BODY, THE GREATEST GADGET, is an introduction to the most sophisticated and incredible device on the planet. In the course of this book, Sadhguru explores the yogic physiology and the many subtle dimensions of the body. It is a first step on an intriguing and exciting journey that culminates in total mastery of the system, allowing us to stay rooted in the physical, and yet taste the beyond. Above all, the book is a glimpse of a possibility to live and function in a way that most human beings would consider superhuman.
Sadhguru is a yogi and profound mystic of our times. An absolute clarity of perception places him in a unique space in not only matters spiritual but in business, environmental and international affairs, and opens a new door on all that he touches.
Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic and visionary. Named one of India's 50 most influential people, Sadhguru's work has touched the lives of millions worldwide through his transformational programs. Sadhguru has a unique ability to make the ancient yogic sciences relevant to contemporary minds. His approach does not ascribe to any belief system but offers methods for self-transformation that are both proven and powerful.
An internationally renowned speaker and author of the New York Times Bestseller Inner Engineering, A Yogi's Guide to Joy, Sadhguru has been an influential voice at major global forums including the United Nations and the World Economic Forum, addressing issues as diverse as socioeconomic development, leadership and spirituality. He has also been invited to speak at leading educational institutions, including Oxford, London Business School, IMD, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Wharton and MIT. In February 2017, Sadhguru was the recipient of the Padma Vibhushan Award by the Government of India, the highest annual civilian award, accorded for exceptional and distinguished service.
Dedicated to the physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing of humanity and gifted with utter clarity of perception, Sadhguru possesses a perspective on life that never fails to intrigue, challenge and surprise all those he encounters. Sadhguru established Isha Foundation, a non-profit, volunteer-run organization operating in more than 300 centers and supported by over 11 million volunteers worldwide. Through powerful yoga programs for inner transformation and inspiring social outreach initiatives, Isha Foundation has created a massive movement dedicated to addressing all aspects of human wellbeing.
Sadhguru has also initiated several projects for social revitalization, education and the environment through which millions of people have been given the means to overcome poverty, improve their quality of life and achieve community-based, sustainable development.
In the fall of 2017, Sadhguru initiated Rally For Rivers, a nationwide campaign aiming to implement sustainable and long-term policy changes to revitalize India's severely depleted rivers, which found great support among India's people and leadership. With over 162 Million individuals pledging their support, Rally for Rivers is the largest ecological movement in the world to date. In the fall of 2019, Sadhguru launched Cauvery Calling, a uniquely modelled project that focuses on enhancing farmer wealth while simultaneously impacting river flow and riverine ecosystems. It will enable farmers in the Cauvery basin spanning Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, to plant 2.42 billion trees.
In the United States, Isha Foundation is headquartered at the Isha Institute of Inner-sciences in the Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee, Isha Institute is established as infrastructure for raising human consciousness and offers a variety of programs that provide methods for anyone to explore and experience the yogic science in its full depth.
I, hereby, list down my Top 15 learnings from this awesome book. These learnings are worded and appended in a way that makes it easier for most of us to understand and absorb.
So, here we go with our 15 greatest lessons from this book that influenced me immensely.
1/ A human is not a being; he is a becoming. He is an ongoing process – a possibility. If there is any limit to what we can achieve and become, to the possibilities in life - that limit is created by us and no one else. Our mind is as powerful as we think it is. [ Recommended Book --> 'Dream' On by Manoj Arora]
2/ Right now, your idea of who you are – your sense and experience of who you are – is very strong. You are here as an individual, but what the trees exhale, you inhale, and what you exhale, they inhale. Or in other words, one half of your lung is hanging up there. Without it, your lungs within would be dysfunctional. Yet, in your experience, you think this individual is everything. As an individual, we cannot achieve much- rather it is difficult to survive beyond a few seconds. If we are so dependent on the world around us, then there is no place for ego and self centeraism in case 'you' achieved anything.
3/ Reading a book to know about yourself is silly. You are here, alive and kicking! It is alright if you are reading a book to get inspired to take a step inward, but if you want to know something, you must look inward. The entire knowledge of the universe is zipped inside you. You may look out for some specific information,but this informationis useful only if you have visualised it inside, connected it inside to some thoughts, beliefs qand actions in life. The power will come from experience the outside information inside.
4/ What about your system? This is the gadget. Every damn gadget has come out of this. What percentage of this gadget do you think you are employing? It is well below one percent, because for your survival process, to conduct your life in the material world, you do not even need one percent of your system’s potential. Your body is capable of perceiving the whole cosmos. We are much more powerful than anything outside us. Survival is not what we are here for. That is extreme underutilisation of our capabilities.
5/ Any animal in nature – whether a worm, insect, bird or animal – is made far more capable than you. The human body has come with a different capability altogether.
6/ Most human beings instead of looking beyond the needs of survival, have just raised their standards of survival. We are raising the bar, but it is still only survival. This is an unintelligent way of using the human mechanism which has come with a different possibility altogether.
