Strong identification with (and excessive concern about) our physical body is the biggest impediment to realizing our ultimate potential. Sadhguru discloses how in the process of devotion, you can actually become god-like.
Sadhguru: Those who have enormous concern for their own wellbeing always have some problem. This excess concern about yourself is there because you have a clear idea “this is me.”
If you sit here and breathe, you know the air that you breathe is vital for your existence, but you cannot keep holding a certain amount of air in your lungs and say “this is my air.” It is a constant transaction.
The respiratory process shows that what you believe is you in this moment, is not you in the next moment, and vice versa. The same is true with the very flesh and bone of your body. If you eat a banana, it turns into a human being within you.
This can become a much deeper experiential reality for you through devotion to a particular deity, especially a feminine form. It can help you experience an entity other than you as a part of yourself.
If you culture your identity in this manner and do not distinguish between this and that, it will give you a phenomenal capability because the deity is created as an energy form – she does not have the physical issues you have. Devotion is a kind of tantra. In other parts of the country except southern India, tantrics are largely worshipers of goddesses, like Kali, Bhairavi, Durga, or other forms.
When two individuals really connect energy-wise, there will be an enormous capability in them. It rarely happens, and I have witnessed just a couple of situations like that in my life. But when people are connected energy-wise, suddenly you will find they are hugely empowered.
If your sense of physical boundaries is largely removed because of your devotion, practice, or ritual that you perform, and you get connected, energy-wise, with a powerful deity, you become “two-bodied” – one is your own body with your own energies, another is a powerful form. This will empower you and could be used in so many phenomenal ways for your own growth and everyone’s wellbeing.
The idea of putting brahmacharis for a period of fourteen to fifteen days in the Dhyanalinga[1] is that they develop such a relationship that they are hugely empowered just by being in the presence. And the same goes for Linga Bhairavi – we want the same people to be there, hoping that one day, they will not be limited to the boundaries of their physical body but become an embodiment of both at the same time. Then, everything about them will change.
[1] Refers to Linga Arpanam – the two-week period a brahmachari spends taking care of the Dhyanalinga space.
Scientists today are beginning to admit that if you do the right things, the fundamentals of human genetics can be altered. The way you look, your physical structure, and the very way you think, feel, and experience life can be altered if the necessary work is done. It is easier if it is done from childhood, but it is also possible to do it later. We have seen many people here whose face and eye shape and everything change with a single initiation because genetics need not be a permanent influence.
The karmas and kriyas we do for the dead are mainly to distance ourselves from our genetic source. The genetic source fixes the boundaries of your body, but that is not a divine line. The boundaries of the body are essentially fixed by how deeply identified you are with your genetic source.
You need not have been born together, but if two people identify with each other too much, they will make a genetic contact, and this is called runanubandha. That is why the yogic system says, “Always sit alone; never touch anybody.” Because if you touch someone in certain moments, it will create a genetic relationship, which we do not want in the spiritual process.
A devotee identifies with and wants to establish a relationship with a non-physical form in such a way that it breaches the boundaries drawn by the genetic material of one’s physical body. Once your physical boundaries are breached, all the capabilities that are enshrined in that deity become available to you.
There are sophisticated ways in tantra to do that, which could greatly enhance the individual’s growth and benefit everyone else around. My great-grandmother used to do tantra with the ants. If the ants ate, she felt full and nourished. I have seen such people.
Devotees have this experience. If they do their pooja and prasadam to the deity, they feel nourished. You will see a lot of devotees who barely eat and are still fine. That is because they are deeply engrossed in the deity; the physical boundaries of the body have been breached and nourishment happens in different ways.
Devotion is not just about emotion. Emotion is supported by the right kind of processes that take away the pins which demarcate the map of your body and allow you to transact with something else. It is best to choose a higher entity than yourself to breach your boundaries with. Achieving that will significantly enhance your competence.
