The Resilient Mind - Mastering Your Mind to Overcome Suffering - Sadhguru

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

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.Download Mindset App for free and listen to 5000+ of the World's Greatest Motivational Speakers and Thought Leaders: https://bit.ly/mindsetxTheResilientMind Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Now⁠⁠Subscribe to Steven Bartlett for more inspiring videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDiaryOfACEO Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to mastering your mind to overcome suffering with Sad Guru. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. Well, today, you know a few months ago, the WHO or the World Health Organization made a prediction that there is going to be a mental health pandemic. At least five years ago, none of us knew what is a pandemic. Today we all know what is a pandemic.

And they've gone further and they said the next stage is there will be a suicide pandemic. Just to put it in perspective. In 2020, when the pandemic was in full swing all over the world, in Japan, more people died of suicide than of the pandemic. So we don't really need the virus. That's all I'm saying. because the virus has gotten into our head, because once survival is taken care of, if you do not become conscious, the way you sit, stand, breathe, think, amort,

and function within yourself, if it does not become conscious, you will naturally head downhill. This is just September 23rd, I completed 40 years of this work. So 40 years ago, I was a young man one afternoon when I had nothing much to do somehow, an hour and a half gap was there for me. In the work, I was working like morning, 5.30 in the morning, 12 in the night, building various kinds of businesses around me. So when I got a break, there's a small hill. This hill is a place where we go.

And for the youth, when I was a kid, I cycled up this hill. We camped on this hill, we partied on this hill. If you want to test our motorcycles, we went up the hill. Just about anything you want to do, the youth, go to Chamundi Hill. This is the thing. I just walked up and sat on a rock. My eyes were still open. I thought it's just 10, 15 or 20 minutes.

Suddenly, I started feeling every cell in my body literally dripping ecstasy. I thought this lasted 15, 20 minutes. But when I came back to my normal senses, four and a half hours had passed. Well, the first time in my adult life, tears, me and tears were simply impossible. Tears to a point, my shirt is all wet. Then I shake my skeptical mind and ask what the hell is happening to me.

All I knew was I had hit a gold mind and there was no context. Nobody around me could tell me what was happening with me, nor did I know what was happening with me. This is something that most people will experience in their lives. On a certain day when they are very happy, 24 hours feels like 10 minutes. Another day when you're depressed, 10 minutes will feel like 24 hours. Time is a very relative experience. When you're so blissed out, what is 2 minutes?

It's 8 hours, 10 hours. Just gone like that. So in about 6 to 8 weeks, I came to some kind of stabilization within myself and started experimenting as to what is happening to me. Then I realized, if I keep a little distance from my physiological and psychological activity that's going on,

if I just remove myself a little bit, then within a few seconds or within a couple of minutes, every cell in my body is bursting with ecstasy. Now, this is not just my experience. Today we have it measured out in Howard Medical School, how there is endocannabinides are bursting out in people simply because they do a simple practice. So I made a plan in two and a half years time.

I will make the whole world bliss out. I knew the methodology. If you just keep a distance, it'll happen. Forty years now. Today, people are saying we are touching over 2 billion people. Last year, our video views have been 3.51 billion. So people think that's great. But no, that is less than half the population as far as I'm concerned.

Because I started thinking I'll make the whole world blist out. But people are committed to their miseries, either because of their beliefs or their ideologies or their compulsive behavior within themselves. So it needs to happen to the whole world. This is, I don't see this as a mission. I just see this as an expression of my humanity. So you can think that survival means two meals a day. Or you can think survival means Bentley. So it will keep you busy a little longer.

Still survival process. As long as the survival, there's an instinct of survival and there is a longing to expand within the human being. So for most human beings, these two things are mixed up. It is their instinct of survival which is finding expression as their longing to expand. It doesn't matter who you are, where you are, anybody.

You want to be something more. If that something more happens, you want to be something more. You can go on like this, how much more? Whatever you want, if I make it true for you right now. Next moment, you'll be thinking what more? Suppose I make you the king of Not England. The planet.

