The Resilient Mind - Is Searching for Your Purpose Making You Miserable? - Sadhguru

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

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 Now⁠⁠This episode is brought to you in partnership with Chris Williamson. Follow his YouTube channel by visiting: https://www.youtube.com/@ChrisWillx🌍 The Resilient Mind Podcast is a proud member of 1% for the Planet — building resilient minds and a resilient planet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to, is searching for your purpose making you miserable with Sad Guru. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. That sense of purpose you have, the most popular question that young people ask me is about passion and purpose. They've been indoctrinated by society to think that they have this one purpose.

And their big issue is they can't seem to find it. So like an Easter egg, They're going in a hunter of what's my purpose. How do I know once I've reached my purpose? For people that are working now in jobs, listening to this on their way on the tube to work, what is this subject of purpose and passion? What do I commit my life to?

How do we go about answering that? See, if you get absolutely committed to your purpose, you will be called a fanatic. If you're willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that, you will be called a terrorist. So there is no purpose to life. If you are not a vested interest, and you can be not a vested interest,

only when you're joyful by your own nature, that how you are is determined by you. So this is the fundamental you have to set that your experience of life is determined by you. When I say experience of life, people are always thinking experiences happen because of external stimuli. No.

If you dream of a tiger, you can experience fear, isn't it? You can dream of somebody beautiful and experience love. Yes or no? So I'm saying all experiences cause from within you. Human experience happens from within you,

never from outside of you. There may be a stimuli. Now, this stimuli means just like this. You know, you're too young to know these things. There used to be wax-all cars. in this country. They always used to pocket in a slope like this because morning,

you need two people to push that car in the morning, in 50s and 60s, I'm saying. Later on, they had crank start. We need one person to do that. Otherwise, you can't get your car started. Today, all cars are self-start. I'm asking you, your peace, your joy,

your love, your blissfulness. Would you want to keep it on self-start or push-start? Self-stall. I wouldn't want it to rely on anyone else. This is the question you're asking repeatedly. You want push-start. Don't be on push-start.

Inner experiences are always in self-start. Outside world will never happen 100% our way. Little bit your way, a little bit my way, little bit somebody else's way. And that's how it should be. Because everything happened your way, where the hell do I go? It doesn't happen your way or my way. It's fine.

It is only fine. if you're joyful by your own nature. But if your happiness depends on what happens on the outside, then you being happy is a remote possibility. I want to be happy on my own nature. I hear what you've said. However, I'm going to walk out of this room and I don't know, something's going to annoy me.

Maybe my words are even wrong. But then I'll immediately snap back into the sort of unconscious, I don't know, dismay or despair. How does one go about, like the first step in becoming happy by our own nature? Do you think your life is worthwhile? Your life is worth investing about 32 hours of focus time upon it, your life. Yes. If you think so, you should do that.

This is what the process that I've called it as inner engineering. 32 hours of focus time. Book is just a large brochure, you know. Because there is a practice involved. When I say a practice, a simple practice, which only 21 minutes of practice, to teach this 21 minute practice, we take 32 hours of orientation.

Because without that, it won't happen. You need to understand how the mechanism of your own thoughts, if your hand is punching you in the face, why is it doing that? You need to understand. Otherwise, just holding it down is not the answer. This is the most sophisticated machine on the planet. Have you read the user's manual?

The user's manual for my body? For yourself as a life. No, I didn't know that was one. So when do you want to do it? Towards the end of the life is when people think they should do it. It's like you got yourself your iPad. Should you read the user's manual in the first three days or after three years when you're getting rid of the machine?

When I first get it? Yes. But nobody gives me the user's manual for myself. No, no, the thing is it's inbuilt. You have to just pay attention. How do I do that? We'll do one thing right now. Shall we do a simple experiment with you?

Yes. You'll have to do this with your eyes closed. Okay. But right now, look at me. After what you can do. You place your palms like this facing down upon your thigh, gently placed. So you will start breathing slightly deeper, 10, 15% deeper than normal. Don't do it yet. Hello.

