Japan K Pathak

What would strike in your mind when you hear the term ‘Isha Yoga Center’ of the Isha Foundation? Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, Adiyogi statue, or those annual Mahashivratri celebrations. But once you visit the place, or stay there, the answers to this question shall also be ‘peace,’ ‘tranquillity,’ environment,’  ‘spiritual exploration,’ ‘simplicity,’ ‘culture,’ and on the top of them all, ‘service.’.

Someone from an arid region of Gujarat, the first sight that attracted my attention from the window of the flight itself just before landing at Coimbatore airport was the range of the Nilgiri mountains, which is part of the Western Ghats located at the trijunction of the three states Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala. The arrival section of the airport features statues of an elephant family, Nilgiri Tahrs (the state animal of Tamil Nadu), Bull (the star of the Jallikattu festival), and a number of posters featuring butterflies found in Nilgiri.

Coimbatore is the second largest city in Tamil Nadu. It has a population a little more than Vadodara in Gujarat. Isha Yoga Center is located over an hour’s distance from the airport. If the two-lane road connecting Coimbatore to Isha Yoga Center was four- lanes, the distance between the two could be a little over half an hour.

The vehicles of the outer world stop outside the Sarpa Dwar, or the Welcome Point of the Isha. No petrol/diesel/gas vehicle is used within the 150-acre Isha premises. You would find the movements of specially designed bullock carts (not the conventional ones), silent battery vehicles, and a few bicycles only in the Isha Yoga Center space. The bullock cart, having a specialised steel body design, is pulled by a single bull. You may not find it at any other place. Battery vehicles are mostly battery-run bikes that are used by the volunteers. Also, there are some 3-wheel battery-operated service vehicles. This contributes greatly to peace and tranquillity within the premises.

In fact, there’s a great emphasis on importance of silence here. And no, it’s not forced or mandated, but it’s the sheer magic of the place, that the visitors automatically adopt soft and required-only speaking, if not complete silence.  A volunteer living here shared interesting practice. He said he would observe  one-week silence, once every three months like many others. The silence is not just muting self’s voice, but it is about pausing all communication – so no mobile phone, no written notes, no conversation through a body language or postures during this silent period. Isha Yoga Center offers a hanging tag that informs others that you are observing silence. No one would ask you anything, and everyone would cooperate then. The only communication one generally does during the silence period is – while having meal, one can use palm sign to seek or deny the food being catered by other Volunteers.

We all have experienced noisy restaurants and lunch/dinner events. Isha’s Bhiksha hall cater meals to 2,000 persons at a time. Though silence is not imposed here, 2,000 people having meal together in a single hall, and complete silence is something akin to seeing is believing. Meal is served after ‘Sahana Vavatu ….’ shloka chanting. I had Satvik and tasty millet food served by volunteers. No spoon or bowl. Everything would be placed in a dish. One would consume food using hands, very much in accordance to our traditions. Some chairs and tables are placed for old-age and physically needy persons, but overall the people would sit in a cross-legged position on the floor on bamboo rug. The food is offered for free to all here. After completing meal, the people would dump banana peel(or peel of whatever fruit was served) and unconsumed food to designated containers and then wash their dishes. There are specific timings of meals in Bhiksha hall. For those who miss the timings, there’s a restaurant in the campus, which also caters Satvik food at very reasonable rate.  On the night of Maha Shivaratri,  lakhs of people gather at Isha, and Maha annadanam is offered to all of them.

One things that caught my attention was scores of barefoot volunteers walking across the Isha campus. Again it’s not imposed but volunteers and Yoga practitioners prefer to do it in order to stay in touch with Dharti mata (soil). A volunteer told me that after some initial period, our foot start adopting the way.