Don't look at me hopefully. I will not come at such a blunder. Suppose we make you the king of this planet. Will you be fulfilled? No, you will look at the moon. You look at other planets. You look at the other galaxies. If I give you one galaxy, you'll say,

what about the other galaxy? Because there is something within a human being which wants to expand limitlessly. Right now, you want to expand limitlessly. limitlessly. Can you expand this body limitlessly? No. Please don't. Don't try. In the gym, I've tried. So physical expansion is a limited expansion and your longing is to expand limitlessly because there is something within you which doesn't like boundaries. The moment C, if I imprison you in a 5 by 5 cubic, you will feel terribly imprisoned.

Then tomorrow I will announce your liberation and release you into 10 by 10 cubicle. You will feel wonderful for two days. Then you will feel horribly imprisoned. Then we will release you into 100 by 100 cubicle. You will be fine for a week. After that, you will feel miserable. Doesn't matter where I set the boundary.

Once you feel the boundary, you want to break it. So there is something intrinsic within you which doesn't like boundaries. this is a consequence of the evolution that you've gone through. Once your cerebral cortex flowered, now you don't like boundaries. But you're trying to expand in an infinite way by counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Can you ever count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and one day say infinity? No.

You'll only get into endless counting. That's all that's happening. That's why I said you're longing to expand. is a limitless process. But right now you're constipated. You are going one little step at a time. Constipation means just this. It happens little by little.

Why should you find balance? You must expand. Okay. What is the means to become a boundless expansion? If you look at that, then we say consciousness. This is what raising human consciousness means. Because you realize physical expansion is not a realistic thing. We can make physical arrangements

as we want, as we need for our convenience and comfort. But that is not the way to expand. Expansion needs to happen in a way that it's not physical in nature. Then you can also own the universe, I can also own the universe. When you say, where am I going wrong? The wrong is this, the fundamental wrong is this. What is not you?

If you think it's you, then you're trapped in that. If you think that I am this chair, because we sat on this chair for a period of time, if you think you're this chair, now this chair will go with you, stuck to your backside, wherever you go. That's a very ugly thing to do, isn't it? It's the same thing right now. Your thought, you think it's you. Your emotion, you think it's you.

You're physiological stuff. You think it's you. It's pretty ugly. It's just because everybody's got this chair stuck to the backside, it looks like it's normal. After all, it's convenient. Wherever you go, you don't have to look for a chair. You've got a chair fixed. If I identify with all these things,

if I identify with this chair, you're saying that that becomes a waiter. That's all. The thing is, your identity, whatever you are identified with, that becomes a part of you. And is that what's causing us, a lot of our despair? Yes. If you sit here just as life,

what is your problem? As long as you're alive, everything is fine. Yeah. So the only problem is you're identifying, with things that you're not. So the whole lot of confusion about everything. So if you're successful, you suffer. If you're failure, you suffer.

If you're, see, look at the thing. Is there one thing that human beings are not suffering? Just tell me. Somebody is poor. They suffer their poverty. Somebody becomes rich. They suffer the taxes. No children, they suffer that.

Give them children everyday pain. Something or the other. So it looks like whole life is suffering. So somebody makes a philosophy. Whole life is suffering. You must go to heaven. If you know that much, why are you not gone? You are not gone because you don't know a damn thing.

Whether there is a place better than this somewhere or not, you don't know. You're just claiming these things to somehow fix your psychological sloshing that's happening inside. You're making up things to somehow believe something so that your psychology won't just splash all over the place and go crazy. You're trying to hold yourself in place, telling yourself fairy tales, all right? So what I'm saying is, do you believe that if you want to navigate your life through this time that we have in a sensible manner, the most important thing is to see life as is, as it is. If I don't see in this room things as they are,

I will walk into this table, I will bump into somebody, I will do crazy things every day. If I see very clearly, navigating myself through all these cables and tripods is not a big problem. Hello? But if I don't see, if there's no clarity of vision, if I'm not seeing things as they are,

then what a mess it is, every little thing. That's all. The problem is not that what you're doing is wrong. The way you're seeing it is wrong. You think those people who committed suicide, everything was wrong with their life? No. Not everything was wrong with their life.

