Sadhguru: How To Make Your Mind Work For You?

Everybody should stand up and do whatever they can do. Someone like Ratan Tata comes out, and not only donates fifteen hundred crores from his personal wealth, not from the CSR, from his personal wealth and then he says if it is necessary, I will give my entire wealth, if the nation needs it.

So, please, wherever you are, in whichever way you can contribute, right now it is needed.

We have dedicated volunteers, committed volunteers on the ground but we need to fuel them with fund, otherwise they will not be effective. So, we look forward to your support.

I don’t want to go into the detail of work schedules we are setting up. But it looks like it’s… one thing is the economic virus is already come into rural India. The virus is still not yet there too much in rural India, hope it stays away because the economic trouble itself is hard to handle.

This is a time the South Indian farmers start preparing the land. When the Tamil New Year’s Day is over on 14th of April, after that, preparation of the land begins. This is very important for the next crop to happen. If that doesn’t happen, then there is a serious threat of food shortages in the coming year, so we cannot afford that.

In northern India, the crops have come for harvest. They’re having serious trouble to harvest. In Karnataka, you might have seen the images of dairy farmers spilling thousands of litres of milk because there is no way to take their milk. Thousands of litres of milk is just being poured out because where to take it.

I’m sure there are many people who need it. So, that’s where we can fill the gap. We are seeing how to connect and see where there is food, and where people don’t have the money to buy food. We’re seeing how to connect that, it will take a certain amount of work. And unfortunately, a certain amount of exposure for our volunteers but I’m sure we can handle it carefully.

So at a time like this, there is no nation, which is fully prepared to handle a situation like this. The richest nations in the world are trembling under the onslaught of the virus. So definitely India, for the kind of population and the concentration of population we have, definitely we don’t have a medical system, and the economics to really provide everything for everybody, for months on end. No, that won’t be possible.

So the only way this can happen is that a cohesive action by the citizens as a part of this… As a part of this the Prime Minister has given a call tomorrow at 9 pm, everybody should light a lamp or a candle, or at least flash your cell phone thing. Please don’t do your cell phone, not here. We will… We will put up a big fire show, because the element of fire in the Bhuta Shuddhi system of Yoga, and our ability to stand up as a strong life, are very related.

If we want to find out whether you’re alive or dead, we will check whether it’s warm or cold. That means whether the fire is on or gone. Everything that you call as life on this planet is only because of the fire of the sun, a fireball is burning there. Only because of that life has happened.

All the other ingredients may be there, it’s like cooking – everything may be there, no fire; no cooking. So life has cooked itself up, mainly because of the fire of the sun. The basic energy in the world is just that.

So using fire as a way of keeping ourselves well, is very much a part of the yogic system. As you can take a water shower, you can also take a fire-wash, which we are doing as Klesha Nashana Kriya; it’s producing incredible results for people. So tomorrow, as a nation, the Prime Minister is requesting us to have a little fire around you, at least for nine minutes.

You don’t have to stop at nine minutes. I am advising every one of you, keep a lamp in your bedroom in a safe distance from you where you sleep, and let it burn every night, it will make a world of difference for you. Otherwise, you must have a powerfully consecrated space which is like fire burning all the time, either this or that.

One of the things must be done in every home, always a lamp used to be burning, always in an Indian home. Now unfortunately because people are seeing it as an act of a particular religion, others don’t want light. Otherwise, others don’t want to light a lamp because if you light a lamp, you may get converted. This is just stupid!

Well, I think some religions may claim water, then don’t have shower, don’t wash your hands because it is part of some religion, before they pray they wash their hands. So you don’t wash your hands because if you do this you will get converted to that religion. This is just stupid!

So every doctor is saying wash your hands. Does it mean to say he’s asking you to get… convert yourself to Islam or something? Everybody washes their hands, everybody uses fire in their homes, this is…

The most important thing is, apart from what benefit it has, the most important thing is, right now, what decides we successfully get across this situation or not, is how cohesively India acts like one person. This is the only solution for us.

We don’t have enough hospital beds, we don’t have enough ICUs, we don’t have enough ventilators; if millions of people fall sick tomorrow we just will have to let them die. That’s all the option will be. So let’s not take it there, it’s very important we all come together, irrespective of your religious beliefs, political ideologies, whatever nonsense you are…

Let’s do one sensible thing that we stand together as one nation. Because right now, the virus is not making any distinction whether you are this religion or that religion, what is your ideology, it doesn’t check. It’s going at everybody, started in communist China, now invading capitalist America, you can’t stop it. It’s not a communist virus. It has no ideology, no religion, it just goes for you. So let us also go for it; as one. This is important.

So tomorrow we will tell you what we will be doing at the Yoga centre, most probably we will also live webcast it, so please watch out and be with us, we’ll take that ahead.

