A certain group of people, claiming to be liberals, feel threatened today by India’s spiritual Gurus as the former’s hypocrisy gets systematically exposed by the latter. Recently, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev had spoken in a public meeting where he called himself a ‘leftist’. Since then, the so called liberals have been feeling uneasy with the latest to join them being Carnatic singer T M Krishna, who considers himself to be a champion of democracy, dissent, social justice and communal harmony. He resorted to a desperate tirade against Sadhguru after the latter mentioned that he is far more left than anyone can imagine.
Nobody knows what Mr. T.M Krishna is trying to do here but his attack on Sadhguru seems more like a tactic to be in the limelight, which is pretty sad for a man of his stature. It appears as if Mr. Krishna engaged in his diatribe without having much clue about Sadhguru’s work on social and spiritual fronts. By this, Krishna has just confirmed what Sadhguru has said about people of his ilk, that they cannot be accepting of anyone else’s opinions. If there was indeed a healthy debate on this ‘left’ versus ‘right’ wings in India, all social segments could benefit with new insights coming to the fore.
However, resorting to abuse and name calling indicates nothing less than a sore, defeatist and attention-seeking mindset. Be that as it may, it will be a beneficial exercise to present to such people about Sadhguru’s work and logically conclude (with the same metrics that they use) that spiritual Gurus like Sadhguru are leftists/democratic socialists/communists in the true sense unlike the armchair ones.
#1: Liberal Thought Process
At a spiritual level, Sadhguru’s thought about adhering to Dharma is that it has to come out of personal experience of transcending human limitations and by considering oneself like a mother to the whole world. Can there be a more liberating thought than this? Here is a person asking people to think beyond boundaries of caste, class, race, gender, religion and any other schisms to embrace all.
Often, the people of the so called right in India, take offense to Sadhguru that he does not refer the Hindu scriptures in his discourses or speeches. But he has always maintained that he wishes to share knowledge from personal experience rather than basing it on any scripture, however sacred it might be. Does that sound like Jiddu Krishnamurti, the world teacher known for his radical approach to life and living?
This thought process is a straight fit into the European model of liberalism which is considered to be the strictest such form across the world. Can people even argue that this stand of Sadhguru cannot be considered as liberal?
#2: Transformation Through Education
Sadhguru’s Isha Vidhya schools have more than 5000 rural children in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh studying in scholarships, providing them FREE, high quality, English medium, computer-based education for over two decades now.
Isha Volunteers have also been providing educational support for more than 1 lakh students and hundreds of teachers in Government schools in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh with better educational models and by providing learning aids.
Isn’t the idea of free education and transformation of the society through free education one of the fundamental ideals of leftist philosophies? Does TM Krishna know about the existence of such schools?
#3: Transformative Healthcare
Isha’s rural health clinics and rural mobile vehicles have been treating thousands of patients in surrounding villages for free. So far, more than 5 million people have been treated for various medical disorders free of charge across 7500+ villages.
Even today, when people visit Isha’s rural health clinics, they carry no money but only the bright hope that someone is going to take good care of their health. Isn’t such free provision of healthcare a core leftist ideal? Why don’t we see anyone talking about that?
#4: Free Food and Community Relief Operations
Whenever disasters have stuck in South India like the 2004 Tsunami, Gaja Cyclone, Chennai Floods, etc. Isha Foundation volunteers have provided extensive financial, food and medicine support to the vulnerable populations.
Even during the COVID relief operations, thousands are being fed daily since the beginning of April 2020.
Every day, thousands are served food at the Isha Yoga Centre. Anybody can walk in and have food. Nobody asks or is even interested in knowing about one’s background. People are seen as people. During Isha’s biggest spiritual events like Mahashivratri and Guru Pournami, lakhs of people are offered free food by the volunteers.
#5: Individual Empowerment
Sadhguru’s Isha Foundation has its main motto as “to raise every human being to the peak of their potential, so that they are exuberant, all-inclusive, and in harmony within themselves and the world” — which definitely is the highest level of individual empowerment.
