All quotes from
Sadhguru's book
The function of the
guru, contrary to popular belief, is not to teach, indoctrinate, or
convert. The guru is here to throw light
on dimensions beyond your sensory perceptions and your psychological drama,
dimensions that you are currently unable to perceive.
Right now your
problem is that you suffer what happened ten years ago and you suffer what may
happen the day after tomorrow. Both are not living truths. They are simply a
play of your memory and imagination.
If you deny or
amputate one part of reality, it gives you a lopsided perspective of life.
It has always seemed
to me odd that the world does not realize the immensity of a state of "I
do not know". Those who destroy
that state with beliefs and assumptions completely miss an enormous possibility
- the possibility of knowing. They forget that "I do not know" is the
doorway -- the only doorway -- to seeking and knowing.
The ability to
simply look without motive is missing in the world today. Everybody is a psychological creature,
wanting to assign meaning to everything.
Seeking is not about looking for something. It is about enhancing your perception, your
very faculty of seeing.
I grew aware of that
extraordinary intelligence within each of us that is capable of transforming a
piece of
bread or an apple into the human body in a single afternoon.
Yoga is essentially
a way of re-creating the body so that it serves a higher purpose.
Things that even
royalty could not afford a hundred years ago are accessible to the average
citizen.
All human experience
is only a question of pleasantness and unpleasantness in varying degrees.
The only thing that
stands between you and your well-being is a simple fact: you have allowed your
thoughts and emotions to take instruction from the outside rather than the
inside.
What's happening in
your head is your dream. At least your
dream should happen the way you want it, shouldn't it? Even if the world
doesn't happen the way you want it, at least your thoughts and emotions should
happen the way you want them to.
Our inner ecology is
a mess. Somehow we think that fixing outer conditions will make everything okay
on the inside.
Unless we do the
right things, the right things will not happen to us.
Most people think
peace and joy are the goals of the spiritual life. This is a fallacy. Peace and joy are the
basic requirements for a life of well-being.
Whatever you feel
deprived of looks like the highest aspiration.
When most people say
"life", they mean the accessories of life -- their work, their
family, their relationships, the homes they live in, the cars they drive, the
clothes they wear, or the gods they pray to.
The one thing they miss is life -- the life process itself, the
essential life that is you.
The foundations of
peace and bliss are not about attending to the external realities of your life,
but in accessing and organizing the inner nature of your being.
If you go outward,
it is an endless journey. If you turn
inward, it is just one moment. In that
moment, everything changes. In that one
moment, you are not in pursuit of joy anymore.
Instead, your life becomes an expression of your joyfulness.
Whatever we do not
want to take responsibility for, whatever we cannot make sense of logically, we
label "destiny". It is a
consoling word, but disempowering.
Your body is just an
accumulation of food.
Your destiny is
written by you unconsciously.
When pain, misery,
or anger happen, it is time to look within you, not around you.
Creating your
destiny is about steadily heading toward your well-being and your ultimate
nature, no matter what they content of life around you.
Who is responsible
for the way you are right now? Your
genes? Your father? Your mother? Your wife? Your husband? Your teacher? Your
boss? Your mother-in-law? God? The government? All of the above? The condition
is a pervasive one. Ask someone,
"Why are you in this situation?" Pat comes the response, "You
know, when I was a child, my parents…"
The same old story, with just a few variations.
Being fully
responsible is to be fully conscious.
The past exists
within each one of us only as memory.
The choice is always
before you: to respond consciously to the present; or to react compulsively to
it.
The most horrific
things in life can be a source of nourishment if you accept, "I am
responsible for the way I am now".
No adversity is an
impediment if you are in a state of conscious response.
Responsibility is
not reaction but it is not action either.
Responsibility and action belong to different dimensions. The ability to respond gives you the freedom
to act. It also gives you the freedom
not to act…. Responsibility is not compulsive action; it offers you the choice
of action…. Your ability to act is always limited, but there are no limitations
on your ability to respond…. Responsibility does not mean unbridled action.
