A spiritual journey to Isha Foundation

Isha Foundation is a non-profit, spiritual organization founded in 1992 by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev.[1] It is based at the Isha Yoga Center near Coimbatore, India and at the Isha Institute of Inner Sciences at McMinnville, Tennessee in the United States. The foundation offers yoga programs under the name Isha Yoga. It has over 5 million volunteers[2] and works in tandem with international bodies like the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

Isha Yoga is the masthead under which the Isha Foundation offers yoga programs. The word isha means "the formless divine".[4] Isha Yoga's introductory flagship program is 'Inner Engineering'. It includes initiation into meditation and pranayama and the Shambhavi Mahamudra.[5] Yoga classes are also conducted for corporate leaders to introduce them to what Sadhguru calls "inclusive economics," to introduce a sense of compassion and inclusiveness into today's economic scenario.[6][7] A yoga course for the Indian national hockey team was conducted in 1996.[8] Isha Foundation began conducting yoga programs in the United States in 1997[9][10] and, in 1998, yoga classes for life-term prisoners in Tamil Nadu prisons were initiated.[11]

Isha Foundation regularly organises Mahasathsangs with Sadhguru in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka where he gives discourses, conducts meditations and answers the audience's questions.[12] Isha Foundation organises annual yatras to Mount Kailash and the Himalayas under the banners Kailash Manasarovar Sojourn and Himalayan Dhyan Yatra. The Kailash Sojourn led by Sadhguru is among the largest groups to make the trip to Kailash with 514 pilgrims making the journey in 2010.

Ashram-The foundation has established two ashrams: the Isha Yoga Center at the Velliangiri Mountains near Coimbatore and at the Isha Institute of Inner Sciences at McMinnville, Tennessee. The Isha Yoga Center houses the Dhyanalinga yogic temple, a space for meditation that does not ascribe to any particular faith or belief system. It was consecrated by Sadhguru in 1999. The dome that houses the actual linga — which is 13 feet 9 inches (4.19 m) in height and made of very high density granite rock — is a pillarless ellipsoidal dome that is 76 feet (23 m) in diameter and 33 feet (10 m) high. It is constructed entirely of natural materials to ensure longevity. Burnt clay bricks were used with mud mortar and massive granite blocks without steel, cement or concrete.[15] The Linga Bhairavi temple, a feminine deity, is housed beside the center. The center houses the Spanda Hall, a 64,000-square-foot (5,900 m2) meditation hall. The Isha Rejuvenation Center is at the ashram — an Ayurveda and Siddha spa that offers massages, treatments and programs.[16] The Aadhi Yogi Alayam will be an 82,000 sq. ft. column-less hall with a unique blend of ancient and contemporary architecture, which can accommodate over ten thousand people, opening the possibility of inner transformation to one and all.[17]

The Isha Institute of Inner Sciences was established in 2006 on 1,200 acres (4.9 km2) of land on the Cumberland Plateau in McMinnville, Tennessee. It houses Mahima Hall, a 39,000-square-foot (3,600 m2) meditation hall. Adi Yogi: The Abode of Yoga, a 30,000 sq. ft meditation space, was completed in the fall of 2015. The Abode of Yoga is a powerful space for inner well-being and is available to everyone irrespective of race, religion, nationality and creed. The Abode of Yoga is intended as a tribute to Adi Yogi, the first yogi, who offered the yogic science to mankind 15,000 years ago. It is meant to serve as a powerful infrastructure to raise human consciousness in the western hemisphere: “If America begins to meditate…you will see, the whole world will long for it.

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