Sadhguru answers a question about where the mind is located in the body and explains that it is not just the brain that is responsible for intelligence, every cell in the body has phenomenal intelligence. He explains that intelligence is everywhere in the existence.

Full Transcript:

In yoga, we don’t see the mind being in any one particular place because in yoga we see a human being as five sheaths or five layers of bodies. These are known as Annamaya kosha, Manomaya kosha, Pranamaya kosha, Vigyanamaya kosha and Anandamaya kosha. Translating it into English would mean, Annamaya kosha means food body. The body, the physical body that you have is just the accumulation of food that you have eaten. It is something that you gather. Manomaya kosha means a layer of intelligence which is capable of accumulating knowledge. But there is a layer of intelligence. It is not here (Gestures) or here (Gestures), here, somewhere. Every cell in the body has its own intelligence. Yes or no? If a bacteria or virus enters your body do your cell phones call you up on your cell phone and ask you whether to welcome them or destroy them? They will just do what they have to do because they have their own intelligence.

So intelligence is all across. Accumulation of knowledge is all across. When I say this, people will always think, generally the thought is memory means it’s in your head. No, no, no. Your body has a million-fold more memory than your mind. Right now, your great grandfather’s nose is sitting on your face because something in the body remembers. Isn’t it? Yes or no? A million years ago how your forefathers looked, unknowingly still your hair is like that, your texture of the skin is like this, your complexion is like this. Your body remembers. Your body remembers a million-fold more than your mind can ever imagine. So, both in terms of intelligence right now what is happening in a single cell in your body, can you logically, mentally or intellectually decipher what’s happening in one cell in your body? One molecule of DNA what’s happening is too much to know.

So the intelligence and the memory in the body is way beyond what happens in the bone box that you call as your head. It is just that this part (Gestures) of your intelligence can generate thought and because you have become very attached to your thought, you think intelligence is all coming from here. No. This (Referring to the rest of the body) is exuding much more intelligence than your brain can ever think of. This is the science of yoga. One dimension of it, let me speak about a very small aspect of this. Essentially one aspect of yoga means understanding the geometry of existence. When I say the geometry of existence, for example, this solar system is functioning the way it’s functioning, one thing is all this life including yourself you are all solar powered, aren’t you? Yes or no? (Students acknowledge).

Student: Good evening, Guruji.

Sadhguru: I haven’t finished my answer. I’m just staring at people who are staring at me.

Student: I’m so sorry.

Sadhguru: Shall we do only questions, no answers? Are you solar powered or no?

Students: Yes.

Sadhguru: You are. Everything, all life on this planet is solar powered, isn’t it? I was, you know like about six weeks ago, I was in a open helicopter, we were just at about 4,500 feet, everybody knows every thousand feet, so much temperature drops, so you prepare for that and go. But suddenly it became extremely cold, so cold that we had to come down. So we were just discussing because the cloud cover came, suddenly it became so cold we just couldn’t stay there. So we were just discussing if sun disappears how long would it take for the earth to freeze up. In our calculations we thought maybe six months, maybe three months, something. Then when I came down, I just checked out, in eighteen hours all the oceans on the planet will be frozen solid rock; it will be frozen into solid ice in just eighteen hours time. So you clearly know that sun is the basic source of energy. Everything in this planet is solar powered.

So, the geometry of the sun, the planet, the moon and the other planets has a role to play in everything that happens upon this planet. All life is associated with this. You must have, have you heard of a word called Hata… Hata Yoga? Hata means, ha means sun, ta means moon. It is a science of sun and moon. How this sun and moon is related to us, everything is happening within us accordingly. Only because our bodies are aligned with the cycles of the sun and the moon, we can exist here and the planet is moving around the sun, not diesel powered. It is just the perfection of the geometry, isn’t it? If it loses its geometry, it’ll fly off the orbit. So it is the perfection of the geometry which is making the solar system work. It is the perfection of the geometry which is making the universe happen, the galaxies happen. So the whole universe is a geometrically a perfect condition. When it loses its geometry it ceases to exist.

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So accordingly there is a certain geometry to this. If you arrange yourself in a certain way, if you just learn to sit in a particular way - to give you an analogy, maybe many of the young people are not exposed to this these days. There was a time when your Tata Sky and Reliance and other things were not there, we used to have an aluminum contraption on top of our homes. So you are watching your favorite cricket match, suddenly your TV goes boop, boop, boop. Then you go up on the terrace, and if you do like this (Gestures) it won’t come, if you do like this (Gestures) it won’t come. You have to get it right. If you just get it right, you get a sixer in your house. You remember those things, the antenna?

So similarly this one (Gestures), if you just learn to hold it right, if you understand the geometry of this body, just learn to sit right, everything that you wish to perceive in the Existence can be perceived. Just adjusting a piece of aluminum, the whole world poured into your sitting room. When that is so, this is a much more sophisticated machine. If you just learn to hold it right, you can perceive the whole Existence the way it is. You can download the cosmos if you want. So, based on this is the science of yoga. Understanding the geometry of the Existence and getting your own system into a perfect harmony with that. Now when you say ‘intelligence’, when you say ‘mind’, I believe you are referring to intelligence, if you are talking about the thought process that essentially happens in the neurons in your brain, which we know. But if you’re talking about mind as an intelligence, it is just all over in this body and everywhere in the Existence.

The very earth that you walk upon is tremendously intelligent. Have you ever seen that you’ve planted a mango tree and by mistake it goofed and produced a coconut? Did it ever do that? No such thing ever happened. Just its neighbor is producing coconuts, by mistake did it ever produce a coconut? Such a nut they have… Nature has never produced, isn’t it? But employing your logical intelligence many times, you end up into that kind of situations. So you need to understand this, both in terms of intelligence and memory, every cell in your body carries much more than your whole brain carries. One cell in your body, one molecule of DNA carries information that your whole brain cannot decipher, that much information it carries. What happened in the last few million years it remembers and still manifesting, isn’t it? So it is not in any one place. Not even just within you, it is all across you. The whole Creation is just intelligence.