What happens when a human life has witnessed 1,008 full moons? Here, Sadhguru unveils a little-known spiritual phenomenon: how reaching the age of 84 fundamentally transforms the software of human existence.
From why some children seem inexplicably disinterested in life to how our energy patterns shift from circles to straight lines, he explores the hidden mechanics that determine who gets reborn – and who breaks free entirely.
Questioner: Namaskaram Sadhguru. You have mentioned that a person who has lived for 84 years or more will not be reborn. Can you please elaborate?
Sadhguru: People always try to reduce every aspect of life to simplistic logic. There are many aspects to this. If one crosses around 82 years of age, one’s physical body has seen 1008 full moons and arrives at a certain state of conduciveness. The life within starts undoing its software, breaking the compulsive tendency toward cyclical existence. This does not necessarily mean that such a person will definitely not be born again. They may come as a little freaky software, where if they do very little, they can easily go beyond.
When we talk about living beyond 1,008 moons, it is not about what you can or cannot do. You may not be able to run, climb a tree, or do certain other things. But in terms of perception and experience, you are still a full life, retaining all your faculties. You can hear, smell, taste, touch, understand, decipher, remember – because if any one of these things fails, you are not living totally. Suppose your hearing is gone, an entire dimension of existence is lost. Or if you cannot see, the whole dimension of vision is gone in your life.
If you are living a full life, then at 1,008 moons, the integrity of your interactive software is largely broken – it has opened up. Once this happens, the tendency of life to be cyclical is mostly gone, and it starts to travel straight. For example, particles in the universe would move in a straight line if there were no resistance. The same applies to planets and even the whole universe – unless something pulls them in, causing them to go around another object. Today, we know that entire galaxies are curved; nothing is going in a straight line.
If you are living a full life, then at 1,008 moons, the integrity of your interactive software is largely broken.
In the process of life, when you are under the influence of something outside yourself, your life naturally goes in a curve. A curve means you are preparing for a circle. We call this samsara. Because your memory works in segments, you do not remember the whole curve. Each segment that you remember looks like a straight line, which makes you think you are going somewhere. But you are not going anywhere – you are going in a cycle.
Sahasra Chandrodayam ceremony for Maa Vanasri at Isha Yoga Center, marking the completion of 1,008 full moons in her lifetime.
The idea is to break that cycle so that your energies do not curve anymore. If one completes 1,008 cycles of the moon, the influence of the outside on one’s energies or software becomes much less.
You can see this happening to people over 84 or 85 years of age – their characteristics change dramatically. Suddenly, their anger, excessive attachment, or other compulsive tendencies go away, and there is a certain freedom about them – if all their faculties are intact.
You can see this happening to people over 84 or 85 years of age – their characteristics change dramatically.
Today, many people in the West are living beyond 85 years of age, but at least 20 to 30 percent of them have lost their memory. In India, we are not there yet, but we are also moving in that direction, particularly in urban areas. For people who have lost their memory, being 84 or 85 is not significant.
But for those who have kept their faculties intact, their characteristics will change without any effort, because the software that was tight loosens up as outside influences reduce. The life process begins to straighten out, rather than follow a curve. If they live in a sense of awareness, it will straighten out very quickly; otherwise, it will straighten out slowly.
Based on this, we say that if someone lives past 1,008 cycles of the moon, they are heading for liberation. When they leave the body, it does not mean they are liberated, but they are heading in that direction if the software has loosened up without completely straightening out. Without the body, the need and compulsiveness to get back to a new womb is considerably lowered. A womb seeks fresh, vibrant life, not a life that is simply floating around. They will not easily find a womb, but sometimes they do.
I should not say this because some of you may start judging everything you see, but you will find that some children are born with a certain disinterest in everything. It is not that anything happened to them, nor is it due to psychological reasons. If children under 12 are not interested in play, colors, or things that move rapidly – if they are not excited about anything they see, hear, smell, or taste – either this is a being who crossed 1,008 moons but did not straighten out enough to not be born again, or it could be a sage. But a sage will display a different kind of quality, not just disinterest; they will show interest in other kinds of things.
Reaching 84 years of age is not a guarantee, but it definitely opens up a possibility.
Those children who have no interest in anything, whom you have to goad to play or make things happen, will find expression only after the age of 35. When they reach close to 480 moons, they become vibrant. Their disinterest might give them the advantage of observing things without participating. By the time they are somewhere between 460 and 480 moons, they may suddenly become wise.
This has happened to many people: At first, everyone thought they were good for nothing, but by the time they were 35, they suddenly matured and started doing something that others could not even imagine. So, reaching 84 years of age is not a guarantee, but it definitely opens up a possibility.
