Sadhguru looks at how Adiyogi, the first yogi, explored the mechanics of the human system with his first seven disciples over 15,000 years ago, and transmitted the yogic sciences for the first time.

Full Transcript:

Sadhguru: You don’t like what I’m saying? That’s the problem because so much nonsense has been fed to people, sense is not popular in the world (Laughs). Now 15000 years ago a yogi appeared in the upper regions of Himalayas. Nobody knew where he came from, his antecedence were completely unknown. So people gathered around him because he was such a phenomenal presence. A large group of people gathered like this. They expected him to say something, do something – he did nothing, he said nothing, simply he sat. If I simply sat here for two hours, I can imagine - within fifteen minutes those people in the last few rows (Gestures) (Laughter), and they will slowly “Still there is time for the cinema, let’s go.” If I said nothing for two hours, ninety percent of the people will be gone. If I said nothing for six hours, only a few hardcore ones will hang on, rest are all gone. Same happened to him.

He said nothing, did nothing, simply sat still. Not for a day, not for a week, for months on end he simply sat still. Everybody was expecting a miracle - nothing happened, he just sat. But they were missing a most fundamental miracle because the nature of your body is such right now, you are well attended to. You’ll (You?) had lunch in the afternoon and maybe you snacked in the evening, and so that you don’t fall asleep you had a coffee and maybe you have something in your bag (Laughs), so many things. All these things are being attended to, so this (Referring to one’s body) is fine. Suppose we just make you sit here for four hours – “Sadhguru at least some water?” “Okay, drink water.” After drinking water can we just sit here? “Sadhguru (Gestures as if asking permission to go for peeing)” (Laughter) that one – “Okay do that and come.” “Sadhguru (Gestures as if asking permission to eat)” – okay, if we give this, the next one no permission (Gestures dozing off) (Laughter). This will just go.

Or in other words what you call as a body is a series of processes. Only if you’re attending to them, it’s fine. If you don’t attend to it then you see what a trouble it is. When you do not attend to the body if you are hungry or ll…Why all that - people say how long one minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you are. From inside somebody says “just one minute”, outside it’s one eon (Laughter), okay? S… Because this is the nature of the body - if you do not attend to it, it’ll become so compulsive and get you into such big trouble. But here he just sat, he neither ate nor drank water nor went to attend to nature’s calls, simply he sat still. People could not even make out whether he is alive or dead. The only sign of life was - off and on tears of ecstasy were dribbling down his cheeks, otherwise he simply sat unmoving.

Then only seven people hung on. They realized the miracle of him sitting here like this because if he has to sit here like this he has transcended physical nature, otherwise you cannot sit like this. These seven people hung on - today we celebrate these seven people as the Sapta Rishis. These were his first disciples of the Adiyogi (Applause). Andhra Pradesh has a history of Sapta Rishis walking through this place - Agastya Muni came very close to Vijay… (Laughs) Vijayawada. There are many things but leaving that… So this Adiyogi just sat there, these seven people showed interest, he told them, “This is not for you, this is not entertainment” but they said, “No, we’re willing to do anything.” He gave them a few preparatory steps, they prepared for many years. Then one day when the solstice was shifting - just now we shifted from summer solstice to wi… winter solstice on December 22nd. It’ll again happen on June 21st and this coming June 21st is significant, significant for the world because this is the day when Adiyogi first gave his… turned south and gave his teaching - because the sun turned south, he turned south and started explaining the mechanics of being human.

On this day fortunately the world... the United Nations has declared the World Yoga Day because yoga began on that day (Applause). This incredible process of exploring the human mechanics went into the process. This predates all religion - when there was no religion on the planet, 15000 years ago he went into the mechanics of what it means to be human and various aspects happened. He opened up one hundred and twelve different ways in which a human being can attain to his ultimate nature. And when people asked, especially his wife Parvati asked, “Why not more, why only hundred and twelve?” Then he said, “If you are rooted in the body, there are only hundred and twelve possibilities. If you transcend the body how many atoms there are in this universe, that many doorways are there if you’re willing to explore it. But if you are rooted in this body, there are only one hundred and twelve ways” and the whole yogic system subscribes to this even today because nobody has found more ways. Any number of yogis have explored in a million different ways but there is no other doorway. In this body there are hundred and twelve ways into which you get there.

“What is this all about? I just want to live well, why do I need all this?” See, if you… all of you use a phone, at least the Telugu translation people definitely using it right now. The cell phone companies in India did a survey about four years ago - India is the largest growing cell phone market on the planet - so they were making a survey and they found that only (Clears throat)… only three percent of the people use the cell phone beyond seven percent of its capability. Ninety-seven percent of the people use less than seven percent of the cell phone’s capability. Now I’m not talking about your smart phones, I’m talking about the dumb phone. So if they take away ninety percent of the software, ninety-seven a… percent of the population anyway will not even notice - three percent complaints you can handle you know. (Laughs) We don’t know what they have done to us. Anyway if this is the percentage for a simple gadget like a cell phone, for this human mechanism… Do you… do you agree with me that this is the most sophisticated gadget on the planet - this human body? Yes or no?

So for this… how to generate this, how to make this (Referring to oneself) work the way you want it? So this whole mechanics he started… Adiyogi explored for many years and he gave this elaborate knowledge to the world and then asked these seven people to go in seven different dec… directions in the world. One went to Central Asia, another went to North Africa, another went to sa… South America, another went to Southeast Asia, one came down to what we call as the in… Indian part of Himalayas, one stayed with him, and one more who is very important for us, Agastya Muni came down south.

He is known as the father of Southern mysticism because he did not spare a single human habitation south of the Vindhyas - in the Deccan Plateau he made sure every single human being who lived in this place had some sense of spiritual process.