Suffering Will Not Seek

“We don’t have absolute choice to choose our situations, but we have been given the freedom to choose our experience.” –Sadhguru

For many, life seems to be a pretty rotten deal. In this talk, Sadhguru states that human beings have the unique gift of being able to suffer even a good deal. However, even if we don’t have the freedom to choose our external situations, we have been given another freedom – the benediction of being able to strike a fabulous inner deal. This one huge step of consciousness, says Sadhguru, sets a human being apart from every other creature on the planet.

Yogi, mystic and visionary, Sadhguru is a spiritual master with a difference. An arresting blend of profundity and pragmatism, his life and work serves as a reminder that yoga is a contemporary science, vitally relevant to our times.

For more Sadhguru's insights, follow him on twitter and facebook.

Transcript

The morning is cool,

But it's going to be a hard day.

It's just like life.

You don't go by what's there now.

What's there now is all important in terms of experience.

But what's there now is not an indication of what's going to be,

Definitely not.

The process of what we call as life,

Most of the time,

Except a few nasty mornings,

Most of the time it starts off well.

At least for you,

Not for your mother,

At least for you.

Not that everybody's life something wrong has to happen.

Some people have a good deal,

Some people have a bad deal.

With a family,

Money,

Careers,

Business,

Partners that you choose,

Children that you bear and various other social,

Financial,

Emotional situations,

Some people have a good deal,

Some people have a bad deal.

Good deal or bad deal is not the point.

The point is,

Is this life serving the purpose of you moving on?

Because no matter how much you try to settle yourself into the comfort of what is there right now,

There is something within you longing to be something more.

No matter how much you think you have given up everything you renounced or you become lethargic enough to live in a limbo,

Something within you wants to be little more and something,

Whatever you know best.

Either you can keep this longing,

Just coming to terms with it,

This is how life is.

Some fulfillment,

Some frustration,

Some gain,

Some pain.

These are all the philosophies people propound to solace themselves,

To triangulate themselves,

To stay half asleep.

You are right now.

Did they pull you out of the bed and brought you?

Even if they are beating the drum.

Are you fully alive?

Do you want to hear some lively sound?

Yes!

Yes,

Yes!

So whenever I ask you,

Are you on?

You say,

Hmm.

That's better.

So,

Bad deals can happen,

Not necessarily because you are stupid,

Not necessarily because you do something wrong,

Bad deals can just happen.

It can just happen,

You know.

A leg can break,

A tooth can fall off,

Head can crack,

Hmm.

Somebody dear to you,

You may fall dead tomorrow morning.

Bad deals can happen just like that,

Not because of a mistake,

Not because of something,

It can just happen.

It's happening to somebody every day,

Every day,

Somebody is having a bad deal,

Isn't it so?

Even if you try to do something very good,

Even then bad deals can happen.

Many people around you claim they know how it will come.

They wrote it on a paper,

They gave you that horoscope,

That horoscope which told you that this was the right man to marry.

And in how many ways you discovered… how many ways.

Lots of claims about life,

But still what's going to be a good deal,

What's going to be a bad deal?

In the world outside you do not know,

Isn't it so?

You know for sure?

So,

Here if you have substantial experience of life… When I say substantial,

For most of us one is not enough.

When we are reminded that there has been a substantial experience of life,

Going through the same game over and over and over again,

Then you will not long for immortality.

You will want to see what's beyond life.

Oh,

Is this because there's something wrong with life?

No,

Nothing wrong with it,

It's just that it's limited.

But there is something here which does not like the limited.

There is something here which does not like boundaries.

There is something here which will not settle for anything less than the boundless.

In the evolutionary process,

You can see from a single-celled animal to all that has happened now,

From that single-celled animal to who you are right now,

All that's been happening is to somehow bring a larger slice of life into your experience.

That's all that's happened.

Became little more capable,

Little more capable to experience life,

Not necessarily to do.

An elephant can do much more than you when it comes to physical activity.

But that's not the point.

Little more capable to experience life because what is there now is somehow not enough.

Pacifist philosophies have been taught to us to make you sleep where you are,

Be content with what you have.

But it's not worked.

See?

Early morning bad deal.