7/ The quality of your life is decided not by what kind of clothes you wear, what kind of car you drive or what kind of home you live in, but by how peaceful and joyful you are within yourself. This is essentially the quality of your life. Everything else is done to get there. If this does not happen, everything else goes waste. Happy and Peaceful life for our own self is the end purpose (the root cause) of everything that we do - be it helping others, taking care of our families, charity, social work, building a great career. In the end, we are only looking for experiencing and sharing happiness.
8/ Where the receptivity is in your hand and where the giving nature of the feet is – if these two things are connected – you may achieve in a moment what you cannot achieve in years of sadhana. It is with that hope that everybody is diving for the feet all the time, hoping that somewhere they may connect. Hands are for reception and feet are for giving. That is how these sense organs have been designed. This is also where the age old Indian tradition of touching your elder's feet find its unique relevance. You are trying to recieve something extraordinary from someone.
9/ Temples were never built as places of worship or prayer. In a temple, nobody leads you in prayer as it is done in a church; you are just left alone. You are supposed to sit there, that is all. These were energy centers which handle that dimension of the impact on your life which comes from the outside.
10/ Health is not the goal of life. There are more people on this planet healthy and miserable than unhealthy and miserable. At least if you are unhealthy, you have a good excuse for your misery. Health and misery, you have no excuse Health is important, very important - but it can never be the goal or the purpose of your life. Just like money, it acts a means to achieve your end objectives. At the end of your life, you will leave both your health and your money but your mission could be carried on by the next generation.
11/ The air that you breathe, the water that you drink, the food that you eat, the land that you walk upon, and the fire of life in the form of the life force –if you keep these controlled and focused, then health, wellbeing and success in the world are assured.
12/ As a little blade of grass has shot out of the earth, you are also like that – a little mobile, that’s all.
13/ Smear the earth upon the body. By just being in touch with the earth, the system will start reorganizing itself. The body is reminded of its own nature in a very fundamental way, and that reminder must be on all the time. Get off your high cot, just sleep on the floor. You can clearly notice that there will be a great sense of health in your body. in the first one-and-a-half feet from the Earth, the thickness of the pranic vibration is a lot more than it is above. As it goes up, it becomes thinner and thinner. Stay grounded and down to the earth - literally :)
14/ In today’s water supply system, water is pumped forcefully through a pipe, and it may take fifty bends before coming to your tap. By the time the water lands in your house, they are saying that sixty percent of it will be poisonous –not chemically, but because its molecular structure will have changed. It may not be contaminated the way you normally look at it in terms of bacteria, but just the force of travel is making the molecular structure change in such a way that it is no longer beneficial, perhaps even poisonous. If you hold this water in a copper vessel and keep it there for ten or twelve hours, the damage will undo itself. Step by step, we must keep improving. Atleast in our house, we have taken a step to drink overnight stored water from an earthen pot. We do not keep water in our refrigerator and never drink it directly from the tap. When you come to our house as a guest, this is what we will offer you as well.
15/ If with just a thought or a look, you can turn the water in a vessel sweet, then with the right kind of attitude, focus, and attention towards it, can’t you turn sweet the water in this vessel of the body? If you turn that water sweet, you are seventy-two percent sweet. Positive vibrations, thoughts and our subconcious mind can act wonders. We can charge the water we drink, and if we are 75% water - then a lot of positive energy is likely to go inside us. As it is said, our thoughts create our destiny.
Profound and witty, the book is an amazing collection Sadguru's speeches on various occasions. The book explains the body, not as a singular unit confined in one dimension, but as an instrument of liberation spanned in multiple dimensions of space and time. The literature isn't completely abstract as most spiritual masters throw, but laden with many practical examples and scientific explanations.
Starting with why this body is so important for us, Sadguru moves on to explain how our own body is a reflection of the cosmos itself and how it is in tune with cosmic cycle. Explanations on various facets of the body and its existence as an adoration of the five elements of creation gives a new perspective to look at our bodies. He also explains how the current lifestyle practices are creating an imbalance of the five elements in out bodies, tuning it out from cosmic cycle for which the end result is a disease. Contrary to the popular belief, Sadguru feels yoga isn't an esoteric art comprised of seemingly impossible and complex postures or routine for fitness but a way that can open the path ways to push your spirit into a higher levels of consciousness. For this, he says, Sadhana is the only path to reach back to the divine of which a disease free body is only the beginning.
As a beginner in Yoga this book to me was an absolute delight. It does have a lot of things repeated from Sadhgurus book on Inner Engineering but this one is much in detail. Once you read this book you will not look at your body in the same way . Someone who has been trying to find ways to cure their chronic ailments may consider this book as a boon..Sadhguru has so succinctly yet powerfully explained the relation of the body to all the five elements , the five koshas and how this simple body has the potential to download the cosmos ..
However i guess the proof of the pudding is in eating it .. this is not a book to be just read but to be experienced and all that is written by Sadhguru needs to be tested through sadhana and awareness !!
I am ever so grateful to have read this book even tho what i practically do with it is yet to be seen !
