“Even if the flower is no more, still, the fragrance can be.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“A beard doesn’t grow only on gurus; it grows on all men.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“You can learn to prevent a storm, or you can learn to ride the storm. If you learn to ride the storm, the storm is not a problem anymore.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“My vision for the country is to urbanise rural areas. What is available in the cities must be available in the villages.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“A guru is like a live road map. If you want to walk uncharted terrain, I think it is sensible to walk with a road map.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Communism is a way of thinking. Socialism is wimpy communism. When you don’t have the courage to become a communist, you become a socialist.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Trees are our closest relatives. What trees exhale, we inhale; what we exhale, they inhale. They are half our respiratory system.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Corruption has seeped into every section of life.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“To make any endeavor truly successful, integrity, inspiration, and insight are integral.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Spirituality is not about looking up or down – it’s about looking inward.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Success means at least you are finding full potential to who you are in terms of your intelligence, your capability and competence: you are finding full expression to who you are. This is important.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“The purpose of life is to explore one’s own life to its fullest, to explore all dimensions.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“The reason for fasting is to understand the relationship between what’s you and what’s the accumulative body.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“There is no good leader. First of all, if you think you are a leader, you are just messed up in your head. People should think you are a leader. If you think you are a big success, again, you are messed up. Other people should think you are a success.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“If you ask across the section of farmers in the country how many of them want their children to go into farming, believe me, it is less than 10 per cent. Nobody wants their children to go into farming.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“The problem with humans is that they are unable to handle their own intelligence.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Growth by accumulation only is sickness.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“There are certain rivers which can be linked, which will be beneficial especially for flood mitigation… It will be very useful process, but all rivers in India are not fit to be linked.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“I’m not modern or ancient: I’m just contemporary. I’m sure every guru of his time was contemporary.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“The most fundamental strength of India is that we are a land of seekers. Seekers of truth and liberation. Not a land of believers. We are a godless nation.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“When we say we have patterns, there is a cyclical movement to everything. Our psychological and emotional processes also have become cyclical largely because of a very strong attachment and involvement with physical process, and physical process has to be cyclical; only then we exist. Without out cyclical movement there’ll be no physical existence.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“If you impose morality on people, they will find ways to circumvent their guilt. They will make offerings to temples – or other places of worship – but also continue doing things that make them feel guilty.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“I love games, and I’ll play any. Games are a way of training ourselves to be heavily involved without being serious.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Children never seek happiness: they are happy.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Our life is a combination of a certain amount of energy and a certain amount of time.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Spiritual process means approaching your well-being in a scientific manner as a technology for well-being.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“When the entire population of the world attains enlightenment, I’ll retire and play golf every day.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“I think family businesses are still crucial for India’s economy, but they need to professionalize. For young entrepreneurs, too, family should play a significant part.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Somebody accumulates a lot of muscle and think himself to be a big man. But this big man is only big when all around him are smaller.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“It is important that global business leaders understand that they need to think beyond their quarterly balance sheets and see what it is that they are creating.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“When we step into a new terrain, we experience vast uncertainty. Uncertainty is just a situation that you do not know how to handle.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“If your idea of a guru is from a calendar, who has candy-floss beard and a constipated look on the face, then definitely I am not that.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“For me, health, education, and spirituality should never be commercialised.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“India’s rivers are undergoing a drastic change. Our perennial rivers are becoming seasonal. Many of the smaller rivers have already vanished.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“If you don’t have very strong emotions or very intense thoughts about something, you cannot get depressed.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“If you don’t take yourself seriously, you will die joyfully. If you take yourself seriously, you will go through a lot of misery.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Discrimination will impair democracy.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Anybody can play decent golf like me, but people trip on their own minds. They need to create a little distance between what they think and what they do.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“When there is a choice, it is best to eat live vegetarian food. ‘Live’ means in its uncooked condition, because a live cell has everything in itself to sustain life. The idea is to take life into you. When we cook food, it destroys the life in it.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“In this country, nobody should be talking about unemployment, as there is so much to be done in India.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Youth – the most significant aspect of youth is that it’s full of energy.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Vijji was not an accomplished yogi. She did what she did with just the sheer intensity of her emotions.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“When the Divine descends, you just accommodate.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“We think the government is running the country, but it is just a policymaker. Unknowingly, people are inviting the government to run their lives. The only business of the government is to come up with the right policies.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Fearmongering has always happened, which, through technology, is being spread faster.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“If a man aspires for a political career, he can start at 18 and go on and on. This is not true about women, who fall back when marriage and children happen, which are equally important. That is not gender bias.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“It’s very important when you are young you don’t take sides; you look at everything fresh and see, what is the best thing we can do? For ourselves, for the society in which we live, the country in which we live, the world in which we live, what’s the best thing we can do?”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“When we are young, revolution is the most romantic thing.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“When we say Tamil, we are not talking of a language but an entire civilisation.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Tamil people are generally considered very intelligent. But there, politics runs in a different way. Movie stars have a larger-than-life image in Tamil Nadu, and people vote for that image.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Peace is a very poor aspiration. Unfortunately, even so-call spiritual leaders are going about saying that the ultimate goal of life is to find peace. Peace is a fundamental requirement. Why are you making it as the last thing in your life? It must be the first thing that happens to you.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Generally, I don’t need any music to dance. For me, dance is not because of the music. It is simply because I’ve found the rhythm of life.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“I don’t have to go to a mountain to meditate. I’m meditative in every moment of my life.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“There is no such thing as Dravidian ideology. Some people just made it up, maybe to win elections.