And as you're doing it, I will say switch. Then you turn your hands around gently upon your thigh like this. And again, when I say switch, get back this way. In these two conditions, something about your breath will change. I will also give you a clue what could be changing. Where the air is filling up in your lungs, how it fills up, something about it will change. Or let me put it this way, the maximum expansion and contraction,

in which part of the chest is it happening? This way, which way? this way, which way. Just notice that. Just hold your palms facing down, close your eyes. Okay. And when you say switch, turn my hands over, right? Yes. Breathe slightly deeper, not very forcefully. Just 10, 15% more. Notice where the maximum expansion and contraction is happening. Switch. Switch again. Please open your eyes. There's some difference? Yeah. What is it?

in what part I feel how I feel or my breathing Where is the maximum expansion and contraction when you're holding two different postures I felt like my chest and my belly were expanding more when I was switching I felt like I was just getting more air into my body

Let me tell you what's happening You can experiment by yourself and see When you have your hands facing together Facing down with all fingers together maximum expansion contraction is happening in the lower lobe of the lung. Yeah, yeah. If you turn it around, it shifts to the middle lobe of the lung. A middle of being much larger, you feel more, but actually it's the shift.

So I'm saying, just by turning your hands around like this, the very way you breathe is altering itself. It's not just the breath. The very way your life energy's function is altering itself. How many times in a day unconsciously are you, Now you're setting your energies into turmoil and hoping to be peaceful. It will not work and I'm happy it doesn't work

because if it works for you by doing wild things and still everything is peaceful and wonderful within you, then what is the use of my life? Spending a whole lifetime, paying attention to every little thing that's happening here. I'm saying if you can drive blind on the London streets and not hit anything, a good driver will feel insulted, isn't it?

That's all I'm saying. But how do we learn the user manual for ourselves, though? So, you know, it's not something we go and read in a book. The problem is this. All your sense organs are outward bound. Because they are survival instruments. Your sense organs, your ability to see, hear, smell, taste, and touch are essentially your survival instruments.

Life cannot be enhanced by them. You can only survive better. If you see better than me, you can survive better than me. If you hear better than me, you can survive better than me. But this life will not feel enhanced by perceiving more through the five sense organs. And they're all outward bond. You can see me. Can you roll your eyeballs inward and scan yourself?

No. You can hear that. So much happening in the body. Can you hear that? No. So all your sense organs are only. to perceive what's happening around you, not to perceive what's within you.

So to perceive within you, you need to turn inward. That needs a little... Because it's not survival. Something has to be done. You know how to write English language? Yeah. Yes.

To learn that damn 26 alphabets, it took some effort, isn't it? Hello? Yeah, it did. It took some effort. And it took some guidance because anything that's beyond survival needs striving,

that striving is missing in the society. There was a time, there was a time where in the civilization that we refer to as Hindustan or Bharat or today being the political country is being called as India, in this culture, 70% of the people were invested in inward well-being. Because of that, they became super enhanced. Because of that enhancement, they became so wealthy in everything, rich in mathematics, rich in astronomy, rich in business, rich in trade, rich in industry.

It was the richest nation on the planet just 300 years ago. See, everybody from here, whether it's English or French or Portuguese, everybody went to India. You think in search of poverty? In search of wealth, isn't it? It became like that effortlessly, without conquering anybody, without having large armies, because people invested in enhancing themselves. I'm telling you, if you try to enhance your activity without enhancing yourself, you'll only die of stress.

