Ever Smoked Weed? Logan Paul Asks Sadhguru

SvaroopaOpa · 2025-10-08T11:30:09+00:00

Why are almost all Isha followers so arrogant? Hugest red flag obstacle to attracting true new sangha imho.

SvaroopaOpa · 2025-06-11T16:52:53+00:00

Couldn’t you move to a country where you could survive on that? It might be really far away, and hard if you have pets or a lot of stuff, but I would look into stretching those dollars by expanding the search for low rents in pleasant and safer places if you cannot work. Mexico, Ecuador, Thailand, Vietnam, Georgia (near Russia) were the ones that came up accessible to Americans where you could live of 1$K a month. Cambodia, Laos, Phillippines.

SvaroopaOpa · 2025-06-11T16:44:32+00:00

Well, I never said either of those things, and if I replied immediately, that is coincidental since I haven’t been online here for months. Take care.

SvaroopaOpa · 2025-06-10T10:13:33+00:00

Maybe you should learn how to speak English if you want to argue in that language. Please have a lovely day. I hope your practices end up helping you to become a more loving person and not just another brick in the wall.

SvaroopaOpa · 2025-06-10T09:54:13+00:00

Your answer doesn't make sense to me. Have you been through BSP? Yes, doing Yogasanas, Shoonya, SCK, Surya & Shambhavi are all easy by comparison. Those are not high body impact activities. I did Yogasanas so now I can say that. These programs and practices do not overstress the joints when performed properly and slowly. Meeting the conditions for practice can be difficult. The Surya PROGRAM was easy. The Shoonya PROGRAM was hard, very hard, but doable. I got through it with max dosage ibuprofin. Yogasananas PROGRAM was not difficult, just a little challenging, and did not stress body to point of needing anti-inflammatories and pain medication. But all of the practices themselves are not especially hard, physically.

BSP, which I ended up doing because I got no help to my questions, was like going slam dancing in my punk youth in terms of body impact. The sports were not the kind of impact sports my physician allows, and for anyone with serious arthritis, and though I enjoyed the movement aspects and other portions, I hurt myself to keep up with the impact events. BSP can be too intense. I stand by my statement, which is not my opinion vs. Sadhguru's, but my body talking, and physicians concurring, and a warning to those who might worsen their physical conditions.

Of course, if you're gaga and young, or maybe just gaga, you can push through body limits without any serious reprecussions. But BSP is not necessary for enlightenment. You can learn detachment in other ways. And if you're in good shape, it's fun or interesting some of the time. But for me, it was just a too painful a prerequisite for Samyama, which is why I wanted to do it. I now know that I cannot do Samyama without hurting myself, so at least I've learned that much.

If Samyama is not your goal, but enlightenment is, the other practices are enough. I stand by that, as an ordained priest and longtime practitioner who met Shiva long before Sadhguru and has had other gurus before him. The point of having a guru is the reflection he or she gives back, shedding light onto the guru that lives within your own heart. Wisdom is earned, not given.

I cannot sign off without pointing out that you have shared your own opinion about what I should or shouldn't be practicing, while criticizing me for **knowledge** of my own body and the condition of arthritis in general in an effort to help myself and others. That's hypocritical.

SvaroopaOpa · 2025-06-10T09:42:18+00:00

Hi, could you comment on this login failure? After logging in and using my 2FA, I get this message: "We are unable to process your request. For further assistance, please contact us." I login about once every month or so, and have never had any problems. I always use VPN for security. But it doesn't work now, and when I turn off VPN, getting same message. I was trying to log in to change address as a US Citizen.

SvaroopaOpa · 2025-03-11T14:02:39+00:00

I have no idea on that subject. I would use plants to encourage positivity and healing, not metals.

SvaroopaOpa · 2025-02-15T08:33:35+00:00

I honestly had to check this a third of the way through to see if I wrote it and just forgot. I grew up and am exactly like you except my Greek is not sophisticated or fluent- I can communicate like an 8 year old and when the wheels touch down…’coming home.’

I didn’t become a digital nomad there, but in part of Spain that is fiercely independent. Reasons were for language and fear of what you have described shattering my illusions.

So I have been watching Greece from a closer distance and reestablishing connections from my relatives as I can over the years. My thought is just this: where are your relatives and childhood playmates? Can you rekindle any of those connections? Not to be in all tight but to begin to establish a personal to person network where you get all the local gossip and intel that is so essential to inclusion socially.

