The Resilient Mind - Are you suffering because of life, or your mind? - Sadhguru

Episode Date: June 27, 2023

Sadhguru is the founder of the Isha Foundation located in Coimbatore, India. The foundation operates an ashram and yoga center that specializes in education and spiritual practices. An accomplished yoga teacher since 1982, Sadhguru is also the author of several New York Times bestsellers, such as Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy and Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny. He is also a frequent speaker at international events and forums.Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Now⁠⁠ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind Podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to Are You Suffering Because of Life or Because of Your Mind with Sad Guru. Get access to the Mental Mastery Program and other exclusive episodes by becoming a subscriber. Enjoy. In life there are many phrases where we feel that we are depressed, we are lonely. And when everybody is against us and there is no one to, you know, guide us or talk about it. So at that moment, how should we handle it or how should we deal with it? See, this is an unfortunate condition that a whole lot of human beings are in, in their experience.

In their personal experience, life is like me versus the universe. Being in competition with the universe is a stupid thing to do. That's not a competition you must get into. Hello? Me versus the universe is a bad competition to get into... What do you also agree with? So, this is why yoga. Yoga does not mean twisting and turning your body.

The word yoga means union. Right now it's me versus the universe. This is just your psychological condition. This is not the reality. Even when you feel utterly lonely, are you still breathing? So you're transacting with the world, isn't it? Yes? You only can't get along with the person.

people around you, but the atmosphere is okay with you. Food is okay if it tastes good. Water is okay. You have transaction with the world, isn't it? Your existence is constantly an engagement with the universe, but your mind becomes against the universe. If you create a psychological condition that you're against or you're in competition with the universe or the cosmos, obviously will feel crushed for small things. Little things will crush you. When I say little things, maybe you failed your examination, maybe you got thrown out of this university, maybe you got fired from a job, maybe somebody ditched you, maybe something else like this happened. These are all small things between life and death. Because you came here with nothing, isn't it?

When you die, there is no container service for you. You die with nothing. In spite of that, most people have turned their homes into warehouses. Most people are carrying such a huge baggage on their head as if they're carrying the whole universe on their head. This is their own psychological condition. Your thought and emotion is what you're talking about, right? When are you going to figure out how to handle your thought and emotion? Not hers, not hers, not his? Yours. When are you going to learn how to handle my thought and my emotion?

At the end of your life? The only problem, really, with life is just this. Most human beings have taken themselves too seriously. They don't understand. You've seen on the computer screen these pop-ups? Yes. You are a pop-up on this planet. You pop up for two seconds and pop out.

No, no, you must see. Countless number of people like you and me have walked this planet. There were also big people. Where are they? All? Topsoil? Topsoil or no? Unless somebody, your friends, decide to bury you real deep,

fearing that you may raise from the dead. You know, there have been such instances. Or maybe you're planning to go to heaven. Hello? Anybody who talks about a place, other than this place, has a better place than this, this is a crime against humanity. My fundamental work is to destroy all heavens so that people will learn to live well here. All these idiots who made a hell out of themselves, they want to go to heaven.

They made a mess out of this place and then they want to go to heaven. I'm asking you, do you have any proof? Do you have any proof that you are not already in heaven and messing it up? Do you have any proof? You're already in heaven making a mess out of it? Yes? Simply because you are not even learning how to handle your basic faculties of things. thought and emotion, isn't it?

Your only justification is, everybody is like this only. That's how it is in a madhouse. That is how it is in a madhouse. Only a doctor looks crazy. So when are you going to handle it? Slowly, at the age of 60? I'm asking? When will you learn how to handle my thought, how to handle my emotion,

how to handle my body, how to handle my chemistry? When are you going to figure this? At the end of your life? Because this culture has grown when to do spirituality means when you're 70? When you're no good for anything else? No? At the earliest possible time, whatever is most profound about you, not about heavens, about this life,

everything that you need to know, you must know soonest, isn't it? Only then you live a sensible life. Okay, if I tell you a joke, you won't get offended. Because this is the most serious crowd I've ever seen in the last few years. How many of them are journalism? Most of them? Okay. This happened.

Shankar and Pillai, when he was in Paris, was married to a French woman. One day, it was their anniversary, first anniversary. So she invited a bunch of friends, and she wanted to cook something really fresh, everything fresh. So from morning she was driving him to this market, that market, he got this fresh vegetables, fresh meat, fresh chicken, this, that, everything. Then in the evening she said, because the French have this, you know, snail appetizer, she said, go to the beach and get some snails fresh. And I will make some appetizers for all the friends who are coming. So Shankar and Pillay went to the beach and he was picking up all the snails and putting it in a moment. bucket. Then he met an old friend, an Indian guy. They hit it off and they were talking

about their old times. He just forgot that he's married. You know, when you meet old friends, it happens. And both of them went to a bar and they had a few drinks and he just forgot. Then he realized, then the snails were just climbing out and talk one snail fell out of the bucket. He realized, oh my God, I'm supposed to take the snails my wife, French wife. She's waiting. So he said, I need to go and he went. By then it was already very late. He went, he knew, it's not going to be pleasant. So he came near the house and spilled all the snails on the ground, threw away the bucket, and went and knocked on the door.

The French fury came. He turned back and said, come on you guys, we're almost there. Come on, let's go. So, when are you going to pick your snails and put them in the bucket and fix them? Huh? Your problems, you must fix them, isn't it? These are not problems. I want you to understand you are not suffering your life.

You're only suffering two fantastic faculties that only... It's a privilege of being human that we have these two fantastic faculties. One is we have a vivid sense of memory. This is because of this memory our life is so rich, unlike any other creature. And we have a fantastic sense of imagination. Now this is what you're suffering. What happened 10 years ago you can still suffer? Why?

Are you suffering life or memory? Hello? Memory. Memory. What may happen day after tomorrow you're already suffering? Are you suffering life or imagination? Two most fantastic faculties you have, you're suffering. So what are you asking for?

You want to become once again an earthworm. An earthworm is a very eco-friendly creature. I have nothing against it. But it took millions of years of evolution to get you this size of brain. And now you're suffering it. If we take away half your brain, of course you will sit there without any anxiety, without any suffering peacefully. What we need is we need to remove your brain because you are suffering your own intelligence. Yes or no?

Because we gave you a very complex machine. You have not bothered to read even the user's manual. You want to just blunder around. No. Young people, it's time. You figure out a few things about you? If you don't know how, we will give you tools, how to figure this machine out, because in your life many issues will come.

More issues come up in your life means you're living a more active life. Nothing came up means you're not living. Yes? Lots of issues every day. I have the maximum number of trouble going on in my life on a daily basis. because so much of activity around the world, global level of activity only with volunteers. Volunteers means nobody is qualified for the job and you can't fire them for inefficiency. And they love you. What to do?

This one thing you must fix, that is, in your life, you are not the issue. Okay? Whatever the issue will do our best. But this should not be the issue. See, the way the question is asked and also the way normally it's addressed is people think there is something called as negative thought and positive thought. They want to remove the negative thoughts and have only positive thoughts. But such people, I would ask them to just experiment for 10, 15 seconds. Let them forcefully remove one thought from their mind.

