On Fire: Sadhguru on Sadhguru Sri Brahma and the Seventh Hill

Questioner: Namaskaram, Sadhguru. I have been to the Seventh Hill, and I found the energy there was strongly different compared to any other place. Can you speak a little bit about that?

Sadhguru: Sadhguru Sri Brahma was not a nice guy. He never called anyone by name – he only said, “Eh!” “Eh” was the one name for everyone. People were terrified of him, just because of the way he was. But at the same time, they loved him immensely. That is the beauty of contradictions.

They did not love him because he was nice to them. They loved him because they could not help it. Thousands were drawn to him. He set up 70 institutions in Tamil Nadu, within a short span of time. He mostly travelled around and spent very little time in one place. But wherever he went, people gave lands and things to him so he could set up institutions. They did this because they could not help loving him, not because he was nice to them.

The energy at the Seventh Hill is very different because Sadhguru Sri Brahma left his body there. His whole focus in life had been to consecrate the Dhyanalinga. But in spite of all his inner capabilities, lack of social skills destroyed the project. The society turned against him and made sure he could not do it. When this happened, he wanted to check why this project failed, if something was wrong with his energy system. So, to do this, he left the body through all the seven chakras.

This applies to everyone – if something in your life does not work, the first thing is to check yourself, if there is something wrong with you. The problem with most human beings is, if something does not work, the first thing they do is blame someone else. You should first look at yourself. Pay absolute attention to every aspect of your life and see why this has not happened in a successful manner. Something may not be okay with you. Only after checking this and being sure that everything is okay with you, you see if there is some other factor that is messing it up.

Sadhguru Sri Brahma was immensely empowered and lived almost miraculously. You may have heard of some of the things that he did, like walking through a locked prison door or making a boy walk on a lake. Things like that happened around him on a daily basis. People saw him as godlike, but they were terrified of him, because he seemed to be always angry. He was not angry with anyone – he was simply ferociously intense. Sadhguru Sri Brahma was like fire – simply on.

When people gathered around him just before he went up the Seventh Hill for the last time, he said, “This one will come back again.” One who leaves his body through all the seven chakras is referred to as Chakreshwara. That means he has complete mastery over his energy system. Even today, about seventy years later, the energy there is alive and on like it happened yesterday. The energy is so crazily intense that it just blows you away.

This time around, our social competence has improved. I consciously civilized myself to the extent that is necessary to function in society. Today, we have social skills, which we lacked then. Because of the intensity of energy that he carried, other things did not seem important to him. He thought that what people in society think does not matter. But do not underestimate the power of ignorance. There is power to knowledge, but there is tremendous power to ignorance.

Many things in the world do not move forward because of people’s ignorance. No matter how hard you try, ignorance is like an anchor – it will not let even the biggest ship move. This time around, I took care of the ignorant from the beginning, treating ignorance with respect. He treated ignorance with disdain. If someone said something stupid, he just kicked them. He did not understand the democratic process. The majority is always ignorant, and they have the power.

The Seventh Hill, Velliangiri Mountain

He ignored that, because he thought with this intensity of energy, everything will happen. And when it did not work, he tried to check out if his energy was not good enough. So he left his body through all the seven chakras, which is a very rare phenomenon. This Velliangiri Mountain is one of the rarest places on the planet – you will not experience that kind of energy anywhere else.

Editor’s Note: Shivanga literally means “Limb of Shiva,” and is a 42-day period of sadhana. The process includes an initiation into Shiva Namaskar and a pilgrimage to the Velliangiri Mountain. The next initiation will be on Guru Purnima, July 31. More information at Shivanga.org Initiation will be offered on January 28, 2021, throughout many cities in the world. The sadhana culminates on Mahashivratri on March 11, 2021, at the Isha Yoga Center. A version of this article was originally published in Isha Forest Flower July 2015. Download as PDF on a “name your price, no minimum” basis or subscribe to the print version.