BOOK REVIEW                         SPIRITUAL
MORE THAN A LIFE
SADHGURU
AUTHOR: ARUNDHATI SUBRAMANIAM
REVIEWED BY: RATNADEEP BANERJI

The clairvoyant Guruji

Has mysticism become redundant? Many believe mystics to be an extinct species like the Tyrannoauras rex, says Arundhati Subramaniam. She remained distraught as several intriguing questions integral to life and death evaded her until her encounter with Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. She found him an embodiment of ’Dhyanlinga’ that consecrated radiant energy into a yogi, an integral part of Isha yoga programs devised by Sadhguru. The book is tailored for endearing such truth-seekers who remain flummoxed and flabbergasted with the rigmaroles of life. The book is weaved in the form of a brilliant dialogue between the Guru and his protégé, a ‘seeker’.

Incredulously, Swami Nisarga then in college, first saw the Guru wearing a T-shirt and jeans, riding a motorcycle with no iota of a stereotyped imprint of a yogi. Swami Nisarga is candid about it – ‘it is hard to fit Sadhguru into the category of a Spiritual Master in an established sense of the word. ’But then a forty-minute tête-à-tête brought a tailspin. And then in a span of sixteen long years of association found his own self a different man. People reel under the predicament of discovering the right guru. Sadhguru declares, ‘you cannot chose a Guru. Deepen your longing and the Guru will choose you’.

Sadhguru outpours ‘a unique perspective on a world you knew’; the readers have hardly ever beheld such an esoteric profundity. Enlightenment appears a generic term to some while others feel it intangible. Mysticism remains incorrigible to the masses, a jargon to reckon with metaphysics. Arundhati puts it succinctly, ‘refracted through the mystic eye – a lens of exceptional insight and piercing clarity – it is a world transformed’. And that’s the boon of having a guru’s tutelage. ‘And in a riveting culmination to the book, Sadguru unfolds the story of his life mission, a saga of extraordinary commitment and courage that spans three lifetimes. The result is the Dhyanlinga, the dream of countless yogis down the centuries…’

‘Sadhguru’s ways are very unorthodox’ like a non-conformist. But ‘Sadhguru’s abrasive ways have always fostered growth’. His amiable nature casts a wondrous effect. ‘His uncanny sense of humour not only delivers the message, but also gives the seeker the much needed break from the monotony that often sets in. The book has several short poems by Sadhguru. In one such poem Sadhguru tells who he is. ‘…I was born like you, I eat like you, sleep like you and I will die like you but the limited has not limited me….become love and reach out become me!’

Sadhguru recounts his occult prowess as well as about metaphysical science. He abhorred going to schools. Since his fifth and sixth standards he would skip school and instead he trek up on the mountains and remain on the highest branch of the tree where he remained the whole day. ‘Just sitting and swaying there on the branch, after some time, something used to happen to me. At the time, I didn’t realize what it was. He reminiscences that, ‘my mother would be stunned when I could describe situations and conversations that I witnessed when I was three to six months of age. Even as a child I was thinking the same way as I do now’. The readers find drifted in a metaphysical world, they might have ever since yearned to peep in. The book gives an uncontrived inside-out view

The book ‘offers an unprecedented glimpse into the world of a contemporary mystic, a prodigious living archive of knowledge’ . The course of enthralling discussion ‘touches on every conceivable question that a seeker might nurse about the realm of the mystical’. All those niggling doubts are put to rest.