So far more than 90000 people across rural Tamilnadu have been taught Yoga for free through Isha’s Action For Rural Rejuvenation efforts. Apart from this, millions of people’s lives have been changed through the FREE online yoga offerings of UpaYoga, Isha Kriya, etc. by Sadhguru.
Not just asanas but one is also taught on how to live life joyfully, how to come out of stress, how to engage constructively in the society as a volunteer.
Many people who identify themselves with communist ideals have appreciated these efforsts. Only people who have had no real inclination for communist ideals or have had no experience whatsoever with Isha’s spiritual programs cannot see the connection between these. They are just good at posturing themselves for personal or political gain. Or just to gain acceptance to a certain elite crowd who inherently hate people like Sadhguru. People who have experienced both will surely appreciate their inherent resonance.
Now one may ask what about the paid yoga programmes offered by Isha? Well, people who have the means and are ready to pay, pay for the service and get benefitted. People across the world have benefitted health-wise through these programs. How else would Isha be able to fund its social initiatives?
Isn’t distribution of equity in society from the richer to the poorer segments one of the core objectives propounded by Karl Marx? Shouldn’t Sadhguru be lauded for achieving this?
#6: Social Upliftment
Isha Foundation has been doing phenomenal work in social upliftment, especially in rural India, through several of its initiatives like Action For Rural Rejuvenation.
Gramotsavam, the rural olympics conducted by Isha Foundation, has witnessed rural folk coming together for sports crossing the chasms of caste, religion, gender and what not, to erase these boundaries of humanity that kept them separated for generations.
Isn’t it a dream of every leftist to see a society sans any caste or religious discrimination? Why do some people complain when Sadhguru is achieving it right in front of our eyes? Are they blind to such realities or do they choose to keep their eyes shut?
#7: Environmental Initiatives
The fantastic tree sapling creation and plantation efforts through Isha’s Project Green Hands have turned many a wasteland into green oases in Tamil Nadu. More than 3 million saplings have been raised and planted through this project so far.
The Rally For Rivers movement has been instrumental in bringing about changes to the National water policy and river rejuvenation across India. States like Odissa have already made significant strides in taking this to the next level.
The Cauvery Calling project aims to better the lives of farmers in Cauvery river basin by helping them move to AgroForestry and also achieve plantation of 2.42 billion trees in the basin for rejuvenating the river through community involvement.
The Farmers Producer Organization (FPO) wing of Project Green Hands has changed the lives of 1000+ farmers involved in it in Coimbatore. For the first time, farming has become a lucrative career option, providing hope for a major demographic segment of Indian population.
Such environmental initiatives have been appreciated by World Economic Forum. Sadhguru has participated in the UNFCCC COP in 2019. Anyone with common sense would understand that such highly reputed international bodies don’t invite fools to deliver an address on Climate Action and Reducing Human Footprint.
#8: Self-sustaining Businesses
Isha Crafts is an amazing community business model where craft products are made by tribals and rural folk trained by the Isha Foundation in a small scale/cottage industry model. Many might not know this – the dresses that most people at Isha wear comes from Isha Crafts primarily.
Proceeds from sales of these artistic products to general public go almost entirely towards taking care of the financial needs of the very people that make them — tribals and rural folk from nearby villages. Hundreds of villagers have been trained in vocational jobs like this by Isha Foundation for making their own living.
#9: Promoting Gender Equality
Nearly half or more of the monks and people holding authoritative positions at Isha Foundation are female. There is no gender discrimination of any sort in any of the programs conducted by the Foundation.
The LingaBhairavi shrine in Isha Yoga Center has only lady priests, called Bairaginis, who tend to the deity and conduct all the rituals.
With all the talk of communism and socialism for centuries, I do not see many such places elsewhere either in the east or the west.
#10: Community Living and Social Equality
Isha Yoga Center is a place where more than 3000 people live. Everybody has the same rules. There are no rich or poor at the ashram and everyone is treated the same way, irrespective of their social background.
