The Resilient Mind - Why Looking for Your Purpose Is the Problem - Sadhguru

Episode Date: August 28, 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.

Isn't it fantastic that if there's no purpose you have nothing to fulfill, you can just live? Hmm? No, but you want a purpose and not a simple purpose. You want a God-given purpose. It's very dangerous. People who think they have a God-given purpose are doing the cruelest things on the planet. Yes or no? They are doing the most horrible things and they've always been doing the most horrible things.

Because when you have a God-givens, given purpose, life here becomes less important than your purpose. No, life is important. Life is important. When I say life, I'm not talking about your family, your work, what you do, what you do not do, your party. I'm not talking about that as life. This is life, isn't it?

Life is within you or around you. The ambience of life, you're making. You're mistaking the ambience of life for life. Your home, your family, your workspace, your party. This is all ambience of life. This is not life, isn't it? Yes or no. You're mistaking the ambience for the real thing.

No. Life is important. Because it's the only thing you know. You don't know anything else. Do you know something else? Rest is all imagined stuff. Isn't it? The only thing is that this is beating and alive, and that's all there is.

So is this important? It is of paramount importance. Not you as a person. That's not important. But you as a piece of life, it's very important. Because that is the basis of everything. When I say that is the basis of everything, the universe exists for you only because you are, isn't it?

Yes or no. The world exists for you only because you are. Otherwise, it won't exist in your experience. So, in every way, this is important. So what is the purpose for this? See, if you had a purpose and if you fulfilled it, after that what would you do? After that, what would you do? Bored, isn't it?

It is just that life is so intricate and so phenomenally intricate that if you spend 10,000 years looking at it carefully, you still will not know it entirely. If you spend a million years looking at it with absolute focus, still you will not know it in its entirety. That's how it is. Is there a meaning to it? The greatest thing about life is that there is no meaning to it.

This is the greatest aspect of life, that it has no meaning to it, and there is no need for it to have a meaning. It is the pettiness of one's mind, that it is seek a meaning, because psychologically you will feel kind of unconnected with life if you don't have a purpose and a meaning. People are constantly trying to create these false purposes. Now they were quite fine and happy.

Suddenly they got married. Now the purpose is the other person. Then they have children. Now they become miserable with each other. Now the whole purpose that I go through all this misery is because of the children. Like this it goes on. These are things that you are causing and holding these as purposes of life. And is there a God-given purpose?

What if God does not know you exist? No, I'm just asking by chance. I'm saying in this huge... cosmos for which God is supposed to be the creator and the manager of this 100 billion galaxies in that this tiny little planet and you. Suppose he doesn't know that you exist. What would... Possible or no?

I'm sorry, I'm saying such sacrilegious things. But is it possible or no? What if he doesn't know that you exist? What if he doesn't have a plan for you? Suppose he doesn't have a plan for you. doesn't have a plan for you, an individual plan for you. Don't look for such things. The thing is the creation is made in such a way that creation and creator cannot be separated.

Here you are a piece of creation. At the same time, the source of creation is throbbing within you. If you pay little attention to this process of life, you would not need any purpose. It will keep you engaged for a million years if you want. There is so much happening. So much means so much unbelievable things are happening right here. If you pay enough attention, a million years of existence, it'll keep you busy or more. Right now the need for purposes can't because you are trapped in your psychological structure,

not in your life process. Psychologically, your psychological structure functions from the limited data that it is gathered. Within that, it rolls. And right now, your thought and emotion has become far more important than your life. Isn't it so? Isn't it so? So because of this, you're seeking a purpose as an escape from the trap that you have set for yourself. It is a trap set by you.

You can easily come out of it. If the trap was set for you by somebody else, difficult to come out, because they'll set the trap in such a way that you cannot come out, isn't it? I'm talking about life, not marriages, that's what I mean. That's what. So this is a trap set by you. This is easy to come out. But that is a whole thing.

Why it is so difficulties now you're identified with the trap. You like it. You like it because it gives you a certain sense of safety. and security and protection and individual identity. If you build a cocoon around yourself, it gives you safety, but it also imprisons you. Walls of self-preservation are also walls of self-imprisonment. When it protects you, you like it.

