The Resilient Mind - The Importance of Self-Management - Taking Control of Your Success - Sadhguru

Episode Date: February 3, 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.Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/Download_JournalFollow Sadhguru: https://www.youtube.com/@sadhguru Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to the importance of self-management, taking control of your success with Sad Guru. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. If we want to live well, both externally and internally, how well we live here, simply depends on how well we manage our surroundings

and how well we manage ourselves. Fundamentally, life is management. If you don't know how to maintain your body, your mind, your emotion, your situations, your life in general, your home, your communities, nations and the world, the quality of our life is just how well we manage things with ourselves. But generally, we are thinking of management. We are applying ourselves to management only in terms of business management or industry management or generally we are talking management only with economic situations, not life as a whole.

In many ways it's unfortunate that today the most predominant factor that rules the planet has become economics. The other aspects of life have been totally pushed to the corner. When economics rules, when economics is the only thing that we are thinking about, we will tend to become very gross and unhappy in so many ways. What I see is, you know, we are conducting various levels of programs to very top level executives in some big corporations in the world, major corporations in the world. What I see is people who have failed in their lives, they're suffering their failure. People who have succeeded in their life, they're suffering their success. If you suffer your failure, it's okay, because failure comes easy. If you suffer your success, that is tragedy, because success doesn't come easy.

So, something that you worked for, something that you always longed for, something that you wanted to create in your life, when it happens, if you start suffering that, that's real tragedy of life. But a large number of successful people on the planet are suffering their success. When I say suffering their success, if you look at people, look at yourself and see you're still young people, most of you. When you're five years of age, how happy you were. And today, how happy you are.

If we make a chart out of it, a graph out of it, is it moving upward or downward? In 24 hours time, how many moments are you really happy? If you look at this, is it going up or down? Is it going up or down? Down. So that means you're a bad manager. Because after all, everything that you did in your life is in pursuit of happiness, isn't it? All that you're doing in your life, you're doing it because you believe that is your happiness.

You educate yourself, you pursue careers, you build families, you run after your ambitions. So many things you do because somewhere you believe fulfilling those things will bring you happiness. After doing all that, if happiness is not multiplying, it is going down, that means you are a bad manager of yourself. Anybody who does not know how to manage his own body, his own mind, his own emotional, his energies. If he is managing outside situations, he's only managing them by accident, not by intent the way he wants it. Because if you do not know how to manage your mind, how to manage your energies, how to manage your interiority,

managing the outside is bound to be accidental. When you manage situations by accident, you exist as an accident. When you exist as an accident, you are a potential calamity. When you exist as a potential calamity, being anxious all the time becomes a natural part of life. Anywhere you go today, people are talking stress management. Especially a few years ago when I first went to United States, Wherever I go people were talking stress management.

I could not understand why anybody wants to manage the stress. I can understand you want to manage your business, your finance, your family, your property, whatever. But why would you want to manage stress? It took me a while to understand these people have come to the conclusion that there is no other way to live. Somehow people have come to the conclusion that if you do things in the world, you're bound to be stressful. One is not stressful because of what they're doing. One is stressful because he's a bad manager of himself.

He doesn't know how to manage his own systems. That is why he's stressful. It is not the nature of the job which makes one stressful. You ask a chaperasi, he is also stressful. You ask the top executive, he's also stressful. Everybody believes their job is stressful. No job is stressful. If you have no control over your own systems, you will be stressful.

Whether you do something or you don't do anything, isn't it so? See, management means, fundamentally management means we want to decide the course of our destiny. That's management, isn't it? We don't want to live here by accident. We want to take our lives where we want to go. That's management, isn't it so? If you're managing by accident, you are not a manager. Without you, things will run better.

will run better. So once you say I'm a manager that means somewhere you have decided that you want to go in a particular way. You want to have a certain kind of situation, both inward and outward. So everybody is a manager in his own capacity but in different levels and different types. Whether you manage a kitchen where you cook for four people or you manage a large industry where 10,000 people work, fundamentally, you manage a large industry where 10,000 people work, If you want to have a good kitchen or a good industry, you must be a good manager of that situation, isn't it? So whether you're managing a little kitchen or a large industry, if you want to manage outside situations,

generally you will have to manage material and people around you. If you have to manage 10 people or 10,000 people around you, you have to manage 10 minds or 10,000 minds around you. But if you have no management over your own mind, mind, you managing 10,000 minds is going to be a disaster. In the process of doing something, if we are destroying human beings, which is happening right now, in the process of managing a situation, the man is broken, then this kind of management is no good, because after all, every management that we do is only for human well-being.

