Spiritual Life Is A Spirited Life

The time has come, says Sadhguru, to correct the common myth that spirituality is only for the old, dull and lifeless. Spirituality is not for the dead or dying, but for those who want to be fully alive! If everyone is to experience the possibility of spirituality, Sadhguru explains, we must work to create a conducive atmosphere in society.

Transcript

The reason why general impression in the world is… Spirituality means for those over seventy-two.

There are only few candidates here,

Is because of the lifeless nature of what it is.

At the same time,

You know,

This shows how confused humanity has been on these aspects.

When we say spirituality,

We mean it's for the old people who have no capability to live any other aspect of life.

If you can't eat properly,

If you can't live properly,

If your head has begun to shake,

Then go sit with the guru and talk something spiritual.

But at the same time,

When we say somebody is spirited,

It means he is full of life,

Isn't it?

So,

If being spirited is being full of life,

Being spiritual must be enormous amount of life,

Isn't it?

But unfortunately,

It's generally got this impression,

Because of the way it's been propagated,

Presented and misused in so many different ways.

Anybody who is incapable of life generally gets labeled as spiritual.

If you can't digest the food that you eat,

You anyway don't eat.

If you don't eat for three days,

You should be spiritual.

Actually,

If you don't eat well,

Dress well,

Live well,

You got to be spiritual.

That's the general understanding.

So,

To… We must drop the word spirituality.

People,

All of you should drop this idea,

I am on a spiritual path.

There is nobody,

No human being who is not interested in life.

If it's not working for him right now,

He says he is not interested.

But if it begins to work a little bit,

He is interested,

Isn't it?

Yes?

Things go bad.

Today he says he is not interested,

Tomorrow if you show him a little hope,

Things may turn out well.

Suddenly he is interested.

So,

Anyway you are interested in life,

You better be interested in it totally.

You better be involved in it totally and absolutely,

Otherwise life will torture you.

Either you must be fully alive or you must be dead.

The in-between is torturous,

Isn't it?

Have you dissected frogs and cockroaches in the laboratory?

Have you?

How many of you have done this?

You know,

In-between is torturous,

Don't you know?

One part is working,

Another part is not working is always torturous,

Isn't it?

So,

People should not wait for life to become torturous and then try to become fully alive.

Spiritual process means you are alive in all dimensions,

Not just in the physical dimension.

Everything in you is absolutely fully alive,

Lit up.

If this doesn't happen,

One way or the other life will become torture,

Nothing need to go wrong.

In fact,

If everything goes right,

It becomes much more torturous rather than being something wrong,

Because if something is wrong,

You will be fighting to fix it,

It will keep you busy.

If everything is perfectly right with your life,

You will become even more sick than something being wrong.

Don't you see that?

When everything is right,

People are far more sick and suffering,

Then something is wrong means it becomes a challenge,

You want to fix it.

Most people cannot remain mentally healthy if you fix everything for them in their life,

Really.

Just every aspect of their life,

You fix it perfectly and give it to them,

Sixty,

Seventy percent of the population will become psychologically ill.

Right now they are staying healthy because they are fighting for something,

They got some cause going.

This losing interest in life is only when the energy is low.

When you feel low like this,

You think,

Oh,

Enough,

You know,

It's all right,

Do it.

But little burst of energy inside of you,

You are interested.

When you are keeping only parts of your life alive and try to fix it with outside support,

This is how life will be.

If something on the outside collapses today,

You want to die.

Because staying half alive is a very difficult thing to do,

It's a very torturous thing to do.

Only your physical body alive,

Only a part of your mind is alive,

This is how most people are living.

To be spiritual means everything in you is alive,

Absolutely.

Now there is no choice about being alive or being dead,

Should I live?

To be,

Not to be,

To be or not to be is supposed to be a very intelligent question.

It always sounded as the dumbest question to me.

One who has not tasted life,

One who knows only life by thought,

Only in his mind such questions will come.

If you are alive to your fullest extension,

To be,

Not to be will never come because whatever happens you will be.

Even if you jump into the hogle,

You still be.