I have a few things. As it goes wrong in your life, my life, everybody's life. Some things don't work, all right? In everybody's life. Something doesn't work in the outside world. If everything is working for you, obviously you're living a very petty life. In my life,

95% of the things that I want doesn't happen. Only 5% happens. Because I'm trying to fix everything in the world. Most of the things don't happen. So if anybody wants to die of frustration, it must be me. But I will not. Because no matter what,

I will die bliss doubt. I live blessed out. I die bliss doubt. Because what I do, what the situation is around me, and how I am, are never connected. I am the way I am. I'll do my best.

See, the problem is too much spiritual jargon is going all over the world because every idiot who's read two books can write us next book. If you read two books, there was a time when people read ten books and then wrote one book that was called plagiarism. Now they read two books and they write the third book. See, your background is full of books. I hope you're not read all of them. I've only read two, and I'm writing one.

Because just about everybody is writing. It's all right. It's freedom of expression. They can write what they want. But these are two things. There is expression and there is perception. Which should you invest in more? Perception.

If you perceive well, your expression will be valuable. Right now, everybody's on an expression binge without perceiving a damn thing. See, whatever you call it, you call it by whatever name you want. Stress, anxiety, tension, depression, bipolar, this one, that one, many things.

I was talking to some of the top psychiatrists in UK, and they told me there are, There are 72 varieties of psychological ailments. I thought there may be half a dozen. But they said there are 72 varieties of psychological ailments. I was really surprised. 72, that's like a golf game. Then I asked, what are these?

They told me quite a few things. One of the things they told was compulsive nose picking. Even if they're bleeding in the nose, they can't stop it. That explains everything in a way. Compulsive nose-picking. Leave the nose-picking. It's compulsiveness. You're compulsive in your thought,

compulsive in your emotion, compulsive in your actions. That's all the problem is. How do you fix compulsiveness? If this room is dark, how do you fix it? Let's do one thing. Both of us fight with this darkness and push it out of the window.

There's no such thing. If you turn on the light, it's gone. So there is no substitute for consciousness. If you become conscious, compulsive behavior is gone. Suppose you are in thought, emotion, action, and energy, you are not compulsive. That you can create whatever thought you want, whatever emotion you want. Would you keep yourself blissed out or miserable? What's your choice?

Blissed out. For yourself, every human being, for themselves, They want the highest level of pleasantness. So the intent is already there. I don't have to inspire them. Be bliss doubt. There's no such philosophy. Every human being wants the highest level of pleasantness for themselves.

Those who think it's hopeless here, they are the ones who created heaven. They said, there is a place which is always pleasant. But they don't have any proof that we are all, we are not already in heaven and making a mess out of that. See, whatever kind of mental ailment you talk about, essentially when your intelligence turn against you, there is no power in the universe which can help you. But why is my intelligence turning against me? Somewhere we have not learned how to handle it, isn't it? Your education systems, your society, nowhere is there anything to teach a child how to handle their own intelligence, their own. emotions, their own thoughts.

There is no such thing. All fixing, mechanic shop, you know, repair jobs everywhere. Leave the repair jobs. The simple thing is this. The reason why people are struggling with this is they have, pardon my words, but otherwise people won't get it. They have a mental diarrhea. This doesn't create anything except distress.

Anything that runs loose without your control is called diarrhea. Why has it happened? Even today, even if somebody gets physical diarrhea, immediately somebody will pop a pill. But traditionally, what did we do? Somebody has diarrhea. First thing is, we understood we have eaten something wrong. First thing we did was just don't eat, just drink water and wait.

And next identify what did I eat yesterday or today morning. What happened to me? What is it that I consumed which caused this? And avoid that. But now we will plug it in. No, if you plug it in, it'll all rise within yourself. This is all that's happening. Right now, our way of doing life is very forceful.

I am saying people are not thinking enough. This is a serious problem. But they think they're overthinking. They are not overthinking. It's a diarrhea. It's happening. Why is it happening? Something wrong food has gone in.

What is the wrong food? This is all it is. The moment you identify yourself with something that you have. or not, your mind, you cannot stop. Do what you want. Do whatever you want, it will not stop. See, what is it that human beings are suffering? What happened 10 years ago?

They're still suffering. What may happen day after tomorrow? They're already suffering. This is what you're saying. What happened 10 years ago? Is it here now? Does it exist? No.

What may happen day after tomorrow? Does it exist here? No. So if you're suffering something that does not exist, what does it mean? Tell me bluntly, if you're suffering something that doesn't exist here. It's like insanity, but it feels like it exists. It is insanity. It is insanity.

That's why I'm saying once you start doing this, how far you go, when will you graduate? When will you end up in a doctor's place? When will you end up in asylum? He's a question of time. But now world bodies are predicting is going to happen large scale very soon. Let me give you an example. So someone has a sick child or they just lost their job and they're thinking over and over again about, you know, oh my God, my child's going to die. I'm going to lose my job.

And then I can't feed myself. I'm going to lose my house. Then I'm going to be on the street. That kind of remuneration and stress, that anxiety they experience on a day-to-day basis because they're scared. of losing something which might, you know, they believe will end them up on the street or lose their job or they won't be able to feed their family. That kind of torment. I wouldn't want to put those two things in the same level, losing a child and losing a job. All right. Losing a child is a different thing. It's a completely different thing. Obviously, there will be a certain amount of

pain in any human being, that's different. So, let us say such a terrible thing we had to face that we may lose our child. Tell me, can you do the best for the child if you are in your sanity or is it good to go into insanity? Sanity will make a difference. Maybe we can save the child, maybe we cannot. Because all aspects of life we don't determine. Our experience we can determine. See, what happens in the world around you?

Even if you're just two people in the family, never will it happen 100% your way. If you try, nobody will be around you. It's as simple as that. I've read your story, so I know that there's moments in your life where you've lost people that you love. A lot of people, not one or two, because my family is so large,

almost every other day I am burying somebody who's very dear to me. I don't let anything drive me into insanity. This is a brief amount of time that you have as life. Here we create many things. You're creating businesses. I have large moments where millions of people are involved. There are relationships. You cannot take these things lightly.

because other lives are involved, but you cannot prevent anybody from dying. You can attend to them. If something is going to happen to them, you can make attempts to save them, but you cannot prevent anybody from absolutely dying, including yourself. It's a fact.

So the only two things that we have is a certain amount of time and a certain amount of energy. This is all that you call as life. What do you want to make out of it? You want to make a mess out of it? See, the thing is, first of all, they are living an emotionally constipated life. They only loved their child. I saw everybody as mine.

Everything that happened hurts. But that's part of it. If you walk in a forest, there are thorns in your feet. But this doesn't mean you don't enjoy the forest, all right? You have moments of sadness. See, you're asking a very question which is a very question, which is hard for me to say because I have done this to myself, that nothing happens within me the way I don't want it.

If that was your situation, nothing happens within you unconsciously. Everything that happens the way you want, within yourself. What is the experience that you want to have right now is always determined by you. what would be your choice, grief and misery, is it? No. See, you are the only creature who can decide your way of being. No matter what is the surrounding. Every other creature is an instinctive reaction to what's happening around them.

Because they are only fired by their survival instinct. They don't have any other aspiration. Once their stomach is full, their life is settled. For a human being, stomach amort. is only one problem. Stomach full, 100 problems. Because life doesn't settle with survival. You want to be something else all the time.

The problem is you're a being. You're supposed to know how to be. How far away have human beings gone from the definition or that aspiration? If I want to, I do. If you want to, you do. Okay. I said it doesn't happen as, it doesn't happen by itself. If I want, I can be loving.

If I want, I can be joyful. If I want, I can be sad. Yes, when somebody dear to you is no more. You will love yourself that. But do you stop doing anything? No. See, if you get absolutely committed to your purpose, you will be called a fanatic.

if you are 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 bucket 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. You 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, you. Your peace, you need one person. You 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, 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. Thank you for tuning in. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes.