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Spiritual seekers have always sought that "spiritual experience" which will bring supreme happiness by extinguishing all karma. Jaggi vasudev of the isha foundation, Coimbatore is one such "realised master" who claims he can give that experience to you...if you do all his courses and be patient enough.

So I did some of his courses and earned the opportunity to be with the master in a Satsang.The satsang began with the master asking us to close our eyes and hold a particular mudra. The the master clapped his hand and let out a few sharp hisses and at that very moment a few people, maybe five or six out of a group of about 200 went into an absolute frenzy, yelling, screaming crying and this went on until the master clapped his hand again. Then when he repeated the clapping, the frenzy erupted again. And once the whole thing was over, the affected ones were uncontrollably crying while the others like me looked on wistfully wondering when our turn would come. Later other people reported similar occurrences during the satsangs they attended with the master.
I wonder if someone can elucidate the basis to such experiences and how Mr. vasudev manages to get his devotees into such states ??

(20-02-2012 08:14 PM)stupidseeker Wrote:  I wonder if someone can elucidate the basis to such experiences and how Mr. vasudev manages to get his devotees into such states ??

One possibility: crowds can be 'led' to behave in a synchronized manner at the implicit urging of a smaller subset. This can happen in the following manner,

1. "Plants": Isha plants certain hardcore devotees and instructs them to behave in such a manner.

2. Implicitly planted: Hardcore devotees, even if they are not explicitly told to act that way, are probably made to believe in 'advanced' classes that they are supposed to experience 'trance', and consequently they act that way due to confirmation bias. (take a look at this, for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t414gcz4gPc 'Mithya'ananda's disciples doing the flying yoga (previously trademarked by Maharshi Mugger Yogi). Notice how most of the 'flyers' are sitting at the front, in what attendees at rock concerts call the mosh pit. The moshing crowd includes a woman famous for acting among other things. The flying group is separated from the rest by a type of fence. Surely they are donors and regulars?)

Another light example of such implicit plants is students who come prepared to class and second guess the teacher's words.

3. Urge to conform and a fear of being punished for nonconformity: The very fact that folks join such a cult means that they seek conformity to a group, in addition to the supposed benefits of meditation. Meditation or the platitudes purveyed by Jaggi Vasudev can be found anywhere on the internet or in a dozen books. It is not just the desire to live a good life that leads people to these 'satsangas'!
The desire to conform to the group leads people to chant at ISKCON or at the bhajan sessions in your local temple. Such a desire can well be at play here as aspiring devotees believe that the histrionics can gain them membership of some exclusive club with easy access to the leader (Jaggi Vasudev, in this case). (Borat leading an anti-semitic chorus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb3IMTJjzfo Surely they cannot all be so anti-semitic in real life. Or adhering to Godwin's law, not all Germans were crazy, but a mixture of an urge to conform and fear of nonconformity (in this case severe) led to Hitler's rise.)

One test of falsifying the above notions is if Jaggi Vasudev preaches to a totally novice crowd and you still see it happening. I can tell you with almost full certainty that this will never happen. The crowd will always contain some 'insiders' or 'advanced' pupils.