This is what is happening to, unfortunately, whole lot of CEOs. I am concerned about this because a CEO means you gave something that is important that needs to happen in the world into his hands, his or her hands. And if they are stressed out, what misery will they create for the rest of the world?

world. It's very important. That journey to taking care of ourselves, like I had to learn how to read a book or to learn language. No, I'm saying anything that's not survival. Yeah. Will not come naturally. You have to strive. The society has to create that longing. Being peaceful and joyful is more important for a human being experience of life than me being better than you. That orientation, the society has to create, isn't it? I agree. I agree. It just seems

like there's such a powerful narrative coming from social media, magazines, TV, movies that are... Yes, yes, I'm not denying that. Making us individualistic and... It's not even individualistic. It's always about me being better than you. It started from the kindergarten school. There itself, they told you, I am first rank,

your third rank. From there, it started. I am better than you. So the whole life is about being better than somebody means. Essentially what it means is, I enjoy your failures. Does it sound like joy to you or sickness to you? Sounds like a sickness.

It is a sickness. We're building into our children right from day one. What about trauma? I was thinking about early trauma and how that drives us to be, drives us away from a life of contempt, and drives us towards, you know, a life where we might end up in prison or we might be dysfunctional in other ways because of something early that happened when we were seven years old, you know,

it could be a small thing or a big trauma that has orientated us to be greedy or to be selfish or to be, in the worst case, maybe to hurt others. See, essentially you're finding an excuse for the way you are, which you yourself don't like. See, if something unpleasant happened to you, you have two choices. Either you can become wise or you can become wounded. Choose. More unpleasant things happen to you than anybody else. You must be the wisest man soonest. No, you choose to be wounded

because you carry this wound like a badge and so that you can cause the same wound to others. What's the point? When you know the pain of it, how do you do the same thing to me? But it becomes a survival technique to somebody else? No, there is no excuse. the thing is just this.

Instead of intelligently, consciously responding to life, you are reacting like any other creature. That's all. So something bad happens to me when I'm seven years old and these neurons fire in my brain that make me react badly. This is all WhatsApp neurology. Whoever told you these things. Right now, we have a research center

in Harvard Medical School, in Beth Israel Hospital. In these five, six years of its existence, they have done a lot of studying. One thing they found was, I can't go into all the scientific things, I'm not a scientist. But one important thing is, this simple 21-minute practice I'm talking about, people who did this for over six to eight weeks, the endocannibonides in their system is 70% higher than what is considered to be normal. What is normal for a happy person? It's 70% higher than that. You know what's endocannabinide?

You know what's cannabis. Yeah. Yes. Every human being has cannabis receptors. This doesn't mean that this body was created to smoke cannabis. You're supposed to produce it. When you don't produce it, you try to substitute from outside. That's a different matter.

Let me not go into that aspect. But 70% higher. What this means is it is about 23% higher than what happens in sexual orgasm or extreme exercise. Simply sitting here. So if you felt like that

every moment of your life, do I have to tell you don't rob, don't kill, don't do this? No. No. That's all. You need to. We've not fixed that one thing. See, when you were a child, when you were five years of age,

you were just bubbling with joy by your own nature, isn't it? Somebody had to work hard to make you unhappy at that time. But now somebody has to work hard to make you happy. What happened to the question? If you had really grown up, five years if you're that happy, by the time you're 31, you should have been ecstatic. Isn't it?

People typically do feel more miserable as they age. They feel more stressed and more stubborn and more bitter. They're carrying more baggage, that's all. You said something earlier about humans are the most intelligent species on Earth. Aren't we? You have a doubt about that. For now. Artificial intelligence.

I wanted to ask you about this. No, artificial intelligence. We'll come to that. First, establish this. Artificial intelligence is created by human beings, isn't it? Yes. Then how did it become more intelligent than me? Read more books?

No. See, everything, everything that's man-made here in this world came out of human intelligence. And it's still not a full expression of our intelligence. Still, there are many, many more things we can do. You are thinking mind means, intelligence means just intellectual process. Because of that, you think the phone is smarter than you. Because it has better memory and it has better computing process. So all those who are on one-dimensional intelligence, which is intellect, which is a European problem, if you ask me, you're exited, but still you're European, you know, in culture.

