NewsLaundry’s dirty lies — part 4
We will look at a few more lies by NewsLaundry on Sadhguru & Isha Foundation, continuing our past series.
Part 1: https://bigfundu.medium.com/newslaundrys-dirty-lies-part-1-605aa8311859
Part 2: https://bigfundu.medium.com/newslaundrys-dirty-lies-part-2-191cf5b7e4d0
Part 3: https://bigfundu.medium.com/newslaundrys-dirty-lies-part-3-4ae027b55133
Lie #13: Vasudev had “no previous association” with yoga until he trained in Siddha Samadhi Yoga. Vasudev later co-opted Siddha Samadhi Yoga and repackaged it as Isha Yoga
Fact: Three things to note here:
(1) Sadhguru's first brush with yoga was not with Rishi Prabhakar. He has said multiple times that he learned yoga at the age of 13 from Sri Malladihalli Swamigal and practiced it without missing even a single day. This is an extract from the book: “Sadhguru More Than A Life” by Arundhatihi Subramaniam.
(2) Sadhguru himself has said in his books that after his enlightenment, he started teaching yoga and later did work with some yoga teachers but used that working experience only to fix what is not to be done for his classes.
(3) Anyone who has undergone Siddha Samadhi Yoga and Isha’s Inner Engineering / Isha Yoga program will know clearly that these are completely different yogic practices and have no relation at all!
Also, it is not that Inner Engineering is the only yoga program offered by the Isha Foundation. There are so many yoga programs like this:
(i) Isha Kriya
(ii) Simha Kriya
(iii) Hatha Yoga
(iv) Bhava Spandana
(v) Shoonya Intensive
(vi) 8-day Silence program
The NL team must be clearly dreaming up about repackaging one yoga as another.
I had covered this connection with Sri Rishi Prabhakar in the past as well (https://bigfundu.medium.com/what-is-the-deal-with-sadhguru-jaggi-vasudev-and-rishi-prabhakar-72c7cc8f88dc).
The source for NL comes from one Mr. Ravi. Sri Rishi Prabhakar (who expired in 2014) never himself said anything about Sadhguru. However, Mr. Ravi was on record about this and wrote the following in a blog comment in 2007:
“The arguments and counter arguments about Jaggi and his life are interesting. One fact I wish to share is we both got trained by Guruji Rishi Prabhakar in the years 1984–86. We both took SSY teachers training together in Gommatagiiri near Mysore. We did SSY classes together and we started the Hyderabad center of Rishi Samskruti Vidya Kendra under Guruji. Then he was sent by Guruji Rishi Prabhakar to Coimbatore to start center there. There he slowly left the organization and started his own. He renamed himself as Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev and became popular. His Guru Rishi Prabhakar will not claim him to be his student as Jaggi has not lived up to his word. There is no secrecy in these matters. Jaggi himself will accept it (I still believe he is truthful). I have not contacted him so far after he left Guruji Rishi Prabhakar.”
Apart from Raviji’s statement, there is no other factual proof one can find online or offline.
If you want to know more details, there is someone who has done some direct research with the involved people and has documented it here:
Sadhguru and Rishi Prabhakar: a curious connection!
The author of the above-mentioned article had really concluded it well:
“After enlightenment, Sadhguru taught yoga on his own for a while. Then he decided to join with other organizations. In this phase, I am reasonably certain that Sadhguru was involved with SSY, possibly as a teacher. We need more factual details to establish the story entirely here. But it is possible that Sadhguru went to Coimbatore on SSY related work and recognized his connection with that place. This is when Sadhguru started cutting off from SSY to be on his own again with his Sahaja Stithi Yoga. So this is the possible story and there is nothing fraudulent here as some critics allege. I conclude that blaming Sadhguru for his Rishi Prabhakar connection is entirely baseless.”
The final email communication from Ravi ji is more enlightening:
“Just continue your sadhana. Be thankful to whoever had offered it. Keep offering your best wherever you are and enjoy life as it comes. There is no one who is a Guru or Sadguru, it is his/her disciples who make it. If it is authentic or he is genuine or your belief is true, matters not from his/her context. You give value to such things and so it matters to you.”
One can try to go into more details but it is a futile exercise, trying to prove anything against opinions.
There are a few more lies in the NewsLaundry posts against Isha & Sadhguru which we will cover in the upcoming posts …
