The Resilient Mind - Stop Trying to Fight Your Negative Thoughts - Sadhguru

Episode Date: September 6, 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.This episode is brought to you in partnership with Sadhguru. Follow his YouTube channel by visiting: https://www.youtube.com/@sadhguru/videosExplore tools from past guests of the podcast. Some links below are affiliate links, meaning we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you:💓 HeartMath: https://www.heartmath.com/resilient🧠 Muse: https://choosemuse.com/resilientmind🌿 Brain Ritual: https://www.brainritual.com/THERESILIENTMIND🌍 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.

Your fear, your anger, all these are products of a mind which you have not taken charge of. Your mind is capable of producing joy. Your mind is capable of producing fear. Your mind is capable of producing anxiety, turmoil, tranquility, agony, ecstasy. It can produce anything. It is producing things that you do not want. simply because you do not know how to handle it. There is no need for anybody to handle their fear, their anger, their whatever.

Nor is there any need for anybody to seek happiness or peace or joy or blissfulness. There is no need. All you have to do is you have to spend some time. You have to do certain sardana to find out. where the keyboard is for this fantastic computer that is loaded on your head. You don't know where the keyboard is, so you're punching all the wrong numbers.

So all kinds of things are happening. So either you can make this mind into a miracle or you can make this mind into a misery manufacturing machine. So the misery in the form of anger or fear you don't have to do anything about it. You just have to stop the production line, you know, not the product. You just have to stop the production line and start a different product.

You must see that joy is coming out of it, bliss is coming out of it, because the same mind is capable of that also. Sometimes, you're joyful? Sometimes. So it is capable of joy also. So you just have to... Jay is always here. You know the computer?

That's where it is. If you do like this, like this, like this, misery, misery, misery. And if you hold one button, misery, misery, misery, misery, misery, misery, misery, misery, misery, misery, misery. You should know how to keep your hands off the keyboard and just punch what you want. So there is saddana to take charge of your body, to take charge of your body, to take charge of your mind, to take charge of your energies, to take charge of everything that you are, rather than taking charge of it, you are wishing for a nice product. It will not happen like that.

Life has never worked like that. Not for anybody. Never ever has anything worked for anybody by doing all the wrong things. Unless you do the right things, right things do not happen to you at all. How can you avoid anger? How can you avoid anger? See, if you're driving in the Coimbatur streets, if you're driving in the Coimbatur street, you have to avoid the medians which are placed in odd places, you have to avoid bad drivers,

you have to avoid drunken men crossing the street, children crossing the street, all kinds of things. But when you're driving in Khamathur street, do you have to avoid the moon? I'm asking, do you have to avoid the moon? No. Because the moon is not on the street, isn't it? So similarly, right now, are you angry? No. Then why should you avoid it?

There's no need to avoid it. It is just that you think anger is an entity. Anger is not an entity. You become angry. You become angry. Anger is not sitting somewhere and you go hit it. There is no such thing. You become angry.

When you become angry, is it pleasant for you or unpleasant for? Unpleasantly. Unpleasant for others for sure. Unpleasant for yourself also. Today, medical science proves to you, when you're angry, you're actually poisoning your system. You know, we have always known this. But today chemical tests clearly show you that you're poisoning your system, generating poison in the system by being angry. So why would you want to poison yourself?

It is not a conscious act. You are poisoning yourself. You are causing unpleasantness to yourself only because your mind is not taking instructions from you. Isn't it? It is not taking instructions from you. If it was taking instructions from you, you would have said blissfulness, isn't it? You wouldn't say anger. But now when you want to be peaceful, it is getting angry because it is not taking instructions from you.