Questions…

Questioner: Sadhguru, this question is from Rohan. Sadhguru, I’ve read that you are only ninety percent recovered from exhausting your energies during Dhyanalinga consecration.

Sadhguru: And… Hey! Do I look like ninety percent? Come on ah…

Questioner: And you need some extended time to yourself to fully recover. As the world seems to have come to a standstill, can this be a time for you to rejuvenate and get back to hundred percent?

Sadhguru: Well, even I thought so. Anyway, let me explain this ninety percent business.

Well post Dhyanalinga, or during that process, I recklessly used my energies and my body because I had no plan to live beyond that. According to the plan I thought, after this we will leave. So, did not go cautiously, went all out, because there was no time for caution, time was running out. We knew if we do not finish it within a certain span of time, then we will miss the whole window. So we went at it. And those of you who were with me in those times, you know, what kind of state I got into.

In a matter of maybe three-to-four months, I must have aged about twenty-five years. Everything changed – my appearance, my everything. But since then, I’ve been recovering, you can see I’m getting younger. From 2000 to 2020, you can see I’m much younger, much more fitter, much better, everything. So I’m…

There are certain aspects which we have not taken care of, those aspects are only important if we are doing lots of consecrations. At one time we planned that we will do many consecrations across the world. Well such things have not happened. We may do one, we had planned to do one at the end of this year, the Devi consecration in the United States. Now, the virus has to give us permission, to do it or not, we will see.

So consecrations have been a challenge because of certain aspects of my energy system not being put into place. Even I thought these three weeks are wonderful time for me to do something about it. From morning to night they are keeping me busy! We are shooting something throughout the day, we are doing this and that and outside activity organization is happening.

Well there is… only advantage is I’m doing it with substantial social distance, that means largely either on the phone or on the video conferencing, whatever. I’m largely working from under a mango tree, that is the only blessing. The mangoes are not ripe yet. They just… I’m waiting but not happening.

Because almost the last fifteen-twenty years, I have not been in India for a single mango season. There was a time mango season means, I went on a hundred percent mango diet. For one-and-a-half to two months I ate nothing else but mangoes.

Well, around Mysore city, I knew every tree, how the fruit tastes. When they invited me for the centennial celebrations of Mysore University, I shared some of my knowledge about the mango trees in the university gardens. Every one of them, I made sure I tasted, and I knew which tree is what. So, let me not go into that.

So I am working from under a mango tree, which is a blessing.

Apart from that time-wise, no, this is not a free time, this is a lot of activity, a lot of managing things. So, about putting back this ten percent, that would be very essential if we are going into strong consecration processes.

Fortunately, in the last few years, whatever consecrations we did, a few other people stood up with me, so things went, sometimes we suffered a bit. When we did the Devi consecration, well, I lost my taste… sense of taste and smell for almost one and a half years, not now. Now I can smell and taste because, immediately people will think I have the virus. This was six-seven years ago.

So almost for eighteen months, everything I ate tasted like thermocol, nothing, no taste at all absolutely. Well, it’s come back, I’ve recovered from that.

Physically I’m well, there’s no issue. But if we go into that kind of work and activity, then some challenges will come. I wish we could do that, but that kind of time is not there right now, but let’s see… still there is time. Because even if India’s lockdown goes away, by the time we go to Europe and America and Africa, wherever else we were supposed to go, I don’t think that’s going to clear up in the next six weeks or more. So there is time. Let’s hope we can do something.

Participant: Sadhguru, this question is from Sangeeth Narayanan. “Namaskaram Sadhguru, you said that if we have imbibed the very essence of Inner Engineering program, our very presence can be transformational. Can you please explain further on this?”

Sadhguru: I think a few days ago in the same, one of these Darshans I spoke about it, maybe didn’t dwell on it.

I said, “Shambhavi mahamudra is not a practice.” It is like, we have a Dhyanalinga Temple, somebody goes and sweeps the temple because there is no other ritual to maintain the Dhyanalinga; somebody sweeps, somebody cleans, somebody maintains the atmosphere. That’s all. Are they doing something for the Dhyanalinga? No. They’re just doing something for the floor, the atmosphere, stuff like that.

So once you have Shambhavi Mahamudra, this is how it is, it is a certain consecration. I’ve always been saying this, the easiest consecration that you can do is a living human being. It’s not for nothing that human being is the peak of evolution on this planet. It’s the best material you can find.

But the only problem with human being is that they – when they come for the initiation day they’re blown away and they’re, you know, tears of ecstasy flowing. Within a few hours or a few days depending on who they are, they’ll make a U-turn. Not everybody, but a whole lot of them.

Usually, the most derogatory term that they use against me, is, “Oh, we have to… This is wonderful, but we have to get back to normal life.” This is horribly insulting.

