Sadhguru speaks about why physical infrastructure is necessary to take a spiritual movement to large numbers of people in today's situation. He speaks about the difference between meditativeness and ritual, and how each has its place in a spiritual movement.

Full Transcript:

So, the idea is to create as many consecrated spaces as possible, and of course we are setting up small temples in people’s homes, in the form of yantras, in the form of larger Gudis, because ultimately that is the most impactful way of transforming human life on the planet that you let it seep into people, not as a teaching, not as a philosophy but just the very air that they breathe is transformative in nature. This is the most effective way of doing it; it just takes physical infrastructure to do it. That is the… the flip side of it. If we just make people meditative, which is what we thought we will do - we just thought no need for a temple, no need for any infrastructure, make every human being into a throbbing temple of his own. Well, almost thirty years have gone by. We definitely have touched lots of people, but still when I look at the people that we have not touched, their numbers are far, far bigger than the numbers that we have touched.

So the need for building physical infrastructure for generations to come is definitely (Rings the bell) a necessity. The possibility of breeding meditators is low, you know. It's working but… what do you think? Even if you become meditative, the next generation of people, may again give it up. So an infrastructure which constantly drives them in that direction is necessary, and I think it's time to invest our time, resources in that direction that we create the necessary infrastructure for a spiritual movement for transmitting technologies of inner well-being. Sufficient energy infrastructure is needed. So we are focusing on that, and we are hoping and waiting that many of you will grow in maturity and capability and everything, so that when many things like this are put up, people among you will stand up and take care of these things without distortion, because this infrastructure involves ritual.

The reason why ritual has become an ugly thing in the world is ritual leaves much room for exploitation; meditativeness leaves no room for exploitation, that needs preparation. Ritual does not need any preparation, anybody can come and participate, but leaves room for exploitation. So unless we produce people of absolute integrity and commitment, who will not deviate at any cost, no matter what, they will not deviate, unless we create such people, ritual is a dangerous process, but without ritual you can never touch larger populations. Meditation will always be exclusive. It will not be very inclusive. Ritual is very inclusive. People can come and participate without any preparation and benefit from that, but people who conduct it must be of extraordinary integrity, otherwise it will become loose and exploitative. So I believe we are capable of producing such people who will be beyond the temptation of exploitation. If we manage to produce that… it's not that we have not produced any, we have, but still (Rings the bell) not in the numbers that we wanted. Volumes are still… not in line with the capabilities that we have.

So we need to generate those people who are beyond corruption. Doesn’t matter, if you hand over heaven to them, they will still not in any way misuse it. Such people we need to produce if we want to make ritual an active part of life, if you want to make a larger spiritual process to happen in the society which is beyond meditativeness, because meditativeness needs lots of preparation. Without preparation you cannot bring them to that state, and preparing whole seven billion people towards that is a very onerous task. Well, in thirty years, at least those so many people, others may be working too, but… we have not reached any… any significant numbers in that direction. Yes, people may think a couple of million people, a couple of million meditators that we have is a big number. I don’t think so because there is a seven billion population, two or three million is not a big number, and genuine spiritual atmosphere on the planet will not happen unless we create big numbers, otherwise spirituality will be always a few freakos (Laughter), you know, does not…

We don’t want spiritual process to be the domain of freaks. We want spiritual process to be the mainstream. That is the way to live for everybody, other things we do, but the important way to live is, the core element of this human being should be the most celebrated part, not his little finger. You don’t go about celebrating your little finger. Whatever is the core element of this human being that should be the forefront of a human being. So if that is so, spirituality will be the forefront of human life on this planet. That needs to happen, not just for liberation or mukti. A time will… time is fast approaching where it will become a necessity, just for even simple survival, spiritual process will become a necessity on this planet. We are getting there very fast.

So things are happening. Things are happening means constant change. I want you to be geared up for that; don’t fall off again and again.