Somebody's having a bad deal.

See?

Somebody's sure having a bad deal.

Lost your child,

Lost your mommy,

It's not a small bad deal,

It's a big bad deal.

But how we experience the process of life is now,

For the first time as a human being,

It's in our hands.

Never before it was in our hands.

In the process of evolution,

All these millions of life forms that this might have gone through,

In none of those forms we had the freedom to choose our experience.

Even now we don't have absolute choice to choose our situations,

But we have been given the freedom to choose our experience.

Whatever kind of deal,

The inner deal,

We can strike a good deal,

A fabulous deal,

Whatever,

Maybe the outside deal.

This one huge step of consciousness sets a human being apart.

No other animal is able to determine the nature of his experience.

The outside situations are good,

They are fine,

If they are not good,

They are gone.

But this one is capable of having an inner situation the way he wants it,

No matter what may be happening around him.

This ability,

Once this ability has come,

If you exercise the choice of being conscious,

It's a benediction.

If you do not,

It is magnified misery compared to any other creature on the planet.

No other creature on this planet suffers the way a human being suffers,

Isn't it?

No other creature on this planet can suffer the way a human being suffers,

It's deep.

They do,

It's not that they don't,

But not this deep.

Human suffering is deep.

This suffering is as deep as it is.

Not because life is suffering,

Lot of people have come to this.

So if life becomes very sweet and beautiful within you,

The experience of life,

The more blissful it becomes,

More the longing for transcendence.

People are always thinking the suffering will seek,

No.

Those who are suffering,

If you dangle a little bit of pleasure here,

They will run after that.

It's only one who is absolutely blissful,

Who will go straight in the path because nothing bothers him,

Nothing interests him.

He's already in the most pleasant way a human being can be,

Now he wants to go beyond,

Nothing else.

Somebody who is suffering today,

They say today,

Sadhguru,

I want to… I want mukti.

Their idea of mukti is freedom from suffering.

No.

Mukti is not freedom from suffering.

You cannot even seek liberation if you're in some state of suffering.

If you're suffering,

All you will see,

All you will seek is the sweetness of pleasure and happiness,

Nothing more.

Because people went on talking about or lived their life and made their lives an absolute suffering,

That is why this whole idea of heaven… heaven is a bloody perverted place.

For sure,

Isn't it?

No?

You've heard some stories about heaven how it is?

You have or no?

It's a bloody perverted place,

There's no question about it.

No sensible human being would ever want to go there.

But the whole world,

At least a large part of the world is aspiring to go there.

That's their idea of ultimate,

Unfortunately,

Exaggerated quantities of pleasure.

You should try it here,

You'll get sick of it in no time.

Because always it's been rationed.

Pleasure has always been rationed to people.

They think larger quantities is going to be better.

Have a large quantity of pleasure and see,

You will get sick of it.

Because pleasure is just a poor substitute for joy and blissfulness.

And this whole game of good deal,

Bad deal goes beyond life.

Hell and heaven is just good deal and bad deal.

Even when the deal is good,

You can still suffer,

Isn't it so?

Are you not capable?

Even when the deal is great,

Are you still not capable of suffering?

So if I export you to heaven,

Who told you this is not?

Who told you this is not heaven?

How do you know?

Is there any guarantee for you that planet earth is not heaven?

Do you know?

Maybe you went through all that hard bloody world somewhere and now you're in heaven.

See,

Even the women are beautiful.

It could be heaven.

No?

So if you land up in another place,

It's not going to be any better.

This silly idea they have sold for a few thousand years,

It beats me.

The power of marketing.

It's just impossible,

You know,

The power of marketing.

Even a school going child knows your physical body seeks oxygen,

Not carbon dioxide.

Even a school going child knows this.

But see,

They can pump carbon dioxide into a bottle and make you believe that's the best thing to drink on the planet.

Power of marketing,

Real thing.

It is only the Indian farmers who found out the real purpose of these drinks because they started using it on the plants.

Plants like carbon dioxide.

It's only the Indian farmers,

The Andhra Pradesh farmers who did the right thing with the real thing.

They spread it on the plants and they found it works.