For example, next 10 seconds, just don't think of a monkey. Try not to think of a monkey for next 10 seconds. You will see you will be full of monkeys. So what I'm saying is this is the nature of your mind, because in this mind, all the three petals are throttle. There is no break, there is no clutch. Whatever you touch, it will only go faster. In this kind of mind, people have been taught from moral teeth,

and religious teachers, do not think about bad things. Well, since then, it's been a full-time job. So there is no way you can handle the mind like this. This doesn't need any great enlightenment. If you spend two minutes with your eyes closed, you will realize you cannot do anything forcefully with this mind. So I want to remove negative thoughts. Do not ever go in this direction

because what you want to remove will become your quality. Always you will be on it. on it. So what should I do? The thing is this, without understanding the fundamental mechanism of this mind, because our mind, human mind, is the most sophisticated computer on the planet. Even all the supercomputers have come out of this. When this is the case, is it not important that we understand the mechanics of how it functions? One simplistic aspect of how how it functions is, there are no subtractions and divisions in our mind. There is only addition and multiplication.

If you try to do something with it, it will say one more. If you try hard, it will multiply into many more. In this mind, you don't try to identify what is positive, what is negative, and try to remove it. First of all, one needs to understand. This mind of yours, this body of yours, is supposed. to serve you. The life that you are is important. Body and mind are vehicles that must serve us. If you sit in a vehicle, it must go where you want to go. If it goes to its own destination,

what is a point of such a vehicle? It's just a nuisance. Right now, most human beings are unfortunately experiencing this fantastic possibility of human mind as a nuisance, as a troublesome thing. well, this is the most beautiful thing you have. It's just that you need to pay little attention as to how it functions. One simple thing is this. First and foremost processes, that's why we put out this process called Isha Kria. This is to distance yourself from your physiological and psychological process. There is something called as you which exists.

This is not a composite of all your thoughts and emotions and physiological processes. Beyond that, there is you. If you close your eyes, even if you cannot see anything, you're still there. It is through the window of your eyes that you are looking out, but if you close your eyes, it doesn't mean that you don't exist. You still exist. So beyond your thought, you still exist, beyond your emotion, you still exist.

So that you, the life that you are, this has to come into your experience. Why is it that you're not allowing that? to come into your experience, which is the most significant aspect of who you are. Who you are right now. The most significant aspect is you and me are alive right now. This is it. What I'm thinking, what you're thinking is not the important thing. We are alive right now.

That is the important thing. So, it is important that you focus on this fundamental sense of aliveness within you. And then you will see there is a natural distance between you and your thought process. Once there is a distance between your psychological process and your physiological process, this is the end of suffering because there are only two kinds of suffering that human beings go through. Physical suffering and mental suffering. Once you create a little space between you and your mind, between you and your body, this is the end of suffering.

This is something every human being has to experience and know. Otherwise, thinking I will just remove negative thoughts and I will have positive thoughts, all the best, it's not going to work 100%. It's not going to work because nobody can remove it. They can avoid it for some time. So when negative thoughts come, you say Ram, Ram, Shiva, Shiva, whatever you want. But this is just avoiding, it's not gone. The moment you stop that, it will pop back with great force, otherwise it will come back in your dreams. So it's very important.

First of all, you need to understand your anger, your resentment, your fear, your anxieties. The negativity that you generate, generally resentment, anger, it is always directed towards somebody. But we need to understand this is poisons that we are drinking and expecting somebody else to die. Fortunately, life doesn't work like that. If I drink poison, I die. If I drink poison, you don't die. So we need to understand this. When I say poison, today you can have yourself chemically analyzed.

Right now, what is your? blood work what it says five minutes of intense anger take your blood work and see there will be lots of negative elements in it literally you're poisoning yourself so do you want to poison yourself definitely not now the very question is coming from certain helplessness what shall i do don't do anything just sit back and just concern yourself with something which is a life process maybe your heartbeat maybe your breath maybe just a sensation of being alive, depending upon how sensitive or how perceptive you are accordingly, find something. It could be a sensation in the body, it could be breath, it could be heartbeat, it could be anything,

something which indicates life to you. Just pay attention to that for some time. Slowly you will see there is a distinction between what is you and what you have gathered, which includes both your physiological and psychological possibility or mess, whatever you are made out of it. it. Thank you for tuning into this episode. If you're enjoying the content, you can access exclusive material by becoming a subscriber. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes.