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The Pranic Healing Sideshow

By Sadhguru

May 2012

There are too many healers on the planet! I am not saying there is nothing at all to it. Ninety percent of the time, there is nothing to it. Ten percent of the time, there is something to it. When there is nothing to it, I am okay with it. Suppose I sell nothing to you—then I am just a smart businessman, and you are a little stupid, but no harm happens to you. You have the pleasure of shopping, and I am doing business. But now, if I sell you
something which causes you harm, that is worse than selling nothing to you. “Nothing” is just a clean con job.

It only costs money; it does not cost life. But this “something” can cost life. So, that ten percent of the time when something does happen, that is when the danger is, and it is unnecessary.

Today, with modern medicine, you can handle almost all infectious diseases. When you use any kind of medicine it is an attempt to change the chemistry of the body with an external input; so the system suffers in

some way. On one level, the medicine cures you of the disease, but on another level it creates a kind of suffering. When it goes beyond a certain point, then you say side effects have manifested themselves because of the drug. But with any kind of drug or any kind of input, there will always be some disturbance to the system. There is a price to pay, but it is needed because the disease is a bigger problem for you.

But chronic ailments have not come to you from any external organism. With chronic ailments, the disease

is just the surface. The symptom that you notice is just the tip of the iceberg. And like the proverbial “tip of the iceberg,” it is only a small portion. The real problem is elsewhere within you. In other words, the symptoms are like indicators.

Whenever somebody attempts any healing, they are always trying to remove the symptom, because that is what they consider as disease. If you take away the indicator, the root of the problem still exists. The indicator
manifested itself on the physical body just to bring that root to your notice. Instead of taking notice of it and
seeing what should be done about it, if you just wipe out the indicator, the root will take effect in a much more

drastic way in your system. What was asthma can become a big accident or some other calamity in your life. It is possible. If the root has to be removed, it cannot just be removed and dissolved like that. It has to be taken out and worked out in some way.

These attempts to heal somebody are very childish. Because people have not understood and experienced life in any great depth, because they have seen life only in the physical dimension, they believe that relieving a person of his physical pain at that moment is the greatest thing they can do. It is not so. It is understandable that once the pain of the disease comes to you, you just want to be relieved—it does not matter how. But if you
are beginning to feel life a little deeper than the physical body, you will see that how you get rid of your disease

also matters.

Disease will go away when you reorganize your own energies. But you have to go through sadhana. We are teaching people kriyas and practices with which healing happens naturally. The objective is not healing, but it is definitely happening. In the so-called healing processes or clinics also this is being done, but with a lack of understanding and depth. Just laying your hands on somebody and relieving him of pain (without understanding) is not a good thing.

Another part of this whole activity of trying to heal somebody is, in some way, you are trying to play God, trying to manipulate energies in a certain way. Just getting instant reliefs will relieve you in one way but bind you in some other way. Nobody who genuinely walks a spiritual path will ever attempt healing because it is a

sure way of entangling yourself. Some of these things which have become famous around the globe today came from people who dropped out of Zen monasteries half way through their spiritual process, and they acquired a little power. They wanted to use it and market themselves well.

If you are on any live spiritual path, whoever is heading that place will always make sure that you never acquire any kinds of powers. We want to be ordinary, very ordinary—extra-ordinary. We don’t have the disease of wanting to become special by doing something that others cannot do. It is not necessary. In trying to play God, in some way you want to do something that other human beings cannot do. This can lead to lots of entanglement. These things are a sideshow.

[Named one of India’s 50 most influential people, Sadhguru speaks before millions annually around the globe, including to prominent leadership forums such as the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, TED, and the World Peace Congress. From ground-breaking yoga programs to projects for rural communities and the environment, Sadhguru’s Isha Foundation (www.IshaFoundation.org), serves as a thriving model for human empowerment, which is reflected in the Foundation’s special consultative status with the UN.]

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