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Sadhguru (born Jagadish Vasudev, 3 September 1957) is the founder and head of the Isha Foundation, based in Coimbatore, India. The foundation, established in 1992, operates an ashram and yoga centre that carries out educational and spiritual activities. Sadhguru has been teaching yoga since 1982. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy and Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny, and a frequent speaker at international forums.

Sadhguru also advocates for protecting the environment against climate change, leading many initiatives like Project GreenHands (PGH), Rally for Rivers, Cauvery Calling, and the Journey to Save Soil. In 2017, he received the Padma Vibhushan, India's second-highest civilian award, for his contributions to spirituality and humanitarian services. Also in 2017, Sadhguru unveiled the Adiyogi Shiva statue, the worlds largest bust, in Coimatore, India.

Early years

Family

Jagadish Vasudev, commonly referred to as Jaggi, was born on 3 September 1957 in Mysore, Karnataka, India. He was the youngest of five children to Susheela Vasudev (mother) and B.V. Vasudev (father). His father was an ophthalmologist at the Mysuru Railway Hospital and his mother a homemaker.

Vasudev married his wife, Vijikumari, in 1984.[4] In 1990, Vijikumari and Jaggi had their only child, Radhe.[4] Vijikumari died on 23 January 1997.[5] Radhe trained in Bharatanatyam at the Kalakshetra Foundation in Chennai.[6] She married Indian classical vocalist Sandeep Narayan in 2014.

Education

After completing his formal education, Vasudev was uninterested in post-secondary schooling. One year later, however, he enrolled at the University of Mysore, where he studied English literature. While studying literature, Vasudev received second rank.[3] Although his parents wanted him to continue his education with postgraduate studies, Vasudev disagreed and began a career in business.

Work

After graduating from the University of Mysore, Vasudev went on to build his first business, a poultry farm, in Mysore.[9] Vasudev explained that his motivation to start a poultry farm was driven by the serenity it yielded in the hours he wasn't working.[3] The business required minimal attention throughout the day, so Vasudev was able pursue other interests during his time off, like writing poetry.[3] The business grew profitable, but his family repeatedly criticized and opposed his decision to work with poultry.[3] This led Vasudev to enter the construction industry with a company named Buildaids.[3] He started the company in partnership with a friend, who was a civil engineer. Though Vasudev had no formal engineering training, he used the experience gained from building his poultry farm in his new endeavour.

At the age of 25, after a series of spiritual experiences, he shut down his businesses and began to travel and teach yoga.

In 1983, he taught his first yoga class, in Mysore. He began travelling across Karnataka and Hyderabad on his motorcycle, conducting his style of yoga classes, known as Sahaja Sthiti Yoga, subsisting on the income from his poultry farm rental and donating the funds received from his students.[8]

Personal interests

In his earlier years, Vasudev had a love for driving motorcycles.[3][10] One of his favourite places to drive was the Chamundi Hills in Mysore, though he sometimes drove much further, including to Nepal.

Spirituality

Although Vasudev was not brought up in a spiritual household, he recollects one of his first spiritual experiences occurring after he turned 25.[8] On 23 September 1982, he drove up Chamundi Hill, and as he sat on a stone, Vasudev had his first spiritual experience.[3][8] He explained that, "All my life I had thought, this is me...But now the air I was breathing, the rock on which I was sitting, the atmosphere around me — everything had become me."[3][8] After about six days, Vasudev had another similar experience at home.[3][8] Six weeks later, he left his businesses and travelled extensively, in an effort to seek insight into his spiritual experiences.[8] After about a year of meditation and travel, he decided to teach yoga to share his inner experience. In 1992, Sadhguru established the Isha Foundation[11] as a platform for his spiritual, environmental, and educational activities.[12][13][14] In 1993, he began searching for a location to establish an ashram to cater to growing interest in his yoga classes.[3] In 1994, he purchased land near the Velliangiri mountains in the Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu, and inaugurated the Isha Yoga Center.[3] Since establishing the Isha Foundation, he remains its head. The foundation's activities are run mostly by volunteers.[15] The organisation offers yoga programmes under the name Isha Yoga.[16] The foundation aims to improve the quality of education in rural India through an initiative called Isha Vidhya.

