Why Do You Sit in a Particular Way, Sadhguru?

Questioner: Sadhguru, why is it that, wherever you go you sit in a particular position? With sandals removed from your left leg, left leg up, and right leg on the ground. Is it your style or is it a way that a person should sit?

Sadhguru: Do you still use the Indian toilet?

Questioner: Yeah. 

Sadhguru: Do you sit in a particular way? Why? Because the body is made like that. Some university abroad made a study and said, “This is the best way to shit”, because your thighs will go into your abdomen, and everything that needs to come out will come out. If what needs to come out does not come out, it will slowly rise to your head. 

Bringing Alignment

In the yogic sciences, we observed that certain types of body positions will support certain activities the best. Or in other words, what is known as Hatha Yoga, the physical postures, is about manipulating the body in such a way that you reach a certain geometric perfection. Your geometry becomes aligned with the larger geometry of creation, so that you are always in sync – you are never off. 

How balanced you are, how clearly you see things, and how well you do things simply depends on how in sync you are. Whether you are in sync with the people, trees, life or just space around you will decide how smooth and friction-free your function is in the world. 

I do not sit like this all the time – only when I speak. There is something called Siddhasana. There are many aspects to it. One simple aspect is, there is a point on the left heel that today the medical sciences are calling “Achilles”. You heard of the man? 

You put your Achilles to your Muladhara, or the perineum in your body. If these two things touch, many aspects are cleared out in you. Your thoughts are clear, your emotions are out, and there is a very clear perception of what is happening around you. 

You have heard that Achilles was killed because an arrow was shot through his heel. Do you believe someone will die because they got hurt in the heel? But Achilles died that way. And there is another person who died that way in India, way before him – Krishna. This is trying to tell you that they were killed in an expert way, not just by slitting the throat or breaking the head. Just by putting a point at the Achilles – they had to die. There is a certain energy system in the body. When you sit with the point of the Achilles in touch with your Muladhara, there is a balance such that you do not take any sides.  

Taking No Sides

All of us have our own opinions, ideas and ideologies. Your own experiences of life and imprints that you have taken into your mind influence everything that you see. You like this, you do not like that, you love that person, you hate this person – all this is because you are constantly taking positions of your own. But if you really want to know life, the most important thing is, you do not take any position. You must be willing to look at everything absolutely fresh every moment of your life. 

This is very difficult for people to understand. There are people who have been with me for more than thirty years, working with me every day and doing so many things, but I still do not have a single opinion about them. Only when I need to do some work, I may look at their competence, etc. But I do not have a single opinion about them. By now, you should have formed your opinions, but I do not, because that is the essence of spiritual process, that we constantly look at every life as a possibility. 

There is, of course, a distance between possibility and reality. Some will have the courage and commitment to travel that distance, and some will not. But every life is a possibility. If you want to keep that possibility open, you never ever form an opinion of any sort on anyone. 

Good, bad, ugly – you do not form these opinions; you simply look at them right now. How they are in this moment is all that matters to me. How you were yesterday is not my business. How you may be tomorrow, let us see. Tomorrow must be created, not concretized right now.

Getting the Right Geometry

This is a certain geometry of the body. Right now, the Western cultures are going about propagating, “Yoga is a stretching exercise. Instead of that, you can do Pilates, boxing, tennis...” If you just want to be fit, go run somewhere, climb a mountain, play tennis, or do something else. Yoga is not about fitness. Fitness is just one consequence. The important thing is to get the right geometry of life because the physical universe is all geometry.

Whether a building will fall on our heads today or stand for a long time essentially depends on how geometrically perfect it is. The same goes for the body, for the planetary system, for the universe, and for everything. 

Planet Earth is going around the Sun not because a steel cable is attached to it, but because of perfection of geometry. If a little geometric imperfection happens it is gone forever, and that is true with you also. If you go off your fundamental geometry, you are gone. 

It is very important that at an early age, you do the right things to bring the right sense of geometry. Then you will become competent to go through life. Those people who are thinking that only good things should happen to them are obviously unfit for life because if you do not know how to go through harsh situations joyfully, then you will avoid all possibilities. You will avoid all the great possibilities of life simply because you want to avoid a little bit of difficulty. Only when you are geometrically in a certain state of congruence, then you are willing to go through any situation, no matter what it is.

Editor's Note: Whether you're struggling with a controversial query, feeling puzzled about a taboo topic, or just burning with a question that no one else is willing to answer, now is your chance to ask! Ask Sadhguru your questions at UnplugWithSadhguru.org.