? Just in case. So just like that, people who have emotions do these things. They bring dead bodies and burn it in Kashi, hoping that something will happen. This tradition came simply because every generation saw hundreds of enlightened beings living in Kashi and it became the greatest core of learning.

Time 87:47

If you do no know this, this may well be, you know, controversial, but there are records in Kashi that Jesus visited Kashi after his crucifixion. There are records which clearly say - they refer to him as Cristo, a man called Cristo came from Jerusalem and he had bad wounds on his body especially his hands and legs and he came there and studied with people for a long time. There are records like this in Varanasi.

So Kashi means the holiest of the holy. So that is the main Kashi, what we went to yesterday… what we left today morning is Uttarkashi, Uttarkashi means the northern Kashi. What we went the other day, just after Kedar is Guptakashi, the secret Kashi. Nobody is supposed to know about it. All these Kashis have very powerful lingas which are referred to as jyothirlingas. They are self-created, they were not created by anybody, they are self-created, they grew out of the earth in the form of a linga. People recognized it and worked upon it to make it into something else. So this is Guptakashi, because it is very much in line with Agasthiya’s way. Sadhguru chose that temple to stay and do sadhana. I think I have already told you this story.

So for our meditators, people who have been initiated in the Isha way, Guptakashi would be very vibrant and available because I have laid my eggs there, lots of them. So that space is always more conducive for our people who have been initiated in the Isha way, because they will be more receptive to that kind of thing than something else. Uttarkashi would be a very different proposition for you because it belongs to a completely different world, though somebody who feels it says it feels just like me. Yes, it is true but that face of me you have not seen yet.