Sadhguru 360 - Ep #5: The Hidden Dimensions of Kailash & Manasarovar | 4K UHD

my home. If you can really be with Kalash even for a few moments, life will never again be the same for you. It is a phenomena beyond all human imagination. Namaskarum and welcome to 360 sguru 360. Shraana is a month deeply associated with Shiva with pilgrimage, austerity, devotion and an inward turning of attention. So it feels especially fitting that in this episode I would be speaking about a journey to a place that has drawn seekers for thousands of years. Kyalash. We are on the way to Kyash. This is the 21st year that I'm traveling to Kyash in 2026. 2026 is also the firehorse year in the Tibetanian and Chinese zodiac traditions. This alignment comes only once in 60 years. So it is held as a very sacred year. The firehorse year in the Tibetan tradition has a special association with Mount Kalash. And it is traditionally said that completing the kora or the circumambulation around kalash during the firehorse year carries 13 times the spiritual merit of doing so in an ordinary year. Whether one chooses to take that literally symbolically or simply as a part of mythology surrounding this extraordinary mountain, it adds another layer of intrigue to an already remarkable pilgrimage. As for me, I'm quite literally riding my fire horse this year and my fire horse happens to be a multistrader. A motorcycle allows me to experience the journey in a way that it is immediate and unfiltered. In many ways, hugging the terrain rather than being enclosed in the shell of a car, you feel the heat and the cold, the wind, the rainfall and snow possibly, and above all the altitude and every shift in the terrain beneath you. You don't just see the landscape, you become part of it. For me, that intimacy with earth is an important part of the journey. So perhaps there is no better fire for this journey than my motorcycle. I have never been a pilgrimage kind of person. If I close my eyes, I'm done. When I wandered around, I simply wandered around without a purpose or a destination. Definitely not trying to find something or learn something or glean something from the travels, just drinking in life. So why this journey to Kalash? Why do I keep coming back every year? Despite bad bathrooms and well, I can't say that anymore. The facilities have improved tremendously since we first came here. They have improved rather a bit too much. I never really had uh any intention of ever coming to Kalash because whenever people uh talked so much about Kalash I resisted because they were talking about how they saw Shiva and Parvati floating in the clouds. I don't want to go there because Shiva in the cloud means uh the bull also and the will definitely fall upon your face. So I have heard so many spectacular things that people had experienced and above all I saw the adventure of driving through Tibet. So the first time we came it was just out of curiosity. I thought we will go just once and here we are today the 21st year because the first time I came it so overwhelmed me that what we saw in Manas is more fairy talish than any fairy tale. It's simply amazing and unbelievable. My great-g grandandmother was a great storyteller. I have still not met anyone who could tell a story like that. If we went for a month-long vacation to our ancestral home, she would start telling the story uh post dinner time and we were all open mouth, open eyed, open ear sitting there. The princess will start combing her hair. The comb will start from here. By the time it reaches the end of her hair, it will be a month in between so many things that will happen. A story inside a story inside a story and time for us to leave and go back to school has come and we beg her please tell us the end of the story. She would say no come back next summer. She was over 100 years but she was sure she will see us next summer. She told us all kinds of stories. I thoroughly enjoyed the stories but they never passed through the filter of my skepticism. I enjoyed the way she told the story with such involvement and with such description and detail that it went on endlessly. But I'm not the kind to believe grandmother's stories. But after being in Lake Manasur, I'm willing to believe any toothless grandmother's story. If you even taste a little bit of it, it is too fantastic for any logical mind to come to terms with it. It's just absolutely insanely fantastic. There is a tremendous amount of activity upon the lake. The beings or the life forms there are nothing like what we generally know as life. It is life but not the way we know it. These beings are in bunches. In our understanding of life, we know beings as individual beings, never as bunches. These are bunches of beings. They are individual but they are still in bunches. They move by tendency but they are still conscious. You cannot differentiate whether they are truly conscious or unconscious. The first few times we came to Manasur were we set up a few exploratory experiments and what I see is they know the human system thoroughly. We really don't know anything about them except what we have observed from outside. But they seem to know everything about us. One aspect is they are constantly tugging at my ring finger to a point where sometimes I have to close my hand and