There are always many ways in which people
make use of the spiritual process. For some people,
spirituality and all those spiritual talks, all those pravachans1, are
just an escape from the mother-in-law or cooking. For some it is an
intellectual entertainment; some are seeking to learn something
new. A few people want to bring about some change in their life;
they want to become a little more peaceful, a little more loving. Very
few people are actually looking for transformation. Do you know
the difference between change and transformation? Change means
improvement or self-improvement. Transformation means nothing
of the old should remain. Some people really want to get lost in the
spiritual process, dissolve into it. There are many ways in which people approach
the same thing. But which is the best way? I would not say
any particular way is the best way, because each person seeks according
to his or her needs. You cannot prescribe one way as the best for
everybody. Generally, human nature is such that people seek whatever
they don’t have. If they don’t have health, they seek health
as if it is the ultimate thing. If they don’t have money, they seek money
as if it is the ultimate thing. If they don’t have love, they seek
love as if it is the ultimate thing. Whatever they don’t have, that is
what they seek. That reminds me… (Laughs). This happened
when we were in Trichy. You know Trichy… Tiruchirapalli?
It is a medium-sized town in Tamil Nadu. In a high school, the teacher
asked the students, “If God appears in front of you and gives you
a boon, what will you ask for?” One boy said, “I will ask for
a Maruti car.” Another said, “I want a bicycle.” Somebody said, “I want
one million rupees.” And they went on like this. Then the teacher said,
“You idiots, what will you do with all these things? Ask for intelligence,
ask for knowledge. Why are you asking for all these things?”
So one boy stood up and said, “Everybody asks for what they don’t
have!” So, everybody seeks what they don’t have,
isn’t it? (Laughs). Now, when a human being goes by this process
of asking for what he does not have, it becomes an endless process.
Because what is it that you really have? What you have is so little. If you go on asking
for what you don’t have, even if you have a thousand years, you
still will not get anywhere. If you start seeking the next thing you don’t
have, it is an endless process, a self-defeating process, isn’t
it? It seems to be taking you somewhere, but it does not really take you
anywhere. At the same time, if you don’t seek, if you don’t
desire, you don’t go anywhere. Why would you go to a place if you have nothing
to seek? Right now, that is the very basis of all your activity
– desiring something and going after it, isn’t it? The objects
of desire may change and people may think one object is better than
the other, but it is not so. Whether you seek money, or a home, or intelligence,
or knowledge, or God – desire is desire. The
object of desire just changes the direction of your seeking, but
it does not change the process of life as such. And the essence of
life, in many ways, is in its process, isn’t it? Where you got in
the end is not the point, really. In many ways, the essence of life is in how
you are experiencing it right now.
If you want to experience life in a better way, changing the objects
of desire is not going to make much of a difference. It is the way
we handle the process which is going to make the difference. Right
now, your whole life seems to be in pursuit of happiness because
happiness is missing. If you are very happy, after some time, even
that does not seem to be enough. Even if life becomes a very pleasant
and beautiful experience, after some time you will see that there is
something within you which does not want to settle for just a joyful
life either. So there is something that this life is longing for – it
is not a desire; it is its destination. It is not a
desire that you created or I created, life is just longing to go towards
a certain destination. The only choice that we have is either to move
towards this destination consciously or unconsciously. If we are dragged
towards something unconsciously, even if it is towards heaven,
we will still suffer the dragging, isn’t it? Let us say, we grab you and drag you out
of this room. If you do not know where you are being
dragged, you will suffer. We may take you and put you on a beautiful
beach but that is later. (Laughs). All along, from here to
there, you are going to suffer it terribly.
If life drags you towards a certain direction and you are
unconscious of it, you will suffer the process immensely. So if you
look at it consciously, if you go towards it consciously, then the
process becomes beautiful. That is all the choice we have, really.
And once we are conscious, we naturally hasten the process.
