Over marketed with a following of blind devotees
The course seems to take a lot of ideas from the Landmark Forum Education and authors such as Eckhart Tolle and the like, but delivers them in a watered down and flamboyant method. The event felt forced and highly produced to appeal to a universal commercial audience. A lot of the focus seemed to be on Sadhguru as a personality rather than the teachings, basically if you remove Sadhguru from the course, the course would seem very dull and there’s not much to resonate with. This is an issue for me because the content of the course seems to rely on Sadhguru’s charismatic ability to deliver the course. I completed all the courses and dieting in preparation for the live event, and when I got there it was clear that most of the people who claim to have life transforming effects are already sold on Sadhguru before he walks in. They are crying and throwing themselves at his feet like a god. Speaking of which the audience is expected to spend hours sitting on the floor for the entire duration of the course. My issue is that at no point is there invitation for serious critical discussion with the crowd and the audience is encouraged to say “yes” or “no” all the time at the end of his statements which bates the crowd to agree with him. Although there is nothing offensive about what his saying, it seems very marketed and over hyped with a following of blind devotees who need a leader. I’m happy for the people who truly get something out of it and there’s no question that there seemed to be many people who did, I just wish I’d read a review like the one I’m writing prior to doing this. Go into it with no expectation and be prepared for a lot of repetition, slow pace in conversation in discussing basic principles of reality and accountability.The best parts about the Isha foundation were the incredibly attentive and polite volunteers / staff, they were gold standard. The location and organisation of the event was great. Then again, you want to ensure you had great service and friendly staff when each live event generates well over 5 Million in ticket sales with a crowd of just 7 thousand people sitting on the floor. Overall I think this course could be great for someone who has little or no previous experience in the spiritual / self development world, I can see how it could all seem new and enlightening.The most unique and interesting thing was the sequence a yoga like 21min routine that is believed to be transformational when repeated for 39 days, during the sequence it can be challenging to know when to transition between one pose and another as there is no breath count and it’s not encouraged to use a timer, instead your told that with time you’ll work out when to change poses. For someone who practices Jivamukti Yoga and or has done this sort of inner investigation and reading, especially courses such as The Landmark Forum Education or literature such as Allan Watts, Dr Joe Dispenza and Eckhart Tolle, this course might seem like rudimentary copy and paste of various things.
20 January 2024
Unprompted review