Sadhguru: If you look at his life’s situations, the way life happened to him, it’s a continuous series of disasters. Loses his kingdom what is rightfully his, ends up in the forest, loses his wife, gets kidnapped, fights a brutal war which he’s not interested in, brings back his wife, suffers very uncharitable comments about his wife from everybody around, a wife who is very dear to him pregnant with two children twins, takes her and leaves her in the forest, never sees her again in his life, unknowingly ends up in a battle against his own children, fights a battle with his children, gets defeated by them, goes through a disgrace of that, endless disasters, and wife dies without he ever meeting her, but still - why? The significance of Rama is not the life situations, the significance of Rama is the way he conducted himself through this disastrous series, series of disasters that occurred to him, with how much gracefulness he conducted himself right thorough his life. With all the disasters happening, never once was he seen angry, never once was he seen cursing someone, never once was he seen freaking out, conducted everything gracefully. So people who are seeking liberation sought Rama, people who are seeking a graceful life sought Rama, people who understood, people who had the wisdom to see that external situations can go wrong any moment, just any moment. ‘Oh, it’ll not happen to us,’ is a foolish way to live. Hmm? ‘It’ll not happen to me’ is a foolish way to live. ‘Even if it happens, I will go through that gracefully’ is a wise way to live. So people sought Rama, because they saw this phenomenal wisdom. Though life became a continuous series of disasters, never once wavered from his truthfulness, from what he set up for himself, the fundamentals of his life, never once deviated from that, just hung on to what he has to do, conducted with utmost balance. In fact, people on the spiritual path, there is a tradition of seeking disasters. (Laughter) Really. Many spiritual seekers go about asking for something to go wrong with their life. You don’t have to necessarily do that because they want themselves to be fully tested before death approaches. Before death approaches they want to be fully tested, they want to be quality checked, no matter what happens they’ll go through it gracefully, because when the moment of shedding the body comes that’s the time you’ll lose your balance. Everything is fine, when the moment of everything that you know as reality is going to slip off from your hands, that’s the time when you lose your control a bit. So, people seeking disasters - like Akka Mahadevi goes about saying, ‘Oh Shiva, do this to me, make me hungry, make sure that I don’t get any food, and in case I get it, before I put it in my mouth make sure it falls off my hands. Before I pick it up from the ground make sure a hungry dog eats it away.’ Make me go through everything so that I will learn to conduct myself gracefully irrespective of what the outside situation is - it’s an extreme form of devotion and if you want to be ready, when the moment of leaving comes, you don’t want to falter even a bit. That is the moment you need to handle gracefully. Takes some practice, suddenly one day if it happens, then you won’t be able to handle it, and when the moment of losing your body and everything that you know as life, to conduct that day gracefully, people seek Rama. They want tribulations, trials and tribulations in their life consciously seeking. If you see this, anywhere across the world – I’m not asking you to take this path but it’s been the tradition everywhere in the world. Spiritual path means first thing is to consciously seek poverty, hmm, consciously to seek poverty. To conduct yourself gracefully through poverty is not a easy thing. if you get hungry you will become - all sense of being human will be lost, you will become like an animal. When you’re hungry, when you’re angry, you’re an animal, isn’t it? To conduct that gracefully - you should see the yogis in India, they never ask for anything, they keep going. You can see they are hungry, they’ve not eaten for days sometimes, but they will conduct themselves so gracefully. Any number of them, you know, some I’ve seen any number of them, You offer them money they won’t take it. If you just offer one meal they will take it, you offer money for one more meal he won’t take it because he wants that challenge to be there in his life all the time, because if I take money for two meals today, tomorrow I will logically convince myself, why not ten meals? Then slowly I’ll organize my whole life, like see, you have bought footwear for three lifetimes (Laughter), just in case if you have to come and walk the planet once again and once again, don’t you have enough footwear for three life times, or ten? (Laughs) So once you add one more, one more will become logically acceptable, and it’ll grow endlessly. Just see to what extent we’ve taken our survival process. Our survival process has hit the sky and still it’s not enough. To conduct yourself through hunger, to poverty, to various kinds of physical and other kinds of difficulties gracefully, for this people sought Rama. And actually if you look at almost everybody that you worship, Rama, continuous disaster, conducted himself gracefully. Krishna, everything that he aspired for, what he wanted to create his whole life was about bringing the political process and the spiritual process, he wanted to marry the political and the spiritual process. So he moved around with the kings and tried to bring spiritual process into their life but it ended up in a disastrous war. Disastrous means horrible war it became. He tried to bring about something else, but something else happened. So we worship him. Jesus, got nailed for very small things, but we still worship him. Not because of the success in their life, but for the gracefulness with which they conducted their failure. Isn't it? Isn’t it so? They conducted their difficult moments, most difficult moments gracefully, and that’s what is valued, and that is the highest value in one’s life. It’s not the question of how much you have, what you did, what you what happened, what did not happen. Whatever happened - how did you conduct yourself, that is what determines the quality of who you are, not what happened in your life. You may make a billion dollars because the market is doing well. Okay. That doesn’t mean anything, that's a social situation, isn’t it so? So you’re living in America and you’re in a certain level of affluence, you go to Africa, and they are in a certain level of poverty, you may think you’re doing better. You’re not doing better. In your society you may be a failure. Yes or no? Yes? In your society you may be a failure. In another society you may look like you’re a millionaire. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s a social situation. It’s all right you can enjoy the comforts that come with it, but the important thing about the making of the human being is whatever the situation, how gracefully can you handle it? So all these people, whether a Jesus or a Krishna or a Rama, these are fabulous representations of conducting their life gracefully through most difficult situations. So, either you can seek an easy life, remain untested and you will see this, it’s happening to lots of people. They look like perfectly fine, till one big challenge came in their life. Isn’t it so? Are you not seeing this? When one big challenge comes, you will see who they are. When something that they expected did not go the way they think it should go, you will see they spill themselves all over the place. So the important thing is, to bring this gracefulness into yourself. People are always doing thanks giving, for things that they got. Things that you get will not add to your life. See, if suppose the whole world was living just in a hut, all we know is a hut. A hut would be great; we wouldn’t need a mansion, isn’t it so? Yes or no? Only that your neighbor has a mansion, you have a hut, that’s the problem. This is a different kind of problem. Your neighbor has a mansion, you live in your hut and still gracefully, that is wonderful, isn’t it? You can… you can see this if you come to India. This is a huge house, next is a shanty, but both of them is not any less. You can’t reduce him into nothing just because he is living in a little hut. He is as proud as you are and that’s nice, that a human being irrespective of how somebody else is, he carries himself well. Not with just pride, but with gracefulness, and real things should go only to that that even if your head fell off, you still can walk gracefully. Even if you have to go to the gallows, you still walk gracefully. This is the quality of the human being. Rest is only the quality of the situation, isn’t it?
