Patna: Spiritual guide and Isha Foundation founder Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev said here on Saturday that for India, and for any society or its states, to be great, it is necessary that its people also emerge as “great human beings.”“If we cannot have great human beings, then we can never be a great nation, We are not going backward, but we have to move forward faster,” Sadhguru said at a spiritual congregation of people of Patna organised at Bapu Sabhagar.While the occasion was called “An evening with Sadhguru,” a questioner, during the brief interactive session, asked him what the way out was for Bihar, which was facing its nagging problem of out-migration to other states for work, after he had finished his spiritual discourse. As a sign of improvement in society, Sadhguru said the average age of people in the pre-Independence period was 28 years or slightly more, but at present it was 72 years.In reply to a question from a female multi-tasking entrepreneur on how best to “calm one’s mind,” he advised that such stressed people should use only 50% of the words they normally use, if they have to “have focus on work, consciousness and also the calm of mind.”Indeed, his two-hour spiritual discourse was dedicated to tracing the course of a life of a person, male or female, from birth, through youth, the chase of success in life, earning high income, and having buildings for living and habitation, while also pointing out that the life of people, in spite of all achievements, was “stressed,” because their achievement amounted to “just being castles in air.” Using the metaphor of the womb, he said, “All are born from mothers’ wombs, and then they are out in the womb of mother earth after which the signs of stress are born out of their physiological (body) and psychological states of being.”“The mother nurtures the child in the womb, and similarly, mother earth nurtures the person with all her elements, but the real point is how best to become good human being,” Sadhguru said, adding that the process involves developing spiritual insights into one’s life to transform from “animal creaturely life” to “good and great human being” that is free from stress. He did not deny or denigrate the lives that people live, but insisted on having “seven minutes of meditation every day for having a miracle” of transformation in life.He also presented the spiritual yoga practice for people, and called it “seven minutes of meditation for a miracle.” It involved “closing one’s eyes to get into state of consciousness, not feeling the body, paying attention to his words uttered during meditation, noticing the breath, followed by five minutes of deep breathing laced with attention to nostrils, followed by 10 minutes of still more deep breathing, and attention to nostrils...”He, in between, praised the cultural and intellectual legacy of Bihar and Patliputra encompassing the age of Mahavira, Gautama (Buddha), Karna, Gargi and Guru Gobind Singh. He called Bihar the “crucible of the country’s intellectual and spiritual life.”abhayarpana@gmail.com
