At the meeting point of three sacred rivers, where celestial rhythms and geography align, millions are converging for the 2025 Mahakumbh Mela – Earth’s largest spiritual congregation. Sadhguru unpacks the sophisticated science behind this ancient festival – one that turns the confluence of waters into a spring of transformation.
Question: Sadhguru, what is the Kumbh Mela actually all about? Is it just a tradition, or is there a deeper science and significance behind it?
Sadhguru: We must understand what the Kumbh is. The word “kumbh” literally means a pot or pitcher. This is one of the most fantastic cultural phenomena on the planet. During the last Mahakumbh Mela in 2013, on one day, 3 crore (30 million) people gathered in one place – men, women, and children, from all walks of life. Everything went smoothly without any commotion. It was incredible, almost self-managed.
The Kumbh Mela comes from a fundamental dimension of Yoga referred to as bhuta shuddhi, which means cleansing the five elements in our system. Everything in the universe – this body, planet, solar system, and cosmos – is a play of just five elements. This shows the brilliance behind creation. Life has taken trillions of forms – all from just five ingredients.
The elemental composition of this body is such that around 60% of it is water, 12% is earth, 6% is air, 4% is fire, and the remaining is akash [1]. For one to live well here, water plays the most important role because 60% of this body is water, and 72% of the planet is water.
Modern science has shown that water has enormous memory. Water is not a commodity; it is a life-making material. The water you drink is taking the form of a human being. It has memory and intelligence – if you treat it well, it tends to behave well; if you treat it badly, it tends to behave badly.
The Kumbh, or this science of making use of the confluence of rivers at certain latitudes, did not come from belief or blind faith. It came from keen observation of how life and the different forces around us function, and how we can make use of them. In this context, the centrifugal force that the planet generates because of its spin, between the equator at zero degrees latitude and 33 degrees latitude, largely works in a vertical manner.
For this reason, the region from zero to 33 degrees was known as the sacred land on the planet, because spiritual sadhana yielded maximum results here. Wherever two water bodies meet with a certain force, it creates a churning of water. Because the human body is over 60 percent water, being present at such a location at a particular time during a specific nakshatra in the solar cycle provides maximum benefits to the body.
The story is that someone was churning the ocean to get the elixir of life. Initially, poison came to the surface, which Shiva drank, and that is why he turned blue. Had it gone into his body, it would have affected him; so, his wife held his throat to stop the poison there, and his neck turned blue.
Then the churning produced an elixir, and everyone scrambled to get their hands on it because it was supposed to give you immortality, supernatural powers, or enlightenment. During this melee, the elixir spilled in four different spots. These became the locations where the Kumbh Mela happens – Haridwar, Prayagraj, Nashik, and Ujjain.
In ancient times, people understood that if you stay at the Kumbh for a mandala of 48 days, take a dip every day and do the appropriate sadhana, you could transform your physical body, psychological framework, energy system, and, above all, find enormous spiritual growth within you.
Today, it has become more of a quick, half-day visit where you take a single dip. I would say that if you go to the Kumbh, do so for a minimum of three days with 21 days of preparatory sadhana. Sit in a cross-legged posture twice a day for 21 minutes – once in the morning before the sun rises above a 30-degree angle (before 9:00 a.m.) and again in the evening after the sun goes below 30 degrees from where you are.
If you want to hold a mudra, you can do so, but it is not necessary. Chant the Mahamantra AUM Namah Shivaya correctly, with great involvement, for 21 minutes.
When it comes to the inner mechanics of human beings, no other culture has ever looked at it with the profoundness that this culture has – and I say this without cultural bias.
The Kumbh Mela should not become just another ritual where a huge number of people gather, but a transformative process. It is my wish and my blessing that the Kumbh Mela should become a huge step in awakening the world to this possibility.
