This story is told by Sadhguru in Inner Engineering, which I’m reading at the moment. it’s about four yogis, the four paths of yoga, and one big downpour.
But at its core, it’s really about why we step into yoga, and what those reasons actually say about us…
The story (freely retold)
Imagine four guys walking through a forest.
The first is Jñana, the yogi of knowledge.
He lives in his head, thinks a lot, and tends to roll his eyes when someone talks about “energy” or devotion.
The second is Bhakti, the devotee.
For him, the key to life is love, faith, and an open heart. He’s the kind of person who says “thank you, life” at least once a day, out loud.
Then comes Karma, the action guy.
Always moving, always serving, always convinced that everyone else is wasting their time thinking or feeling.
And finally, Kriya, the cool, calm one. Flexible, intuitive, sensitive to the subtleties of life. Needless to say, he thinks the other three are totally missing the point.
So, four people who never really get along. But that day, they happen to be walking together, not without some serious internal eye-rolling.
Suddenly, a storm hits. A torrential downpour.
They start running, looking for shelter, and finally stumble upon an old abandoned temple.
The place is falling apart: no walls, no door, no windows. Just four columns and a small piece of roof.
In the middle, under the only remaining bit of cover, stands a stone statue of a deity.
The rain is pouring down.
There’s nowhere else to go, so they huddle up close to the statue.
Little by little, they get closer… until they end up in a literal group hug around the divine figure.
And then, bam! a fifth presence appears.
A deity manifests right there.
The four look at each other, stunned.
“Seriously? We’ve been meditating, praying, studying, and practicing for years, and you never showed up. And now, when we’re just hiding from the rain, this is when you appear? Why?”
And the deity replies:
Because you finally came together, you fools!
Why this story hits home
It describes what most of us experience daily:
The head wants one thing, the heart another, the body just wants to sleep, and the energy is off doing its own thing. We pull ourselves in four different directions, and then wonder why we’re exhausted.
Sometimes it takes a good storm to bring everything back into alignment.
A crisis, a breakup, a period of confusion.
Those times when the walls fall down — like in the temple — and we’re left with no choice but to get closer to ourselves
And when those parts finally meet, when we think, feel, act, and breathe in the same direction, yoga becomes what it truly is: an inner alignment, a union.
Not perfect, not fixed, but alive.
How?
Through a complete yoga practice.
One that includes not just movement, but also breath, intention, self-awareness, and active relaxation, like yoga nidra.
In conclusion
Sadhguru says :
If these dimensions don’t work together, the human being becomes a big mess.
Maybe the role of yoga isn’t to calm the mind or open the heart separately, but simply to help all these parts live together, to bring a little unity back into the big mess.