Looking at the nature of karma, Sadhguru characterizes karma as a coiled spring within, that must release itself. He explains how this coiled spring makes it difficult to sit still and that it's important that a person's life energy which is allocated for activity gets expended quickly so this stillness can become a reality.


Sadhguru: Most people cannot meditate unless they exhaust the karma of activity within themselves. The prarabdh karma is like a coiled up spring, it has to find its release. If you don’t give it constructive work, it will find release in all kinds of perversions. It is like a coiled up spring, within this lifetime it has to release itself. And considering all the risks that are there to physical life you know, your physical form is never really safe, any moment it can get crushed under something considering that, prarabdh is anxious. Prarabdh is always trying to find the quickest possible expression. So when you have a tense spring sitting inside you, you cannot… you sit there for half-an-hour then you want to do so many things. Have you noticed this? You sit for meditation, you sit like this, body tells you this is not the asana; you sit like this, this is not the asana, sit like this, this is not the asana. Try any goddamn asana, it’ll tell you this is not it. Have you tried? Try to sit there for three, four hours then you will see what it is. So this is simply because there is a coiled up stuff, it has to find its way. So the best way is to get into that kind of activity that it’ll wear you out, by the time you go to bed if you put your head… even two inches before it touches the pillow you're dead, really.

So it's very important that the karma or the energy that is allocated for activity is expended as quickly as possible so that stillness becomes a reality, not just an idea.