What is initiation?
‘EVERY ASPECT OF LIFE CAN BE USED TO IGNITE SOMETHING IN SOMEONE’
QUESTIONER: Pranam, Sadhguru. You said that with Inner Engineering, you have established an initiation process, and also that sitting at the dhyanalinga can initiate one into a spiritual process. So, what types of initiations are there, and what does initiation mean?
Sadhguru: There are a billion ways of doing it. Every aspect of life can be used to ignite something in someone. It is just that some are conducted formally, the rest are done in different ways. What is happening here is called
darshan. This is not a discourse, but unfortunately, we end up talking, because most people do not know how to simply sit. But darshan means to just behold.
In Indian culture, no one goes to a temple to pray. They go for darshan, because they want to imbibe that energy form. They want to take that form into themselves, so that it stays with them and works for them from within.
Darshan is a kind of initiation.
To use an analogy, take an induction motor. It has all the parts in it, but even if you put electricity into it, it will not work. It needs induction. Induction is a certain kick, and suddenly the machine starts off. Similarly, whatever is there in me is there in you, but it does not work without induction. We can do induction in many ways. We do it in gentle ways. If you don’t get it, we will do it in formal ways. If you still don’t get it, we will kick you in the butt. “Yogaratova Bhogaratova,” Adi Shankara said. That means, somehow get it.
If life was a million years long, we could do it in very aesthetic ways. But life is brief. Before you know what happened, it will be gone. There is an urgency. Because there is an urgency, we do it in such ways so that you do not miss the point. But still, there are hard nuts, so harder ways are needed with some people. But actually, if you are really, absolutely open, just sitting here should be enough for an initiation, but it does not work like that for everyone. People take things in installments, so we do initiation in installments. That is why there are so many programmes – Inner Engineering, Bhava Spandana, Samyama, and other kinds of initiations that I am doing with different types of people.
When we first trained people to deliver a spiritual process to other people, we started formalising the initiations. If it was only me, I would not have done any formal initiations. But we regulate the formal initiations to make them manageable and repeatable. Formal initiations became a necessity because we wanted it to reach far and wide.
If you have just come for the first Inner Engineering, we initiate you in one way. If you come to Bhava Spandana, it is a series of initiations – three days, non-stop, so that you cannot miss it. If you come to Samyama, we do another, very powerful series of initiations. But human beings do not just want to have a spiritual experience – they also want to be competent of doing something in particular. Depending on that, we will initiate you in a certain way. There are initiations for brahmacharis, for Bhairagini Maas, and many other varieties of initiations that I am doing informally.
Many of you who have sat in various satsangs with me would have noticed that every time, it feels different, because depending upon what we are doing that day, depending upon the time of the year, the time of your life, and what is needed right now, I will do it differently. As many forms of life there are, that many kinds of initiations we can do.
■ Ranked among the 50 most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary and bestselling author. He was honoured with the Padma Vibhushan, India’s highest civilian award, in 2017, for exceptional and distinguished service.