If we are doing management for human well-being, in the process of doing something, in the process of managing situations, it is not only about producing something or making profit. Human beings should rise to their full potential. If we manage a situation properly, in simple process of working, you and the people who are working with you should be able to raise to their full potential. When I say rising to full potential, not just work potential, but as human beings they must be able to rise to their full potential. If people work together, then people should be able to rise to the peak of their love, peace, compassion

within themselves. If this doesn't happen, then it's bad management because all management, the basic intent is human well-being. If that is not happening, you are just producing something, you're making little profit, but human beings are getting broken in the process. It doesn't mean anything. So if this kind of management has to happen that just in managing a business you find people around you raise to their peak, then you have to spend a certain amount of time in focusing

on your inner management. If this doesn't happen, you will only manage situations. by accident. A lot of people have understood management as a way of throwing their weight around. Can I tell you a joke? Are you okay? On a certain day, a lion was really feeling great within himself. He just was walking and a little rabbit was going. He caught him and rode at him, who is the king of the jungle?

The little rabbit terrified. terrified, said, you, you, of course you. He let him go, swaggered around a little bit. Then he found a fox, caught him, who is the king of the jungle? Oh my lord, it's you of course, nobody else but you. Then he sagged or swaggered around a little bit, caught a few more animals, everybody screamed out of fear, you are the king of the jungle. Then he was in full swagger, like a manager,

king of the jungle, walked into your clearing in the jungle, in the jungle, there there was a huge tusker standing. He went, stood in front of him and asked who is the king of the jungle. The tusker took his trunk, rolled him up, picked him up, twirled him around, smashed him to the ground. His back broke. Then the lion said, you could have just told me. But the tusker said, you see, I had to make my point. So, last, last A lot of people generally are thinking management means just throwing their weight around. Throwing your weight around is not management. Any fool can do that.

If you manage a situation, not just things happening there, people should feel elevated, just being in that space. Otherwise it is not management. Above all, if you go to your place and you manage a situation, you must feel wonderful being there. If that doesn't happen, you are not a good manager. So if this has to happen, you need an inner dimension. When I say inner dimension, what is inner dimension? When I say, you know, I'm not just talking about the body or the mind. Because both this body and mind, you gathered from outside in certain ways, isn't it?

For example, this physical body, when you were a child, this body was only this much. Now it's become this much. How did this happen? How did this happen? That's a question. How did this happen? You grew up? How did it happen? I'm asked. I'm sorry?

How did it happen? How did all this body happen? Food that you ate, isn't it? What you call as my body is actually a heap of food that you gathered. What you call as food is just a piece of earth that you convert it to food and make it into body, isn't it? So this body is just a heap of food that you've got. you gathered over a period of time. What you call as my mind is a heap of impressions that you gathered from outside. Now you have a heap of food and a heap of impressions. If this

much gathering has to happen, something more than this must exist, isn't it? If you are capable of gathering such a large body and so much mind, there must be something more fundamental than this. But that never comes into your experience. You are just lost in these two heaps, trying to make some sense out of it. Now, as there is a science, as there is a management science for external well-being, there is a management for science for inner well-being. It is just that most of the time we have not approached it scientifically. We are just believing by doing something somehow everything will be okay.

Right now, people are thinking, by educating themselves they will live happily ever after. ever after, which you will discover after some time it's not so. By getting a job they think they're going to be happy ever after, which you will discover it is not so. By making money you think you're going to be happy ever after, you will discover it is not so. Somebody thinks by getting married they're going to be ever after and they know it is not so. So you're trying to somehow fool yourself into believing that by doing something

everything will be okay. Though repeatedly it has let you down, still you believe that something else, some other miracle will make everything okay. It will not be okay. It once happened. On a certain day, a bull and a pheasant were grazing on the field. You know, a bull? A pheasant, a bird. The bull was grazing on the grass, the pheasant was picking ticks off the bull, their partners, you know. Then the pheasant looked at a huge tree which was at the edge of the field and very nostalgically said, alas, there was a time when I could fly to the topmost branch of the tree, but today I do not have the strength even to fly to the first branch of the tree.