When it restricts you, you do not like it. That is why we have doors. We like the walls because it's protecting us. But we have doors so that way you can open it and get out when we want to. It doesn't matter how nice it is, we still want to go out, isn't it? So that is how it is with every trap that you set. It doesn't matter how nice it is, you still want to go out. So the psychological wall that you have built,

which gives you a sense of identity, which gives you some sense of being a person, an individual person, and which gives you security, beginning to experience it like a trap, somewhere you want to break it. So one way of not breaking it is to find a purpose. Those who find a purpose in their life, they become so conceited. They will live within their own trap forever, thinking that they're doing the most fantastic thing.

First thing you need is balance. If you have balance, then you can climb. If you don't have balance, it's better you stay on the ground, isn't it? It's not safe for somebody who is not balanced to climb high. It's the best you stay close to the ground. You should not climb. So first thing is to establish a balance. Then you lose in your psychological structure.

Then it's a wonderful thing. If you lose in your psychological structure without balance, which a lot of people are doing today, See, why does somebody want to drink alcohol or take a drug? Because it loosens your psychological structure and makes you feel liberated for a moment. But without the necessary balance, you have not worked for the balance, but you got freedom. Freedom without balance is destruction, anarchy, isn't it? So first thing is to work for balance, an enormous sense of balance, where

even if you dismantle your psychological structure, you can simply live here. Dismantling your psychological structure is an important process because that is your trap. That is your security. That is your stability. At the same time, that's your trap because the walls are set.

You feel secure, but that's also your trap. If you dismantle your trap, you also dismantle your security, Isn't it? You also dismantle your sense of purpose. You also dismantle everything that matters to you. So that will need balance. Without balance if you dismantle, you will go crazy.

But don't look for a purpose because if you look for a purpose, you're seeking madness. If you find one, you are sure mad. Yes. If you think you found a purpose in life, You for sure gone crazy, because only the insane people have purpose. Or people who have purpose are insane in many ways. These are things that you create in your mind and believe it's true, isn't it?

Right now, fighting for my country is my purpose. Right now, if it's necessary, I will fight. Knowing fully well, it's an unnecessary bloody fight. Yes? Then you will fight only to the extent it's a lot. necessary. If you think this is your purpose, you would want to destroy the whole world for what nonsense you believe in, isn't it? Something is needed. We'll do it. With absolute involvement. There's no the purpose. The purpose of life is to live and to live totally.

To live totally does not mean party every night. To live totally means before you fall dead, every aspect of life has been explored. Nothing has been left unexplored. Yes? Before you fall dead, even if you do not explore the cosmos, at least this piece of life you must know it in its entirety. That much you must do to yourself, isn't it? That's living totally, that you experience the whole of this,

all dimensions of what this is. You did not leave anything untouched. You just do that. That will take a long time. That's enough, good enough purpose for you. Everything we as human beings have created, on this planet was essentially first created in our minds. All that you see, which is human work on this planet,

first found expression in the mind, then it got manifested in the outside world. The wonderful things that we have done on this planet and the horrible things that we have done on this planet, both have come from the human mind, the human mind. So if we are concerned as to what we create in this world, it's extremely important that first of all we learn to create the right things in our mind, how we keep our minds. If we do not have the power to keep our minds the way we want it, what we create in the world

is also going to be very accidental and haphazard. So learning to create our minds the way we want is the basis of creating the world the way we want. There is a wonderful thing. There is a wonderful story in the yogic law. On a certain day, a man took a walk. He went for a long walk. Accidentally, unawares, he walked into paradise. Fortunate, isn't he? He just took a walk and he landed up in paradise. After this long walk, he felt a little tired. So he thought, oh, I am tired. I wish I could rest somewhere. He looked around. There there was a nice tree, underneath which there was very cushiony grass. So it was inviting. He went and put his head down there and slept. After a few hours, he woke up, well rested. And he thought, oh, I'm well

rested. But I'm feeling hungry. I wish I had something to eat. And he thought about all the nice things that he ever wanted to eat in his life. And instantly, all those things, all those things appeared in front of him. You need to understand they have the services like that. Hungry people don't ask questions. Food came and he ate. Tamak became full. Then he thought,

oh, my stomach is full. I wish I had something to drink. All the nice things that he ever wanted to drink. He thought about it and all of them just appeared in front of them. Drinking people also don't ask questions. So he drank. Now with a little bit of alcohol in him, you know Charles Darwin told you, all of you were monkeys, your tail fell away, not me, Charles Darwin told you that you were all monkeys and your tail fell away and then you became human. Yes, definitely the tail fell away.

But the monkey, in yoga, we always refer to an unestablished mind as marquata, which means a monkey. Why we are referring to the mind as a monkey is, what are the qualities of a monkey? One thing about a monkey is, it's unnecessary movement. And another thing about the monkey is, if I say you're monkeying somebody, what does it mean? imitation. Monkey and imitation have become synonymous. So these two essential qualities of a monkey are very much the qualities of an unestablished mind, unnecessary moment, you don't have to learn it from the monkey, you can teach it to the monkey.

And imitation is full-time job of the mind. So when these two qualities are on, a mind is referred to as a monkey. So this monkey became active within him. He just looked around, thought, what the hell is happening here? I asked for food. Food came. I asked for drink. drink came.

There must be ghosts around here and ghosts came. Oh, the ghosts have come they're going to surround me and torture me, he thought. Immediately the ghosts surrounded him and started torturing him. Then he started screaming in pain

and said, oh, they're going to kill me. And he died. Just now he said he's a fortunate being. The problem is he was sitting under a kulp of wickshah or a wishing tree. He asked for food, food came, he asked for drink, drink came, he asked for ghosts, ghosts came, he asked for torture, torture came, he asked for death, death happened.

Now don't go looking for these Kalpavruksha's in the forest. You can barely find a tree these days. A well-established mind, a mind which is in a state of some yukti, he is referred to as a Kalpavriksha. If you organize your mind to a certain level of organization, it in turn organizes the whole system. Your body, your emotion, your energies, everything gets organized in the direction. Once all these four dimensions of you, your physical body, your mind, your emotion, and the fundamental life energies are organized in one direction.

Once you are like this, anything that you wish happens without even a little bit of a lot of, lifting a little finger actually. It would help to assist it with activity, but even without doing any activity, you can still manifest what you want if you organize these four dimensions in one direction and keep it unwavering in that direction

for a certain period of time. Right now the problem with your mind is every moment it is changing its direction. It is like you want to travel somewhere and every two steps if you keep changing your direction the question of you reaching the destination is very remote unless it happens by chance. So organizing our minds and in turn organizing the whole system and these four basic dimensions of who you are right now in one direction, if you do this, you are a Kalpavruksha yourself.

Anything that you wish will happen. But right now, if you look at your lives, everything that you have wished, for till now, if it happens, you have finished. Everything and everybody that you have desired for, if all of that lands up in your house today, could you live with that? Once we're empowered like this, it's very important that our physical action, emotional action, mental action and energy actions are controlled and properly directed. If it is not so, we become destructive, self-destructive.

Now that is our problem. The technology which is supposed to make our life beautiful and easy has become the source of all the problem that we are destroying the very basis of our life which is the planet. So what should have been a boon? We are making a curse out of it. What has brought incredible levels of comfort and convenience to us in the last hundred years or so has also become a threat to our life simply because of the We are not conscious action.

We are in a compulsive state of action. So organizing our minds fundamentally means moving from a compulsive state of activity to a conscious state of activity. You might have heard of people for whom they asked for something and beyond all expectations it came true to true for them. Generally this happens to people who are in faith. Now, let's say you want to build a house. If you start thinking, oh, I want to build a house, to build a house, I need 50 lakhs, but

I have only 50 rupees in my pocket, not possible, not possible, not possible. The moment you say not possible, you are also saying I don't want it. So on one level you're creating a desire that you want something. On another level, you're saying I don't want it. So in this conflict, it may not happen. who has some faith in a God or in a temple or whatever, who is how simple-minded? Faith works only for those people who are simple-minded. Thinking people, people who are too much thinking, for them it never works. A childlike person who has a simple faith in his God or his temple

or whatever, he goes to the temple and says, Shiva, I want a house. I don't know how. You must make it for me. Now in his mind, there are no negative thoughts. Will it happen? Will it not happen? Is it possible? Is it not possible? These things are completely removed by this simple act of faith. Now he believes Shiva will do it for him and it will happen. So is Shiva going to come and build your house? No, I want you to understand God will not lift his little finger for you. What you refer to as God is the source of creation. As a creator, he has done a phenomenal job. There's no question about it.