I know you've exited, but. So it's in Europe that suddenly human thought became very elogized. Why it became like this is the dogmatic religious beliefs, which did not. not allow people to think for themselves. If you thought anything other than what's written in the book, you're dead. They made this for a few centuries. So suddenly, when they broke away from that and started thinking for themselves, they suddenly thought this is liberation.

And they elogized human thought, and we crafted the whole education system on the planet based on that. Today you're just using one dimension of your intelligence, which is intellect. Thought process is thought to be everything. where one of them went to the extent of saying, I think so I exist. What are the other dimensions of human intellect? Will come, will come.

I'm asking you, do you exist because you think? Or because you exist, you think? Because I exist, I think. Yeah. You may think if you want or you may not think. It's up to you. So because you exist, your existence is important. Your existence, is it because you're seeing me that you exist?

Even if you close your eyes, you still exist, isn't it? Yeah. If you don't hear anything, you still exist. So your existence is fundamental. These are all activities of seeing, hearing, smelling, thinking, emoting. These are all activities of your existence, the life that you are. But we got it all upside down. And how do you expect it to work?

Because another aspect is if I ask you a simple question, would you want your intellect to be sharp or blunt? What's your answer? Sharp. Sharp. Sharp. If I give you a sharp instrument, let's say we give you a very sharp knife, now you must be very conscious, how you move your hand.

If you are little la la la la la, la, la, if you do intestines will come out. Yes or no? Yes. We don't give a knife to a child's hand only because of this, because his hand is not steady. Not because knife is dangerous. Never in the history has it ever happened. A knife jumped up and stabbed somebody. It never happened. Believe me.

I've been following the news. It is only the hand that wails it. It can cut a vegetable and make your meal. Or it can do surgery and save somebody's life or stab somebody and take their life. All these things the hand can do, not the knife. So right now, your intellect is a sharp instrument. Once you have a sharp instrument, you must know how. to hold it. This is simply not there. Everybody's cutting themselves up and they think something is

wrong with life. You can call the stress, anxiety, misery, whatever you want. Essentially, you have a sharp instrument and you're unconscious, so you're cutting yourself up. Well, that instrument, that sharp instrument in a world where we're building machines that have the intelligence of a million people and those machines can make decisions. So theoretically, machine can now decide to send a missile at a country on its own. But if we had the intelligence, we wouldn't make a missile. Yeah, but we have. And this is what I'm concerned about, is I've sat here with all these AI experts,

and they're talking about the issue. They're telling me they're not going to be able to contain this artificial intelligence. See, let me tell you an example. I've spoken about this before. I don't know if I should repeat that, but let me say this to you. I remember this very clearly. It was 1972. You didn't exist.

And for the first time, they installed a gantry in the port in Mumbai called the Mazagon docks. In the docks, they put up a gantry. Till then, as it was done everywhere in the world, maybe a little further back, there were labor who were going up into the ships and getting the sack. out and unloading. Those days, the largest vessels were about 125,000 to 150,000 tons. They would take 24 to 28 days to unload one vessel. So they installed a gantry.

So all of them went on strike, a big strike which paralyzed Mumbai City. At that time, it was Bombay. It got completely paralyzed because all the labor went on strike. I'm sure many such labor strikes have happened here. Every time a new machine was installed, people went on strike. Because their argument was, if you put this machine, this is going to unload a ship in one day, what are we supposed to do with our muscle?

We got this muscle. Now, what are we supposed to do? They went on strike. This is what now the professors, academics, all the intellectual people who only invested in their intellect, or now saying, what are we supposed to do? the machine will do everything.

It's fantastic, isn't it? All the machines are doing all the hard work for you. When the machines can think, the machines could make a decision that they want to do things that aren't good. Only machines think. Do you only machines think? Only machines think.

