A Different Kind Of Happy

Take everything you think you know about karma, and throw it away. World-famous yogi Sadhguru tells us where the world went wrong and how we can fix it, starting with ourselves

- Coco Marett

Nearly 20 years ago, modern mystic Sadhguru went travelling through the US on a mission to find a new home for his non-profit spiritual organisation, Isha Foundation, which he founded in 1992 in Coimbatore, India. Along the way, he developed a particular interest in indigenous cultures and visited Center Hill Lake, Tennessee, where he says he encountered a “frozen Native American spirit”.

“I had never seen that kind of pain in anybody,” he recalls. “I started inquiring about the Native American people and what happened to them. Then I learnt that region is known as the Trail of Tears, where terrible events took place and thousands of Native American people were killed between 1830 and 1850.”

Moved by the site, in 2006 he opened the Isha Institute of Inner Sciences on a mountaintop in the Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee, at the head of the Trail of Tears. Sadhguru says he was “drawn by the pain, not the beauty” of the place.

Since then, the Tennessee location has become a place of pilgrimage, attracting more than 50,000 visitors a year to take part in its programmes, which range from yoga and meditation retreats to guided nature walks, to a programme in which guests spend 21 days forming mindful habits in their daily lives through disciplined guided rituals. The foundation now operates in more than 300 cities and countries around the world, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and the UK. And outside of those, he has inspired millions with his writings, including his latest book, Karma, which appeared on The New York Times bestseller list after its release earlier this year.