As Sting prepares to take the stage at one of Europe’s biggest music festivals in Romania, another headline act will deliver a very different performance.

Spiritual leader and Isha Foundation founder Sadhguru will spend just one day at The UNTOLD Festival in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, before flying back to India, using the event to promote what he believes could transform the lives of young people worldwide: seven minutes of daily meditation.

The festival runs from 6–9 August and according to the lineup, Sting is among the headline performers, alongside artists including Kygo, Lewis Capaldi, Martin Garrix, Marshmello, Steve Aoki, Flo Rida, Lost Frequencies, Swae Lee and Zara Larsson.

Festival organisers have agreed to offer every attendee, artist and staff member free access to Isha’s Miracle of Mind app, which guides users through a seven-minute meditation. It is part of Sadhguru’s ambitious campaign to reach three billion people under the age of 35.

“Music festivals draw youth in a big way,” he says. “When so many people assemble, the question is whether we’re driving them in a positive direction for their own well-being.”

Sadhguru argues that many young people are searching for experiences beyond everyday life but often turn to alcohol or drugs. Meditation, he says, offers a different path.

“The most complex chemical factory on the planet is the human system,” he says. “If you know how to use it properly, being joyful or blissful is a natural consequence.”

He points to research from the University of Nottingham and Harvard Medical School examining meditation’s effects on the brain, saying the findings support the idea that measurable changes can begin within minutes. The seven-minute format, he says, reflects what science is increasingly showing.

“Meditation isn’t something strange,” he says. “If you’ve been completely absorbed watching a sunset or listening to music, you’ve already experienced moments of meditativeness. We’re simply making that process conscious.”

The meditation campaign sits alongside Sadhguru’s environmental activism. His Save Soil movement, launched with a solo motorcycle ride from London to India, helped push soil health higher up the global climate agenda, he says.

“When we first started talking about soil, it wasn’t even part of the COP conversations,” he says. “Today it’s an important part of the discussion.”

Beyond environmental work, Isha Foundation runs education, healthcare and rural development programmes in India.

With billions of online video views, Sadhguru has become one of the world’s most recognisable spiritual figures. That profile has also brought scrutiny over Isha Foundation’s finances and its blending of science and spirituality.

He rejects the criticism, insisting the organisation complies with local laws wherever it operates and that its programmes are rooted in practical well-being rather than belief.

“We’re not asking people to believe anything,” he says. “Faith is personal. Human well-being should be approached scientifically.”

His own journey, he says, was unexpected. Raised with little religious influence, he describes himself as an atheist by 12, a communist in his teens and later an agnostic. By 25 he had built a successful business in Mysore before a profound experience while sitting alone on a hill transformed his life.

He says what felt like a few minutes passed, but more than four hours had elapsed. The experience prompted years of exploration into meditation, eventually leading him to teach others.

It also sparked an ambition he now regards with characteristic humour.

At 25, he believed he could make the entire world “blissful” within two-and-a-half years.

More than four decades later, after travelling the globe and reaching what supporters estimate are more than two billion people, he says the goal remains out of reach.

“The world’s population keeps growing,” he says. “People tell me we’ve touched more than two billion lives, but that’s not the whole world. So I know I will die a failure.”

Then he smiles.

“But I’ll die a blissful failure.”

The UNTOLD Festival in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, runs from 6–9 August 2026.