Many think
responsibility means capability…. When it comes to action, capability could
play a role. But when it comes to
response, it is just a question of willingness.
Responsibility is
not about talking, thinking, or doing.
Responsibility is about being.
That's the way life is -- not an independent, self-contained bubble but
a moment-to-moment dialogue with the universe.
What the mind
forgets is that the ability to respond is the basis of life. If the ability is acknowledge willingly, you
become blissful.
Love is not
something you do; it is just the way you are.
Love has nothing to
do with someone else. It is all about
you…. You are only using the other person as a key to open up what is already
within you.
Once your joy is on
self-start rather than push-start, you have upgraded your technology.
The question is: do
you want to be a full-time human being or a part-time human being?... To be an
absolutely full-time human being is to be a constant full-blooded response to
everything. You don't have to do anything
in particular. You just need to become a
wiling piece of life in this glorious living cosmos.
Most people are not
aware of the nature of their
longing. When their longing finds
unconscious expression, we call this greed, conquest, ambition. When their
longing finds conscious expression, we call this yoga.
Yoga is not a
practice. It is not an exercise. It is not a technique…. T he science of yoga
is, quite simply, the science of being in perfect alignment, in absolute
harmony, in complete sync with existence.
What you call the
"body" right now is just an accumulated heap of food. It is the
product of all the nourishment you have ingested over the years.
What you call
"mind" is not just the brain.
It is not located in any single part of the human anatomy. Instead, every cell has its own intelligence,
so there is an entire mental body, an entire anatomy of the mind.
The physical and
mental bodies are like your hardware and software. Hardware and software cannot do anything
unless you plug into quality power…. The energy body.
Yoga does not ask
you to work with anything other than what you know. It simply tells you that if the physical,
mental, and energy bodies are perfectly aligned, you will find access to the
bliss body.
The walls of
self-preservation that you build for today are the walls of self-imprisonment
for tomorrow. Boundaries that you
establish in your life as a protection for yourself today will feel like
constraints tomorrow.
Truth is not a
conclusion.
[Yoga] is the
science of aligning your inner geometry with the cosmic geometry.
If you unconsciously
get your body into different postures, you can elevate your consciousness.
Learning to listen
is the essence of intelligent living.
A painful body can
become an obstacle, and so can a compulsive body.
It is easy to forget
that the physical body is only a part of you; it is important that it does not
become the whole of you.
The body is like
that antenna: if you hold it in the
right position, it becomes receptive to all there is in existence.
The body is like a
barometer: if you know how to read it, it can tell you everything about you and
the world around you.
If you know how to
read the body, it can tell you your potential, your limitations, even your past,
present, and your future. That is why the fundamental yoga starts with the
physical body. It is as simple as this.
The more you know about your telephone or any other gadget, the better
you can use it.
Only a person who
knows what it is to work understands rest.
The very essence of
dhyana, or meditativeness, is that you push yourself to the highest possible
intensity where, after some time, there is no effort. Now meditation will not be an act, but a
natural consequence of the intensity that has been achieved.
The fundamental
mistake that most of us make: the fact that we view the ingredients which
constitute our body, like earth, water, air, and food, as commodities and not
as an organic process of the life process.
The entire cosmos is
just a magnified projection of a little occurrence happening within you --- the
play of five elements [earth, water, fire, air, ether].
Whether you
experience life as a great possibility or a great barrier simply depends on the
extent to which
these five elements cooperate within you.
The key to freedom
is your limited persona. If you pull the
plug, it just falls apart and you are free.
If you know how to pull yourself out, life's complexity collapses and everything
settles.
What kind of food
you put into the system has a tremendous impact on the kind of body you have
constructed.
You need to eat the
right kind of food depending on your inclination and what you want out of life.
Ask the body what
kind of food it is most comfortable with, not your tongue. The kind of food your body feels most
comfortable with is always the ideal food to eat.