You must understand this: whatever we are unconscious of, on
that level, there is suffering. Suppose you are driving on the street
and you are completely unconscious of who is coming behind you
or in front of you, it will lead to one kind of physical suffering.
Because you are unaware of the physical reality, physical suffering
will come; something is going to break, isn’t it? Similarly, when you
are unaware of what is happening in your body, another kind of
suffering will come. When you are unaware of what is happening
in your mind, another kind of suffering will come. When y ou
are unaware of what is happening in your family, another kind
of suffering will come. Wherever you are unaware, that level of
suffering will come to you. Once, a pirate returned after his expeditions
and walked into the local bar. The bartender knew him from
the old times – he had seen him a year ago, and now the pirate
has just come back after his expeditions. The bartender looked
at him and said, “Hey, what happened to you? You look terrible!”
The pirate said, “No, I’m feeling just about fine.” Then the
bartender said, “But what happened to your leg? Why the wooden leg?”
“Oh, that! We were just having a battle with another rival group,
and I saw a cannon ball coming straight at me. Before I could
move, it hit my right leg. But I’m doing quite fine with the wooden
leg. I’m pretty good.” Then the bartender said, “What about the hook? Instead of a
left hand, you have a hook. What happened to that?”
“Oh, we were just having a swordfight for fun and my left hand
got chopped off. But I’m doing quite fine with this hook. In
fact, it’s more useful than the hand.” Then the bartender asked, “What
about the eye patch? You lost one eye, what happened?” “Oh
that… I was just looking up at the sky and bird poop fell into my eye.”
The bartender said, “Oh, come on, whoever heard of anybody losing
an eye from bird poop! How could that be?” The pirate said,
“That was the first day I had my hook on.” (Laughter). Whatever you
are unaware of brings suffering to you, isn’t it? (Laughs).
So, we are always talking about awareness. Awareness is not
something that you do, actually. In fact, the less you do, the more
aware you become within yourself. The less activity there is inside,
the less of what you call as “me,” the more awareness there is. The
less your personality, the more your presence is, always.
Spirituality is not something that you do. If you stop doing
all your nonsense, you are spiritual. If you stop your nonsense,
spirituality is, you know? It is not something that you have to do,
create, or make happen. “But if that is so, why am I doing my kriyas1
in the morning?” you may ask. (Laughter). That is
because there are no brakes on your activity, so we create a
certain physical, mental and energy situation where everything gets
diverted from your activity.
Slowly, the practice establishes a situation where the life
energies rise to a certain pitch and intensity where slowly, the
activity is still on but it is insignificant. You may have seen this
during Shoonya2 meditation – activity is still happening, but it has
become insignificant. The same activity which was so significant
has now become insignificant. We have not stopped it, we have
not done anything to hold it down; but somehow, it has become unimportant. Do you see this
happening? When you just sit and meditate in Shoonya, everything is still happening,
but it is no more important. It has lost its significance. It
has lost its impact upon you; it has lost its influence upon you. It does
not mold you anymore. All the activity of the mind stops molding you.
You have to do a lot to keep up your personality, isn’t it? Most of
the activity that you do to keep up your personality is unconscious,
but you are doing enormous act ivity to maintain it, isn’t it? If
that activity gets lowered, suddenly awareness gets heightened.
Awareness is not something that you do. Life is awareness. The very
basis of life is awareness. You know that you are alive only because
you are aware, isn’t it? If all awareness disappears, at least on this
level, we can call it death. Mostly, when you create your personality,
just a small part of it may be conscious; the rest of it is unconscious.
By creating your personality, in one way it means, somewhere,
you thought the Creator did not do a good enough job on you,
isn’t it? If it needs improvement, definitely it must mean that
he did not do a good enough job on you, isn’t it? So why would
you feel that such a grand Creation is not good enough? Why is something
that is so enormous and fantastic not good enough?
