“Namaste, My name is Kush Sareen and I’m the founder of Isha Stories.
My spiritual journey started in my teenage years when I started pondering the deeper questions of life. Who am I? What is my purpose? What is the nature of my existence? Deep inside me, these questions burned intensely, so intensely they affected every other aspect of my life.
From sleepless nights to feeling empty within, life often felt like a drag yet somehow I made it through my early teenage years. I remember often feeling a pain deep in my chest, a feeling that was a deep scream into existence – The pain of ignorance. When I was 15, in my 10th grade class I read “Siddhartha,” a book on Buddha’s life. For the first time in my life I found something that I related to at a deeper level, in fact, the whole idea of a life focused on searching for happiness, truth, and enlightenment seemed like the most important thing I could do.
Deep within me, it was the ultimate goal but there was school, there was family, there was society. I couldn’t just walk out and leave everything so I continued to walk the path our culture and my parents expected me to. I tried everything from religion and philosophy to alcohol and partying to love and relationships. I had a really nice car, good grades, great friends, everything I thought I wanted but the happiness achieved from all of these things was short-lived, still somewhere deep down I was restless, there was a longing for something more. This rudimentary life felt so shallow, so mundane, and so superficial. The life within me was screaming for more. They say when the pain of ignorance arises, a master arises, you don’t have to go in search of him, he will anyway happen.
In 2012, I came across my first Sadhguru video. I was surfing on YouTube, and I saw his photo in the “recommended videos” section, without thinking something within me pulled me to just click on his video. Right from the first video what he said just made a lot of sense to me. It resonated so deeply I was simply blown away. His logic, reasoning skills, and the way he answered questions all seemed unbeatable.
This time it was different from how I felt 7 years ago when I discovered Buddha, Sadhguru was a living spiritual master in our time. I continued to watch his videos till summer 2013 where I binged watch all the content he had at that time. It was strange, I never felt so pulled towards anyone in my life like this. I had experienced love, lust, attraction, and attachment, but this was something else. It was almost like a magnetic force within me just wanted to hear more and more of what this man had to say, in fact I wanted to be in his physical presence! It was like we were all trapped in the matrix and he found a way out and was giving me the choice between the red and blue pill.
One day I decided I wanted to take his program for inner well-being called “Inner Engineering.” I checked the foundation’s website and saw Sadhguru just offered it the previous week in California and now he wasn’t going to be back in America till next spring.
It was almost heartbreaking, but then as I continued to search the program schedule I saw it was being offered locally with an Isha yoga teacher trained by him literally the next week in my own area. Without hesitation I signed up. When I got there they told me this was the first Inner Engineering program to be offered in this city, some coincidence huh? I was super impressed with the program, and enjoyed doing the Shambhavi Mahamudra Kriya practice I was initiated into daily. 6 months later Sadhguru himself was offering Inner Engineering along with BSP (An advance Isha Yoga program) the following weekend at the Isha Institute of Inner Sciences so I decided to redo it along with taking the advance program.
What happened to me that week is something I can never put into words but I realized I had found a path that would lead me to a life beyond what my logical mind could even imagine. This was in May 2014. Today it’s been just over 9 years and what a ride has it been. I’ve taken every Isha program and have been volunteering for many years now for the foundation. I really wish I could describe what it has done to me, but some things can only be known through experience.
I’ve simply lost count of the number of times I’ve shed tears of bliss, love, and ecstasy I’ve had since I started walking this path. Before my idea of tears was pain and suffering. I now know what it means to feel moments of oneness with everything, to dissolve everything I ever thought I was and just reverberate with my surroundings. To be in tune with the very existence itself. To be aware of the tiny spec I am in this universe. To realize my mortal nature. To go beyond my petty logic and know the magic of life. Simply breathing, simply existing has become so pleasant that no other purpose is needed.
The intellectual I believed I once was – that man is no more. Something else is in the works; the seed that was planted within me 9 years ago is slowly blossoming. Without doubt the past 9 years have been the best in my life. Life is more beautiful, more fulfilling, and joyful than ever before. Depression, loneliness, and the feeling of emptiness have been gone from my life for years now, the need for the other is even gone where I can simply just be and find solitude in my aloneness. Everything that has happened to me, everything I have become – for this I will always be grateful to Sadhguru and all the volunteers at the Isha Foundation who gave their life to make this happen.
Seeing everything happening in the world today I find raising human consciousness as the most needed thing in the world and there is no better opportunity to do this than by providing the tools for inner transformation that are being offered here.
Looking at the world I find most of humanity has become so entangled with the process of life. Suffering has become mainstream. Violence, terrorism, bigotry, discrimination, depression, loneliness, resentment and the list goes on and on. On the outside life is at its best for humanity, but on the inside most of us are just so lost. As a human race it’s time we take a stand. What has happened to me and many others I know through these methods of inner transformation should happen to the rest of the world. A life where we can live more consciously, more inclusively, and more joyfully. A life where we are not enslaved to the outside for our inner well-being. A life where one can simply sit and be at absolute ease, where there is no desire to run after something for fulfilment. A life that consciously evolves us beyond the chains that have kept us in the darkness of ignorance. A life where we can break karmic bondages and liberate ourselves to the highest possibility a human being is capable of living.
Those of you who have been touched by what’s being offered here I ask you to all take a stand with me. Those of you willing to talk about their journey, those who want to share their story please DM me and we’ll get your voice out to the world. Humanity must see that there is a way to live beyond all these limitations, that if we are willing, we can create a heaven right here on earth.” – Kush Sareen
Editor’s Note:
Feel free to connect with Kush Sareen on Instagram – @ksareen30 to gain deeper insights into his transformative experiences with Shambhavi Mahamudra, or you can share your own Isha story at @isha_stories on Instagram.
You can enroll for online Inner Engineering program here – https://t.ly/wBmmx
