How Kalaripayattu was born

Martial arts essentially evolved from Southern India. Agastya Muni was a very small-built man – short and diminutive – but he travelled endlessly. He evolved martial arts mainly to fight the wildlife. Tigers roamed this land in great abundance – now we can count them, we have eleven hundred tigers, but there was a time when thousands of them existed along with various other potentially dangerous wildlife. So, Agastya Muni evolved a system as to how to fight the wildlife – if a tiger comes, how to handle it.

You will see, Kalari still retains that format. This is not just about fighting with men. Fighting with men came later. He taught martial arts to a few people just to manage the wildlife when they travelled, and it still lives. Some of the schools still look up to him and associate themselves with him.

So when people went to China, once they crossed the Himalayas, they faced wild men who were always looking to attack the traveller. So what they had learned to handle the wildlife, they used it on wild men. Once they started using it on people, you will see a distinct transformation in the martial arts. From a very crouching kind of martial art to a “standing up” kind of martial art is what you will see from India to the Chinese and further into South-East Asia.

So, it evolved into a different format. And when you fight men, you have to kill, otherwise he won’t stop. With wildlife it’s not like that. They come because they think you are food. And once you make it very clear to him that you are a very difficult food, he will go away. He will look for some easy food. Because of this, the martial arts naturally transformed itself from a very fantastic form of avoiding becoming somebody’s dinner, to something that can kill. You will see this transformation from Kalari to Karate. Later on, in India also they started fighting with men but they did not transform the art so much. Instead, they picked up weapons. If you look at it, Kalari may not be as good a fighting process with human beings as Karate would be because in Karate they are standing on two legs. In Kalari, you are trying to look at something lower down because we did not see it as a tool to fight other men, it was only seen as a defense from wildlife.

Parashuram was another great teacher of Kalari. He single-handedly slaughtered armies because of his phenomenal martial art capabilities. He taught one school which flowed from the North of Malabar, and Agastya Muni’s school came from the South. Parashuram’s method used all kinds of weapons – hand weapons, throwing weapons, various kinds of weapons – but Agastya Muni’s martial art grew without any weapons, it was all hand.

We are unable to find really good teachers in Agastya’s form so we are going with Parashuram’s school but we are hoping to build that system slowly, so that over a period of time we want to shift to Agastya Muni’s, just to honor him. Just a little gratitude for him for what he has done because the kind of work that he did is so phenomenal. Nowhere else and never before did another human being take spirituality to every door as he did.

Source: Martial arts essentially evolved from Southern India. Agastya Muni was a very small-built man – short and diminutive – but he travelled endlessly. He evolved martial arts mainly to fight the wildlife. Tigers roamed this land in great abundance – now we can count them, we have eleven hundred tigers, but there was a time when thousands of them existed along with various other potentially dangerous wildlife. So, Agastya Muni evolved a system as to how to fight the wildlife – if a tiger comes, how to handle it.

You will see, Kalari still retains that format. This is not just about fighting with men. Fighting with men came later. He taught martial arts to a few people just to manage the wildlife when they travelled, and it still lives. Some of the schools still look up to him and associate themselves with him.

So when people went to China, once they crossed the Himalayas, they faced wild men who were always looking to attack the traveller. So what they had learned to handle the wildlife, they used it on wild men. Once they started using it on people, you will see a distinct transformation in the martial arts. From a very crouching kind of martial art to a “standing up” kind of martial art is what you will see from India to the Chinese and further into South-East Asia.

So, it evolved into a different format. And when you fight men, you have to kill, otherwise he won’t stop. With wildlife it’s not like that. They come because they think you are food. And once you make it very clear to him that you are a very difficult food, he will go away. He will look for some easy food. Because of this, the martial arts naturally transformed itself from a very fantastic form of avoiding becoming somebody’s dinner, to something that can kill. You will see this transformation from Kalari to Karate. Later on, in India also they started fighting with men but they did not transform the art so much. Instead, they picked up weapons. If you look at it, Kalari may not be as good a fighting process with human beings as Karate would be because in Karate they are standing on two legs. In Kalari, you are trying to look at something lower down because we did not see it as a tool to fight other men, it was only seen as a defense from wildlife.

Parashuram was another great teacher of Kalari. He single-handedly slaughtered armies because of his phenomenal martial art capabilities. He taught one school which flowed from the North of Malabar, and Agastya Muni’s school came from the South. Parashuram’s method used all kinds of weapons – hand weapons, throwing weapons, various kinds of weapons – but Agastya Muni’s martial art grew without any weapons, it was all hand.

We are unable to find really good teachers in Agastya’s form so we are going with Parashuram’s school but we are hoping to build that system slowly, so that over a period of time we want to shift to Agastya Muni’s, just to honor him. Just a little gratitude for him for what he has done because the kind of work that he did is so phenomenal. Nowhere else and never before did another human being take spirituality to every door as he did.

Source: http://blog.ishafoundation.org

Kalaripayattu is so old, its origins are traditionally attributed to the gods. But as with many other aspects of Indian culture, this incredible marital art form comes from none other than Agastya Muni.

Sadhguru:

Kalari is probably the oldest martial art form on the planet. These martial art forms were essentially taught by Agastya Muni to start with because martial arts are not just about kicking and punching or stabbing. It’s about learning to use the body in every possible way. So it not only involves exercise and other aspects of agility, it also involves understanding the energy system. There is Kalari chikitsa and Kalari marma which involves knowing the secrets of the body and healing the body quickly to keep the body in a regenerative mode. Maybe in today’s world there are very few Kalari practitioners who dedicate enough time, energy and focus, but if you go deep enough you will naturally move towards yoga because anything that came from Agastya cannot be any other way than being spiritual. It’s just another dimension, another dimension, another dimension – every possible way of exploration.

People know eating, sleeping and simple pleasures, and nothing more about their body. There are unexplored dimensions of the body. You know, some karate masters can kill you just with a little touch. Killing somebody with a touch is not the big deal. With a touch you can make them come awake, that’s a big thing. With a touch you can make them come alive, that’s a big thing. With a simple touch, not even somebody else, yourself simply touching the body in a certain way, the whole system can come awake.

For me, if we were only striving for the spiritual advancement of people, it’s very easy. I don’t even see it as a great challenge. But we want to open up the mystical dimension into human life. This needs work, a different level of commitment, focus, and dedication. To penetrate through the limitations which naturally exist for our species, to know life beyond the limitations set by nature, it needs a certain kind of people. The time is coming when we’ll do more focused work. I want to increase the percentage of what I can leave behind before I go, because there are many, many, aspects about this fantastic machine. 99.99% of humanity goes without ever exploring even their body. If they have a little pleasure it’s over. It’s not like that. If you explore this, this is a cosmos by itself. It can do tremendous things just sitting here. This is the way of yoga. Kalari is just a more active form of that.

Source: http://blog.ishafoundation.org

Over

one thousand five hundred years ago in China, there lived an emperor named Wu. He was a great patron of Buddhism and he dearly wanted a great Buddhist teacher from India to come and spread the message of Buddhism. He set in motion elaborate work to see that Buddhism spread to the people of his land. These preparations went on for many years and the emperor waited and waited, but no teacher came.

Then one day, when the emperor was over sixty years old, a message was sent across that two great, fully enlightened teachers would cross the Himalayas and come and spread the message in China. There was great excitement and the emperor prepared a big celebration in anticipation of their arrival. After a few months of waiting, two people appeared at the border of the Chinese kingdom. They were Bodhi Dharma and one of his disciples.

Bodhi Dharma was born a prince in the Pallava Kingdom in South India. He was the son of the king of Kanchipuram, but at an early age, he left his kingdom and princehood and became a monk. At the age of twenty-two he was fully enlightened, and that was when he was sent as a messenger to China. The moment the news of his arrival came, Emperor Wu himself came to the borders of his empire and set up a huge reception and waited.