You know, there is a simple, basic process of self-preservation
that is built into every cell of our body. Like every worm, insect, or
animal, we also have it, but we do not know where to contain it. The
only thing that needs preservation is your physical body, but now
it has just spread itself into everything. Because it has spread itself
into everything, you have to create a small person of “yourself” who
will defend himself all the time. If we make mincemeat out of this personality
every day, you could create a new one tomorrow morning, isn’t
it? We have been trying to do that here, gently, because if
I go very hard at it, you will run away. (Laughs). Gently, step by step,
we are trying to make mincemeat out of your personality so that
it becomes a flexible aspect. You cannot live without a personality. You need one to exist
here, to go about in the world, to do your work, and to manage
things. If it is a flexible thing, in different places, you could put on
the right kind of personality that is necessary for the situation, and
it would be fine. But right now, your personality is like a rock. It sits
on you all the time. Anything that does not fit into its ambit makes
you suffer, isn’t it? Who drew this caricature that you call “myself?”
Definitely you, but it is influenced by so many people
around you. When you were a teenager, you went and watched an Amitabh
Bachchan1 movie. You came home after the movie and tried
to walk like him, isn’t it? (Laughs). Sometimes maybe consciously,
but most of the time, unconsciously, isn’t it? So, this
caricature came into existence because of all kinds of bits and pieces that
you gathered. When we were in school, there was a boy studying
with me who had an excellent hand; he could just sketch
anybody with whatever kind of distortion he wanted. (Laughs). So,
there was one much-hated geography teacher. One day, this boy drew
a horrible caricature of the geography teacher on the blackboard
– badly distorted, but everybody could clearly recognize who it was.
(Laughter). Then the teacher walked into the class with his perpetual
temper – whether he talks about the grasslands in America or he
talks about the deserts in Africa, he is always in a bad temper. (Laughs).
So the moment he saw the caricature… One thing is, he w as
angry, and the other thing is, he was also somehow hit by the whole
thing – the distortions and all that. (Laughs). Then he asked, “Who
is responsible for this terrible atrocity?” As usual, everybody was
suddenly interested in geography, they became very studious…
(Laughter). Then he repeated, “Who is responsible for this atrocity?”
He thought it was an atrocity; we just thought it was appropriate.
(Laughs). Then somebody made up his mind, stood up and said,
“We really don’t know, but it must be his parents.” (Laughter).But for this atrocity
that y ou call as “myself,” it is not y our
parents. (Laughs). It is you. Only you can commit this atrocity of
distorting yourself into such a tiny possibility when an unbounded
possibility was what you were offered. With life, you were offered
an unbounded possibility, but you have made such a bad distortion
of it and made yourself into such a tiny possibility. You can stop
creating this caricature, because it cannot exist a single day without
your support. But you are supporting it all the time.
In a way, what meditation means is that you are just withdrawing
the support for your personality, that is all. Suddenly, it collapses;
only the presence is there, the person is no more there. If you could
walk on the street like this, if you could operate with people like this
all the time – that you have no personality, but now looking at this
person at this moment, you put up a personality, as it is necessary
– it would be so much fun drawing new caricatures every day. But
once you get stuck to a particular distortion, it becomes a problem.
Every day if you are able to create a new distortion,
that is art work, isn’t it? (Laughter); if you are stuck with
one distortion, you are a freak, a cripple. So that is the big difference. Questioner: -Sadhguru, we need to have different
personalities as a parent, as a husband, or at work.
In normal living, it becomes very difficult to change the
personality. Sadhguru: Do you mean to say people around
you won’t let you change it? That is not true. See, let us say
you go to work– we will take the work situation because it is less
personal for you. You go to work with a certain attitude and as a certain
person. Let us say, you go briskly every day, saying, “Good
morning, good morning, good morning” to everybody. You don’t
mean “Good morning” to anybody. (Laughter). The way people say “Good
morning,” it is very clear that they intend to give you a
bad morning. (Laughter). So suppose tomorrow morning, you go and really
say “Good morning” to people, smile at them, talk
to them; maybe you will waste five or ten minutes going into your
office. But if people around you are happy, you will have a lot of extra
time on your hands, because they will run around and do things
better, isn’t it? If the people who are working with you are sitting
there with a grouse, they will make your life miserable in so many
ways, not just one way. Now, you are asking, “Can I change my personality
every day? Won’t it confuse people?” Not at all.
They would enjoy you more. Isn’t it so? And will it bring down your
efficiency of work? Definitely not. It is not because of the compulsion of
the situation that you have gotten stuck with one personality. It
is just that the whole construction of the personality has happened
in unawareness; that’s why you are stuck with one personality.
Now you said, “We have one kind of personalit y at home,
another with children, another with work and another outside.”
If you look at it, it may not be true. Y ou may be functioning in
different capacities and the requirement of how you function may be
different, but still the basic personality may be the same everywhere.
The underlying personality is still the same. You can change that
also. And it will be so much fun for you to change that because you
will be able to experience a whole new person all the time. After
all, it is your creation, so why should it be limited to just one way?
If God had fixed a personality for you, then that is all there is.
But when you have built it, you can also change it like you change
your clothes every day – in different ways, isn’t it? But most people
cannot even change that; they have gotten used to a certain way of
dressing, that is all. I think we should have done something today.
Everybody should have dressed in a completely different way and
come. Not your usual kind of clothes. Just loosen yourself up a little
bit, it is important. The reason why the very essence of life is missing
in people is that they have become stiff – and spiritual people are
stiffer than anybody else, isn’t it? (Laughter). See right now, you are stuck to one personality.
It is just that your actions are different because the situations
are different, but the person is the same because your personality
has become you. You are completely identified with it. There is
no distinction between you and your personality, isn’t it? You
have become that. The mask has gotten stuck to your face now; you cannot
take away the mask. If this mask has to come off, we need something
to loosen the glue which has gotten stuck to it. This glue is
the identification. So now, we are creating various situations where your
identity dissolves in a certain way.
Meditation or any kind of yoga practice is just to loosen the
identity so that there is a little more flexibility about it. Maybe the
whole of it has not come off, but at least you can adjust it a little bit.
Instead of the mask being totally stuck, at least you are able to take
a little breather. The practices are giving you that much break, but
if you work a little more at this, you can take the mask off and keep
it aside. When you come to advanced programs – when
for three days or seven days you are in Bhava Spandana or
Samyama1 – you will simply forget who you are. It will become
like that, because the situation created there is very intense and
different; everything that you know as normal is broken. After some time,
you do not know who is here. After the program is over and
you come back, you just wonder, “Was it really me who went
through all that?” Most people cannot believe that they actually went
through Samyama (laughs), not only because of the meditation
process, but because the whole situation is created in such a way
that it does not assist your personality in any way.
So the whole point is to take off all the supports, because your
personality cannot exist even for a moment without your support.
Actually, if you involve yourself in any intense activity, your personality could loosen up
a little bit – but that is haphazard. For example, let us say you go and play a game.
In moments of total involvement, you may lose your personality,
but that is a haphazard way of attempting it. Now, we are looking
at how to approach it scientifically, how to dismantle all the scaffolding
that is holding it up.
You may have noticed that people who are very committed
and enjoying the process of working always have more flexible
personalities than people who are working towards a goal. Have
you noticed this? Just the involvement with work, total involvement;
for those moments, the personality becomes a little loose. But
people who are working towards a goal, those people have strong
personalities, always. The fundamental basis for your personality
is likes and dislikes – “I like this, I don’t like this.” A
complex system of likes and dislikes is what your personality is, isn’t it? See,
what is the difference between you and the next person? Your likes and dislikes
are different, isn’t it? Now, the whole purpose of yoga
is just this: to help you go beyond these likes and dislikes. Whatever
we are talking about, whatever we are doing is essentially to destroy
the process of likes and dislikes.
Existing in the world with likes and dislikes is a very foolish way
to exist, but unfortunately the logical mind thinks, “I will do what
I like; this is my freedom.” All the time, everywhere in the world,
people believe “doing what I like” is freedom. The very basis of
your bondage is in your likes and dislikes, but your mind makes
you believe that doing what you like is your freedom, isn’t it? Please
look at it carefully, the fundamental basis of your bondage is in like
and dislike. To operate sensibly, even in the physical
realm, even to operate with your work or family, likes and dislikes
are a barrier; they make you do stupid things. If I feel, “I
like this person, I don’t like this person,” now I cannot function as it
is needed in this moment,isn’t it? Now if I say, “I don’t like this person,” even
if this person is doing something wonderful, I cannot see it
anymore. Do you see this happening to yourself? Now, if I say,
“I like this person,” even if they are doing terrible things, I cannot
see it any more. Because the moment you get trapped in this like and
dislike, you have no discretion. Your intelligence is forsaken.
You being aware is simply impossible once you get trapped in likes and
dislikes. The moment you say, “I like this,” getting
identified with it is very normal. It is a natural process. You
don’t have to say, “I am going to identify with this light bulb.”
If you just say, “I like this light bulb,” you get identified with it. The process
will just happen. Life is set up in such a way for you that it happens
automatically; you just have to sit here and enjoy the bounty of life.
But now the problem is, we are set in the wrong direction, so life
naturally creates suffering. Suppose it was all in your hands: you have
to like it, you have to get involved with it, and everything is
up to you. It would be a terrible effort to live, isn’t it? Now,
it is all set up well. The whole software is so well set up that if you just
say, “I like this,” getting involved in it, dreaming about it – all
these things just happen by themselves, isn’t it? Everything that is
necessary to take you in that direction just happens. So this is just life
assisting you, but it has no discretion of its own; if you like hell, it
will take you to hell. Once, a lady who was the HR director of a
corporation died and went to heaven. There, Saint Peter said, “We
will give you a choice because you are the first HR person to come
to heaven. If you want, you can stay in heaven – you got the passport.
But before you go to heaven, if you want, you can also have a view
of hell. If you wish to stay there, you can do so.” The lady said,
“No, why would I want to go to hell? I want to go to heaven.”
He said, “Wouldn’t you want to just have a look at it?” She said, “Okay.”
They went zooming down in the elevator. The elevator doors
opened into a beautiful garden where very beautiful people were
swimming and sunbathing by the poolside. There was a wonderful golf course and a nice clubhouse
– the works. She thought, “This is a great hell!”
Saint Peter then said, “Okay, now you can have a view of heaven,
then you choose.” They zoomed up in the elevator. There, the doors
opened and she saw lots of clouds, people w ere floating in the
clouds, playing harps. She said, “Okay, this is also fine, but I think
I’ll go to hell. Anyway, all my friends are there, and there’s golf too.”
So they went down again, and again the doors opened. But
this time, it was a harsh desert. Everybody was all skin and bones,
without food. Everything was in a terrible condition. She said,
“What is this? Last time when I came, there was a garden, there was
a pool, there was a golf course. What happened?” So Saint Peter
said, “That was just the first day, you know.” (Laughs). “Now, you
are staff. That was the interview, now you are staff. All your life you
did this to people. So this is your choice.” (Laughter).
Is there anybody working in HR here? (Laughter). If you are an
HR person, when somebody new walks into your office, you are
supposed to size them up, to see where they will fit into this whole
machine of an organization. So, if you are willing to look, people’s
personalities are always hanging out. They need not say or do
anything. If you just look at them properly – you don’t need any
great yogic intuition, just the simple observation of a person, the
very way they stand or sit, the way they hold their hands, the way
they smile, the way they do things – you will see their personality
just hanging out of them. It is so obvious to everybody except you.
(Laughs). That is the whole problem.