The most important aspect of your existence is your physical body. When we look at the body as an instrument, different instruments are created and calibrated for different types of activities. When it comes to physical prowess, the human body is not comparable to any animal. If you take an insect, a grasshopper for example – whatever the length of his body, he can jump almost 50 to 100 times that length. If you are five or six feet tall, you would have to jump 500 or 600 feet. If you hold Olympics by the standards of an earthworm, a termite, a grasshopper, a tiger, a deer or an elephant or any other creature on this planet, you are nowhere near that.
In terms of physical prowess, we cannot compare ourselves to any creature on the planet. But we came with a certain capability to do something beyond our instinct of survival; that is the most important thing. You as a human being can look at life and handle life beyond the needs of survival. Unfortunately, instead of looking beyond the needs of survival, all that most human beings have done is raise the standards of their survival. Survival at one time meant just getting one or two meals a day. Today, survival means a BMW! This is an unintelligent way of using the human mechanism. This mechanism has come with a different possibility.
What we know as 'we', do we know the real 'we'? This book show the real we.
Book is great. The ancient wisdom shared by sadhguru, is a wisdom that humanity for many years are in search of. The reality of who we are and what we really are- through which we can live life within ourself and outside world in a happy, sensitive, loving and holistic way.
This book is cook book, to cook best of what we are: ingredients of human body, the way it tastes, what add ons or process could be made to make it sweeter, how and why certain things are.
I have always been in awe of Sadhguru but now it has ascended a new peak altogether! We all have this impression that Yoga is a very esoteric practice and is from a different era not realising that is pure science and to break this perception who better than Sadhguru, who is extremely insightful with his incisive grasp on spirituality and unfailingly witty and pragmatic. Hoping to read more of the mystic's musings in the days to come
Jaggi Vasudev a true spiritual master. Reveals the essentials of physicality. You will know many more things and how sophisticated your body is. Thanks to Sadhguru..
The book basically talks about the non materialistic view of body where body is not just flesh and bones but of the five elements and cosmos itself. Nice read
A good book for beginner to understand how body works. Get the answers to the questions that remained unanswered somehow by our parents or grandparents.
This book is about yoga, or if I may say, ‘The Real Yoga’ and not just what we see now a days on social media. This was the first book that I read of Sadhguru. It is written just the way he talks in his interviews, clear and to the point. He explains what yoga should be. How it should be used to elevate ones self, if done correctly, how it can give control to even decide how and when you die. The word ‘yoga’ means the union, union of the individual and the universe. Throughout the book, he has explained how the Vedic culture of living was so scientifically correct and how we should again welcome the Vedic lifestyle. There are some eyewidening concepts in this book. Like the meaning of simple acts of touching feet and why we fold our hands into a Namaste instead of shaking it with other individual when we meet them, is explained in the book. The 5 elements of nature, earth, fire, water, air and space, how we can only balance these five to balance our lives. The concept of ‘memory of water’ which we recently came across in the movie ‘Frozen’ is something which our grandmothers have been telling us, and we called it superstition. So concisely, this is a must read from me.
This book covers a variety of topics broadly and gives us an idea of how this body is definitely a gadget which can be used for the ultimate liberation. Sadhguru gives an overview of the system and what it takes to cleanse it and correct it for optimum utilisation. To get a clear view, I personally feel that the chapters could've been rearranged in a more coherent order. The book includes Sadhguru answering basic doubts which most of us would get while reading the book. It is lucid, easily understandable and intriguing enough to lead us to research more about it. The book does not go in depth as to how can we achieve that perfect state of mind and body for a higher realisation. This is just the first step for a deeper research of ways and means of understanding and changing this simple yet complex system of the universe.
If you're on the hunt for a book that promotes a more responsible and sustainable lifestyle, look no further! This gem is all about living in balance and harmony, and I’m completely in love with it—seriously, I can’t say it enough: LOVE! LOVE! LOVE THIS BOOK!
Just like all of Sadhguru's other works I've explored, this one is an essential guide for anyone walking the spiritual path. It's packed with insights that resonate with readers of all ages, starting from 16 and up. Trust me, this is a must-read and a must-have for your collection!
Sadhguru opens the consciousness in such a way, that when you see everywhere around you realize the unity. There are concepts in the book that is enough to tease and move you in a particular way. The very freedom created by the society is a huge paradox, and as we are the child of the nature so has nature created a one, and its an exponential experience, keeps involving and evolving, to the point where you surprise yourself.
This is book just for FYI purpose. Its not a guide or some thinkg like that. There are many time in the book sadguru had stated him self doing miracles. I do not belive any such thing can happen , as he had not provided any evidences. Book is only worth if you want imporve your yogic vocublary.
We have discovered a lot about the outside world but we have found forgotten that India is a place where immense focus was given to the greatest gadget that is our own body and mind. This book is a great tool to dive deep into the mechanics of our own system.
Although the content in this book is invaluable, it was not written for a book. Just a bunch of sadhguru's speeches mashed up and sold as a book. The best book of his is inner engineering. If you have read that, this can be ignored.
Sadhguru explains about body and how to achieve it's full potential. But it's more information that how to use in daily life. He just given the brief about it.
As always, extremely relatable and witty sadhguru at his literary best! Very unlikely that you won't have actionable take-aways from this intense read.