So if your mind is not taking instructions from you, you have to pay a little more attention to it. Why is it not taking instructions from you? If you understand this, you don't have to avoid anger because anger is not certain. sitting there and getting at you. You are becoming angry. You are becoming unhappy. You are becoming miserable. These things are happening to you essentially because you have not done anything to take

your faculties under your control. It is happening accidentally, just by chance. If outside situations are good, you are also good. If outside situations are bad, you are also bad. That is not how human life should be. Human life should be like this. If I am good, everything around me becomes good. This should be the reality, isn't it?

Right now, if things around me are whichever way, I will become that way. No, no. Human consciousness should create situations. Right now, situations are creating human consciousness. That's not the right way to shape human life. Many times in my daily life, fear stops me from doing small things and bigger things. Fear from failure, feel from, maybe from rejection sometimes.

How to overcome this fear? You cannot overcome something which does not exist. Right now, are you in fear? Right now. That I may say something damaging. Is it the fear? Every moment of your life you're in fear? No.

So, when you're not in fear, just stay like that. Because to create fear, you have to use excessive imagination. To not be in fear, you don't have to do anything. Fear is happening because of excessive imagination, things that have not happened, you're creating. What may happen in your mind? happens in thousand different formats and most probably it never happens the things that you've feared

take hundred things that you have feared probably 99 of them never happened isn't it yes so your fear is always about that which does not exist you cannot fight or you cannot overcome that which does not exist

We can overcome something with that exists. You cannot overcome that which does not exist. You just have to give up that effort. Enjoy the fear. After all, it's you're making. You like horror movies. Yes, I mean, you're saying no, but you're producing them. It's just they're not making money, that's all.

Fear means you're producing horror movies in your mind. Nobody else is willing to watch. That's bad for the producer. But you're producing them. So, you'll produce something else? Produce a comedy, a love story, suspense, thriller. Try and see, today. Just sit down, produce a love story, a suspense thriller, a comedy.

Five-five minutes movies you make. in your mind. Really? Start using your mind differently. It's just gotten into your pattern. Just gotten into your pattern of just creating horror movies all the time. You have watched enough horror movies. They're boring.

Create something else. It's not that if you produce these movies, those things will happen in your life. Still, they may not happen. At least you enjoy the movie. In reality, it may not happen. So what? At least you enjoy what's happening in your mind if you cannot enjoy what's happening in the world, isn't it?

That much privilege every human being deserves, isn't it? Even if the world is not kind to him, at least his own mind should be kind to him, should produce some nice movies. Don't identify any thought as negative, because it's just a thought. Who told you it's negative? He's just a thought. You're making it up, maybe you like it.

What's the problem? If you understand it's just a thought, it has no power. If you think it's a reality, then it destroys you. It's just a thought, isn't it? Is it true that you made up the thought? No? You're having doubts about it because you are not thinking. You have a mental diarrhea happening.

Yes, it's simply happening. Thinking means, the word thinking means you are exercising your thought process consciously, isn't it? Yes? Thinking means you are doing something consciously. Right now this isn't a state of mental diarrhea. It's just boring all the time. Now, what is negative about it? What is positive about it?

What is negative is? It's happening unconsciously. That is what is negative. Not the content. You thought about it. to devil that's negative, you thought about a God that is positive, there's no such thing. The most negative thing that's happening right now is it's happening unconsciously. That is what is negative about it.

And a whole lot of people have destroyed themselves trying to stop those thoughts that they think are negative. And they try to fight them in so many different ways. You create these things and then you fight them. It's your thought. You must be able to throw it and roll it back whenever you want, isn't it? You must be able to roll it out and roll it in as you want. But right now, your own ghosts have become so big that you want to fight then. If you win, you're really lost.

because something that is not true if you fight and win it, you have really lost it, isn't it? So there is no such thing as negative and positive thought. Either it's a conscious thought or it's a diarrhea. 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 am 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 teachers 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.

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 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 the 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 process is that's why we put out this process called Isha Kria. This is to distance your sense.

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 are 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 funny, 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, 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. 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're made out of it. Thank you for listening. Continue strengthening your mind by subscribing and listening to our other episodes.