Isha has over 700 volunteers in addition to some Brahmacharis (sadhus), visitors, full time, part time, short term volunteers and residents – totalling around 4,000. They are the full-timers. They come from across Bharat and the world. Some are full-timers for a specific period. Some are willing to spend whole life here as full-timers. A Volunteer with whom I conversed told me how happy and content he is with this Isha Yoga Center life. He said his parents do visit the place and stay here. He too visits his home at least once in a year. He also told me how Shambhavi Kriya made him a better human being and how it benefitted even his family members. I could see that not just most Volunteers, but most of Yoga enthusiasts and visitors to Isha were young ones and they were taking deep interest in spiritual exploration selfless service and alternative life.

Leaving worldy affairs to chose the path of service, spirituality, simplicity and purpose has been very much the part of our civilisation. We couldn’t get rishis, sages and numerous saints including Swami Vivekananda and Rama Krishna Paramhansa otherwise. The system of full-timer volunteers is in fact in foundation of any spiritual and service organization. Forget Sanatana, how one can imagine even Christianity without fathers and nuns! On service side, how can you imagine RSS without Pracharks and Vistaraks. Our Prime Minister also left his home to become Pracharak (full time volunteer). At present, the person from whom we are worried about, Chinmoy Krishna Das who is in jail for voicing against atrocities on minority Hindus in Bangladesh also left worldly life for a purpose and became an ISKCON volunteer first and then saint. Can we imagine Shivaji without his Guru Saint Ramdas, or Krishna without Guru Sandipani? I am discussing this here because this very system of leaving worldly life and getting dedicated to Yoga Center was dragged to put under attack recently. 150 Police men including 3 DySPs of Tamil Nadu police raided the Isha Foundation Yoga center, and held extensive questioning and search, but found nothing objectionable and stated same in its report submitted to the court. Isha Foundation completely cooperated with the police. The truth triumphed eventually. The Supreme Court bench led by the Chief Justice of India intervened and restrained Tamil Nadu police from taking any further action against Sadhguru’s Isha Yoga Centre.

I had an opportunity to converse with and observe number of young Volunteers at Isha during my stay. So soft, humble, eager-to-serve and pure persons they were. On this increasingly greedy and rate-race oriented planet by-and-large, Isha is an island, and there’s no surprise if number of talented youths chose to live on this side of the wall and spend life for a purpose.

One thing I continued to admire during my stay was its architecture and landscape. A huge part of the space is occupied by utility, open and green space. You might have seen a lot of homes with a large wall poster depicting nature’s beauty. The entire campus of Isha Yoga Centre has forget poster, an actual Velliangiri hill as its background. Isha Yoga Center is located on foothills of green and dense forest of Velliangiri hills. The buildings in the Yoga Center such as the one in which I stayed ‘Nalanda’ were excellent amalgamation of light, space, requirements and nature. The use of lot of natural light, plenty of open space, layers of greenery, blending of each component (be it a carefully designed door handle or snake-theme railing or native water craft theme center pieces or wood-covered water bucket or the sign boards), carefully curated sculptures and more. When you are in Ashram, you must feel like it’s an Ashram. And architecture and design would play a major role in it. To adopt the modern construction ways and still making sure that its vibes match with the ancient concept of Ashram must have been a challenge while conceiving and designing the layout of this Yoga Center. The job nevertheless has been done well.

I found sheer design, architecture and aesthetics of some buildings here very well executed. Linga Bhairavi Mandir was bit under the ground. The oil lamps on its side wall, a left-leaning impressive Trishul in the Central porch opposite the Garbha griha, serieses of little bells and jaali above the head. I inquired who conceptualizes such design, and the reply I got was ‘Sadhguru’. Only women function as priests in Linga Bhairavi mandir. I observed many of women volunteers and visitors were wearing Linga Bhairavi lockets. I consumed two types of Laddus outside this temple that were offered for Rs. 20 each. A foreign lady was also offering a specialized flavored milk outside the mandir called Pasayam. There’s a stall outside this mandir which sells items of offering. Many were tying  a vibrant yellow color thread on Trishul in the mandir.