The bull very nonchalantly said, that's no problem. Eat a little bit of my dung every day. You will see within a fortnight's time you will reach the top of the tree. The pheasant said, oh, come off it. How is that possible? The bull said, really, please try and see. The whole humanity is on it. You could try too.

Very hesitantly, the pheasant started pecking at the dung. And lo, on the very first day, it reached the first branch of the tree. In a fortnight's time, it reached the topmost branch of the tree. It just went and sat on the topmost branch. and just looking at the scenery, enjoying it, the old farmer saw a fat old pheasant on the top of the tree. He took out his shotgun and shot him off the tree. So the moral of the story is,

even bullshit can get you to the top, but never lets you stay there. So, if you are seeking, if you are seeking a life of fulfillment, if you are seeking a life of joy and peace and well-being within yourself, Don't try to bull yourself in some way. You must do the right thing. Otherwise it won't work.

Now that your managers, or to be managers, probably definitely, I hope they have thought you that unless you do the right thing, it doesn't work without sight. The same goes with the inside. Unless you do the right thing, it just doesn't work. You may just bull yourself to believe that this will make me all right, that will make me all right. Yes, for a moment, but the next moment you crashed.

Please see. Successful people, unsuccessful people. Just look at their lives and see in 24 hours, how many moments are they really joyful? How many? You go on the street and see how many joyful faces do you see on the street? Very, very few. Isn't it so? Yes? If you see any, usually they are young faces. Over 30 faces are all long faces. What's happened to them? For most of them, their lives have worked out far better than they ever imagined.

If you look at yourself as a generation, never before another generation of people have been this comfortable and this well physically as you are right now, isn't it? Isn't it so? We are the most comfortable generation. No other generation has known these kind of comforts and conveniences. But still, are we any happier than what people were? This is simply because we did not do inner management. We just did external management, knowing a management. In the process of creating what we want, the very source of our life, this planet, we're just destroying, isn't it?

In pursuit of our happiness, we are just making a bonfire out of this planet, but still we are not satisfied, nor are we any more joyful than what we were 500 years ago as people were, isn't it? So somewhere we have neglected the interiority. So to turn inward what is needed. One reason why most young people here have never made any effort to turn inward is, because today any thinking person, the moment he can read A, B, C, speak English and he has extra alphabets next to his name, he develops an allergy towards anything spiritual. This is not your fault.

These so-called spiritual people have made such jokers out of themselves. They have presented spirituality in such terrible ways, ridiculous ways that anybody who has any sense doesn't want to go anywhere near it. See, a spirituality means to know something which is beyond the physical. Right now if you exist as a physical entity, as a body, as a body, as a body. a mind because both these things are accumulations from outside, whatever happens outside will happen inside. If what happens outside begins to happen within you all the time, then you being peaceful

and happy is always accidental because it doesn't matter who you are, how powerful you are, how great a manager you are, external situations will never be 100% in your control. That's the nature of the life. Even if you're just two people in the family, still you don't have absolute control over the situation. Isn't it so? As the scope and play of your life increases, you have less and less control over the situations in which you live.

That's the reality of life. So if whatever is happening outside is happening within you, you being peaceful and happy in your life is a faraway thing, it's never going to happen. Only when a person begins to experience a dimension beyond the physical within himself, then he can play with the physical world whichever way he wants. He can do the best that he can do with the outside world, but the interiority is undisturbed, always the way you want it. The outside world will not happen the way we want it 100%.

At least the inner world should happen the way we want it. Isn't it so? Isn't it so? The outside will never happen 100% the way we want it. That's the reality of life. But at least this one should happen the way we want it. If this is also not happening the way you want it, if your body, if your mind, if your emotions, if your energies are not functioning the way you want it,

then this is the worst kind of slavery because somebody else decides what should happen within you. If somebody else decides what should happen around you, that itself you call it slavery isn't it so? Yes? Are we in talking terms or no? Oh that's fine. If somebody decides what should happen around you that itself you call a slavery but if someone decides what should happen within you is it not a more horrible way of being a slave? But please see the whole world is in it the only consolation is everybody is like this. Now, now that you're learning management as a science,

I would like you to understand there is a whole science of inner management. If you don't learn that, you may manage businesses, you may manage industry, but still you will not live a life of fulfilment and well-being. If you want to live a life of fulfilment and well-being and offer the same to people around you, It's extremely important you know what it means to manage your interiority.

