With Sadhguru In Challenging Times - 10 Apr

Don't miss this rare opportunity to join Sadhguru Darshan, live from Isha Yoga Center. 10 April 2020. Sadhguru offers daily practices and sadhana support to help us tide through these unusually challenging times.

Transcript

So, At a time like this, Listening to various commentaries, If you do not know this already, Probably you know, The WhatsApp has limited the forwards to single one. They had reduced to five, Now it's become one. This is because there are some people who are just mischievous and malicious. They want to use this opportunity to spread negative narrative. I hope and believe that's a very small number of people. But the larger groups, Because of fear, They exaggerate. Fear, I've always seen is one thing which exaggerates everything in human mind. There was a time in Mysore, When anywhere if in a home or in a any place, Business place, If a snake comes, They will call me because I was looking for such an opportunity. So, They will say, A big snake, It raised your hood, It's this big. You go there and you look all around, Then you find something this big. And it is a rat snake, It is not a cobra, Which definitely doesn't have a hood, But they actually saw this big hood. They're not making it up. Fear does this to human mind. When people are fearful, Everything gets like that. So, It's very important that we learn to address dangerous situations, Challenging situations in a balanced manner, Otherwise, This exaggeration is going to kill us, If not the virus. This happened in Arizona. A tourist went to Arizona, And he looked around, Everything was bone dry. So he asked a native, Do you ever see any rain here in this place? How often does it rain? Everything is so dry. So the native got little dramatic, Rain, Rain. Well, There are ten-year-old frogs here in our town, Which are yet to learn to swim. So exaggeration is the nature of human mind, When it's fearful, Or when it's insecure. Insecurity and fear are two things, Which will make you exaggerate everything. So, They had to cut off the WhatsApp, You can't forward more than once, Otherwise you'll have to sit and do it. How many people you want, That many times you will have to press it. It's a little discouragement, So that your fear does not spread, Because fear and panic well spreads much faster than the virus. We must contain it, It's very important. This question is from Karan. Namaskaram Sadhguru. You have mentioned about Patanjali writing and now yoga at the beginning of Yoga Sutras. But you also mentioned that Krishna said, Yogastha Kurukarmani, That is first establishing yoga, And then do the work. Sadhguru said, Kurukurmani. Yogastha Kurukarmani. I am confused if I should follow Patanjali, Wherein I enjoy the material world and then start yoga, Or to follow Krishna, Wherein I start yoga first and then be involved in the world, Please advise. Looks like lot of people are happy because they think they have found a loophole in the morning sadhana. There is no loophole. Well, According to scholars and historians, Patanjali approximately is anywhere between 2000 BC to 3000 BC. That means he's around 3000 to 3500 years ago. Krishna is over 6000 years ago. So you must listen to Krishna first. Yogastha Kurukarmani. And then you must practice Patanjali. The significance of these statements are the nature of human life and intelligence and ability to grasp things, Ability to remember, Ability to imagine is such. You've been given a vivid sense of memory and a fantastic sense of imagination, Which no other creature has. Their memory and their imagination is related just to their survival process. Beyond that, They're very minimal. But this one creature has been given this, Because this is supposed to evolve without actually going through real situations. This is supposed to evolve by looking and experiencing other people's experiences. From that itself, This must evolve. Because if you did not have this ability of memory and imagination, If you had to go through everything yourself, All the possibilities of life. And now yoga, Believe me, You won't come to now yoga in a million years. Just that by looking at somebody else's life, Another person's experience of life, Another person's pain, Another person suffering, You must learn. You don't have to go through all those things. If you're thinking I will go through everything, And then I will say now yoga, You're supposed to sit here in ten minutes, You can go through everything that can happen in anybody's life. That much mental capacity has been given to you. You've heard of Gautama the Buddha, He just went for an evening stroll. He saw an old person, A sick person and a dead body, And he made up his mind. To leave. . . What? Whoever is asking this question, I don't know whether you're just living on two t-shirts or four. To give up his kingdom, A young wife, A child, All the pleasures of the palace and walk away, That's all it took, An evening walk. Just one sick person, One old person, One dead body, This all it took. This all