So,

Spiritual process is not for the dead or the dying,

It's for those who are alive and who wants to become fully alive,

Absolutely alive,

To be alive on all dimensions of who you are.

If this doesn't happen,

Life will torture you in so many ways,

It doesn't matter what you fix,

It doesn't matter you fix up your finances,

It doesn't matter you have insured relationships around you.

Insured relationships are always tortured anyway.

Whatever you fix in your life,

Still life will torture you because you are half alive.

So this idea we have to remove from the world that spirituality is for the dying,

Is for the living.

Nobody is dying,

Everybody is living.

You can either live with the body or without the body,

Really.

You can either live with what you have picked up from this planet or you can live without it,

But you are still living.

So there are no dying ones on the planet,

There are only living ones.

Some people are preparing to pay back their loan that they gathered from Mother Earth,

Some people are trying to hold it for some more time,

But you never know when she will collect it anyway.

So,

Right now it's very important that for such a possibility to arise in everybody's lives,

We also create a conducive atmosphere in the societies in which we live.

Why spiritual processes flourished in this part of the world is essentially because we created a situation where every human being could do what he wants.

You need to understand this.

This is the only culture which enshrined liberty and freedom as the highest goals of life.

Once you are born in India,

Your goal is mukti,

Not God,

Not heaven.

Your goal is mukti.

Today we are going about talking as if the idea of liberation,

Idea of freedom came to us from elsewhere,

But it is not so.

For thousands of years we have always held this as the highest goal in our life.

God is not important.

God is just a stepping stone.

Your mukti is important.

Is that so?

They have always told you this,

Either with God or without God.

You get there to a state of absolute freedom.

That's the most important thing.

This was possible because the same sense of liberty we created in every aspect of life around us,

That you could do whatever you want and still be a part of this society.

If you are a farmer,

You could worship your plough,

It was okay.

You are a blacksmith,

You could worship your anvil,

It was okay.

You loved your mother,

You could worship your mother,

It is okay.

You loved your wife,

You could worship your wife,

It's okay.

You loved your child,

You could worship your child,

It's okay.

You are a gardener,

You like the trees and you worship the tree,

It is okay.

Or you don't like any of the existing gods and goddesses,

You can create your own.

Nobody thought it's wrong.

There was never ever an idea of somebody being a heretic in this society.

Believers,

Non-believers,

People who worshipped,

Snakes,

Cows,

Elephants,

Monkeys,

Mountains,

Trees,

Rivers,

Whatever they worshipped or they did not worship anything,

All of them were allowed to live here with the same sense of freedom,

With the same freedom to express their thought,

To express their whatever they feel,

Their experience of life.

Only if such an atmosphere is maintained,

Spiritual processes will grow.

So if we do not maintain this sense of liberty and freedom in the way we think and feel and express ourselves and relate ourselves to whatever we wish,

There will be no spiritual process.

There will be no room for people to explore their consciousness.

You have to just go by standard book what is said,

That's all there is.

So maintaining this in the country is very,

Very important that everybody should enjoy this liberty.

Everybody can do what they want and still we are here.

During World War II you heard of Himmler?

He was one of Hitler's hitmen.

So,

Himmler walked into a safe house where there were eight Hitler doubles,

Eight people who looked exactly like Hitler,

They were trained to behave like Hitler,

Everything.

He walked in and told them,

There is some good news and bad news because you have to treat them like Hitler because they have to get used to it.

So he went and saluted them and they said,

Fuhrers,

There's good news and bad news.

They said,

Okay,

Good news first.

Then he said,

Our Fuhrer is still alive,

That's good news.

They said,

That's great.

What's the bad news?

Then he said,

Our Fuhrer has lost his left eye.

Okay,

So what happens around you will happen to you.

You can't get away with it.

What happens around you,

What happens to India will happen to all the Indians,

Isn't it?

So we need to,

Not for political reasons,

For spiritual reasons also,

We need to create situations,

Conducive situations around us.

Reviews

Beautifully said. I agree we need to focus more on living

Great talk. Reasonated with. Me.

Thought provoking