{"id":192,"date":"2016-04-26T00:43:58","date_gmt":"2016-04-26T00:43:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=192"},"modified":"2026-07-17T13:27:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T13:27:39","slug":"sons-of-the-spiritual-soil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=192","title":{"rendered":"Sons of the Spiritual Soil"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

T<\/span>he story is a heartbreakingly familiar one. Every year, drought-ridden farmers from across different Indian states queue up to collect government handouts \u2013 pegged close to \u20b96,800 per hectare. It is woefully inadequate in the face of colossal losses they have incurred due to the vagaries of the rain Gods, but there is no choice. In Karnataka too, the narrative is no different \u2013 last year, the state faced its worst drought since 1972, with 107 farmers committing suicide in 2015.\n\nBut in a northeastern corner of the state, in the parched Jagerekal village, as others lined up for the handout, Siddalingappa Patil stayed away. He didn\u2019t qualify for the handout because he had reported an above-average crop of cotton.\n\nThe 42-year-old farmer\u2019s \u201csecret\u201d was that he\u2019d spent the last few months walking around his cotton field, sprinkling \u201csanjeevani shakti\u201d or divine energy on it. He has given up fertilisers and pesticides and has taken to sitting cross-legged in his baked field, twice a day, chanting mantras for half an hour.\n\nHe\u2019s been using this rather unorthodox farming practice since he attended a kisan shivir, led by the saffron-clad Avdhoot Baba Shivanand, in a nearby village. He and six other farmers from Jagerekal were the only ones who took the unheard-of decision to meditate on their soil, on the instruction of the baba.\n\nSiddalingappa\u2019s peers thought him crazy but he didn\u2019t care. He reposed all his faith in what he\u2019d learned at the shivir and waited to see the result. In December, the farmer, who has seven acres of land, reported harvesting nearly 30 quintals of cotton.\n\n<\/p>

\"Photo_2_-_Initiation\"<\/a>

\n

Avdhoot Baba Shivanand is virtually accessible to his flock of distressed farmers.<\/p>\n

Photo Courtesy: Shiv Yog Foundation<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure> The words \u201cEmerging Infinite\u201d leap at you when you visit the website of the Shiv Yog Foundation, an organisation\u00a0dedicated to \u201cspiritual uplift\u201d. The foundation claims to uplift everyone from suffering farmers to animals to the aged to Mother Nature herself.\nNot much is known about Avdhoot Baba Shivanand, revered as Babaji by his followers. But Shiv Yog has offices in Indonesia, Canada, UK, all the way to Brisbane. It is not surprising then that Babaji is only virtually accessible to his flock of distressed farmers in India.\nThe farmers\u2019 programme is carried out through special two-day kisan shivirs held in different villages \u2013 it could be a krishi mand in one village, a temple in another. What all shivirs have in common is a sofa set at the centre of a dais, awaiting the arrival of the Baba, who almost never turns up. In September, Patil attended one of Babaji\u2019s free kisan shivirs. The sadhu\u2019s virtual presence was enough to inspire Patil and 15,000 others who thronged the camp to get a dose of what Shivanand\u2019s volunteers term \u201csankalp shakti\u201d.\n\nAs the farmers settled down, they were told that Babaji would empower them to turn around their fortunes. Not everybody understood how, but they listened anyway. \u201cThe Green Revolution has made the soil impotent,\u201d Babaji intoned, with both arms raised in blessing. \u201cYields are in decline because crops can\u2019t grow without pesticides\u2026 The current produce is poison on a platter. No need to spend a fortune on fertilisers and pesticides.\u201d This \u201cholistic agriculture\u201d practice, Babaji claimed, is from the Yajur Veda. The results ranged from yield improvement, to pest-management, to even handling troublesome goats that eat produce. Babaji spoke forcefully and eloquently during his virtual telecast and desperate farmers with no recourse were spellbound by his promises.\n\nPatil too was hooked. \u201cMatter is made up of energy. Low vibrations produce negative energy, which leads to negative results, Babaji preached,\u201d recalls Patil. \u201cHe explained how to raise the vibration of seeds and the vibration of fields after they are sown.\u201d\n\nBy now it should be no surprise that Babaji\u2019s advice finds resonance in the central government. Last year, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said that \u201cyogic farming\u201d had the support of the Centre. \u201cThe idea behind yogic farming is to empower the seeds with the help of positive thinking. We should enhance the potency of seeds by rays of parmatma shakti,\u201d he said. The objective, Singh added helpfully, was to \u201ccontribute in making India sone ki chidiya once again.\u201d\n\nThe mantra that Babaji tells the farmers to chant twice a day is Durga Saptashati, a 700-verse epic in praise of Goddess Durga\u2019s nine incarnations. Patil has grown to like it. He says it gives him confidence, not to mention those 28 quintals of cotton. Everything, Patil now believes, is predicated on faith and how much energy you put into your meditation. \u201cA neighbouring farmer meditates more sincerely than me, and his two-acre farm gave a yield like it does when the monsoon is normal,\u201d he believes.\n\n\"Photo_3_-_Meditation\"\n

\n

Last year, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh had endorsed \u201cyogic farming\u201d \u2013 empowering seeds with the help of positive thinking.<\/p>\n

Photo Courtesy: Shiv Yog Foundation<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>Naturally, Babaji has detractors. Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative or IFFCO, the world\u2019s largest fertiliser cooperative, dismisses these stories. Its spokesperson Harshendra Singh Verdhan reacts to this trend with amusement and scepticism. \u201cWhat\u2019s the logic? It\u2019s better to talk with facts and figures.\u201d\n\nShivanand\u2019s side counters these dismissals with trials\u00a0of their own:\u00a0A group of Austrian disciples have conducted their own field research. One of the practitioners, Dagmar Willnauer, presented the findings at the \u201cEnergising Cultures\u201d seminar hosted by the Gujarat University. She said that her lab technicians were initially dismissive, but changed their minds when they examined the \u201cspiritually-charged\u201d soil. According to her, the lab reports showed that over 21 days the level of heavy metals in the soil had plummeted, while that of friendly elements like phosphorous, nitrogen and magnesium \u2013 the same elements in fertilisers \u2013 increased. The iron content had nearly doubled.\n\nNot one of these studies was peer-reviewed or validated by an independent scientific body. Unsurprising, because the woefully tiny tracking period of 21 days, would get the \u201cscientists\u201d laughed out of any convention.\n\nAt the seminar, where 1,000 papers were presented, about 150 farmers took to the podium and shared their experiences. One of them was an upbeat and confident Patil. \u201cEverything is in nature,\u201d he said, channelling Baba\u2019s words that are now gospel for him.\n\nHe can\u2019t wait for the next sowing season to begin.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As India faced its worst drought in recent history, some farmers in Karnataka reported an excellent cotton crop. Their secret: Sanjeevani shakti.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":196,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[62,63,64,65,66,67,71,72],"class_list":["post-192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-arre","tag-arre-digital-platform","tag-arre-originals","tag-arre-reads","tag-arre-text-articles","tag-arre-website","tag-web-series","tag-web-shows"],"yoast_head":"\nSons of the Spiritual Soil<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As India faced its worst drought in recent history, some farmers in Karnataka reported an excellent cotton crop. 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