Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev or Sadhguru as he is commonly known is the founder of Isha foundation. He seems to have been a jolly-good, adventurous person leading a pretty care-free life till his spiritual experience at the age of 25.
At the age of 25 on 23 September 1982,
He rode up Chamundi Hill and sat on a rock, where he claims to have had a spiritual experience. He describes his experience as follows:
“Till that moment in my life I always thought this is me and that’s somebody else and something else. But for the first time I did not know which is me and which is not me. Suddenly, what was me was just all over the place. The very rock on which I was sitting, the air that I breathe, the very atmosphere around me, I had just exploded into everything. That sounds like utter insanity. This, I thought it lasted for ten to fifteen minutes but when I came back to my normal consciousness, it was about four-and-a-half-hours I was sitting there, fully conscious, eyes open, but time had just flipped.”
Six weeks after this experience, he left his business to his friend and traveled extensively in an effort to gain insight into his mystical experience. After about a year of meditation and travel, he decided to teach yoga to share his inner experience.
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In 1983, he conducted his first yoga class with seven participants in Mysore. Over time, he began conducting yoga classes across Karnataka and Hyderabad traveling from class to class on his motorcycle. He lived off the produce of his poultry farm rental and refused payment for the classes. A usual practice of his was to donate the collections received from participants to a local charity on the last day of the class.