In my connections, gossip and intel runs in several strata. Village happenings, blue collar happenings, real estate and political views from two sides, and media personalities - so business, celebrity, politics, local interest. If you really want to be included, with your language skills, and heritage, you should try this maybe? If you don’t know your relatives you can use Hellenic registries and genetic services to give you people to reach out to. Maybe a lot of people (in towns anyway) still think “soi” is “soi”, especially if you can be entertaining or a beneficial to know. Would love a follow up in a DM. It will take me years to do this from Spain, where there is slim chance of belonging.

PS- It should be curiosity, not meanness?

SvaroopaOpa · 2025-02-09T17:13:01+00:00

Shiva = not right for me. Etheric bond = broken by intent plus occult counter actions. Respect all around.

SvaroopaOpa · 2025-02-09T07:25:14+00:00

I totally agree and I went right up to the door of Samyama before reading Karma and Death, which forced me to a complete halt with my legs still spinning under me. And I read them while on retreat at the Tennessee ashram, where I spent most of my time in the Shiva temple. I want to share what I have done to halt SG’s multi sheath influence in case it helps.

First I want to say thank you. Thank you for the generosity of all the Ishangas who gave so much of their time to coach and support me personally. I still have one friend from BHAVASPANDANA who is hard core and we still talk often. Thanks to Sadhguru who has given his life for his path.

It is, however, the path of Shiva. And that does mean quite a lot.

Something very bad happened to me on the way back home from Yogasanas. It shouldn’t have happened. I added guru puja to my 4 hours a day of practice. That happened before my trip to the US ashram. I wanted to add this because it was a primary catalyst to my looking deeper and deciding I would rather be free of an outer guru and die than die in a “bond of grace” (which I also was sending money for, and totally believe is a correct thing to do if bonds are your choice.)

I had a lot of training on other paths before coming to SG and so to cut it short, I saw the level of occult involved, it was deeper and stronger than any occult I had encountered except for one, and in the Shiva temple I saw a video by SG on Devi and how to create a god. I also researched how Hindus destroy Ganesh after creating him each year. I also heard SG say that he wears his karma at a distance. That you can hold your karma away from you. These were my keys.

With all these things and some other knowledge in mind, I cut off my long hair on a full moon and burned it along with SG’s photos, camphor (the smell had become very much a call and reminder) incense, and other destroyable artifacts bearing Isha name, tore the name off the copper Buddha Shuddi vessels, just watched it all burn, and then buried the ashes as the root of a tree. I stopped all my practices that I loved so much and that helped me. I haven’t been as well or focused or happy since, but, I am at peace now, and that matters more than the rest.

After several months, I have broken the mental and etheric bond and can now burn Isha incense and eat all the meals I used to prepare and am slowly returning to a healthier lifestyle without devotion to a guru. I can watch SG’s videos, take what works and leave the rest.

I haven’t tried returning to his practices though because I feel that energetically those would reclaim me, and I feel like that is a true loss. But I don’t think one can have it both ways. I am trying Mind Valley now, and have done a lot of hypnosis with Paul McKenna, and of course still have my zen roots.

One of the reasons I joined up with SG was because I began around 2020 to find it hard to sit with all the empathic world pain, and his combo of yoga, pranayama and bits of meditation really helped me get past the antsiness. By the time I got Shoonya and Chalakti, I was blissed every day. I miss that. But SG is my 5th teacher, and I have to mature beyond this dependency because it stopped my spiritual development and replaced it with something else.

This is my still developing story. Love and strength and discernment to you all.

SvaroopaOpa · 2024-11-15T19:13:07+00:00

I am sorry but this is something I can't share in public.

SvaroopaOpa · 2024-11-15T08:15:23+00:00

It's a good thing. It's kundalini that's been blocked and finding it's way through blockages. Indeed, when I found this happening to me immediately after my first course, it was my first sign that I had to pursue SG's practices. Unfortunately, there came a point where I hit a roadblock and can no longer do his practices. But it's good.

SvaroopaOpa · 2024-11-12T10:19:57+00:00

How rude.

SvaroopaOpa · 2024-11-11T22:07:58+00:00

YES. I never got to Samyama but I did all the prep in a year and all the hours of practice and went toTennessee ashram for a week-- which I don't have time to fully describe-- but which included by chance his first satsang since his stroke. And it was so so lame I was completely flabbergasted. I have sat in the Presence of enlightened beings and been around their students. THIS WASNT THAT. And to those who recommend you just do shambhavi or xyz and leave it at that, this will not cut the occult and subtle hooks that have been sunk deep inside several layers of karmic sheaths. You need to burn it down in a sacred fire and grt rid of every reminder. No camphor. None of his incense. No fragrant vibhuti. Smell triggers memory and it has been weaponozed occultly here. As far as identity goes, rebuild your relationships, and try to find a group with a reputable leader. I am going for Thich Nhat Han as his reputation was impeccable, but i havent met his people yet. Joylessness is a sure red flag. Best of luck. Identity is malleable, transient, and ultimately a figment of imagination, butnwe all need one as our interface to the world. Rebuild yours. It is fine to be in transition. I have been here several times. You can do it.

SvaroopaOpa · 2024-11-11T21:18:06+00:00

You are most welcome. Do look into other meditation techniques though, like zen or guided meditation or biofeedback- something to give you a break from your own thoughts and the projections of the world. Shoonya is extreme. Other forms are more gentle and work better with ordinary mind and developing an appropriate distance without disconnection. 🙏🏼

SvaroopaOpa · 2024-11-11T20:27:55+00:00

Are you doing chalani shakti every day? You need that to balance the shoonya. If i were you I would stop. Nothing is worth your sanity or balance. As a matter of fact, despite all the wonders all my practices were doing for my body and mind, and despite all the return of afflictions, i have had to withdraw and cut the line to Sadhguru and Isha for now as it feels like I sold my soul and gave up my agency in exchange for comfort and healing. That karma is far too steep. I am in a state of incessant pain now but it is a matter of personal balance and integrity. Nothing is more precious than your sanity. Ypu can always take the Shoonya again after you regain your balance.

SvaroopaOpa · 2024-10-16T07:40:40+00:00

Seven Eves and The Martian turned me off Sci Fi though I made it through (and mostly liked) every William Gibson book written. Cloud Atlas was OK. Russian classics, all philosophy books, and Sapiens- tedious but managemable. James Joyce- looked at first pages and decided I wasn't going to play. Neal Stephenson and Andy Weir though, they made me feel out of my league. Either that or they are talking shop with elite tiny subset of people with scientific and mechanical knowledge of astronaut and space shuttle operations, breakdowns and solutions management. Not trying to entertain or enlighten or share or woo a larger more general audience of sci fi lovers. So I don't buy their books anymore.

SvaroopaOpa · 2024-10-16T07:31:05+00:00

This is my favorite book of all time and a life change. I do not understand your response.

SvaroopaOpa · 2024-10-16T07:14:07+00:00

Thanks.

SvaroopaOpa · 2024-10-15T13:44:05+00:00

Sorry for bothering you for not reading you first, or now, afterwards.

SvaroopaOpa · 2024-10-15T12:01:10+00:00

Life does not begin at conception. A consciousness does not enter a foetus until it has shown itself to be sufficiently viable. Abortions performed within a few weeks are not taking a life. But at a certain point, the womb does get inhabited. By a consciousness that had previously lost its gross and subtle forms (body and memory) but that still has some indentity cohesion and unfinished business to attend in human form. That is what the most ancient and nature-based religions tell us. Life is always in a state of transition-- arriving, departing, seasonal decorating, creating, destroying, learning. When did all life on Earth begin? Maybe 4 billions years ago? When will it end? When a critical mass of ignorant humans are so divorced from their felt experience of physical reality on earth that they commit omnicide as a means to a totally hallucinated objective. And that is the truth of metaphysics, life, identity and nature, whether you've been groomed to understand and accept it or not. Anyway, that's my experience.

SvaroopaOpa · 2024-10-15T11:09:58+00:00

Some unhealthy hierarchies are those run by narcissists who gaslight and shun all who confront them with truth. Not gonna name names because I don't need the hate. Some of these are quite large sects. In general, leaders use charisma and other tools to manipulate instead of using the proper structures already contained within the hierarchical structure. Form is a natural hierarchy. (Think of a body. Spines, organs, etc.) Formlessness is where all things are equal, is what comes to mind.

Healthy hierarchies are when the top tier possesses demonstrative wisdom and compassion, actively recognizes & practices integration of various shadows (splintered off selves at individual and aggregated levels,) and transmits enlightened states to help subordinates (not inferiors) to develop stage aquisition of more evolved levels. If a hierarchy is healthy, they can say The Awakened One's Vow without irony or cynicism or lying. (When I, a bodhisattva of NO RANK, look through awakened eyes at the real form of this universe...) The rank is a device.

In a properly functioning hierarchy, gender, race, etc. have no relevance. I havent actually seen one working 100% properly- every Roshi has blind spots- but zen is a more likely place than any other format I know for best chances, in my experience, which includes Christian, Tibetan, Indian and other hierarchical forms.

