When Hesitation is a “Sin”

Questioner: Sadhguru, you said intelligent ones wonder. Does wondering not create hesitation? Krishna said hesitation is a sin. Is this not a contradiction?

Sadhguru: Krishna said hesitation is a sin because when you hesitate, you miss everything. A man who has chosen to act should not hesitate after the plan has been clearly drawn out. If everything that needs to be done has been thought out, but at the moment of action, you hesitate, you will ruin everything. But before the decision to fight the war was made, Krishna thought and rethought it, and did everything possible to avoid the war – he did not see this as hesitation.

Duryodhana wanted to go to war on the spur of the moment, while the Pandavas and Krishna himself deliberated on what to do. But once the decision is made and you are on the battlefield, do not hesitate. If you hesitate in a moment of action, it will lead to ruin. Let’s say you are driving on an Indian highway – that is a unique situation. Both ways, there is traffic, with no median in the center. You want to pass, you generally know how much power you got, but traffic comes your way. If you go quickly, you will pass, but a moment of hesitation, and you can be in trouble.

When you are in action, you must be in pure action. If you allow action to happen, a different dimension of intelligence functions within you. You do not have to think – there is something else that just acts. Sportspersons experience this – if they think and hesitate for a moment, it can be disastrous. Krishna spoke to Arjuna, who is also known as Savyasachi, which means he is an ambidextrous warrior. They say when he got into action, he became like a blur – people could not even see what his hands were doing. A man who is capable of such a dimension of action will be ruined if he hesitates. Krishna told him that.

When I said, “Intelligent ones wonder – idiots are dead sure,” it was in a different context, in terms of “fools rush where angels fear to tread.” Intelligence will always probe and see which way to go, what the best thing to do is. Stupidity just walks into everything. Probing time may seem like hesitation, but it is not in the sense that Krishna meant. This is not contradictory – it is a different context.

Editor’s Note: Watch the introductory episode of the Leela series, where Sadhguru explores the essence of Krishna and the path of Leela.

This article is based on an excerpt from the October 2014 issue of Forest Flower. Pay what you want and download. (set ‘0’ for free). Print subscriptions are also available.