More to architecture – to imagine  the structure such as Suryakunda itself deserves huge admiration. Sadhguru has indeed executed it. Kundas are found in many ancient temples (Modhera in Gujarat as an example). But most ancient kundas no more serve their purpose, as they are not maintained to serve their purpose. The tradition of building a Kunda opposite the temple was eventually abandoned and we hardly see Kunda in the mandirs constructed in recent centuries. With some modifications, the system is revived by Sadhguru at Isha Yoga Centre. A huge Surya Kunda is located opposite the Dhyan Lingam mandir for males (for women, there’s Chandra Kunda which is located next to the Dhyan Mandir). One needs to take a shower and get a dark saffron cloth before entering the Kunda which is below the ground after several steps. No swimming or conversation is encouraged. There’s a waterfall in Surya Kunda and three Shivalingas under the water.   A deep inside the Kunda was the best experience while staying in the Isha Yoga Center. Once you are back to changing hall, there’s no towel offered there. You need to wear your cloths again on wet body only. But that doesn’t make much difference, I observed. There’s a Naga mandir on the central pillar of Surya Kunda building. The kunda is covered by a huge roof with Sun God’s motif in the Centre. I observed many young ones from varieties of countries doing Yoga in Surya Kunda building. Some were making bird sound with their mouth open and tongue outside. I was told they were doing Kriya yoga. Some were standing in various Yoga postures. Some were occasionally making loud sound of Omkar. The United Nations has declared 21st June as the International Yoga Day, but at Isha, and particularly at this location of Surya Kunda, everyday looks like the International Yoga Day due to very organic global participation here on its own daily.  I swear, seeing is believing.

At the heart of the Isha Yoga Centre is the Dhyan Linga another unique piece of architecture, especially from the inside due to a dome as if it is carved from inside. People come here, observe silence and sit in Dhyana mudra for as long as they wish, before a tall Shivalinga located in the center. Those who can’t sit in a cross-legged position (mostly senior citizens) are given a small sitting stool. The space has low light, and barring the sound of birds and the Yogis( doing Yoga with some sound in the Surya Kunda building), it’s a mute place dedicated to Dhyana. Perhaps it was the vibes of Isha space that even after hectic overnight travel and subsequent busy day, I woke up at 5 am on my own and went to Dhyan Mandir at 6 am and spent an hour there.

I must admire soft prohibition on taking photographs in the Isha campus. I am saying soft prohibition, because it is not imposed strictly. Suppose if selfies and clicks are allowed, then every person is having mobile camera nowadays. And so at every place, be it the Nandi murti, or that lake full of White and Pink Lotuses, or that Yoga hall, or at Surya Kunda, or that Trishul inside Bhairavi Mandir, or those canopies, people would gather and create a jam to click selfies, may be to shoot videos, may be videos in minus five zoom out and plus three zoom, and panaroma, and may be live video call to show the scene to family and friends and may be a solo click and then a click with the friends or with a group! And how awkward the Yoga practitioners would feel when scores of people click them while their eyes are closed. I was fortunate enough to attend the Pran Pratishtha ceremony of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir. For that day, the cameras were allowed inside the mandir, and then there was a chaos for a few hours. People would click and shoot and take selfie and live video calls and what not, and the queue would not progress! I must note here, that those with ‘content creator’ tag are allowed to click and shoot. Such tag is given very rarely to only deserving persons who have prior apply for the same.

Isha Yoga Centre has also Samskriti and Samskriti Akhara facilities as well. A fine concept of preserving, conserving and move forwarding the cultural traditions, such as classical music, classical dance and the skills of ancient martial art. I could see with pleasure a group of school girls singing Tamil songs of devotion. I also saw the teen-agers learning and practicing classical dance from Gurus. Then there’s Samskriti Akhara where all those interested can learn Kalaripayattu, the ancient Bharatiya martial art. The soil floor for Kalaripayattu is deliberately kept below the surface to keep it cooler, because while learning and practicing Kalaripayattu the body would generate heat. The students of all age from surrounding tribal villages could be seen trying to learn Kalaripayattu. Some well trained showcased their skills. A teen-age girl would in standing position raise her foot palm to hit her raised hand and generate the sound of clap! I tried this, but my foot palm couldn’t go up beyond knee height even. I could witness the lathi daav, sword & shield fight and more!

