Quotes by Sadhguru

Today, if you have one depressing thought in you, you will sit depressed. Why? The whole cosmos is going on phenomenally well today, but that does not matter. In your mind there is one thought – not too many, just one – that is bothering you, that will depress you and put you in the dumps.

People have gotten used to living a botched-up life — to be anxious, insecure, hateful, jealous, and in various states of unpleasantness through the day — slowly humanity has begun to see it as normal. None of these things are normal. These are abnormalities. Once you accept them as part of life they become normal because the majority has joined the gang of unpleasantness. They are all saying, Unpleasantness is normal. Being nasty to each other is normal. Being nasty to myself is normal. Someone trusted that you would be doing good things at least to yourself and said, Do unto others what you do unto yourself. I am telling you, never do unto others what you are doing to yourself! By being with people, I know what they are doing to themselves is the worst thing. Fortunately, they are not doing such horrible things to others. Only once in a while they are giving a dose to others, but to themselves they are giving it throughout the day.

Man needs entertainment simply to hide his madness. If he was perfectly sane, he would not need entertainment. He could just sit and watch this bamboo grow. He does not really need entertainment.

Today people just go on working, working and working. Not because they are creating something fantastic, but simply because they have to work, otherwise they don’t know what to do with themselves.

The Yogic system does not talk about God. It does not talk about the soul or heaven. Such talk invariably makes people hallucinatory. Yoga talks only about the barriers that you have set up, because this resistance is all that needs to be attended to. The creator is not looking for your attention. The ropes that bind you and the walls that block you- these are one hundred percent of your making. And these are all you need to unknot and dismantle. You have no work with existence. You only have work with the existence that you created.

If you are not using your mind for self-torture, why would you think of peace?

The whole spiritual process is just this: that you are willing to take the next step not knowing where it will lead you. If you are not ready for that, that means you are not ready for any new possibility.

Things do not descend upon anything that is not ready to receive them.

If you are free from memory and imagination, you will always be meditative.If you release yourself from these, meditation is just natural. When you sit for meditation, what is your basic problem? You are either thinking about tomorrow or thinking about what happened yesterday

This creation is so perfect that you can forget the Creator – you can just discard him, dump him – and still it goes on. So a true compliment to the Creator is when you forget about him. (Laughs) That is a real compliment to the wonderful piece of creation he has made; it is so perfect within itself that it does not need to draw from anything outside.

Now the need for seeking something outside will completely disappear. Once you are blissful by your own nature, your life becomes an expression of your blissfulness, not a pursuit of happiness.

So once these needs are fulfilled, nobody is going to value these things. If you are well-fed, peaceful, blissful, happy, well-loved, with nothing to complain about, you will not value food, peace, love, compassion so much.

Questioner: One question comes to my mind: if everybody looked inward, what would happen? Sadhguru: You would have a sensible world. (Laughs) Is that a danger?

Without knowing the essential nature of this (referring to the self), we are trying to make a life outside. That is the biggest mistake humanity has made. The first and foremost thing you must know is this (referring to the selfx). Then you can handle the external like a play, without any effort.

There is nothing in this existence which is not connected to your spiritual process. Everything is. It is from this that Indian culture created this idea (which now might have taken on extreme forms) that if you see a tree, you bow down; if you see a rock, you bow down; if you see a cow, you bow down; if you see a snake you bow down. Whatever it is, it does not matter what. Every creature, every form, whatever you see, if it makes an impression on you, you bow down to it.

So, as you do the practice, if you are connected with your consciousness, then the mind is just free. It is so free that everything that you have smelled, tasted, touched, heard and seen is all there. You don’t have to try to remember anything; it is all simply there. You can just pull it back. Memory is not about remembering, memory is just about your ability to bring back the data, isn’t it?

The mind has no tools to enter the unconscious dimensions. Only if you are outside of the mind you can look at everything the way it is. When you are in it, there is no way to dissect yourself. You can catch hold of somebody else and dissect them, but you cannot dissect yourself. Even if you do, you cannot see everything. If you are using any faculty of the mind you cannot truly be aware of the nature of the mind.

Intuition is not a different dimension of perception, as people usually try to make out. Intuition is just a quicker way of arriving at the same answer. Intuition is just a way of making use of the data and jumping the steps.

Whatever is in your hands, you keep that in perfect condition; then what is beyond you will anyway happen. But people are always trying to work at what is beyond them, not taking care of what is in their hands.

The longing for peace has essentially come from troubled minds, minds that are torturing themselves. For them, peace is a big commodity that they have to seek. If you are not using your mind for self-torture, why would you think of peace? Would you seek the exuberance of life or would you seek peace? Only if you have become an expert in self-torture, peace seems to be the greatest thing.