The entire aim and
endeavor of yoga is to open up the cocoon of the physical body to the larger
sensory body where you experience everything as a part of you.
It is our compulsive
reaction to the situations in which we are placed that causes stress.
Remember that the
grossness or sanctity of something is largely decided by your unwillingness and
unconsciousness, or your willingness and consciousness.
Your body is just a
loan from this planet. What you call
"death" is just Mother Earth reclaiming the loan that she offered
you.
Fear is a result of
the incompleteness of your existence. If
you have not explored life in its magnitude and multidimensionality, but have
limited yourself to the physical body, fear is a natural consequence.
Death is not the end
of life. Death is simply the end of the
body.
If you were in
charge, for sure you would not manufacture misery for yourself. A fundamental freedom you have is to think
whatever you want. What then stops you
from thinking pleasant thoughts?
The system of yoga
is a technology to create a distinction between you and your mind.
You are not just
this or that; you are everywhere. There
is nothing like "yours" and "mine"; everything is you,
everything is yours.
An intellectual
understanding that is not backed by experiential knowledge can lead to mind
games and deceptive states.
If the activity of
your mind ceases and you are still alert, you are in yoga.
If you want to know
the experiential dimensions of life, you will never know them with the petty
process of thought.
Every thought that
arises in the mind has its roots in data you have already accumulated.
Awareness is a
process of inclusiveness, a way of embracing this entire existence. You cannot do it, but you can set the right
conditions so that it happens. Don’t try
to be aware. It will not work. If you keep your body, thought, emotion, and
energies properly alighted, awareness will blossom.
When you are
consciously in touch with your awareness, you gain access to the subtlest
dimension of physicality, or akash.… The akashic, or etheric, dimension
envelops the physical body -- usually up to a distance of eighteen to
twenty-one inches. Because this element
is still physical, it carries information…. When you gain conscious access to
your awareness, you gain access to the akashic dimension around your body, as
also to the akashic dimension around the planet.
If you are aware at
the moment of death, you will be aware beyond death also.
Morality always
differs from person to person, according to time, lace, situation -- and
convenience.
The way you feel and
the way you think are both activities of the mind.
Here is really no
such thing as conditional love and unconditional love. There are conditions and there is love.
Love is not
something that you do; love is the way you are.
Suffering is
entirely self-created. An every human
being has the choice: to suffer or not to suffer. It doesn't take much intelligence to choose
the latter.
Most human beings
are doing the same thing: they are labeling their compulsions, their
limitations, as their choices.
"Karma"
literally means "action". Action is of three kinds. It could be in terms of the body, mind, or
energy. Whatever you do with your body,
mind, or energy, leaves a certain residue.
This residue forms a pattern of its own, and these resultant patterns
stay with you. When you gather a huge
volume of impressions, slowly these shape themselves into tendencies, and you
become like an automatic toy, a slave to your patterns, a puppet of your past.
Karma is encrypted
on every aspect of life. It is imprinted
on your mental memory, the fundamentals of your body, your chemistry, your very
energy. These are all back up systems. Even if you lose your body or your mind, you
still do not lose your karma!
The quality of your
life is always decided by how you experience life, not by what life offers you.
When you realize
that all your material achievements are of value only in comparison with those
who don’t have them, this is joy that springs from another's deprivation. Can you really call this joy?
The chakras are
powerful centers in the physiology where the nadis meet in a particular way to
create an energy vortex.
There are 114
chakras in the body. Two are outside the
body and 112 are within the body. Among
these 112, there are 7 major chakras.
For most people, three of these are active; the remaining are either
dormant or mildly active. You do not
have to activate all 114 chakras to live a physical life…. If you were to
activate all 114 chakras, you would have no sense of body at all.
[Chakras] always
meet in the form of a triangle (not a circle, as the word "chakra"
suggests). The moving part in a machine
is always a circle, because a circle is capable of movement with least
resistance.