The Adiyogi Shiva statue or the meditative space of Dhyanalinga are among the only few places in India where no social / gender / racial / caste discrimination of any sort is followed. People from all walks of life come here and benefit from yogic practices they can learn.
Highly qualified people and a person who has had no formal education volunteer cheerfully in the same place for the same activity. No one frowns upon the other based on social status or qualification. You would not even know who is rich and who is poor by looking at the volunteers.
Everyone at the ashram consumes food at a place called Bhiksha Hall — bhiksha means an offering given by someone. So, the entire community comes together to have food in a common place. Everyone is served the same food irrespective of social status.
For residents at the Isha ashram, even the living quarters are in the same way and no one bickers about more facilities. Every person, despite their age, race or gender, shares responsibility for the entire community and goes about their allocated volunteering tasks.
So, this illogical argument of TM Krishna of “upper-caste privileged milieu where markers of discrimination are brushed under the carpet” has no basis clearly — and it perplexes anyone with sanity as to where caste comes into this at all.
#11: Participating in Democratic Processes
Sadhguru has always encouraged democratic voting and has NEVER EVER asked his disciples to side with any political party. He works with all the governments across India when it comes to policy making.
His ‘Rally For Rivers’ and ‘Cauvery Calling’ projects are prime examples of that. There is a centrist government in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, a so called right wing BJP government in Karnataka, and a communist government in Kerala and all of them work with Isha Foundation for environmental initiatives with equal enthusiasm.
Having elaborated on all this, let us now look at the main objections the naysayers have with Sadhguru.
#1: The opposition claims he is always siding with BJP Government. If that is the case, why should Isha work with a communist government in Kerala that is dead opposed to the BJP at the centre?\
#2: The next major objection seems to be that Sadhguru does not support protests or support the people protesting.
Sadhguru has expressed his dissent openly to the government at times on certain policy decisions and has also constructively provided feedback to the government entities on what they could do better. But he is definitely against violent forms of protests like burning the buses, blocking of roads, etc. because that causes disruption to public life.
This is a country that is governed by rule of law. Sadhguru advocates adhering to the rule of law, going to the courts, media, etc. to express dissent in a democratic system. Just because he does not encourage violent protests, under the guise of standing for democracy or dissent does not mean that he discourages expressing concerns of citizenry.
Or is it necessary that one has to instigate people to turn against a democratically elected government to be qualified as a ‘communist’ or a ‘liberal’?
TM Krishna, quite laughably, claims that we achieved our independence only by protesting on the streets. Cliché. Can T.M. Krishna atleast try to come up with something better? What the likes of T.M. Krishna don’t get is that the independence was fought against an oppressive foreign rule that held power without democratically getting elected. Why would any sane citizen fight his or her own government (and inconvenience hundreds or thousands of his fellow citizens) with violence when far more peaceful and easy means of expressing one’s concerns exist in the current democratic process? Also, if the present regime was an oppressive one, they wouldn’t have a got a thumping majority consecutively.
For someone who claims to believe in participatory democracy, the only participation that Mr. T.M. Krishna can be seen to be doing is protesting in arenas and shouting viscerally against the government, his peers and against the society in general. Nothing productive has come of his ‘participatory democracy’ except for him participating in events sponsored by his ilk.
For most people, living their lives by just one or two of these ideologies is enough to blow their own trumpets for a life time as leftists. But Sadhguru has quietly gone about his work doing something productive and changing people’s lives for the better. Just one statement of his has made people like T.M. Krishna go bonkers.
In any other communist country, people like Sadhguru would be lauded for the service that he has been doing. In India though, he has to put up with mindless hatred and abuses from people like Mr T.M. Krishna who like to bask in the limelight by posturing as a liberal.
Now, this write up may be brushed off as written by a ‘bhakt’ or a ‘sanghi’ or some volunteer of Isha targeting Mr. T.M. Krishna to shut him up. To leave no room for that, it is important to highlight that the author of this article believes in communist ideals and cherishes liberal values.
(Views expressed are the author’s own)