it takes for an intelligent human being. That's all. . . Everybody has this intelligence, But they use their intelligence to come up with this kind of. . . They want to find a loophole. How can I fail in my life? Their focus is so absolute. How can I succeed in my life? No, No, Their focus is not there. How can I deviate and fail in my life? Well, If I do not pursue liberation, If I do not pursue spiritual process, Am I a failure? Yes, As a life you are. You may be a social success. But see the virus will level down your social success, Your financial accumulations. Suppose you got infected, Suddenly, All this won't mean anything, Maybe you'll go to the best hospital and die. That's about it, That much privilege you have that you may go to a better hospital than a poor man. I'm not saying anything against your wealth or well-being. All I'm saying is, The fundamental priority in life has to be life itself. Not accumulations, Not social dramas and psychological dramas that you're having. So when you use your intelligence to find a loophole, Oh you will find one, Because after all, It's your mind. After all it's your mind, You're not finding a loophole in the existence. You will not. You will find a loophole in your own thinking and in your own psychological framework. That's easy, It's full of holes. It's full of holes, There's no problem to fall down. If you want to climb up, See, So Bobova tree, Wonderful, Huh? I saw this tree in Australia, But then I thought it may not grow here. But then I went to Rameshwaram, There's a huge Bobova tree where about ten, Fifteen people can sit on it and have a meal. Lot of picnic, Those who do picnic go and sit on top of the tree, On the stem of the tree and the branches go up like that. And they can. . . Ten, Fifteen people can sit and eat and whatever, Have a picnic. When I saw that we must plant one, People said, Sadhguru this, That, But we planted one here and tch, It's grown wonderfully well. But the problem with the tree is if you want to climb that tree, It doesn't give you enough handle to hold. So now if you want to go up this tree, You will have to do this with enormous care and awareness. Going up the tree, There was a time if I see a tree, The tallest branch, I have to be there. Not going there anymore, But it was like that. But if you want to climb this, You will see it will take so much awareness and so much. . . Well physical strength is one thing, But just physical strength won't take you there. It will need a certain level of observation and care to go up. But if you want to just fall down, It is so simple. Really, Because the gravity is with you. Gravity is always working for you to bring you down. So, It's always like this. If you want to evolve into a higher space, There are challenges and challenges. But if you want to sink, That's simple. Well, It will lower the quality of your life. But you will always find company at that level also. And you will think everything is normal. See, Wherever you settle down, At whatever level of life you settle down, You will find a certain company and you think it's normal. Well, You go and stand in Tamil Nadu, Even during the shutdown, The tasmac is still open. The retail store for alcohol is still open, Because it's run by the government. In a very safe and secure way, It is kept open. One should drink that, Anyway, Everybody will keep social distancing with you. So, Those who gather there to drink, If you see them, You will see on this road, If you drive, Certain people would have fallen on the street unconscious by six, Six-thirty in the evening. You think he's fallen, But he thinks he's high. Yes, That is the whole thing about life. He has fallen on the street, You think, Oh he's fallen. But he thinks he's high, And he has a company of people who all think it's high. Slowly their numbers are becoming larger than yours, You better be careful. Because that will become high and this will become low. Because it's a democratic process. When the numbers increase, That will be the real thing. Already their numbers are fast overtaking everybody, The normal person means you must be drinking and smoking. Otherwise what kind of a human being are you? But now the virus is telling you, If you've been smoking, We'll get you. So, You know, These things have happened to me. People, One of my friends just meets me after some twenty-five, Thirty years. And in school we were just buddies and not seen him, He's become a chartered accountant something. I am just getting into my car and myself and this guy also has parked his car next to me, He's getting in, Look, The cigarette dangling from his lips and. . . Like that he's become. I call him by his name and say, Hey, Looks at me like this. He doesn't recognize me initially. And then I call him by his, You know, One goof, One goof name we had for him in the school. So I call him, You goof, Then he recognizes me. Oh, Oh, They told me you become a guru, Oh, Oh, Whatever. And then like this cigarette, He put this in, You don't smoke. He pulls out his cigarette, But