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“People should look at building long-term businesses, not just selling a business.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“People have to know that when momentum for a national movement has to be built, basic things have to be talked about first.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Ram Rahim was not a spiritual leader but a lowgrade film star that the media enjoyed talking about.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Automobile companies are always allergic to any kind of environmental movement.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Successful people suffer because they work beyond their energy.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“We have to grow in such a way that our growth is not at the cost of something else.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Since I was fifteen years of age, I have been wanting to go to the football World Cup.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“This is something that everyone has to understand: you don’t win anything on your reputation.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“The reason why the entire world sits up and watches World Cup football is the intensity of involvement with which people are playing a game: just kicking a ball around, but with such skill and involvement that it is like the last thing they are going to do in their life.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“The process of wanting to clean India is not an overnight job. At the same time, if we can inspire all citizens, it would happen much more quickly.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“No yogic practice is performed without cleansing the body first.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“There is no such thing as waste. It is just a question of whether we know how to use something or not.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“What was earth, we made into filth. We must at least be able to transform it back to earth.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“It is not predictions but plans that make the future. If you want predictions, it is because you do not have the ability to make a plan and fulfill it.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Most creatures in nature die consciously. Cobras, for instance, choose a particular place on a particular branch of the tree. Many a times, I would try to force-feed them out of my misplaced compassion, but they would just puke and go back to sit on the same branch.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Insight essentially means being able to see things other people are not able to see. This is the hallmark of leadership.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Integrity is about pursuing bigger goals that are beyond your personal success. If people see you only for yourself, they will not trust you. And, without trust, no growth and success are possible.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“For most human beings, if what they want happens, it is a success. If what they could not have imagined happens, it is luck. If what nobody could foresee happens, it is a miraculous existence.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“I’m comfortable with anything that fits me well. Bad tailoring is what I am uncomfortable with.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“To be spiritual means you have cosmic ambitions. You want to know not just the whole creation but the Creator and the source of creation as well. To be material means you have petty ambitions of owning a house – or 10 houses – or a whole apartment building.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“What people think is their individual nature is just a bundle of thoughts, emotions, ideas, opinions, and prejudices. The world can do without this individuality.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Leadership is neither about you or me; it is about something that needs to be done. Leaders figure out how it can be made to happen and get ten or a million people to see that this is the way to do it.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“At my ashram, people work long hours joyfully because they are inspired. When people are involved and joyfully doing something, they usually turn out ten times more and do more than what they would normally do as a duty.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“If you don’t have the necessary inner balance, leadership can demolish you. Today, if you are a CEO by the time you are 35, you must have ulcers. By 45, you must have diabetes. By 55, you must have had a bypass. People say they have had three bypasses, as if it is a qualification.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Work has become like prison because of the way we treat it. If you are trapped with people who you do not care for, it feels like a concentration camp.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Many philosophies have evolved based on the choice of food. But one must remember there is nothing religious, philosophical, spiritual, or moral about the food we eat. It is only a question of whether the food is compatible with the kind of body we have.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“If you listen to your body, your body will clearly tell you what kind of food it is happy with.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“In terms of the quality of food entering you, vegetarian food is definitely far better for the system than non vegetarian.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Essentially, all life on the planet is coming from the earth. Whether it is a human being or an earthworm, it is the same soil.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Yoga means union. Union means the boundaries of the individual self-dissolve, and you experience existence as yourself.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“In India, nothing is accomplished by policy changes alone. Unless people can relate emotionally to something, nothing happens on the ground.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“A sense of morality makes a person repetitive in thought and action. Such a person will obviously not get anywhere.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“When you stop people from doing certain things, there is a good chance that they will do exactly what they have been told to abjure. That is how human nature is.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“At times, it appears easy to sermonise on morality and ethics. But morality and ethics appear good only when applied to others, never on oneself.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Yoga is not a practice – the word ‘yoga’ means union. It does not mean standing on your head, twisting your body, or holding your breath. Yoga means to know the union of life. When you experience everything as a part of yourself, you are in yoga.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Yoga is not a belief system – it is not a new religion, philosophy or a teaching but a technology. I call it a technology because you don’t have to believe it; you just have to learn to use it. It does not matter what your religion is, what your colour is, what your race is, or where you come from. If you learn to use yoga, it works for you.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Yoga is not Indian; it does not belong to India.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Most of the depressions are self-created. A few people are pathologically ill: they cannot help it. It just comes from within because of genetic and other factors. But almost everybody else can be driven to madness, because the line between sanity and insanity is quite thin.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Being mentally ill is not a joke. It is a most painful thing.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“If you have physical ailments, you will get everyone’s compassion, but when you have a mental ailment, you will get laughter, unfortunately. This is because it is very difficult to make out when somebody is sick and when somebody is being stupid.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“Golf is basically about geometry and your ability to gauge how things are, the terrain, the distances, and exerting the right amount of swing and force.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“’Belief’ means something that you do not know. You want to assume and bring a certainty to something that you do not know. That means you are concretising your ignorance. There is no need to believe anything.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“There are no problems in the world. There are just situations. Some situations you know how to handle. Some you do not know how to handle.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“I have not worked with farmers. I have not worked with prisoners. I have only worked with human beings. I didn’t see anybody as anything other than that.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“My engagement with mountains, rivers, and forests has been right from my childhood. I have lived in the jungles by myself; I have floated down rivers. So, I didn’t experience these rivers, mountains, forests as some mythological figures but as thriving, living entities.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
“I speak passionately. I drive passionately. If I hit a ball, I will do it passionately, too. Because I don’t understand how you go through life without involvement. Whatever I am doing in my life, whether big or small, I am 100 per cent involved.”
― Jaggi Vasudev
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