They’re saying to be peaceful, to be joyful, to be blissful is abnormal; to be miserable, to be worried, to be anxious, to be a lump of nothing, is normal – very derogatory towards me. So because of the silly ideas of their normality, they will make U- turns. They’ve invested in misery. It took me a long time to realize this.

When it first happened to me, where I sat like this and I burst into ecstasy, I thought this is it, I will make the whole world ecstatic, thirty-eight… almost thirty-nine years ago now. I made a plan in two and a half years’ time I will make the whole world ecstatic, because who will not want it. There is no fool like a young fool. I was twenty-five, and I had hit a goldmine, and I knew, I can do this, because you don’t have to do nothing. If you simply sit here without messing with your mind, you will become ecstatic. So I thought, who will not want it, such a simple thing, and so fantastic. Who will not want it?

Well, thirty-nine years, slowly realizing that people have such investments in their misery, even if you show them an ecstatic way to live…. If they get up and walk, they want to take this cushion or even the chair with them and walk. Yes.

When I initially thought the Inner Engineering programs, I’m not dressed like this, I’m in a faded denim and a T-shirt, talking wild, my language was not cultured, I could say anything – walking up and down and, you know, announce a four-day class and sometimes it goes into six days, sometimes it goes into twelve days, any which way. But they didn’t understand a word that I was talking about; even now, they don’t. But their lives are transformed, because that’s the only way it works.

Nobody’s getting transformed because of the words. Words are… because they’re so stupid… if you just make them sit here they will go crazy. You have to tell them something.

See even this is a Darshan, that means I must just sit, you must just look. But if I just sit here, you will go crazy. What is he doing? He’s just sitting, what are we looking? So I have to talk. Otherwise, no need for talking.

See if I go into the villages, if I just walk in, everybody burst into tears, because they don’t have much value for all these too many words.

So, we have consecrated you with Shambhavi. If you live it, you don’t have to advertise, do Inner Engineering, do Inner Engineering every day to your wife, to your husband, to your children, “Please do it for me. Do Yoga.” (Speaks in Tamil), “Ah what happened after you went through it?” (Speaks in Tamil) because they are not seeing anything.

You’re saying wonderful things, but they have to see wonderful things, isn’t it? When they see you, they must feel, “Wow! I want to be like this.” If that happens, transformation happens.

So, because it’s a consecration, in a way what we are trying to do is create walking temples. You know, if you build a stone temple, it’s only in one place, you can’t take it anywhere.

Well Dhyanalinga, if you’re willing, because it’s a non-physical form, it’s available everywhere, but that needs a certain level of receptivity. So that’s why we thought we will create millions of walking temples.

So when you walk… Those of you who are initiated, when you walk anywhere, when you’re in your home right now, you must understand, you are a temple in your house, you’re a temple on the street. You must walk knowing this. People will come to you in a certain way, you don’t have to preach anything, you don’t have to advertise. You don’t have to put… have it… Inner Engineering tattooed on your forehead, none of those things are needed. You simply be truly, truly, truly, that you are living constantly responding in a limitless way without any sense of boundary.

In a level of your emotion you are like a mother to the world. Don’t do anything, simply sit there, people will get transformed – not just people, plants will respond, animals will respond, everything around you, even inanimate things will reverberate differently, one hundred percent I’m telling you.

Well, there are a lot of textbook scientists who will immediately say, “Oh, he is spreading pseudoscience.” Well, their idea of science is rudimentary. Real scientists will never say such things, because they know what they’ve explored is a tiny speck; what is unexplored is limitless. So, it doesn’t matter who says what.

If you just live with these two things, you didn’t understand anything else, you just have to keep the atmosphere clean.

See right now there is Dhyanalinga temple. However powerful it may be, if you put filth in front of the temple, even if it’s very powerful, people will not go there. You keep it in a certain way, people will go.

So your practice is just that. Cleaning up the place and removing the cobwebs every day. That’s it. You are not doing anything to energise it. It’s not like Shakti Chalana Kriya, you’re trying to build something which is a long affair. That’s why we shifted to Shambhavi, because I didn’t see people have neither the perseverance, nor determination nor commitment to really work to build themselves up to another level, because that’s a lot of work. Kriya Yoga is a lot of work. This is why we came to Shambhavi Mahamudra. Mudra means it’s already there. You just experience it, you live it, that’s all. You don’t have to do it. But just daily removing cobwebs, cleaning up the floor. This is all your work, rest will happen.

Questioner: Next question is from Vijay Das. Namaskaram Sadhguru. In one of the quotes, you said “Sadhana is not the way, but without sadhana, there is no way”. I did not understand this. Can you please help me understand this?

