People keep asking me, “Sadhguru, why don’t you offer all your spiritual programmes for free?”
This happened to me in the very beginning. I was in various types of businesses at one time. When I got out, for the first two-and-a-half years, I spent my own money and conducted many programmes. After two-and-a-half years, all my savings ran out. I could have given up and gone back into some business or profession, made money and then come back to teach again. But that would have taken away five, ten years of my life. Then I went through a struggle, “Should I ask for money?” I did not want to do that because my spiritual sense would not allow me to announce a fee. So, we did various other things to arrange money.
Then I said, “Please pay for the expenses.” On the last day of the programme, we would give accounts — the hall rent was this much, the microphone rent was this much, and so on, and this much money is left. We would then present the leftover money to an orphanage or an old-age home. We would not take a single rupee.
We have come a long way since then. Not that we have become corrupt but we are able to serve millions of people today only because there is an understanding that certain things need to happen in a certain way — not according to your ideology or ethics, but in terms of practical sense. Otherwise, nothing will sustain itself. So the price is not for individual profit, but to sustain the service. I can never charge you for the knowledge that is given to you but the program has a cost because the hall, the mic, travel, food — everything costs money. We are only charging for the services rendered.
Seventy percent of our activity is in rural India and all this is 100% free. Spiritual programmes are free, schools are free, hospitals are free, all social events that we conduct in rural areas are free. In the city, it costs money. Even in urban areas if you do not want to pay, if I do it in a slum, will you come and attend the programme? No. You want it in a star hotel, but you want it free. If you want a certain level of comfort, if you want lunches and dinners and all these other services, you pay for it. The spiritual process is free because you are not paying me nor are you paying anyone who is teaching. All of them are 100% volunteers. You are only paying for the services.
Another reason for charging a fee is that, we saw that even to get people’s commitment to attend the programme, it is very important that they also understand there is a price to it. I am not just investing my time in these programmes; I am investing my life energies. This programme needs total commitment; without absolute focus, you will not get it. But without a fee, people were coming like how they would go to a bad cinema — you go out whenever you feel like it. Let us say it is a five-day programme. When someone comes on the first day, we ask them, “This is a five-day commitment, are you willing to commit your time?” They say, “One hundred percent.” But the next morning, they are not there.
So, for the basic programmes, we want them to pay to the point where it hurts. This is not for commercial reasons. We want individual people to pay because otherwise it is hard to get their commitment. If they do not have money, we tell them to commit their time for one week or fifteen days of volunteering work. They must do one of these things.
These fees pertain to only the first few programs. By the time people come to advanced programmes like Samyama, they are committed and you do not have to hold them by money. Above all, the enormous volume of work our volunteers are doing — free medical care in villages, educating rural children, ecological movements — is all funded by these programmes.
Earlier, in India, health, education, and spiritual process were never commercialized — they always had to be an offering to people. But we cannot return to that situation because things have changed. It incurs certain costs to provide these facilities, but beyond that, there are no additional charges.
(Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary and bestselling author)