So what can be sold to you if the marketing machinery is strong enough?

Just anything can be sold to you.

And too much junk has been sold to you.

All kinds of junk.

All kinds of junk.

The general description of the heaven is such that I wouldn't want to go there.

You want to?

Even if it's real,

Still it's not an attractive place to go.

Many of you married.

Twelve wives,

You want?

Not my idea of heaven.

So definitely this was concocted in a truly perverted man's mind.

There's no question.

Somebody who is deprived,

Suppressed and perverted in his head,

Only such a man could devise heaven.

And unfortunately,

Uniformly across the world,

The general description of the heaven just about amounts to the same things.

The numbers vary,

Of course,

Depending upon the female population who make it to heaven.

But about the same things.

So the most perverted in any population,

They are the people who thought this up.

And because the perversion,

When you're perverted,

It gives you a tremendous sense of energy,

Always.

See,

If the policeman had as much energy as the criminal,

There would be no crime.

Policeman wants to go home and sleep,

But the criminal is wide awake.

Any kind of deviation from normal course of life process gives you an exaggerated sense of energy,

Always.

You become fanatical about something.

You will see you will have an exaggerated sense of energy.

If you become very loving,

Blissful,

You also… you will have a great sense of energy,

But it will not expand itself the way a perverted mind will do.

And these people with great energy,

And they went about selling it.

You sell the same product to the whole population,

You never deliver it.

This is great.

This is like,

You know,

Once in a way… I think it's making everywhere in Tamil Nadu,

This is making rounds.

Somebody comes up with a million dollar currency note.

You heard of these things in Chennai?

Chennai people have a fascination for this.

Somebody says,

There is actually a million dollar note with this man.

It is certified by the United States government and he is willing to give it for a discount.

Because… because… because he is going to give away a million dollars for just 50,

000 rupees.

Because he loves you.

And above all,

He doesn't care for money.

He just needs only 50,

000.

He does not need million dollars.

Plus he is in a hurry.

His wife died yesterday,

Today he has to cremate.

Some fabulous story.

And if you pant,

Million dollar,

Nothing… no great loss will happen.

You will just lose 50,

000,

That's all.

After all,

You must take that much risk in life,

Isn't it?

So this goes on and on and on.

The same product sold again and again and again.

Just marketing by the power of this,

Not delivering anything.

So you know all the… you know the Madoff job.

You don't know the Madoff job?

No?

Okay.

I won't go into the financial quant jobs of recent times.

Simple thing,

Keep a cycle going as long as the cycle is going on.

Great businesses can be run without doing anything as such.

Collect money from hundred people.

Only ten people are due to be paid today.

Pay these ten people,

What's the problem?

The cycle gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

Collect money from thousand people and pay these hundred people,

What is the problem?

You don't have to do any business.

You can just keep it going like this.

One day you'll have a can in your hand.

That day is not very far away for you.

When death confronts you,

You will see your can is empty.

Nothing.

Empty stories,

All will evaporate.

All stories,

All gossip,

All rumors that you heard about hell and heaven and God sitting there and welcoming you,

All the damn stories will evaporate if death confronts you.

You will be freaky shit scared.

No?

Because this is just a convenience.

This is just a convenience to believe that,

You know,

This is a very beautiful thing.

All the Hindus go straight to heaven.

If anybody dies,

We never say he died.

We say he reached heaven.

Yes?

This is because everybody makes it to heaven,

Because that's just another place like this.

So here we never considered going to heaven as a big thing.

I said if you become free from the process of heaven and hell,

Only then it's a big thing.

Going to heaven is not a big thing.

If you're born in India,

You go straight to heaven.

Because probably after living in India,

Wherever you go,

It feels like heaven.

Lot of people are living in such conditions that wherever you send them,

They'll think it's heaven.

You're in the right place.

If you want mukti,

You may have to strive.

But if you want to go to heaven,

No problem.

You're born in the right place.

Anyway,

You'll go to heaven.

When you die,

They'll print a card and say he's reached heaven.

It's printed.

Have faith in the printed word.

This is not… I'm not just ridiculing this.

This has happened across the world,

Isn't it so?

The damn printed word,

The damn printed word is negating everything that's life.

If you look around and let life speak,

You will see the damn printed word is negating everything that life speaks.

But still it's printed.

This is not printed.

You have to be conscious to listen.

That's printed.

Any idiot who is literate can read it.

Literacy doesn't take intelligence,

Isn't it?

Does it?

Does it?

Does it move?

Literacy doesn't take intelligence.

If you're born in a certain society,

You become literate,

Isn't it?

Every idiot becomes literate if you're born in a certain society where there are certain apparatus of education.

And every fool can read this stuff,

The printed word,

Which somebody says is sacred.

It goes against life,

It doesn't matter.

It makes people fearful,

Guilty and confused,

It doesn't matter.

Only because it's so great,

It can confuse a great mind like you,

Isn't it?

No.

Causing confusion is very easy.

Bringing clarity is another world.

Bringing clarity into people is another thing.

Causing confusion is very,

Very easy.

It can be done.

You just go up to somebody,

Say,

Do you see the tree,

How blue it is?

Say,

What?

What don't you see?

It's blue and don't you see the pink fruits?

It's very easy to do this.

They have been doing it for thousands of years.

See,

If somebody said,

This is a place of God,

They should have demanded,

Put your life down here.

They're asking only for two rupees.

In ancient India,

People themselves lived in huts,

Small shacks without any amenities,

But they went about building grand temples.

Grand,

Superhuman effort.

Looks like something of the divine should have touched them because their own lives did not matter.

How they lived,

They did not care.

These people at least are real believers.

At least they believe.

This is just a trick.

All you're looking for is a pet,

But a heavenly pet.

It is not that there is no meaning to this.

It is not that there is no basis to this.

It is just that the way it is done.

If these devices are just ways of bringing about a constant sense of devotion,

If these devices are only a means to make a human being sensible,

I can understand a thousand years ago or ten thousand years ago,

Maybe this was the only means they had.

That's okay.

But it's being sold as real,

Not being presented as a device.

Then that becomes a problem.

So what is this whole search?

Sadhguru,

I'm not feeling any great search within me.

All I feel like right now is breakfast.

Yes.

But you know you're not yet in heaven.

This is Isha Yoga Center.

People don't eat breakfast here.

Why can't we just enjoy the mundane in every little thing?

Why can't we find pleasure and joy and just do it?

You must do that.

If you cannot even do that,

You're no good.

You're no good for anything.

If you cannot enjoy the sunrise,

If you cannot enjoy the breakfast that you eat,

If you cannot enjoy the air that you breathe,

If you cannot enjoy the earth that you walk upon,

You're simply no good for anything because even birds and animals are doing it.

Yes?

So if you're not even able to do that,

This is sub-animal state.

I believe that many of you managed to do that.

So we are saying what is the next possibility because there is something within you which longs.

Either you put the longing to a little bit of sleep with too much breakfast or you've confused the longing by creating false longings.

See,

Whatever a human being is seeking,

Whether you're seeking money or you're seeking pleasure,

You're seeking food,

Starting from the fundamental of food because food is the first thing that you cried for when you were born,

Isn't it?

See that child you heard some time ago,

He's been brainwashed,

Conditioned.

Now he cries,

Mummy.

No.

First when he cried,

First when you cried,

Food.

Isn't it so?

Even now it's food that you're crying for,

But it comes through mummy.

So starting from this fundamental longing for food,

What is the longing for food?

One thing is the physical hunger and nourishment,

But beyond hunger also you're eating,

Isn't it?

I can see.

Food,

Ingestion,

Digestion,

Assimilation is a way of taking something which is not a part of you and making it a part of you.

If it happens on the lowest level,

We call it food.

If it happens on the highest level,

We call it yoga.

Yoga means union.

In between there are many ways,

Sexuality,

Ambition,

This one,

That one,

A million other ways.

But the longing is for unity.

Somewhere there is a longing to include something and become little larger than who you are right now.

Starts with that fundamental cry of a child just born,

Which is just basic about food,

Then various types of cries will happen along the way.

All these cries are confusing the fundamental longing to include.

The essential longing… Hello?

The essential longing is to include by eating,

By possessing,

By conquering.

These are all the crude ways of doing it.

But the same longing,

Singular longing,

Right through your life,

Please see,

From the moment you were born,

You're still crying for the same thing,

You want to include something more as a part of yourself.

All I'm telling you is,

Don't go by installments.

Nobody ever does it that way.

You cannot count.

I think we can do it.

We have two full days.

All of you can start counting right now.

One,

Two,

Three,

Four.

I'm sure by Sunday evening we would have reached infinite if we do it incessantly.

No?

Two days,

Non-stop counting,

Forty-eight hours.

I think we can make it.

Hmm?

Oh,

You are a problem.

Two days of counting will get you to infinite.

You do a million years of counting,

You will not get there.

Your longing,

Whatever the longing for,

Whether it's for food,

It's the paying of hunger or lust or ambition,

Conquest,

It is the same longing.

If you bring little more consciousness to this longing,

You will see this is not what you're longing for.

What you're longing for is inclusiveness.

So you can confuse the fundamental longing with variety of things,

Running after this for five years,

Running after that for ten years,

Running after another thing for twenty-five years.

Then when you're still wanting to run,

It's gone.

A ninety-four year old man in Kentucky… What's Kentucky?

These are people who breed horses.

A ninety-four year old man who lived on a horse ranch all his life,

Whose whole life and work is with studs.

At ninety-four,

He married his sixth wife,

Who was only eighteen years of age.

You know,

There's a large ranch.

So he met his wife on the first day and then he asked her,

See,

Do you know what we are supposed to do?

Just like Adam,

Did you talk to your mother?

Did she tell you some facts about life?

She said,

No,

I did not speak to my mother.

I do not know any facts about life.

Then he said,

I think I know,

But I've forgotten.

I've been out of the active involvement with the ranch for the last ten years and I've forgotten.

You've forgotten,

But still the pattern has not stopped.

Many things are just like this with life.

You have forgotten that the only longing is for inclusiveness.

Here and there,

Whatever comes your way,

You want to grab and include little by little,

Piece by piece.

You will not get the cosmic.

You will not get the existence that way,

Piece by piece.

It's too many pieces.

Nobody can put it together piece by piece.

Either you swallow it whole or you don't.

That's how it is.

As I told you yesterday,

You missed every step you take,

Every breath you take.

I want you to see that whatever you're in touch with now,

This planet,

The air that you breathe,

The sky,

The mountain,

Everything,

If you're willing to look at it in a certain way,

Is overwhelming.

If you're willing to see that you as a person,

Though you can walk,

Talk,

Do this,

That,

You're still not grasped.

Any one of them,

You don't know.

The blades of grass here may be laughing at your ignorance.

They are actually.

Do you hear?

I want you to hear because that's how it is.

Everything here knows life except the human being.

Because he was given the power to transcend life,

He has chosen to go under.

He was given the freedom not just to be life,

He could go above life,

But most of them chose to go below.

They're not even enjoying life as a tree is enjoying life.

It only suffers if it has a bad deal.

You're capable of suffering a good deal.

No breakfast is a bad deal,

But there's lunch coming at 9.

30.

That's a good deal.

You

Reviews

Sadhguru suggests “pleasure” is just a poor substitute for joy and blissfulness!
9 UNIversal needs
Leisure,
Identity,
Protection,
Participation,
Subsistence,

Creativity,
Affection,
Understanding and
Freedom are summed up as longing = inclusiveness. When we live a balanced LIFE (Living Integrated, FULLy Embodied, www.living-compassion.org), wholeHEARTedly recognizing that our mind and bodies are simply our employees, not who we are, we can experience Joyfulness and bliss verses postponing the delicious and deLIGHTful aspects of life until we get to “heaven”! This friend, Sadhguru speaks my mind! In gratitude, ahimsa

thank you, Sadhguru 🙏🏼💐🙏🏼

So much here! Wonderful! Thank you!

I listen to your talks again and again till I hear you without having it on. You will help me change the world one day.

Inspiring, as usual.

Enjoyed the talk very much. Rich nuggets of truth.

So clear, so vitally refreshing 🦋thank you

We are all longing for inclusiveness. Yes. Thank you