I really don't know how you feel today going out of probably the last step of your education or at least one step of your education or major step of your education. Because when I studied in the university, I was, I did not go to my convocation. Somewhere, right from my childhood, are you okay for a story? Right from my childhood, the education that I received, though they sent me to the best possible schools around. It didn't mean anything to me because my sense of listening and looking at people was such when the teachers were talking whatever chemistry, biology or mathematics,

One thing I could clearly see was whatever they were saying didn't mean a damn thing to them. And I was not willing to listen to anything from somebody who is talking something which doesn't mean anything to him. So I always looked at the teacher. If he put his heart into it, I'm willing to be there. Otherwise I'm out. Because somewhere I have so many things on my agenda for the day. 24 hours are packed with too many things. I am not willing to spend an hour or even five minutes listening to someone who is talking something which doesn't mean anything to him.

Even if he's talking nonsense, it doesn't matter. If it means something to him, I'm willing to listen to it. But if he's talking great things which don't mean anything to him, I am not willing to listen to him. So as a part of this, I spent... Your education is over so I can talk. I spend almost 90% of my college hours outside, only 10% inside. Only when I saw somebody who is talking something with passion, I'm there. Otherwise I'm just out.

Now, this education I'm repeatedly telling Dr. Majumdar and a few other people around here, I'm happy to see somebody's talking with some passion about it. what they're doing. Somebody, it doesn't matter what they're doing is right, wrong, okay, perfect or not. But someone has put his heart into it. It's okay because human lives becomes beautiful not because we do the right things. Human lives become beautiful because we put our heart into what we're doing. It doesn't matter what we're doing. Whether we are sweeping the floor or managing the country or what we are doing, if we are putting our heart into what we are doing, it's beautiful to be doing that activity.

So I think it's a fortune that I've just seen a few people. I hope everybody here is putting their hearts into what they're doing and living in an atmosphere where people are passionate about what they're doing itself is highly enriching. Now that you're stepping into the world, not that you don't know, but in the world, But anyway, now you're stepping into the world in a different dimension than the way you have been till now. Once you step into the world, there's going to be a lot of filth. There is corruption, there is nonsense, there is so many things happening everywhere. There are some set of people, a certain set of people who will develop an allergy for this filth.

They can't stand it. They usually run to the Himalayas because they're allergic to filth. They can't take it. They want everything pure. But such a thing will not happen because the filth of the world has one way or the other has entered our minds. Whether we empower that filth or not is all the option that we have. But we cannot avoid filth. It is there.

All the nonsense that can happen in the world you know in your head, isn't it? So one set of people develop allergy and try to run away which they can never do really. Another set of people, a large segment of people, unfortunately, have come to their own kind of philosophies. Anyway, the world is full of filth. Let me also become filth. So they have joined that, they have merged into the filth. What we call is filth can also be great manure. Indian spirituality has always used lotus as a symbolism.

A lotus flower has always been the main symbolism. the main symbolism for Indian spirituality. Why a lotus flower is? A lotus flower grows best where the filth is thick. This filth which is stinking, which you can't bear, has transformed itself into your fragrant, beautiful flower. This option also is with us every moment of our life. If the atmospheres that we live in

make us we cannot call ourselves managers. If we make the atmospheres that we live in, only then we can call ourselves managers. Being a manager means that we are going to create whatever we see as the most beautiful thing to happen right now. Allowing situations to create you is not management at all. Creating the situations that we want is management. As many of them have said many things, this is process of education, there is a certain acceleration now that education is over, you're stepping into your new dimension of life, the excitement, and you know, it's always beautiful to step

into something new that you believe is going to be wonderful. But what we have seen with life with most people is, now let's say somebody got a job, The first day when they went and sat behind this table, this table was the most fantastic place in the world. But within a few years, behind the same table they are manufacturing blood pressure, diabetes, ulcers and whatnot. This is not because there is something wrong with the jobs that we do. This is not because there is something wrong with the world that we live in.

