Moon and mysticism


WE HAVE come to modern times where, day or night, light is glar­ing in our eyes. Even if there is a full moon, I think most people who live in urban areas today do not even notice it. How can you miss a full moon? It is big enough and bright enough, isn’t it?

Every phase of the moon, you can look up in the sky and notice it. Or if you bring a certain level of awareness and perception to your system, if you just observe your body, you will see for every phase, the body behaves slightly differ­ently. It is very much there both in the male and the female body, but in the female body it is more manifest. As you know, the funda­mental reproductive process in a woman is very much connected to the moon’s cycles. The timing with which the moon goes around the planet and the cycles that hu­man beings themselves go through within themselves and the very process of human birth – the process of creating this body – are very deeply connected.

The moon has a large influence on our daily life, which is why in the eastern cultures, particularly in India, we drew two kinds of calendars. For mundane affairs, we have a solar calendar. For all the other subjective aspects of our life, which are not informa­tion or a technique but a living thing, we have a lunar calendar. It has always been such that any aspect that is beyond the logical has always been connected to the moon.

As one shifts from the calcula­tions of the logical mind to intui­tive ways of looking at life, the moon becomes more important. Generally the influence of the moon is considered illogical. Generally in the west, anything illogical got labelled as madness or insanity. In the English lan­guage, the moon is referred to as lunar. If you take a step further, you come to lunatic. But here, in this culture, we always saw the limitations of logic. There is a log­ical element to you that helps you to handle the material aspect of your life. But there is a dimension beyond logic, without which the subjective dimensions can never be accessed.

Human perception is a reflec­tion. If you see anything other than the reflection, that means you are not seeing the truth. Any perception is actually a reflection. The moon is also a reflection; you can see the moon because it re­flects the sun’s light. So the deeper perceptions of life have always been symbolised with the moon. Moonlight and mysticism have been very heavily connected eve­rywhere in the world. To symbol­ise this connection, Shiva wore a piece of the moon on his head; his ornament is the moon.

The yogic sciences and yogic path were also structured like this. The initial few steps are 100 per cent logical. But as you climb higher, it moves away from logic and goes into areas that are totally illogical. Logic has to be thrown away because that is the way life and creation is structured. So the moon becomes very important.

This is the only way any science can happen. If you look at modern science, which is actually still in its infancy, the same thing is hap­pening. Scientists were 100 per cent logical to start with; after they took a few steps, now they are be­coming slowly illogical. The physi­cists are almost talking like mys­tics. They are beginning to talk the same language because this is the only way it can go, because that is the way creation is. If you explore creation, that is how it will be.

Ranked amongst the fifty most in­fluential people in India, Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary and best­selling author. Sadhguru has been conferred the “Padma Vibhushan” by the government of India in 2017.