Sadhguru: No, you will understand it in the evening when I say it. Morning when the alarm rings at five o’clock suddenly you don’t understand. What is this Sadhana — because so many people said you don’t have to do anything. Even Sadhguru has said many times, doing nothing is the highest thing. So why is he asking me to get up in the morning and do something? I will do nothing.

No, doing nothing means you should not sleep, you should not snore also. That is doing nothing. Sleeping is not doing nothing, you’re sleeping, alright? Doing nothing means you don’t sleep, you don’t think, you don’t feel, you don’t snore, you don’t do anything. Simply.

For this you need enormous level of awareness and alertness in the system. That’s not going to happen simply. So, right now it’s better to do something.

Use some tools, Sadhana means a tool, not a practice. You’re using tools. Without tools, human beings would be nothing. Really, we would be nothing without our ability to use tools. So, if you want something to come in your direction, you will have to do certain things.

This happened. A very obnoxious loud customer came and settled down in a reserved table in a restaurant. It was reserved for somebody else. But he came and sat down. He kept waving at the waiters but they ignored him because he’s sitting in the wrong table. It’s marked there – it’s reserved but he sits there.

Then loudly he yelled, “If I were to get some water in this damn place, what should I do?” So the manager walked up to him and said, “Why don’t you set fire to yourself, then it will come.” If you set fire to yourself, water will come in a lot of quantity. Not just in a glass.

So sadhana is just like that — you’re trying to set fire to yourself so that you can draw something towards you. It’s a tool, not only for health and well being. It’s a tool to draw a dimension, which is not yet, right now.

Questioner: Next question is from Disha, Bangalore. How to make the mind to work for us, and how to fully get rid of it, debilitating subconscious programming?

Sadhguru: Whose mind is she talking about? No, no, people are looking at how to have their husband’s mind work for them, how to make their wife’s emotion work for them. Yes, yes. It’s not a joke.

See…At a time like this, I must be just giving you solace. “Don’t worry, I’m with you. Everything is okay.” But what to do? I am not that kind. I am a realistic fool, that’s the problem with me.

You can be a realistic fool, or an unrealistic fool that’s all the option you have. If you think you’re smart, you’re a bloody fool. So I’m a realistic fool. I’m not an unrealistic fool. So realistic fool means this – we’re always looking what’s the right thing to do in a given situation. We are not expecting Superman/ Spider-Man drop upon us and do something for us.

There you see, all these snakes hanging here, not able to do anything for us. They just hang there. We just enjoy them as they are. We don’t expect them to come and raise your Kundalini. No, no, there are people like that. If you keep them here like this one big snake, then they would think, “Oh this snake if I look at it and worship it, this will come and raise in me as Kundalini.” That’s why we hung them there, in chains.

So, you want to… you still not made it clear to me whose mind you want to control. Because generally this is the thing, this is what we call as family; this is what we call as society. That means your mind should work for me. Mine is not working for me, that’s not the problem. Your mind should be working for me. You must think the way I want you to think. You must feel the way I want you to feel. I am not feeling like that, that is not the problem. You must feel for me.

See when you say you must love me, you must have love for me means what? That means, I want your emotions to be the way I want? No, no, no. You can only decide about this one… How my emotions can be, how my thoughts can be, I can decide. I have no business to decide how somebody else’s thought and emotion should be. But always the concern is this.

But I’m sure Disha is a wonderful girl and she’s asking about her mind. How to have control over my mind?

First you must decide whether you want to control your mind or liberate your mind. Please consider this, all of you who are always thinking of controlling your mind.

First, make up your mind – Do you want this controlled, do you want this liberated? “Oh, then I will go mad.” Who said you are not right now? Do you have a certificate like that?

This happened in Bangalore city. The young boy, sixteen-seventeen year old boy – he went into some psychological problems. Those days when I was young, those days, there is no sensitivity about these things. Somebody is little psychologically disturbed means immediately say he is mad.

So he went to the NIMHANS Institute in Bangalore. He became an in-patient for some three months or four months and then he came back. In the evening, where all the young boys gather, he also went there. There, “Ah you’re mad, aren’t you.. You’re, you’re gone, you’re a loony because you’ve been in the mental hospital for four months, you’re finished”, whatever.

The boy was hurt but he didn’t know what to do. Two three days he went there – everyday they were battering him with this. So one day he pulled out a paper from his pocket and he said, “See, here I have a certificate that now I’m normal. Do you have one?”

The hospital gave him a certificate that now he’s normal he’s fit to go back. “Do any of you have, you don’t have. I’m the one who has a certificate.” Who is sane? Who is insane now?

So, first thing is, Disha and everybody else, just consider this one question profoundly, the next 24 hours. Do you want your mind in control or do you want it liberated? Maybe tomorrow we’ll explore that.

Sadhguru chants Yoga Yoga Yogeshwaraya.

 

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