Overview
Sadhguru, born Jagadish Vasudev, is a contemporary Indian yoga teacher and the founder of the Isha Foundation, a yoga and meditation organization based at the Isha Yoga Center near Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. His teaching is framed primarily as yogic and mystical practice — techniques for inner transformation — rather than as devotional worship of a particular deity, though it draws on Shaiva tradition, particularly the figure of Shiva as Adiyogi, “the first yogi.”
Life and the Isha Foundation
Sadhguru was born in Mysuru, Karnataka, and describes his own path to teaching as beginning with a profound personal experience in his mid-twenties that redirected his life toward yoga. He founded the Isha Foundation in 1992, and it has since grown into a large organization offering yoga and meditation programs — most prominently Inner Engineering, a structured introductory program — alongside education initiatives and environmental campaigns such as Cauvery Calling (river rejuvenation) and Save Soil (soil health awareness). The Isha Yoga Center near Coimbatore serves as the foundation’s main ashram and teaching campus.
Adiyogi and Shaiva framing
In 2017, the Isha Foundation unveiled a 112-foot bust of Shiva at the Isha Yoga Center, named Adiyogi — “the first yogi” — reflecting a framing found within yogic tradition of Shiva as the originating figure of yoga as a practice, prior to and distinct from his devotional worship as a deity in temple tradition. Sadhguru’s own teaching draws on this framing extensively, presenting yoga as a technology for inner transformation attributed in origin to Shiva rather than as devotional practice directed at Shiva in the way a temple tradition would frame it.
Teaching style
Sadhguru teaches widely through public talks, books, and video content, addressing both structured yogic practice and broader questions of well-being, purpose, and inner experience, generally in a style aimed at a broad, not necessarily religiously affiliated audience.
Worth knowing
- "Sadhguru" is a title rather than a birth name — in yogic tradition it denotes a teacher held to have attained a certain realization and to be qualified to guide others in spiritual practice; Jaggi Vasudev is widely known by this title today.
- The Isha Foundation, which Sadhguru founded in 1992, describes itself as a non-religious, non-profit organization and runs yoga and meditation programs, along with education and environmental initiatives such as the Cauvery Calling and Save Soil campaigns.
- The 112-foot Adiyogi statue at the Isha Yoga Center depicts Shiva as "the first yogi" (Adiyogi) and "the first guru" (Adi Guru) — a framing, common in yogic tradition, of Shiva as the originating source of yoga as a practice, distinct from his worship as a deity.