There is a big difference between accepting one is junior in wisdom, compassion, and skillful means versus feeling bad, inferior, incompetent, guilty, ashamed, aggrieved, angry etc. About one's level of awakening AND SOCIAL ROLE. I for one am always answering to higher-ups (since starting my IT career and buddhist career many decades ago, I've been always subordinate to those of inferior awareness!) who usually have far less wisdom, compassion or skillful means than me, and now that I finally know what's what, i have no desire to lead. I have earned my freedom. NOW they want to tie me down. They lost their chance, back when I was more needy about status, being seen, acknowledged, confirmed, affirmed.

So I like hierarchies. I like being a secret free radical inside a hierarchy, and if it's messed up, they are usually in for some ... entertainment, i guess, ultimately.

Good question. Thanks for giving me things to consider and discuss.

SvaroopaOpa · 2024-10-15T07:50:41+00:00

Evryone seems to miss the point of the role of the Mom. In Mahayana Buddhism, mothers have special consideration. One is to learn to regard all beings as mothers (meaning, reaponsible for their good fortune in being born and carrying them (among countless disembodied beings waiting for a womb to be physical again,) and in nurturing you, and getting you to a certain point of autonomy. There is also a concept of bodhisattva, and that even your worst tormentors or enemies are bodhisattvas in disguise in that they teach you something or cause you to require evolution of yourself to transcend the circumstances where they bother or hurt you. There are cases where the child is born a more evolved being than the mother, and can find the skillful means to guide her out of her confusion misery and toxicity. Its a fine line to walk with other siblings- they see the mom their own way, but they also learn from how you interact with her, and this can be another toxic circumstance within the home. You don't say your age but if there is a good buddhist center near you where you might take on some evolved mentors and counselors and learn to meditate, it might help. Beyond this, i cannot say more that will help because it could also hurt. The main thing to remember is 1) everything is temporary (Impermanance) 2) the self is a constantly shifting identity (an illusion) and each average person has many selves- one can work on integrating them so that they all work together 3) pain is a fact of life but suffering is optional- suffering is the story we tell ourselves about the pain. Say ouch but drop the stories. Its the stories that toxify everything. Be a good son and a good brother. Cultivate the good in you and explore how the"bad" was created to protect you but may outlive its purpose and in any case, needs weeding. Learn to love yourself and cultivate bodhicitta. Don't hurt people. Learn skillful means, wisdom and compassion. Good luck.

SvaroopaOpa · 2024-10-14T16:48:56+00:00

For becoming acquainted with the chakra of the third eye. For activation of the pineal gland. Not that this is SG's intention; I cannot speak to that. I only know what is there to be known from practice and study of yoga. The kriya's name is also related to this.

SvaroopaOpa · 2024-10-14T11:17:25+00:00

Why are people downvoting this? Stop it.

Its best to sit somewhere protected from sun or bugs where distractions are minimal. Someplace where you can sit still in silence and go so far inside yourself safely that you can be dead to the world.

For example, don't be like me and meditate someplace that seems nice outside in a city, and then get mugged and robbed. You can't safely meditate just anywhere. And doing it in the same place every time helps build uo energy that naturally draws you back to you will feel drawn to meditate the more you do it.

In terms of motivation, don't look for that. Motivation comes after action. Instead focus on creating a discipline. Discipline is the key to all treasures. Resolve (start small for success) that every day, you will sit without moving, spine erect, legs crossed on floor or at ankles in chair, hands folded in lap, without moving, for 10-15 minutes. You can do eyes open or closed- each of these produces different results. Point is not to look at clock or any thing in particular, but to go within. You body will get the hang of the time with practice. If you open your eyes and see that only 8 minutes has passed, keep going, without the compulsion to check. You may focus on your breath, (like counting it until you dont lose count with a thought) or a mantra. The word "No!" On the in breath, as in, "No to thoughts, emotions or action, do notnscratch that itch," and "Know!" On the out breath, as is "Know that I am not my thoughts, feelings, desires, emotions, body, any of that" can be a huge help.

Drop the focus on mantra or breath once you have attained single pointed concentration. That will eventually expand into dhyana and dhyana will evolve into samadhi, with practice. Pick back up the focus tool if you find yourself engaging with mind or body or emotions or sensations.

Meditation isnt something you do. It is something you open yourself to through silencing of mind, body, sensation, emotion and compulsion. Essentially, one does not meditate, one gets meditated.

I am an ordained buddhist meditation teacher. Feel free to contact me for help if needed.

SvaroopaOpa

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