Environmental activism

Through the Isha Foundation, Sadhguru has launched several projects and campaigns focused on environmental conservation and protection, including Project GreenHands (PGH), Rally for Rivers, Cauvery Calling, and Save Soil.[18][19][20][21] Sadhguru established PGH to address water and soil issues in Tamil Nadu through reforestation efforts.[22] Launched in July 2019, the "Cauvery Calling" campaign focused on planting trees along the Cauvery river's 0.65-mile wide area to replenish water levels in the river and the groundwater table.[20][23][24] In 2017, Sadhguru launched "Rally for Rivers", a campaign intended to build widespread support for river revitalization efforts across India, similar to the "Cauvery Calling" campaign.[22][25] In 2022, Sadhguru completed a 100-day motorcycle journey from London to India to bring attention to his "Journey to Save Soil" campaign, which focuses on raising awareness about soil degradation issues and the benefits of using organic matter in farming.[21][26]

In May 2022, he addressed the leaders of 195 countries at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification to speak about "Journey to Save Soil".[27][28] Both Trevor Noah, host of the The Daily Show, and podcast host Joe Rogan, have invited Sadhguru to discuss this movement.[21][29] On World Environment Day 2022, Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, attended an event with Sadhguru to discuss efforts to improve soil health.

The UN FAO has stated that "90% of the Earth's precious topsoil is likely to be at risk by 2050".[31] However, views have been divided on whether the "Save Soil" movement is addressing the issue.[32] Maria Helena Semedo, deputy director-general of FAO, opined that "Organic [farming] may not be the only solution but it's the single best [option] I can think of."[33] Environmental watchdogs disagree with Sadhguru's approach, accusing him of "greenwashing".

Speeches and writings

Sadhguru has authored over thirty books, including the New York Times bestsellers Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy[35] and Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny.[36][37][38]

Sadhguru is a frequent public speaker who has been invited to address many prestigious forums and conferences across the globe, such as the United Nations' Millennium World Peace Summit, the British House of Lords, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the International Institute for Management Development.[39] He has also spoken at the annual World Economic Forum in 2007,[40] 2017 and 2020.

Honors

In 2017, Sadhguru was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest civilian award from the Government of India, in recognition of his contribution to the field of spirituality and humanitarian services.[43][44][45] The same year, Sadhguru unveiled the Adiyogi Shiva statue, built by the Isha Foundation, in Coimbatore, standing at 34 metres (112 feet) tall. This was declared as the world's largest bust by the Guinness World Records.

He stood 92nd in The Indian Express' list of 100 most powerful Indians in 2012 and 40th in India Today's list of fifty most powerful Indians in 2019.

Sadhguru has received attention from celebrities, political leaders, intergovernmental organizations, and members of the public interested in his social and environmental campaigns and spiritual teachings.[29]

Criticism

Some critics have said that Sadhguru shares the ideology of the Bharatiya Janata Party's Hindu nationalism (Hindutva).[29][50][51][52] Sadhguru has also spoken in favour of the 2019 Balakot airstrike, the introduction of a comprehensive GST, and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, while denouncing the Thoothukudi protests as a peril to industry.[53][54][55] Vasudev accuses leftist liberals of aiding and abetting militancy in Kashmir and has suggested that Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid, known for their involvement in the JNU sedition row, should be put behind bars.[56] Some critics have questioned the non-political label that he has assigned himself.

Sadhguru has also been accused of promoting pseudoscience and misrepresenting science.[57][58] He propagates the claim, unsupported by science, that cooked food consumed during a lunar eclipse depletes the human body's pranic energies.[59] He also perpetuates numerous myths regarding clinical depression and opposes the potential prohibition on the use of mercury in traditional Indian medicine, despite the substance's extreme toxicity. His views on the Higgs boson and alleged benefits of vibhuti have been rejected as unproven by science.

Sadhguru has repeatedly claimed to be able to solidify mercury at room temperature; these claims have been debunked.

Courtesy – Wikipedia
- Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

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