When he was walking into the temple and he saw the person of low caste, he saw it as a bad omen. When he was going to worship his God, this low caste person came in the way. He said, “Move away.” That man just stood there and said, “What should move away, me or my body?” That is all he asked. This struck Adi Shankara so hard, and that was the last day he spoke. He never gave any other teaching. He just walked straight to Himalayas. No one ever saw him again.
How do you produce such a Being? In the brief span of his life, he walked the length and breadth of this nation. Where did this energy, this zest and this wisdom come from? One aspect which is both important and symbolic is that Adi Shankara came from a village called Kaladi, which is a small town today. Kaladi literally means “beneath the feet.” In the South, we are at the feet of Bharat Mata, and this has paid off for us in so many ways.
There is a beautiful story from the Mahabharat. When Arjuna and Duryodhana went to seek support from Krishna for the Kurukshetra war, one of them stood at Krishna’s head, the other chose to stand at his feet – that decided everything. That afternoon, when Arjuna stood at Krishna’s feet, he basically won the war. This is the fundamental nature of our nation and culture – because we bow down to everything, we rise. We do not rise by elbowing our way – we rise by bowing down. Bharat means we always learnt how to be at the feet of the Divine. This is not a culture of pumped up pomp, but a culture of natural piety. Whether it is a god, a man, a woman, a child, an animal, a tree, or a rock – we learnt to bow down to everything. Just with this one aspect, we could produce great beings. By being at the feet of the Divine, we learnt, evolved, blossomed, and became shining lights to the rest of the world for a long time. Thousands of years ago, well before Adi Shankara, right from the Adiyogi, many Yogis, mystics, sages, and saints have said this in so many ways.
It is the intellectual clarity with which he expressed himself and the zest and energy with which he spread it across the nation, that make Adi Shankara stand out. One aspect that is very important in today’s world is that all this knowledge, all this wisdom came not by faith or belief, but by realization. Unless the spiritual process is in some way in sync with fundamental human logic and current scientific findings, people will not take it. Future generations will reject anything that does not make logical sense to them, and is not scientifically correct. In this context, Adi Shankara is very significant today.
Adi Shankara Teachings on Maya - Sadhguru Clarifies
There is some misunderstanding about what Adi Shankara said. I think we owe it to him to clear at least one. A lot of people are saying, “What is this nonsense that he said, ‘Everything is maya.’” The way it is being (wrongly) interpreted is – “maya means it doesn’t exist.” Maya does not mean it does not exist. Maya means an illusion, in the sense that you are not seeing it the way it is. Here you are with this seemingly solid body, but with the food that you eat, the water that you drink, and the air that you breathe, the cells of your body are being exchanged on a daily basis. The tissues and organs in your body completely rejuvenate in a matter of a couple of days to a few years, depending on the type of cells. This means after some time, you have a completely new body. But in your experience, it looks like it is the same thing – this is maya. Similarly, the way you perceive existence, the way you know the world through the five senses, is completely off the mark – this is the illusion. It is like a mirage. If you are driving on the highway, sometimes, far away, there seems to be water. When you go there, definitely there is no water. This does not mean there was nothing there. There was some refraction of light that created this illusion. What is one thing seems to be something else. What you think is “me” is actually everything – this is the maya. What you think is “the other” is actually you.
How do you produce such a Being? In the brief span of his life, he walked the length and breadth of this nation. Where did this energy, this zest and this wisdom come from? One aspect which is both important and symbolic is that Adi Shankara came from a village called Kaladi, which is a small town today. Kaladi literally means “beneath the feet.” In the South, we are at the feet of Bharat Mata, and this has paid off for us in so many ways.
There is a beautiful story from the Mahabharat. When Arjuna and Duryodhana went to seek support from Krishna for the Kurukshetra war, one of them stood at Krishna’s head, the other chose to stand at his feet – that decided everything. That afternoon, when Arjuna stood at Krishna’s feet, he basically won the war. This is the fundamental nature of our nation and culture – because we bow down to everything, we rise. We do not rise by elbowing our way – we rise by bowing down. Bharat means we always learnt how to be at the feet of the Divine. This is not a culture of pumped up pomp, but a culture of natural piety. Whether it is a god, a man, a woman, a child, an animal, a tree, or a rock – we learnt to bow down to everything. Just with this one aspect, we could produce great beings. By being at the feet of the Divine, we learnt, evolved, blossomed, and became shining lights to the rest of the world for a long time. Thousands of years ago, well before Adi Shankara, right from the Adiyogi, many Yogis, mystics, sages, and saints have said this in so many ways.
It is the intellectual clarity with which he expressed himself and the zest and energy with which he spread it across the nation, that make Adi Shankara stand out. One aspect that is very important in today’s world is that all this knowledge, all this wisdom came not by faith or belief, but by realization. Unless the spiritual process is in some way in sync with fundamental human logic and current scientific findings, people will not take it. Future generations will reject anything that does not make logical sense to them, and is not scientifically correct. In this context, Adi Shankara is very significant today.
Adi Shankara Teachings on Maya - Sadhguru Clarifies
There is some misunderstanding about what Adi Shankara said. I think we owe it to him to clear at least one. A lot of people are saying, “What is this nonsense that he said, ‘Everything is maya.’” The way it is being (wrongly) interpreted is – “maya means it doesn’t exist.” Maya does not mean it does not exist. Maya means an illusion, in the sense that you are not seeing it the way it is. Here you are with this seemingly solid body, but with the food that you eat, the water that you drink, and the air that you breathe, the cells of your body are being exchanged on a daily basis. The tissues and organs in your body completely rejuvenate in a matter of a couple of days to a few years, depending on the type of cells. This means after some time, you have a completely new body. But in your experience, it looks like it is the same thing – this is maya. Similarly, the way you perceive existence, the way you know the world through the five senses, is completely off the mark – this is the illusion. It is like a mirage. If you are driving on the highway, sometimes, far away, there seems to be water. When you go there, definitely there is no water. This does not mean there was nothing there. There was some refraction of light that created this illusion. What is one thing seems to be something else. What you think is “me” is actually everything – this is the maya. What you think is “the other” is actually you.