you don't smoke. I said, No, You don't drink. I said I drink water. In his mind, Something abnormal has happened to me. Totally abnormal, Because I don't smoke, I don't drink, I've given up life. You renounced everything. What? Smoking, Drinking, Nonsense you were doing. So, You must understand wherever you fall, There you will have your own kind of company, And you will think you're normal. So, To make this life reach to its highest potential on all levels, Takes effort. So if you are thinking, If you're misunderstanding Patanjali and thinking, I will try everything on my deathbed, I will try yoga. All the best. Because when there is. . . Already many of you Reiger-Mortis is setting in. As a child, How flexible you were, Slowly becoming like this, You can't even sit down on the floor. See, I cannot walk without a stick means you're crippled, Isn't it? I cannot sit without a chair, Also is a crippling process. But that's considered normal cripple. So you want to be a socially accepted cripple, It's up to you. I'm talking about life as a standard by itself, Not social standards. This life, How does it want to be? Does it want to smoke from its ears? Hello? Does it want to smoke? This life doesn't want to smoke. This life, Does it want to live or be knocked down? This life wants to live. Because you don't know how to deal with yourself, You're finding these kind of outlets. So shall I try all those things and then do yoga? By the time you do all those things, You may be absolutely unfit to do any yoga. So that's not what Patanjali is saying. He's saying use your brains, Use the faculties that nature has given you to try everything. Trying everything does not mean today you first go on stand in queue at the Tasmac shop. They're also social distancing, They put circles. And then you will go into six months of drinking, Then liver problem for another two years, Then little transplant, But now you have to try smoking. Like this you will try one thing after another, One thing after another, And then one day you will do yoga and now yoga. No, No, You must sit here like Gautam Buddha did not get old, Did not get sick, Nor was he dead. He saw just an old person, A sick person and a dead body and that's it. That's what Patanjali is telling you. Yogastha kuru karmani. I don't think I have to tell you but establish yourself in yoga and then act. This means without knowing some sense of union with what's around you, If you act, You can only be destructive. There's simply no other way. If there is some sense of union, You will walk gently upon this planet. If you think you are alive all by yourself without the help of anything around you, Then you'll walk like a bloody fool. That's what is happening to humanity right now. Now they're little conscious because of the virus. In a negative way, They're conscious. If you are established in yoga, That means. . . Yoga means union, You have some sense of union with everything around you. Now when you act, Your actions will be inclusive in nature. If human action is not inclusive in nature, It is best that we bless them with incompetence. Because competence is the problem. I keep going back to this example, People tell me, Sadhguru, Sadhguru, Please don't talk about him, He's very dangerous for you. But I think he's dead, He's not dangerous for me. Some people have kept him alive, That's a different matter. Adolf Hitler, See, He's the man of enormous capabilities. Only problem is not inclusive, Exclusive. See what terrible things he does. We need that kind of capability, But with inclusiveness. If every human being had the capability that he had in terms of organization and inspiration and whatever, And they were inclusive, What a fantastic world we can create. So when you're not inclusive, When you're not yogastha, Then we bless you with incompetence, Because competence becomes dangerous. Human competence has become dangerous because it's exclusive. If only if human beings are inclusive, Then any amount of competence will work for our well-being. Right now our own competence is working against our well-being. So. . . Questioner 1 – Next question is from Jennifer. Dear Sadhguru, With the COVID-19 confinement, There has been an increase in jigsaw puzzle, Coloring books and knitting. Can such activities which require consistent focus on one thing and are repetitive in nature bring a meditative state that people are unknowingly longing for? Sadhguru – This happened. Shankaran Pillai was going door to door. Now he's going, You know, Using his enterprise during the virus lockdown, Selling children's kind of a mechanical toy that you. . . Children can put it together, Which will need a certain level of focus and intelligence. So, He went into a home, A young mother was interested in getting something to manage the child. And Shankaran Pillai showed this, How this is and what it is. So whichever way she tried it, She couldn't put it together. And she said, Isn't this a little too complicated for a child? Then he said, No, No, This is a toy, Which will teach the child the ways of life. Whichever way you put it, It's wrong. That's what Patanjali also said. Whichever way you do it, It's wrong. The only way is to become one with everything. So, If I do jigsaw puzzle or crossword puzzle, Something, Something where I can be busy. Well, If you read a book, Or do jigsaw or whatever else, Definitely certain amount of focus is needed. Normally, If you stay focused, Let's say you got interested or involved in reading a book and you stayed focused, Absolutely focused in the book to a point slowly, The surrounding disappeared because the book got interesting. That is called as dharana in yoga. That means you have a focus, You and the book, All that exists. Rest of the world has disappeared. In that sense, There is some use to it, Definitely. But you're using the puzzle or whatever else, More as a distraction than as a way of focusing. The reason why you're doing this is, Just sitting here by yourself will drive you crazy. Unless you're doing something either on the phone, Or with this or that, You must be doing something otherwise you'll go crazy. I'm saying, At least it is time to know that. . . Oh, Tasmak Shop closed in TN is it? Latest news, All the Tasmak shops have closed in Tamil Nadu, Thank you very much. But on the first day I think they were open with social distancing because. . . Before lockdown, Okay, I'm so sorry. It's closed down, I'm sorry for you. You're using it as a distraction. You're using your focus as a way to distract yourself. I'm saying this lockdown time, At least find out how crazy you are. At least get a diagnosis. Don't have to go to any doctor, Because that is also under. . . Psychiatry is under lockdown. By yourself, You sit down for one hour with your eyes closed, See what all happens in your mind. After one hour, To whatever extent you can remember this, Just write it down. Because most of it for most human beings, There is no continuity. Random, Random, Random stuff is happening. Write it down. If you trust anybody at home, You tell them not you, Your friend wrote a letter like this to you. Don't expose yourself, Because people will exploit this. If they read it, They will say, This is the work of a madman, Hundred percent. You can take two, Three opinions. You yourself will know. So it's good to find out how mad are you. Yes, Very important. First and foremost thing if you want to go somewhere is to find out where am I right now. Even Google demands, Where are you? If you ask the root for that place, Even the Google Maps ask, Where are you? Because without knowing where you are, We cannot direct you anywhere, Isn't it? So how crazy are you? I think it's good to find out. Especially at a time like this, A whole lot of people are painting end of the world picture in their head. So especially such people and everybody else, You must take a picture of your mind. It will not come out in any whatever this scans and stuff, You have to look at it yourself. So when you're in such a state of madness, Where are you going to go like this and wherever you go, What difference will it make? Same things pursue you, Same problems will continue. We can change physical atmospheres, But that's not going to change the quality of life. So, Already any number of questions are coming like this, Is this the end of the world? What will be the scene after virus? Is everything going to change? Our lives will change, The world will change, It'll never be the same again. World anyway is never the same again. How it is today, It will not be the same way after ten days. After virus, What will happen? This happened to a group of nuclear scientists, Nuclear Scientists Club, Never meeting. One of them who was particularly pessimistic said, The way we are going at it within ten years time, There will be an explosion of cosmic proportions, Which will end everything. Another scientist said, I'm willing to take a bet on this. That such a thing won't happen. One to hundred, I will bet on it. So the other scientist asked, How are you so sure? He said, See, It's not that I'm sure of anything. It is just that if I win, I will collect my bet. If you win, There'll be nobody to collect anything. So jigsaw puzzles, Chess game, All this is good for a little bit of time. But these are all distractions, It's not a solution. I'm telling you, Make use of this time to enhance the life that you are. How do I do it? There are many ways to do it, There are tools and tools. Right now is not the time to offer, The first thing is this. Just sit by yourself every day, One or two hours with eyes closed. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter what the mind says, Doesn't matter your body struggles with it, Simply sit. Life will change, Believe me. Sadhguru chants Yoga Yoga Yogeshwaraya Shambho Shambho Mahadevayam

Reviews

I admire and appreciate each and every word which forms and is released from your heart to me ear.
Shanti🕉🙂

“Use this time, this opportunity, to answer the question, ‘How mad [crazy] are you?’”
🤔Ell-oh-ell; priceless. This guru is a hoot.