When these monks came, weary from the long travel, Emperor Wu looked at the two of them and was greatly disappointed. He was told that an enlightened being would be coming and was expecting something, but this was a mere boy of twenty-two years. Worn by the travel of a few months in the mountains, Bodhi Dharma was really not looking very impressive.

The emperor was disappointed but he contained his disappointment and welcomed the two monks. He invited them into his camp and offered them a seat and food. Then, at the first opportunity he got, Emperor Wu asked Bodhi Dharma, “Can I ask you a question?”

Bodhi Dharma said, “By all means.”

Emperor Wu asked, “What is the source of this creation?”

Emperor Wu asked, “What is the source of this creation?”

Bodhi Dharma looked at him, laughed, and said, “What kind of foolish question is that? Ask something else.”

Emperor Wu was extremely offended. He had a whole list of questions to ask Bodhi Dharma, questions that he thought were deep and profound. He had held many debates and discussions about this particular question, and now this fool of a boy who came from nowhere just dismissed it as a foolish question. He was offended and angry but he contained himself and said, “Okay, I will ask you a second question. What is the source of my existence?”

Now Bodhi Dharma laughed even louder and said, “This is an utterly stupid question. Ask something else.” If the emperor had asked about the weather in India or about Bodhi Dharma’s health, Bodhi Dharma would have answered. But this man was asking, “What is the source of creation? What is the source of who I am?” He brushed this off.

It was Bodhi Dharma who brought Zen to China.

Now Emperor Wu became really angry but he contained himself and asked the third question. He made a list of all the good things that he had done in his life – how many people he had fed, how many things he had done, all the charity that he had given and finally he said, “To spread the dharma, to spread Buddha’s message, I have built so many meditation halls, hundreds of gardens, and trained thousands of translators. I have made all these arrangements. Will I get mukti?”

Now Bodhi Dharma became serious. He stood up and glared down at the emperor with his huge big eyes and said, “What? You! Mukti? You will burn in the seventh hell.”

What he meant was, according to the Buddhist way of life, there are seven layers of the mind. Instead of just doing what is needed, if a man does something and then keeps accounts of it, “How much I have done for somebody,” he is in the lowest level of the mind and he will inevitably suffer because he is expecting people to be nice to him in return for his deeds. If they are not nice to him, he will be mentally tortured and it will be a seventh hell.

But Emperor Wu did not understand any of this. He flew into a rage and threw Bodhi Dharma out of his empire. For Bodhi Dharma, it made no difference – in or out. It doesn’t matter whether it is a kingdom or a mountain; he carried on with his journey. But Emperor Wu missed the only opportunity of his life.

It was Bodhi Dharma who brought Zen to China. Gautama the Buddha taught Dhyan or meditation. Hundreds of years later, Bodhi Dharma transported Dhyan to China where it became Chan. This Chan went further down to Indonesia, Japan, and other far east Asian countries, where it became Zen.

Bodhi Dharma went into the mountains where he gathered a few disciples, and they would meditate in the mountain caves 

After he was sent out of the empire by Emperor Wu, Bodhi Dharma went into the mountains. There he gathered a few disciples, and they would meditate in the mountain caves. For a meditator, the biggest enemy is sleep. The legend says that Bodhi Dharma once fell asleep while in meditation and was so furious that he cut off his eyelids. His eyelids fell to the ground and became the first tea plant. Tea was thereafter supplied to the monks as a protection against sleep.

Where does this legend come from? The hill that Bodhi Dharma resided in after his encounter with the emperor was known as Tai or Chai. When they went there, the monks probably found certain leaves which Bodhi Dharma discovered could be boiled in water and drunk to stay awake. They could then sit and meditate the whole night; and that was how tea or chai was discovered.

