Related Stories ‘State Govts have no autonomy, Centre should simply grant funds and leave spending to states’‘HP has Rs 1,50,000 cr in forest wealth, yet we are in debt. We should be compensated for our forests’‘The question is whether India’s dynamism of economic growth is matched by equivalent dynamism in political extroversion’‘There are many stars, few actors and fewer brands. I am happy to qualify for the last two’‘There’s no single area you can clamp down on to curb inflation. You have to use many measures’

 • We are in Velliangiri Hills, the foothills on the outskirts of Coimbatore, and my guest this week is Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, sometimes described as a Monk on a Motorcycle, but today the Monk in a Land Rover.

It’s no more a Land Rover; it’s a

Tata now.

• But you are an unusual mystic.

I think every mystic has been unusual, always. If he is usual, why will he be a mystic?

• But when you describe yourself as an unusual mystic, and an unusual among all mystics, in that case, what makes you unusual?

The usual belongs to people who imitate. Only if you imitate somebody do you become usual.

• But by definition, do mystics imitate?

No, but if scholars could imitate, sadhus and sanyasis could imitate too, because they are followers of a certain order. A mystic is someone who is coming from his inner understanding and inner experience, so there is no question of imitation, so he looks unusual while actually he is just natural. Because people are used to so much of repetitiveness in everything, if somebody just comes out from his own nature, people think he is unusual.

• So what makes you different? What is it that sets you apart?

See, I don’t come from any scholarship. I have not read the Vedas or the Upanishads. I just confess I have not read the Gita.

• It’s not a confession many in the business would want to make.

The only thing that I know is this piece of life, absolutely. If you know this piece of life, absolutely, you know almost everything that is worth knowing.

• And how have you learnt about this piece of life?

Just by looking inward, nothing else.

• Tell us a little bit about your experiences. You started out as a regular guy.

Even now, I am pretty regular.

• Except maybe the beard.

The beard is a very regular thing. It grows on all men. It is very unfortunate that people think it is very irregular; people have cut it and shaped it in different ways, and that is irregular. This is the way nature made you. I don’t think nature made any part of your body that is not necessary.

• So would you rather that all men have long beards?

No, this is not a prescription. I am not trying to make a fashion statement or something. All I’m saying is that, when you make your system sensitive, when you make it work at its peak, then everything matters. The smallest disturbance to the system makes a lot of difference. You must try to explore the other dimensions of life.

• How? The implication is that you must have your mind and body on track. But a track of what, and what does it mean to be there?

You can use the system. Just like a biological entity, for eating, sleeping, reproducing and dying one day, you could use the system as a ladder to the divine. In the sense, use the system as a stepping-stone to go beyond. If you are using the system to explore dimensions that go beyond your experience, then you have to keep it in a certain way. How you eat, how you sit, how you stand and how you breathe — everything becomes relevant to you. The whole system of yoga is based on this. I’m not teaching people to sort out their life; I’m teaching them how not to mess it up.

• What did you study, Sadhguru, and where?

Not much. I went to the University of Mysore. Not really. I didn’t do much education.

• Tell us a little bit about your early days.

One thing about me was, since I was three or four months of age, my memory was such that somehow it set me apart: I carried information which other children probably would not. What colour sari my mother was wearing. What she was talking about to somebody. My being in a crib. I remember all those events even today.Either I never was a child or I never grew up. I started looking at life in a different way. I was a sceptic: nothing ever made sense to me. I never entered a temple. My family was never religious, but once in a while, they’d go to a temple. When I was five, I had questions, and if they couldn’t answer those questions, I wouldn’t enter a temple. They never got around to answering those questions. One thing is that I never let myself be identified either with a family or with the culture or the religious process that was happening around me — or anything, for that matter, which kept me looking in a certain way. When I was 11, by a simple process, I happened to learn yoga and I kept the practice up. I finished university, got into business, and was doing well for myself. To be peaceful and happy was never an issue.

• What business? Poultry framing, I believe, once.

I trekked extensively, cycled across south India when I was 15 or 16. Later, I graduated to a motorcycle and criss-crossed the country. I went to the Nepal border, the Pakistan border, but they wouldn’t let me cross without papers. I had dreams of travelling across the world on a motorcycle. So I decided to do business, and since poultry farming was blooming, I decided to go for that — from scratch. My father was a well-known physician and for him it was a no-no. I did it all on my own and it came up well. I made money, got into the construction business and then various other businesses. I made enough money for myself. But then on a certain afternoon, between two business meetings, when I had nothing else to do, I just rode up to Chamandi hill near Mysore. Three o’clock in the afternoon and I just went and sat there. Just went and sat on a rock, a huge rock, and my eyes were open and till that moment I thought: this is me. Suddenly, I did not see which is me and which is not me. What was me was just all over the place. This might sound ridiculous and illogical but this was my experience and I thought this lasted just for five-ten minutes, but when I came back to my senses, about four and a half hours had passed. For the first time in my adult life, there were tears in my eyes. I cried so much that my shirt was wet. I was blissed out and every cell in my body was burning with ecstasy.