Could you think of a better creation than this? Is it in anybody's imagination to think anything better than what is there right now? So as a creator, he has done his job wonderfully well. But if you want life to happen the way you want it, because right now the very crux of your happiness and your well-being is this. If at all, if you're unhappy, the only and only reason why you're unhappy is life is not happening. the way you think it should happen.

That's all it is. So if life is not happening the way you think it is, it should happen, you're unhappy. If life happens the way you think it should happen, you are happy. It's as simple as that. So if life has to happen the way you think it should happen, first of all, how you think,

with how much focus you think, how much stability is there in your thought, and how much river-brotherment, And how much reverberance is there in the thought process will determine whether your thought will become a reality or is it just an empty thought? Or how you do not create any impediments for your thought by creating negative thought process? This possible is something possible or not possible? It's destroying humanity.

What is possible and not possible is not your business? It's nature's business. Your business is just to strive for what you want. Right now you're sitting here, if I ask you two simple questions, I want you to just look at this and answer this. Right now from where you're sitting, can you just fly off? You say no? Right now from where you're sitting, can you get up and walk? You'll say yes.

What is the basis of this? Why you say no to flying and yes to walking? Because past experience of life, many times you've gotten up and walked. never did you fly off or in other words you are using the past experience of life as a basis for deciding whether something is

possible or not possible or in other words you have decided that what has not happened till now cannot happen in your life in future this is a disgrace to humanity and the human spirit what has not happened till now

on this planet can happen tomorrow human beings are capable of making it happen tomorrow. So what is possible and what is not possible is not your business? That is nature's business. Nature will decide that. You just see what is it that you really want and strive for that. And if your thought is created in a powerful way without any negativity, without any negative thoughts bringing down the intensity of the thought process, the first and foremost thing is you must be clear what is it that you really want. If you do not know what you want, the question of creating it doesn't arise.

If you look at what you really want, what every human being wants is, he wants to live joyfully, he wants to live peacefully, in terms of its relationships, he wants it to be loving and affectionate. Or in other words, all that any human being is seeking for is pleasantness within himself, pleasantness around him. This pleasantness, if it happens in our body, we call this health and pleasure. If it happens in our mind, we call this peace and joy. If it happens in our emotion, we call this love and compassion.

If it happens in our energy, we call this blissfulness and ecstasy. This is all that a human being is looking for. Whether he is going to his office to work, he wants to make money, build a career, build a family, he sits in the bar, sits in the temple, He is still looking for the same thing. Pleasantness within, pleasantness around. If this is what we want to create, I think it's time we addressed it directly and commit ourselves to creating it. So you want to create yourself as a peaceful human being, joyful human being, loving human being, a pleasant human being on all levels.

And do you also want a world like this? a peaceful world, a loving world, a joyful world. No, no, I want greenery, I want food. When we say a joyful world, that means everything that you want has happened. So this is all that you're looking for. So all that you need to do is commit yourself to creating it, to create a peaceful, joyful and loving world, both for yourself and everybody around you.

Every day in the morning, if you start your day with this simple thought in your mind, that today, wherever I go, I will create a peaceful, loving and joyful world. If you fall down hundred times in the day, what does it matter? But a committed man,

there is no such thing as failure. If you fall down hundred times, hundred lessons to be learned. If you commit yourself like this to creating what you really care for, now your mind gets organized. Once your mind get organized, the way you think is the way you feel,

your emotional get organized. Once your thought and emotion is organized, your energies will get organized in the same direction. Once your thought, emotion and energies are organized, your very body will get organized. Once all these four are organized in one direction, your ability to create and manifest what you want is phenomenal. You are the creator in many ways. That which is the source of creation is functioning within you every moment of your life.

It is just that, have you kept access to that dimension or not? Organizing the four basic elements of your life will give you that excess. There are tools and technologies to do this. The whole science of yoga, the whole technology that we refer to as yoga, is just about this, transforming yourself from being just a piece of creation to become a creator. It is my wish and my blessing that every human being in this world should have this access to the source of creation within himself so that he can function here as a creator, not just as a piece of creation.

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