sit. The ring finger is like the very key to the whole cosmos. If you give me enough time, we can open up the whole cosmos with just the ring finger because this finger is like a key to the existence. This I believe is essentially human. If some other form of life knows about it, either they have a role in making us who we are or they know what we know or maybe it's one of them who taught us all this. On one of these trips, I thought, let me try something. And I separated one of these beings from the bunch and took took them I don't know what how to refer to that them it him her whatever into my system but it became so restless and uh like it wants to go and created such a sense of you know increased sense of temperature and stress within my system. I tried to contain it but I saw that it started creating some damage to my system a little bit. So I thought it's better to just let it go. And uh that was the end of that experiment because I don't think uh we were ready to hold them in any sense and they were not willing to be held either. I don't want you to believe whatever I'm saying. If you told me, I wouldn't believe you. So, let's be fair to each other. But don't be a fool and disbelieve it either. Because assuming that whatever is not in your knowing or in your experience cannot exist is the very crown of ignorance. I have been in touch with many mystical things but nothing of the scale and intensity that is happening in manasur. Beneath manasurover there is a huge space a subterranean space which could be about 2 or 3 km in diameter in my perception. That is what it seems like to me. But it may actually be just the size of a grain of sand because there is a way of folding up space. This space is light sea green kind of color and these bunches of beings are coming in and coming out and at the bottom there are some very small life forms parked there. According to our ways of thinking we can think it is some kind of a nursery maybe but that's just conjecture. And the most incredible thing which is absolutely intriguing is there are half-formed human forms, dozens of them. And on the side there are what seems like electric blue colored rocks. There is a lot of movement and traffic happening around this place. But none of these beings ever go near that space. Somehow everybody maintains a clear distance from those rocks which are glowing electric blue. We know from our experience that if there is a realized being who is very static and in one place his aura will be generally bright white but if there is a realized being who is active and dynamic then always his aura shall be electric blue it's based on this that in Indian culture the gods are blue skinned Shiva Krishna Rama it is not that their skin was blue because they had blue aura. They were referred to as blue gods. So these blue rocks and these half-formed human forms are very intriguing. We have managed to gain a certain access to these aspects. But still whatever we think is happening there is probably not the way it is. It is something that is far beyond our imagination and conjecture. Just the intrigue of this space is so fascinating that it keeps me coming back every time. The first time we came on the Kalash trip, we came with 163 people with very rudimentary arrangements and there were no roads anywhere in the entire place and we were just finding our way through the Tibetian plateau. We crossed 83 rivers and on one drive I drove 11 kilometers up river in the water. Our four-wheel drives were getting stuck everywhere and it was 16 days of drive. I enjoyed it thoroughly because I was driving. Others were being uh thrown around in the four-wheel drives uh towards being made into a pulp. I was always telling them being in a Land Cruiser don't complain. There has been a 12,000year history of pilgrims from India making it to Kalash without a single year's break irrespective of the weather not for livelihood not for business not for conquest but in seeking walking 3,000 kilometers men and women can you imagine what fire these people what kind of fire they carried in their hearts I want you to just imagine And suppose you started off from southern India. You had no fancy down jackets, whatever equipment, no trekking boots at the most one woolen blanket barefoot a thousand years ago if you started off and walked up to Kalash 3,000 km. What it would be? There was a wonderful devotey of Shiva a few hundred years ago from a place called Karakal in Tamil Nadu. She never bothered to introduce herself to anyone. So they just called her Karakal Amayar. The saint who came from Karakal. When she went to Kalash, I want you to understand what it must have taken for a woman to walk all the way there in those days. She went around Kalash, which is normally 3-day track approximately 58 kilometers. But she walked on her hands and knees not letting her feet touch the ground because she saw it as the very body of Shiva. So this is not a tour. This is not an adventure track. This is a pilgrimage. If you are a treker, you wear down the mountain path a little more than it already is. If you are a pilgrim, you don't go there to wear the mountain path. You go there to wear yourself down. In some way, you must become less than who you think you are. The idea of a pilgrimage is the journey itself should make you less and less as you go by. Your likes and dislikes, your sensibilities. It is with this you have built your personality. Your personality is an accumulation of all kinds of whims and fancies you have created. Kailas is still what it was a thousand years ago. But back then the journey would wear you out in such a way by the time you got there you were all receptivity. But today the journey is not wearing you out because of the airplanes, the highways, the buses. From the first time we went and how it is today, there is a 500% improvement in the comfort level. Except for the altitude which continues to remain a challenge. Most other challenges have been flattened out. Only altitude. That's the only challenge. The mountains are very democratic. They don't care whether you are a king, a sage, or a great warrior. Once the altitude begins to rise, everybody breathes the same thin air. So technology and engineering has advanced. But just because we are going in comfort, no one should miss the significance of what Kalash is. Modernday life and technology can deliver us there with ease. But let our comfort and convenience not work against us. Unfortunately, this is what I see. As people and societies become affluent, as life becomes more comfortable and convenient, they will not become more sensible. Most people lose their fundamental sense about life. One of the main reasons is the way we have set up education today. Education is geared towards making you exclusive. But the fundamental dimension of spirituality is to become all inclusive not exclusive. Inclusiveness is life. Exclusiveness is death. One classic example of someone who was immensely capable and empowered but turned into a very exclusive life is Rahana. Rahana was a fierce devotey of Shiva. There are many stories about him. A devotey shouldn't become great. A devotey should never think I'm a great devotey. But he was a great devotey. He came to Kalash all the way from down south and began to sing Shiva's praises. He had a drum which he used to set the beat and compose 1,08 verses extandas stotra. Today Shiva was so pleased and enamored listening to this music as he sang slowly Rahana started climbing kalash from the southern face when Rahana was almost at the top and with Shiva still engrossed in the music Parvati saw this man climbing up towards their seat. Parvati tried to bring Shiva out of his musical rapture and she said this man is coming all the way up but Shiva was too engrossed in the music and poetry then finally Parvati nudged Shiva and managed to bring him out of being enthralled and when Rahana reached the peak Shiva just pushed him off with his feet. Rahana who had used the furrow to climb the southern face of Kalash slid down through the furrow all the way down. Then having ended up at the bottom of the peak. Then he thought why should I come to Kalash and be kicked down like this? Let me take Kailash to Sri Lanka my home. I will take Kalash to my place. So he started lifting using his superhuman strength. He started lifting Mount Kalash. This made Parvati very angry once again. She told Shiva, "It does not matter how dear he is to you. You cannot allow him to shake Kailash like this and his attempt to take it to the south. That is not possible." Shiva also saw this and angry with Rahana's egoistic nature and so he pressed the mountain down trapping Raana's hands beneath Kalash. Rahana struggled in pain but Shiva refused to release him. Then Rahana with his hands stuck beneath the mountain started pouring out his love for Shiva in various beautiful hymns. Shiva released him and said, "You can have a boon. Ask me what you want." Once again, Rahana's negativity manifested itself. He said, "I want your wife." Shiva as he had already promised, "Ask whatever you want." Okay, whatever you want. Parvati, he's having a bath in Manasur over. Okay, you take my wife and go. He's like that because he doesn't possess or hold anything. Rahana came looking for Parvati. Parvati realized what had happened and she took a toad and transformed it into a woman and left her near the lake that is now called Rakshas Dal. The toad woman was having a bath and when Rahana came, she was an extraordinarily beautiful woman. So he picked her up and went back and made her his wife. That is why she's mandari as she was a toad who was transformed into a woman. This whole kissing a frog business in the west originally probably comes from this basis. Shiva is bolinat meaning the innocent one like me. No no you won't agree with that. Yes, but I am like that. Just anybody can take me for a ride. Not because I lack the intelligence to know what they're doing. Because today they try to misuse. Tomorrow I will come to use. I know this. Many who came like investigators. Today they're all devotees. Not one or two. Many thousands upon them. Thousands upon thousands have come in a suspicious manner doing all kinds of things. But today they are ardent followers and they're doing fantastic work. See Shiva's bolinat means he's innocent. We must understand there is a significant difference between innocence and ignorance. Ignorance may come with shrewdness many times. But innocence is only possible with the assurance of knowing with the assurance of clarity that you can afford to be vulnerable. Even for me there are a lot of self-appointed advisers around me. I did not appoint them. They appointed themselves because they're volunteering. You know they say sguru people are misusing you. They're just using you in so many ways. Let them use me. That's why I'm here. What's the problem? Let them. Anybody can deceive me. That's the whole thing. Not because I don't have the intelligence to ward off their deception. I can see them through and through. But just about anybody can deceive me because I come with an assurance. Let them deceive me and live well and see. They will never ever do that. Not because I will curse them, because it's like spitting into the sky. You spit into the sky, it will land straight back on your face. No other way. So today, the type of education we have created around the world, which is mostly an import of 19th century western ideas of education, is producing a lot of very capable but imbalanced human beings. You must understand Rahana was an immensely talented, knowledgeable man, a great administrator, a great warrior, a scholar. But his own intelligence, talent and capabilities worked against him because he had no balance. I'm constantly telling everybody you may have intelligence, you may have talent, you may have various qualities but if there is no balance your intelligence will work against you. When I say balance, balance on many different levels, physiological, psychological, emotional, chemical balance, energy balance on all levels we need balance. And talking about balance brings us back to motorcycles again. Last year we rode to Kalash on motorcycles which was a fantastic experience. I think we were one of the first group of people to do the ride to Kyash from India on a motorcycle. Then in early 2024, I banged my head a little bit as it's my want to forget my chronological age that led to an emergency brain surgery and again travel and schedule well before fully healed and getting into another situation of banging my head barely and went into another emergency surgery. Doctors were warning me that there can be no third surgery for me as it is miraculous. The second bangup was not fatal in May 2024. as it was. They predicted that there can be cognition losses or faculty losses. But I was clear going to Kyash would be hugely beneficial. Beyond normal logic of course to test the whole theory of this miraculous process of which I had absolute trust in looked like a death wish to the doctors and all those around me when I announced I will ride on a motorcycle into that altitude and terrain. But have I not come out of this whole headbreaking episode well if not better than before at least as good? Well, that is yoga and kailash is a very phenomena of yoga or the source of yoga. Practices like shambhabi, shunya, syyama, anga mardana, silaja, up yoga, these are not imported anywhere else in the world in the form and power as transmitted by us. These are all techniques derived from adi yogis or kailash essence. Some aspects are from Ghanaas rest from Ady Yogi's energetic knowing. Many times I squirm with embarrassment when people acknowledge me for these practices when all I have done is transmit what I embied from that source without distortion. I am incapable of distortion as I am nothing or I have no knowledge of my own. I am an empty space. So I am simply incapable of distorting anything. So last year the ride was so wonderful. I'm back this year again on my fire horse. Of course four wheels are still good for some things. The first time we came to Kailash, I was driving a Land Cruiser and there is a Tibetian guide sitting next to me and in the back seat there are three people. Two of them are ladies. I was driving and of course there are no toilets or restrooms anywhere in Tibet at that time. So these ladies ask if we want to use a lube where do we go? The guide says tree behind. So they go tree behind. Then we drive into the Tippetian plateau. As it gets higher absolutely no trees, a treeless terrain. There is not a speck of green anywhere in most of western Tibet. You will not see any trees except around Lassa and in a few other parts. One reason is because of the altitude. Another reason is because it is windswept. If you come in certain seasons, the wind will be on constantly at a very high speed. Only that kind of vegetation which hugs the ground and stays there can survive. There are no trees. These ladies ask the guide. Now what do we do? The guide says rock behind. Then they go looking for rocks and behind. Then we drive deeper into the Tibetan plateau where it's like a moonscape. There is no rock. There are no trees and there is not a blade of grass. Nothing. Then they said what do we do? He says car behind. So going to kalash. What is the purpose of making this journey despite all the discomforts? There are three different dimensions. One is an overwhelming presence in terms of the sheer energy of it that is easy to access if you go with a little bit of integrity. When I say integrity, it means you're not just waiting to make up something. First moment you see a little something you want to make up something else because you have a whole epic in your mind. Suddenly you start seeing Shiva and Parvati floating in the cloud and of course there will be a bull and all that stuff. You need psychological integrity that you ignore all the thoughts and emotions that come because to create thoughts and emotions you don't have to go to kalash. You can sit at home and do it. You do it pretty well at home, don't you? You You don't have to travel all the way to Kyas just to get emotionally excited about something. So there is an overwhelming presence of powerful energy which nobody can miss whether they are conscious or unconscious in the sense I will tell you something that you are not conscious of but the moment I tell you you will be you are breathing. There is air in this room. It's nourishing you right now. You are not conscious of it, isn't it? But it is still nourishing you. Even if you are not conscious, it is still nourishing you. Similarly, there is an energy there. Even if you are not conscious, it will still nourish you. It is like this. If today's dinner we turn it into a nice broth and with a pipe we will pour it into you, you will still be nourished but you don't get to taste it. It is the same thing with the presence of kalash. If you are conscious you can taste it. You can consume it in a certain way which makes it both nourishing and enriching. If it just enters you just as air is doing right now, it's nourishing but it need not lead to any great joy. The energy permeates everybody. But if you are in a certain level of receptivity, you can taste it which makes a big difference for many people who have come with us. The journey to Kailash is the greatest experience of their lives. Many of them have shared what phenomenal experiences they have been through during this journey. >> Getting that first glimpse of Kalash with Sguru next to you is it it's just unexplainable what happens within you. It's it's just brings tears to my eyes. It was very overwhelming for me. It was extremely overwhelming. Um, my whole mind was blank. There was nothing in my mind. And Sguru's energy was just it was taking me to some other place that I just cannot explain. U tears were just flowing down everybody's eyes. It's an express it's an emotion that you just can't express by words. You have to you have to experience it. Me personally, I don't know what I did to deserve his grace. >> And after this first Gail Yetra, definitely my perception of life has changed completely. The second dimension is there is an enormous level of knowing out there. Kalash is a tremendous spiritual library. When we say this is the abboard of Shiva, it does not mean he's still dancing there on the snow. It means everything that he was invested in that place. And because of that many yogis came after him and deposited their knowing in the mountain too. When the first jane tanker rishabdev came to kalash, he came with a mission. He had heard much about it. So he thought he would take all this knowledge and make it available to the world. He was a yogi of immense capability. But after being touched by kalash instead of taking the knowledge he became a part of it. No being who has tasted it to some death will be spared that temptation. When you are in touch with it you begin to think this is it. Why not? Everything else becomes meaningless. All the petty goals that one sets up for themselves to do this and that. When the opportunity to become immortal is thrown at you, there is temptation. When the possibility of becoming a part of such a grand affair is opened, it becomes a temptation hard to resist. For me, the most significant thing is that Augustimony invested everything that he was in the southern face of Kalash. It is a little inappropriate to distinguish or to discriminate between one face of Kailash and the other. But the south face is dear to us because Augustimony merged into the southern face. It is just a south Indian prejudice. Bear with me that we like the south face. I think it is the most beautiful face. In many ways it is the most intense face. But very few people go to the south face. It is far less accessible and involves a more difficult route than the other faces. In many ways, Augusta is the father of South Indian mysticism. Yoga came in a particular format to South India through Augusta. Kalash is the greatest mystical library upon the planet. Everything that you ever wish to know is written into this place. Ask me any question about existence. If you give me enough time, I can glean it out of this mountain. But accessing that library will take a whole lot of preparation which we are not even aspiring with most people. It is like if you do not know how to read, if you do not know the alphabet, we took you into a massive library where there are millions of books. They overwhelm you. It's all stacked up. But when you took a book and opened it, you can't make out anything because you don't know the alphabet. So we are not really expecting anyone to access something. That would take a lot of preparation and a totally different level of involvement and it could be risky for people who are not very stable within themselves. To give you an idea of what is available there in 2007 before my trip to Kalash I was in Los Angeles and I started running temperature but I kept through the schedules. Then I came to a Babaspana program in London running very high temperature. I just popped paracetamols and continued 4 days of bhavasana program. Then I came to India running very high temperature. Within a week's time I went to Singapore and from there I went to Australia. I was running temperature continuously. By now it's already been 4 weeks and I was running temperature well over 103° most of the time. Then I came back to India and we were shooting for this Tamil channel. In one day, we are shooting 12 episodes. So, with all those lights and television cameras, I had to change my clothes every 1 and 1/2 hours because I was just getting so wet with sweat. After shooting one evening, I came home and it felt like my brains were just cooking up. I just checked my temperature. It said 107. I don't know what got into my head. I just went under the cold shower with my turban clothes on and I just stood there for about 15 minutes. Later on when I told the doctors they said that is the smartest thing you have done in your life. Then again I traveled to United States. By now I was treated for denu fever, three types of malaria back in California. A tropical medicine doctor who is supposed to be a specialist said this is some strange kind of typhoid. They started treating me for typhoid. So I had an IV port running but I kept my schedules. I was talking in a conference with my IV port on. After that I was speaking at the house of the president of the conference. About 20 minutes I spoke and I was dripping sweat. One man raised his hand. I thought he's going to ask a question. He stood up and said, "You must go to the emergency room right now." I said, "Yes, I know." And they took me to the hospital, but I couldn't stay there. I was just there for the night because the next day I had appointments elsewhere. So, I traveled to Atlanta. Then I was in North Carolina where I almost collapsed around 2:00 a.m. Then they took me to the hospital. But the next day I had another event in New York. I went and did that event with IV port on. By then my neck had swollen. The lymph nodes in my neck had swollen. I had 18 blood tests by then and four MRIs. So I was joking with the doctors. If nothing else kills me, I may die of anemia because the amount of blood they're taking for every test. And the doctors in North Carolina said, "This is too esoteric for us and too complex. We don't know what the hell this is." All kinds of reports saying bizarre things. Every time I go through a test, they put me in a New York hospital. By then, my lymph nodes were really swollen up and I was in excruciating pain. They said, "We have to do surgery. Maybe it's malignant." I stayed there overnight in the hospital. Next day morning I'm going for an anesthetic check. They gave me that funny hospital gown that is open on all sides and they asked me to go for an anesthetic check. By then I'm not able to walk by myself. I had to hold on to somebody to walk. Somehow I managed to get into the elevator. As I was going down in another floor just by chance somebody else stopped the elevator and one person got in. The doctor who was with me introduced this person and he said he's the one who is going to do surgery on you. He had not seen me till then. So he just uh checked my neck how it was swollen and my lymph nodes and uh the kind of pain I was in. He said it's very deep inside. You must inform the family. Then I went for the anesthetic check. Then I decided I needed to do something about this. I just sat there, closed my eyes for about 20 minutes. Then I got up and said, "I'm leaving." The doctor said, "No, Sguru, this is risky. You will not make it." I said, "It doesn't matter. I'm leaving." So I left the hospital. There were two people to help me. I stayed in a close by apartment for 4 days. I closed my eyes and was good enough to travel. I came back here to India on the 22nd or the 23rd day. I was in kalash. I tked all the way up. I was weak. I couldn't speak properly. I had lost my muscle mass. My thighs had lost almost 1/4 of the muscle in this 12 weeks. In that condition, I came to Kalash. When I sat there, I saw the tremendous richness of what is there. The knowledge that is stored there. Let us say it is like Shiva's dreadlocks. It is stored in strands. I just took one strand of that. You won't believe in 20 minutes I was a new man. Everybody could see that. I walked up all the way to the base of the mountain trekking and there were at least 300 people as witnessed that day. I bounced back like I was almost 10 years younger than what I was and much much more healthy than I was in those last 10 years before that and perfectly fine. This is just one tangible aspect. There are other more profound dimensions to it. It is an incredible space. Everybody may not be able to access what it is but at least allow yourself to be overwhelmed by it. Maybe someday if it lives within you, you can access it hopefully. It's my wish and my blessing. You must allow this to happen to you that the kila should reside within you and you must have access to this tremendous and unimaginable possibility. It is possible for every human being. It's just the willingness of this. Next month on the bada porna or parami we will be exploring further the various mystical aspects of kalash on sguru 360. There are some very significant aspects of kalash. Let me see to what extent we can articulate this in the coming paramy. Namaskarum.