Only if you have reduced yourself to become a mechanical thing. You're only thinking about life. Otherwise, there's a way of opening yourself up to life and experience the magic of life. Right now, you're trapped. in the logic of life. When I say the logic of life,

logic is the foundation. It's very, very important. But suppose in this building, we make you live in the foundations. Today it's called basement, but it's actually a dungeon. We used to lock up people there or animals or something.

If you want somebody to have a horrible life, you put them in the foundations. That's all I'm saying. If you live with the foundations of your life, which is your logic, you will live a bad life no matter where you are. Even if I put you up in a palace, you still suffer. Are you scared at all?

Are you concerned at all? Humans have made nuclear bombs. Now they've made this thing called artificial intelligence, which is accelerating. Are you concerned at all that it will get into the wrong hands and people who are stressed? No, artificial intelligence means at least the human error will be taken out. I'm happy about that. The human error? Yeah, there are so many idiots who can do anything.

Half-brain people get to the top. of the nation, they could do anything. At least artificial intensions means there'll be a proper process before we launch anything. So you're happy about artificial intelligence? I'm happy about any development because essentially how I see is, let me tell you my experience, first experience of an intelligent machine. I was probably 12, 13 years old. I was in my ninth standard.

And I went to school only when I had to, most of the time I got lost on the way. But when I went, I thought this was just an unnecessary nonsense in my life. So I spent most of the time in the library and barely went to the classroom. Like me. So, one day somebody brought a flat bed calculator. Maybe you've not even seen one like that. You're all doing on the phone and iPad. Flatbed calculator is most of it is flat one little screen like this.

We've never seen anything like this. So you say, You know, 185 into 365, took, the answer is right there. I looked at it and I felt really insulted. Why the hell are they tormenting me in a mathematics class? When this machine is there, why can't they make one machine for chemistry,

one machine for physics, one machine for every damn thing? I enjoyed swimming in the lakes, I enjoyed sitting on the trees, I enjoyed loitering around all over the countryside. I learned my life like that. But this nonsense, why am I going through this when this silly machine can do this? At last my dream is coming true, I'm very happy.

Everything that human beings can do. See, this silly mentality, what will happen to our jobs? Why do you need a job? All you need is food to survive. Suppose everybody on the planet is fed. I know those guys, idiots will become drunkards and drug addicts. That's a different matter.

But if everybody is fed and you don't have to worry about your living, this is when human beings can do something absolutely fantastic. Right now, they're spending their life just to earn a living. When will they make a life out of themselves? What you said sounds almost identical to what the founder and the CEO of OpenAI who made Chat GPT, which is leading the way at the moment, said literally yesterday in an interview he did, He said, if we can get people to a point where they don't have to worry about tedious jobs,

then they can live these blissful lives. We'll do one thing. We'll remove all the earth-moving machines and everything. Give everybody a pickaxe and a crowbar and a spade. Let them all go back to the mines and construction everywhere. Let them start doing physically. Will they protest or no? They will protest.

Ah, that's what will happen in 50 years' time. If you ask them to multiply, they'll protest. That's what I said. the first moment I saw the calculator, I said, what is this nonsense? Why am I doing all this when I can do to-to-to-to-to-took here? The counter-argument to that is that people need a sense of like purpose, something to strive for. You need a false purpose to live because you have not even made an attempt to understand what this life is about, what its potential is about. You need a false purpose. You go and dig in the mind and it's your purpose. And then you produce two children,

putting bread on the table is a big purpose to your life. Silliest way to live for a human being. That's how most people live. Unfortunately, that's the kind of world we have created. And the world that if you could waive a one now and create a different world, which I know you're trying to do, in fact, you're building a city in America, right? You're part of a project.

This is why I find it so fascinating because I look at the way we've designed society and we're so, it's so stubborn in the way we've designed it, I often wonder if we're going to have to go back to a blank canvas and redesign it again from the ground up. That's never going to happen. Where is a blank canvas? How do you create a blank canvas?

That's never going to happen. The desert somewhere. You have to slowly see the thing is, this happened. Can I tell you a joke? Please. One day a cardiologist, a famous cardiologist, a doctor, went because he was driving an Aston Martin.

and it gives trouble, you know. He went to the garage and the mechanic said, yes, doctor, leave the car here, evening, I'll have it ready. The doctor took a taxi and went to the hospital and came back in the evening. The mechanic had not even touched it. Then I said, hey, why is it not ready?

Oh, no, doc, this is, this that. Tomorrow morning, I'll have it ready. tomorrow morning he came, the car was not ready. He said, hey, what are you trying to do? Why is it that you're not doing? Then, a mechanic said, huh, see, I fixed your engine. You pay me 500 pounds. But you fix somebody's heart and they pay you 50,000 pounds.

Why is that? You fixing an engine? I'm fixing an engine. Doctor said, try to fix it when it's running. If you could demolish everything and rebuild, it's very easy. The thing is you have to rebuild it when it's on. That is the whole challenge, isn't it? That goes for individual human being, that goes for the society, that goes for the world.

We have to rebuild it when it's still functioning. After you demolish means, are you inviting a nuclear holocaust so that later on we can rebuild it? It's not a good idea. No, that's not what we want. And that's why the practice that you described matters. It doesn't matter even if you're manning a nuclear bomb. Let's say it's your job to press the button. You're waiting there.

If you are miserable, frustrated, depressed, even without a command you may press if it was in your hand. Sometimes it may happen. But if you're joyful, blissful, naturally you look at it. See, this is something people don't understand. People think love brings them happiness. It's not true. If you're very joyful, you will look upon everything in a loving manner.

Because what you call as joy, love, let me put it this way. If your body becomes pleasant, we call this health. You want it? Yes. If it becomes very pleasant, we call it pleasure. You want it? Yes. If your mind becomes pleasant, we call this peace.

You want it? Yes. Only to create pleasantness in your surroundings, Do you need the cooperation of various people and many forces around you? But to create pleasantness in your body, mind, emotion and energies, 100% your business. If you were the only person on this planet, would you know whether you're good or bad? I wouldn't know. So it is only by comparison that you know that you're good.

But if you are the only person on this planet, if you were joyful, would you know you're joyful? Yes. that's important. So you're saying focus on joy and how we feel verse is good or bad? No, I don't, I'm not saying focus on joy. I'm just saying you understand this. Your interiority can happen 100% your way

if you're willing. External things will not happen 100% our way. We have to strive. Some things happen our way. Many things don't happen our way. But internally if you're happening your way, you will keep yourself very pleasant. when you're pleasant, we can expect pleasant things from you.

When you're unpleasant, I expect pleasant things from you. Where is it going to happen? People, in the name of religion, in the name of love, in the name of caring, they've done terrible things, isn't it? Most horrendous things have been done. A question I've often asked myself is, am I, you talked about like fake purpose a second ago. How do I know if the, because when you interview people,

and you say like, what's your purpose or what's your mission, they'll sit here and they'll give me lots of things, right? Some of them might be, I'm just fooling around. I have no mission. No, not you. I'm saying, you ask a kid on the street, what's your mission? Younger kids these days will say they want to save the world or they want to be a public speaker or they want to be a YouTuber.

Do you view those as fake ambitions from confused people? I did not say fake ambitions. The thing is you're making a problem. purpose to bring some meaning to your life. Yeah. What you need to understand is life is a phenomena beyond all meanings. Meanings is an ailment of your mind. Only human mind needs meanings.

Sun comes up in the morning. Doesn't need a meaning. Full moon out there doesn't need a meaning. Tide. We give a meaning. Only place where you need a meaning is your head. Your mind needs a meaning. Why?

Have you seen this? You've been at some point, at least for moments, you've been very joyful, bliss out. You've been, at that time, do you ask what is the meaning of life? No. No, only when you're miserable, it's important. So you create one problem

and then you create another problem and another problem and you think it's a solution? No. Meaning is a serious problem. Meaning has become meaningful for somebody only because they're in some way, the process of life and the experience of life has become burdensome. Why am I carrying this? I want a meaning for the burden that I'm bearing. If life was a blissful process, why would you care what is the

meaning? So when people must ask you all the time, what's the meaning of life? And you must then, does that suggest that they are absent of bliss? See, this meaning problem is a very western problem. In the eastern world, we don't ask for meaning. We are always looking for profoundness of life. What's the difference? The difference is digging deeper into yourself and creating something around your head are two different things. Meaning is, so meaning is looking outside for a reason. Outside or inside doesn't matter. But you're trying to build a psychological solution to an existential reality. And you have to accept that existential reality.

The existential reality is you don't know where the hell you came from. And I don't know where I'm going. And you don't know where you're going. You're just here for a brief amount of time. And you think you're the center of the world. That means you must be very religious. Because it's the religious people who went on propagating that this planet is the center of the universe.

though in India for over 6,000 years, people have known planet is around and it goes around the sun. Clearly, there are drawings and there are books, there are documents which clearly say that. But people who are following dogmatic religious processes, they propagated that this is the center of the universe. Now, will they say, we said what is wrong and apologize for that? No.

Because when I think, I am the same. center of the universe, I will be doing so many idiotic things. You must apologize if you are the one who taught me that nonsense. So life doesn't have a birth given me. This happened. There was a bishop in Istanbul. At that time, it was Constantinople. You know, I'm not trying to insult any community, but this actually happened. So I'm quoting the thing. In 1926, This bishop was part of the Greek Orthodox Church. Very Orthodox Church and he's a bishop. So all his life, he's a man of cloth.

He was there. But being in his tumble, you know, all these exotic stories come wafting across the Bosphorus from India about the mistakes, about the yogis, about many, many things. India is full of stories like this. And for ages, these things have been coming and excited people to travel to the east, all this stuff. So he always wanted to go to India

and meet a real yogi or a mystic. But being a man of cloth, he couldn't decide where he goes and doesn't go. When he was over 60 years of age, he got an opportunity to go to India. He went to southern India and found a good guide who could guide him. And the guide took him and said, see, on this particular mountain,

if you go this way, this way, this way, he gave all the landmarks. If you go there, there is a cave. There there is a yogi. That is a man you're looking for. So our bishop went all the way up. Mountains are not kind to people who lived in churches or in indoors. You know, they don't care who you are.

They trouble you. So with great difficulty, he went up. When he went to that place just outside the cave, a yogi was sitting totally blissed out with his eyes closed. So the bishop had heard that if you see a yogi, you must prostrate before him. So he went down and he was not fit for those kind of postures. But with great difficulty, he went down, huffing, puffing, he stood up again.

Hearing all the commotion, the yogi opened his eyes and smiled. Then the bishop asked, can I ask you a question? This is the first introduction. The yogi laughed and said, well, by all means you can ask a question. Then the bishop asked, what is life? See, as a human being, you. have the intelligence to ask this question when you were eight years of age. Well, in your childishness, you missed it.

At least when you were 16, you should have asked. Definitely you have the intelligence to ask that question. But now you're well over 60. Now you're asking what is life. But it's okay. It's better late than never, you know. So when he said that, yogi went into raptures. Ah, life.

Life is like the fragrance of jasmine upon the gentle prince spring breeze. The bishop said, what? Fragrance of jasmine upon gentle spring breeze? My teacher told me life is like a thorn. Once it gets into you, if you sit, it hurts, if you stand it hurts, if you lie down, it hurts. And you are saying it is like the fragrance of jasmine

upon gentle spring breeze. Then the yogi laughed and said, well, that's his life. You must understand your experience of life is determined by you. It's your choice. Thank you for listening. Continue strengthening your mind by subscribing and listening to our other episodes.