It is simply because we have not paid sufficient attention to ourselves. We have paid too much attention to our cells. to what is outside. To succeed in the world, people are always thinking, great aspirations will make you successful. Aspiration is just an initial starting point. Just because you aspire for success, just because you aspire for prosperity,

just because you aspire for well-being, it doesn't happen. Success, prosperity, well-being happens, because you have made yourself capable of creating those things. Everybody aspires. Who is not aspiring for success in the world? Everybody is aspiring. Even a beggar on the street is trying to be a successful beggar, isn't it so? Every human being is aspiring for it,

but only those who have made themselves capable will succeed. Making yourself capable not only in terms of management skills and other things, but that is needed too, but making yourself capable as a human being to go through situations untouched, to be like a lotus flower. Even if you're in the filthiest of situations to maintain your beauty and fragrance, if one has this, he will float through this life untouched. If one doesn't have it, life will eat him up in so many ways. It's my wish and my blessing.

that this new set of managers will manage this world, this country, this community and the business and commerce, which is part of our existence today in the world, in a much better way than the previous generations of people have done, because externally we are better equipped than ever before. If we make a little effort, it's a fortune that an institution has made an effort to equip you internally to whatever extent it was possible for them. If you equip yourself for internal management also, I am sure that these group of people and many more who will pass out of this institution should definitely manage this world, this nation and the communities much, much better. then the way it's been done till now. When it comes to management, there's no such thing as perfect management. It is just that if people give themselves absolutely to what they're doing, things will happen.

Right now, the Isha Foundation, Dr. Karthi Kain, after seeing what's happening there, that's how he's been into this. It is run by all young people, the whole foundation. We have hundreds of centers in India and outside the country. Everything is managed by very young people. People who have been with us for 14, 15 years, they are just in their early 30s now. Very, very young people. No senior people, no experienced people, just young people, raw hands. I took this as a challenge to make it happen through them, not using any kind of experience.

I am not against experience, I am not against that, but I wanted to make a statement that that incredible things can be done, not because we know how to do it. Incredible things can be done simply because we are committed that we want it to happen, that's all. Today, this has grown into a voluntary organization with over 200,000 active volunteers around the world. And we have taken enormous projects of social significance. All these things are handled by volunteers. They are not paid for it. They spend from their own pockets and do things.

And you need to understand managing these people. Managing volunteers is much more difficult than managing. paid employees, because you can't fire them. You can never fire them for inefficiency or indiscipline or whatever because they are there on a voluntary basis. So people who manage these situations, very young people without any qualifications, they are such fantastic managers of people. The way they manage the situations, the way they conduct thousands of people

has set such an exemplary example in the community there. I would take this opportunity someday that when it's possible you visit Isha Yoga Center as to how things are managed so simply because management doesn't come. I know you need to learn about finance, this, that banking and those kind of things. But fundamentally management is your ability to be capable of inspiring people to do their best. And that's all we can do. If everybody around us are doing their best, that's the best possible management that can happen.

So this is not going to come with manipulation, this is only going to come with dedication, this is only going to come with love, this is only going to come because you are willing to give yourself 100 percent to the person who is next to you at that moment. Oh, is all this possible, is it not all utopian, you think this is the reality in the corporate sector? I'm telling you, we are working in the pre-opium. presence, we are working in rural areas, we are working with major corporations in the world, it doesn't matter what kind of person you meet.

If you just learn to touch the core of his humanity, then you see every human being is willing to do is best for you, always. If you just learn how to touch the very core of a human being who is around you right now, you will see everybody is willing to do, lay their lives down for you. Only if people around you love you and they want to do the best for you, you will not get ulcers doing management. If people around you are trying to pull you down, you will anyway get ulcers trying to manage situations.

Isn't it? If you do not create the people who truly love us and wanting to give their best, then management is going to be a pain. is going to be a huge suffering. Only when people around us really want to do the best for you, only then management can happen wonderfully. It's my wish and my blessing that all of you turn out as truly great managers of yourself and the world around you.

Our lives become beautiful, not because of what we do. Our lives becomes beautiful simply because we have included everybody around us as a part of our dream of well-being. I hope all of you become truly successful and well. In whatever way, with inner technologies if you need any help, we are always available to you. It's been a joy to be here in this institution. I have been to any number of colleges. People are the same, but creating an institution with some sense of commitment

for inner well-being in today's world is... I'm too happy. Thank you. Thank you for tuning in. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes. Download the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes.