What is Hinduism?
Sadhguru: The term and concept of Hinduism was coined only in recent times. Otherwise, there was really no such thing. The word "Hindu" essentially comes from the word Sindhu. Anyone who is born in the land of Sindhu is a Hindu. It is a cultural and geographic identity. It is like saying “I am an Indian” but it is a more ancient identity than being an Indian. “Indian” is only about seventy years old, but this is an identity that we have always lived with.
Being a Hindu does not mean having a particular belief system. Basically, the whole culture was oriented towards realizing one’s full potential. Whatever you did in this culture was Hindu. There is no particular god or ideology that you can call as the Hindu way of life. You can be a Hindu irrespective of whether you worship a man-god or a woman-god, whether you worship a cow or a tree. If you don’t worship, anything you can still be a Hindu.
It is only recently and due to external influences that this geographical and cultural identity has attempted to transform itself into a religious identity called Hinduism. Hindu was never an “ism”, and the attempt to organize it as a religion is still not successful because the Hindu way of life, which is referred to as Sanatana Dharma or universal law, is all-inclusive in nature and does not exclude anything. The Hindu way of life is not an organized belief system but a science of salvation.
Why does the human system develop allergies, and can Yoga help?
Sadhguru: This is because the way we are living, the human system is being messed up in too many ways. The fundamental mistake is that today food is made in a factory. Food should come out of the earth, because this body is earth. As far as possible, your body should be in tune with the earth. Apart from that, food allergies are mostly found among meat-eaters. Particularly when you eat mass-produced meat products, you do not eat one animal’s meat – you eat all kinds of parts of all kinds of animals, mashed and made into a sausage. You cannot stay healthy eating such food.
When I was a child, they gave us milk only from one particular cow. Today, the milk you buy in supermarkets is from thousands of cows – all mixed and processed. People are consuming a huge amount of animal hormones through mass-produced dairy, poultry, and red meat. All kinds of additives are added to everything. Your body is an organism – it is made to absorb the organic nature of the planet and make it a part of itself. You cannot just add synthetic supplements and expect them to become a part of the human being.
Another factor is the atmosphere you live in. If you constantly inhale toxins and eat things that are bad for you, the body will react. Now, allergies have assumed epidemic proportions. When the number of people with allergies is constantly increasing, it means we are doing something fundamentally wrong – our bodies are reacting to the very way we live
Yoga can definitely reverse this process. There are thousands of people who have become allergy-free by doing Shakti Chalana Kriya or Shambhavi Mahamudra Kriya – particularly from pollen allergies. For food allergies, if you just mix a pinch of vibhuti in a liter of water, and drink five liters of this vibhuti water every day, the body will cleanse itself in a few months. If you do some Yogic practices along with that, the allergies could disappear. That is what it takes – cleansing.
Can trees support in creating a meditative space?
Sadhguru: Plant life is very sensitive to your emotions and thoughts – especially certain types of plants. Generally, they say the ficus variety, like the banyan tree and others in that family, are very sensitive. This is the reason why they are always chosen for meditative purposes in India, because if you do your sadhana under that tree, it creates an atmosphere; it becomes like a meditation hall by itself.
If you create the necessary energy, plants are very sensitive to it. When we were in the process of working towards the Dhyanalinga, I found that certain plant life was somehow responding and cooperating with the whole process. That was truly incredible. If you have lots of trees and lots of meditation going, it is much easier to preserve the meditative quality in that area because plants and trees retain that quality very easily.
(Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary and bestselling author)