Source: http://blog.ishafoundation.org

I

n ancient times, India did not exist as one country. Its people were not of the same religion, race or language. But still, a sense of unity existed throughout the land because of the common spiritual ethos that the people carried in them. The spiritual ethos was such that, whether an individual was a king or a peasant, there was only one ultimate goal for everybody – liberation. This is a result of the phenomenal amount of spiritual work done in this country. One person who is largely responsible for this, who is of paramount significance in the shaping of human consciousness, is Shiva.

In the story that follows, Sadhguru tells us about Shiva, the first yogi, and how he transmitted the yogic sciences to the Saptarishis.

Sadhguru

In the yogic culture, Shiva is not known as a god, but as the Adiyogi or the first yogi – the originator of yoga. He was the one who first put this seed into the human mind. According to the yogic lore, over fifteen thousand years ago, Shiva attained to his full enlightenment and abandoned himself in an intense ecstatic dance upon the Himalayas. When his ecstasy allowed him some movement, he danced wildly. When it became beyond movement, he became utterly still.

People saw that he was experiencing something that nobody had known before, something that they were unable to fathom. Interest developed and people came wanting to know what this was. They came, they waited and they left because the man was oblivious to other people’s presence. He was either in intense dance or absolute stillness, completely uncaring of what was happening around him. Soon, everyone left…

Except for seven men.

These seven people were insistent that they must learn what this man had in him, but Shiva ignored them. They pleaded and begged him, “Please, we want to know what you know.” Shiva dismissed them and said, “You fools. The way you are, you are not going to know in a million years. There is a tremendous amount of preparation needed for this. This is not entertainment.”

So they started preparing. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, they prepared. Shiva just chose to ignore them. On a full moon day, after eighty-four years of sadhana, when the solstice had shifted from the summer solstice to the winter solstice – which in this tradition is known as Dakshinayana – the Adiyogi looked at these seven people and saw that they had become shining receptacles of knowing. They were absolutely ripe to receive. He could not ignore them anymore. They grabbed his attention.

Sadhguru at Kanti Sarovar

He watched them closely for the next few days and when the next full moon rose, he decided to become a Guru. The Adiyogi transformed himself into the Adi Guru; the first Guru was born on that day which is today known asGuru Pournami. On the banks of Kanti Sarovar, a lake that lies a few kilometers above Kedarnath, he turned South to shed his grace upon the human race, and the transmission of the yogic science to these seven people began. The yogic science is not about a yoga class that you go through about how to bend your body – which every new born infant knows – or how to hold your breath – which every unborn infant knows. This is the science of understanding the mechanics of the entire human system.

After many years, when the transmission was complete, it produced seven fully enlightened beings – the seven celebrated sages who are today known as the Saptarishis, and are worshipped and admired in Indian culture. Shiva put different aspects of yoga into each of these seven people, and these aspects became the seven basic forms of yoga. Even today, yoga has maintained these seven distinct forms.

Transmission of the yogic sciences to the seven rishis

The Saptarishis were sent in seven different directions to different parts of the world to carry this dimension with which a human being can evolve beyond his present limitations and compulsions. They became the limbs of Shiva, taking the knowing and technology of how a human being can exist here as the Creator himself, to the world. Time has ravaged many things, but when the cultures of those lands are carefully looked at, small strands of these people’s work can be seen, still alive. It has taken on various colors and forms, and has changed its complexion in a million different ways, but these strands can still be seen.

The Adiyogi brought this possibility that a human being need not be contained in the defined limitations of our species. There is a way to be contained in physicality but not to belong to it. There is a way to inhabit the body but never become the body. There is a way to use your mind in the highest possible way but still never know the miseries of the mind. Whatever dimension of existence you are in right now, you can go beyond that – there is another way to live. He said, “You can evolve beyond your present limitations if you do the necessary work upon yourself.” That is the significance of the Adiyogi.

Source: http://blog.ishafoundation.org