The Three Dimensions of Kailash - Sadhguru

 Sadhguru describes the many dimensions that are part of Kailash, and looks at how we can become receptive enough to experience them.

Sadhguru: As the legends go, the regions around Kailash are where Shiva would have traversed physically. When it comes to Kailash, there are three dimensions to it. One is the sheer presence of this mountain. Second is the enormous level of knowing or knowledge that is here. Third is the very source of Kailash, which is also present.

Kailash – Its Presence Beyond Visual Beauty

There are many mountain peaks in the Himalayan region that are many times bigger and much more beautiful than Kailash. There are over a hundred peaks rising above 24,000 feet in the Himalayas. Especially, if people walked from certain parts of India, they would see Mount Everest on the way. In terms of size and grandeur, there is nothing more to see after that. 

So we do not go to Kailash to enjoy the natural beauty. But people recognized and went to that particular peak, not the other bigger mountains all along the range because there is an overwhelming presence about Kailash.

Let’s say you are a little child who knows only the first three letters of the alphabet, ABC. Then someone took you into a huge library with millions of books. You saw “A” with so many books. Then “B” with so many. Millions of books with billions of letters. You would be overwhelmed! That is the experience of Kailash.

Everyone can feel the overwhelming presence of what is there. You cannot miss it, unless you are very stiff and busy taking selfies with Kailash all the time. If your focus is to “hold” Kailash between your two fingers and take a picture, then you may miss it. Otherwise, no one can miss the presence. It is too overwhelming.

To even miss that, it is like there is air in the room. If you simply breathe unconsciously, it still keeps you alive and nourishes you. But if you consciously breathe, your experience is different. Or you can experiment with today’s dinner. Take some very nutritious food, churn it up nicely and pour a litre of it down your throat with a funnel. Your nourishment will be taken care of, but you will not feel the taste and the beauty of eating. This might happen to you in Kailash. Don’t do that to yourself. Nourishment will anyway happen, but it is good to have a taste of it.

A Massive Library of Knowing and Knowledge

The second dimension is there is an enormous level of knowing and knowledge out there. You are overwhelmed by the library, but if you want to read those books, it is a different matter.  Even to learn English language properly, to have some grasp – not mastery – to have some grasp over the language it took you ten, fifteen years. If you want to access the knowing of Kailash, it takes a completely different dimension of preparation and involvement. 

Some time ago, someone asked me, “What does it take for a layperson to access Kailash?” If you were truly a layperson, it would be very easy to access it. I don’t know how you define a layperson. Have you ever seen a layperson anywhere? Would you say you were a layperson in front of your wife? 

If you are truly a layperson, I will pour it into you – it is very easy. Lay means you know nothing. But you are not that kind. You are a very smart guy – at least you think so, whether others do so or not. Everybody thinks he is a smart guy in his own little area. Somebody is a smart guy in his little home. Somebody else may have a little larger boundary, but everybody is a very special guy. There is no layperson. 

If we create truly laypeople by dragging them through the mountains and whatever else it takes, if we make them so lay that whatever you say, they are willing to listen, then we can pour it into them. 

Or, they have to be really intelligent. Intelligence is never in comparison with someone else. Smartness is always in comparison. When we say, “You are smart,” it means you are a little one up on someone next you. Smartness is of no significance. Smartness may help you earn some money and make it in society, but it will not get you anywhere existentially. 

Intelligence is not seeking comparison. Intelligence has no time or inclination for comparison because intelligence realizes how small it is. If you are truly intelligent and you paid attention to things around you – to just a flower or a leaf – you would know how small your intelligence is. The nature of intelligence is to see the limitations of what it is. 

A layperson is an intelligent person because if you pay attention to everything around you, you know even a goddamn leaf or a flower or a grain of sand is far more intelligent than whatever you think you are. So you will become lay. 

The Source of Kailash

The third aspect is the source of Kailash. That is also present. But that is very subtle. If you have a very high level of integrity – physiologically, psychologically and energy-wise – you may touch that which is the source of Kailash. The source of Kailash is like empty space – it is always there. 

If you look up in the sky, you see the stars and the moon, but most people don’t see the empty space which is the largest presence out there. Ninety-nine percent of the cosmos is empty but most people will never notice it. They cannot experience it because it is too subtle. 

It is very subtle, but it is a possibility, because it does not need capability. It just needs integrity. What is needed is a certain sense of physiological, psychological and energy integrity. Energy integrity cannot happen in a short period. It takes a certain amount of work. But you can create psychological and physiological integrity in a few days. It just takes a few simple things. 

If you are going to Kailash, for those few days, just manage how many times in a day you eat. You decide how many times, and in between, no eating. And fix the timings when you want to talk or look at your phone. If you can leave it totally, that’s great. But otherwise, fix it according to your need. 

You being unable to keep quiet is a compulsion. You have to say the same stupid things again and again. At least, when you are going to Kailash, leave these things alone. Sit by yourself, chant, be focused, be alert to everything around you, because the system has to prepare itself. Otherwise it will miss everything. 

This energy that we call Kailash is a tremendous possibility. “Do I have to not eat, Sadhguru? I won’t eat for three days!” Then you may not come back! That’s not the point. You decide how many times in a day you open your mouth to take something in, and how many times a day you open your mouth to talk. If you would like to eat three times a day, fix it to three times – no fourth time. It is your choice but you fix it. Fixing and doing what you say “I will do,” is integrity. Integrity is not in eating only once a day or five times a day, integrity is in – “I fix it and I just do that”.

I’m not talking about discipline. What you say, you do – that’s integrity. I am not talking about social integrity, I am talking about physiological and psychological integrity. It has to come. Only then one becomes capable of being touched by and experiencing something.