The Adiyogi murti is located across the road and not exactly a part of the main campus of Isha Yoga Center. Lot has been written about Adiyogi murti, so I am not going into the details of it here but let me share what I imagined. I had an imagination that Adiyogi bust – which is the world’s largest bust as per the Guinness Book of Records – is not just a bust, and the rest of the part of the body of Adiyogi is below the surface. Hundreds and thousands of people visit Adiyogi darshan, especially in the evenings, so that they can also witness a brilliant light and sound show.

Isha Yoga Center physically has its boundary, but its activities have no boundaries. If I pick up just the surrounding areas as a test case, there are scores of outreach and service activities offered by Isha Foundation.  A sports event organized by Isha and joined by thousands of villagers was attended and admired by Bharat Ratna Cricket star Sachin Tendulkar himself. A crematorium service is also set up and offered by Isha Foundation. There’s a cow farm at some distance away from the main campus, where over 1,000 cows from all over Bharat are kept for conservation of breeds. I could meet Gir cows from Gujarat and feed them.

The star and the center of attraction of this conservation farm was also from Gujarat. He was a bull named ‘Bhola’. Kankrej by breed, he enjoys special bond with Sadhguru. I am told that when Bhola arrived here from Gujarat, he was very aggressive and full of anger. Then came Sadhguru who put his hand on it and gave him a name ‘Bhola’ and conversed with him, and then Bhola adopted its present calm and composed nature. I could see, number of visitors would chose to click a selfie with Bhola.  I had one-way conversation in Gujarati with Bhola. I asked him in funny manner – ‘hey Bhola, you are from my Gujarat. Don’t you miss fafda, chutney, khaman, dhokla, khandvi in this Idli – Dosa land? If I was in know in advance that I would meet a fellow Gujarati here in remote rural Tamil Nadu, I could bring some Gujarati dish for you! You are placed like a Star here among these 1,000 cattle. Do well, and behave well, and keep shining the name of Gujarat here.’ I was offered a jaggery sweetened special milk in this Gau Shala which is called Sukku. I also spotted cow-dung made diyas made here. I further found them being used at Bhairavi Linga mandir.

I also visited an English medium school Isha Vidhya, run by Isha Foundation where I am told, sixty percent children are offered free education, as they belong to tribal families from surrounding villages. The school, though located in interior rural area of Tamil Nadu, has superb building with all facilities, that one may not find even in urban areas. There’s an Atal tinkering lab here, the students talk about Robotics and try their hands at Drone and software languages. The black boards in shapes of animals, the smart class rooms with video screens, life-learning messages all over the walls and also on the steps, a distinct architecture bringing sun light to lobbies across the floors, number of school-buses to pick up and drop the tribal students. The national anthem and devotional song from speakers at the end of the day in the school buildings, a large school-campus for sports. Sadhguru runs total 10 schools. 9 of them are in Tamil Nadu and 1 in Andhra Pradesh.

Of course, the movements like Save Soil, mega tree plantation drive( I too planted seeds at Isha nursery and touched soil perhaps for the first time after childhood) , Farmer Producer Organization (FPO) and more initiated by Isha Foundation, benefit the closest group of people around Isha Yoga Centre more than anyone else.

My stay at Isha Yoga Center ended with a joyful dance by volunteers on the song Alai – Wave of Bliss   . Shivang(31), a volunteer from Gujarat, with whom I quite befriended during my two days stay also joined the dance, but somehow I was reluctant to join them immediately and the dance song stopped. May be on my next visit someday there, I too would dance on Alai Alai song with others.  DeshGujarat