Sadhguru looks at how devotion is a tool to move from being a creature in this creation, to becoming the very hand of the divine. Unfortunately, most people think devotion is about making "deals" with the divine. Sadhguru explains why trying to make a deal with the source of creation isn't an intelligent thing to do.

Full Transcript:

Sadhguru: Devotion means a tool to demolish yourself, a tool to destroy your intentions, your visions, your dreams, so that you become not a tiny little creature, so that you become a nameless little creature in this cosmos… but you become the very hand of the Divine. Devotion is not a deal that you make. Too much deal making is happening in the name of devotion. Deal makers and devotees are two different people. One belongs to the market place; another belongs to the Divine. They are two different worlds altogether. You need to understand this, the moment you sit down to make a deal it is the dharma of a deal, that you should do your best to be smarter than the other. No? You don’t want to make a dumb deal, do you want to? When you sit down to make a deal, you want to be smarter than the other. If you take this attitude with the Divine you have lost before you start. You sit with the Existence like this, you sit with your Guru like this, you lost even before you started, you don’t have to run the race, you anyway lost. You cannot win, because the very fundamental purpose has been defeated, and now what?

So don’t lose out on the tremendous power of devotion, because you have a stupid deal in your head. What can you ask? What kind of deal can you make with the creation and the Creator? Only a dumb deal because, you do not know what possibility the cosmos holds. You only know the little nonsense that you have experienced in your life. If, if, if, if you are in touch with an energy, at least you are in the presence of an energy, which is the source of creation, and you ask, ‘I want to get a job, I want to get married,’ how stupid can you get? You don’t know what it holds. Isn't it best, ‘Do whatever you want with me,’ hmm? If you’ve found contact, isn't it best to leave it to the source of creation, ‘Do whatever you want with me’? No, no get me a job… I want in… I want increment… I want promotion. Oh my God, don’t do that to yourself. If at any time you find yourself in the presence of something which seems to be larger than you, in some context, that’s a time, you don’t try to make a deal. Just shut up and be. Just see how you can receive, so that’s devotion. That you understand becoming the hand of the Divine is a far bigger possibility than making a deal, however big the deal seems to be in your head.

So deals and deals always going on. Everywhere, with life and death, deals are going on. From deals to devotion, is a transformation. It is like, ‘If I give you filth, will you give me something fragrant and wonderful?’ No! If I give you filth, you will want to give me more filth, but please see how the creation functions. If you give this tree filth, it’ll give you flowers, isn’t it? This is the way of the Divine. If you become, if you really become a devotee, you become the hand of the Divine, and that’s how it will be. