Quotes by Sadhguru

Generally, in English, one way in which we describe an insane person is like this: He is out of his mind. See, if you were out of your mind, would you be insane? Insanity is of the mind always, isnt it? Only if you are in the mind you can be insane. If you are out of your mind, you will be perfectly sane; you will become like a Mansur, or a Jesus or someone who is beyond other peoples understanding. Others may think they are insane, but they are the only few sane people that have happened on the planet.

The most beautiful moments in life are moments when you are expressing your joy, not when you are seeking it.

When conquest became the mode, people burnt the feminine out of the planet. We made it like this that the masculine is the only way to be successful, and we have compelled even women to be very masculine today in their attitude, approach and emotion. We have made everybody believe that conquest is the only way to success. But to conquer is not the way; to embrace is the way. Trying to conquer the planet has led to all the disasters. If the feminine was the more dominant factor, or at least if the two were evenly balanced, I dont think you would have any ecological disasters, because the feminine and earth worship always went together. Those cultures which looked upon the earth as the mother, they never caused too much damage to the environment around them.

Even if I say something, do not believe this nonsense, but do not disbelieve it either. Just see, Someone is willing to sit in front of so many people and talk absolute nonsense, something that is totally absurd. Let me see what this is about. If you keep that much openness, the possibility is alive in your life. If you believe it, you will kill it. If you disbelieve it, you will kill it.

If you want God as a tranquilizer, it is okay as an idea, but if you want the Divine to be an awakening process in your life, an idea is not good enough.

People who want to acquired powers over somebody else, for them imagination is a powerful tool. If you are seeking liberation, if you want to become free, the first thing that you must become free from is your imagination, because that is the deepest trap. Your memory and your imagination are the two traps. Do you see? One of your legs is stuck in memory; another leg is stuck in imagination. 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, isnt it? If you are free from memory and imagination, you will always be meditative.

If spirituality means seeking [Self-Realization], why do I need a Guru? Lets say, all that youre seeking is to go to Kedarnath right now. Somebody is driving; the roads are laid out. If you came alone and there were no proper directions, definitely you would have wished, I wish there was a map to tell me how to get there. On one level, a Guru is just a map. Hes a live map. If you can read the map, you know the way, you can go. A Guru can also be your bus driver. You sit here and doze and he will take you to Kedarnath; but to sit in this bus and doze off, or to sit in this bus joyfully, you need to trust the bus driver. If every moment, with every curve in this road, you go on thinking, Will this man kill me? Will this man go off the road? What intention does he have for my life? then you will only go mad sitting here. Were talking about trust, not because a Guru needs your trust, its just that if theres no trust you will drive yourself mad.This is not just for sitting on a bus or going on a spiritual journey. To live on this planet, you need trust. Right now, you trust unconsciously. Youre sitting on this bus, which is just a bundle of nuts and bolts and pieces of metal. Look at the way youre going through the mountains. Unknowingly, you trust this vehicle so much. Isnt it so? You have placed your life in the hands of this mechanical mess, which is just nuts and bolts, rubbers and wires, this and that. You have placed your life in it, but you trust the bus consciously. The same trust, if it arises consciously, would do miracles to you. When we say trust, were not talking about anything new to life. To be here, to take every breath in and out, you need trust, isnt it? Your trust is unconscious. I am only asking you to bring a little consciousness to your trust. Its not something new. Life is trust, otherwise nobody can exist here.

In terms of the real quality of a human being, only when suffering comes, when pain comes, does a man stand up as a human being. You can see great human beings surface only when the society is really suffering. When India was under the oppression of British rulers, how many wonderful people stood up? Where are they now? They have just fallen back into their comforts, thats all. All those Ghandis, Patels, Tilaks are still there, but theyre dormant. When pain came, they all became alive. They left everything behind and stood up as giants. Where are they now? This is the human misfortune that still theres not enough intelligence in the world that human beings will rise to their peaks when everything is well. They wait for calamities.

Asking for outside help, or even if it comes unasked, to allow outside help, needs a certain gracefulness and humility. Otherwise, you cannot allow outside help. Lots of people cannot receive something gracefully. Always, the social ethics have taught you that giving is important, taking is not important. Yes, taking is not important, taking is ugly, but receiving is very important.

The essence of the spiritual process needs to be understood as a means to generate the necessary intensity to break the bubble, so that you are out of your individual nature. It is not about being good, it is not about being ethical, it is not about being moral. These things may all happen as a result, as a consequence. Once you have broken the bubble and known the freedom of experiencing everything as yourself, as a consequence you may function as a good person in society. But you have no particular intention of being good!

There is only one calamity: ignorance. And there is only one solution: enlightenment.

Confusion is a good state to be in. It means you are looking, constantly looking. People ask me, Why do you confuse us like this? I want you to understand, if you can be confused by anybody, it means you do not know. If you are fanatical, you cannot be confused. Or if you are realized, you cannot be confused. Between ignorance and enlightenment is a very thin line. But they are worlds apart.

How the human system is happening, in the same way the universe has happened. In the same way that the micro is happening, that is how the macro has happened. If you look at the micro and perceive it, you will also know existence.

If you ask a tree how he feels to know that hes spreading his fragrance and making people happy, I dont think a tree looks at it that way. I am just like that, and it is just my nature to be like this.

They have been promising us for a long time — in every culture — that they are going to take us to heaven. They promise heaven because they are making a hell out of this place.

See, when we begin to question the very existence of the Creator that means the creation is perfect. If every day it could not function without morning and evening prayers, then this would not be a perfect creation. 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. 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.

When we say transformation, it means that nothing of the old has remained. Something totally new has flowered within you. Now you look at a rose plant that is full of thorns. Springtime came and rose flowers burst out — it is a transformation. The thorns are still there — there are more thorns than flowers — but we do not call it a thorn plant. We call it a rose plant because of that single rose. Everyones attention goes more towards that single rose than a hundred thorns that are on the plant, isnt it? So all the thorns in you, maybe you cannot remove them right now, but if one rose flower blossoms, everyone is willing to overlook those things.

How can you become old in spirit? Only by carrying the past, isnt it? If you carry sixty years of burden with you, youre sixty years old. If you dont carry anything, youre like a newborn. The physical body may develop limitations, but the way you are has no limitations. It simply has no limitations. You are this many years old or that many years old simply because you carry that many years of garbage with you.

Yogis are not against pleasure. It is just that they are unwilling to settle for little pleasures. They are greedy.

Death is a fiction created by people who live their lives in total unawareness. There is only life, life and life alone, moving from one dimension to another, another dimension to another.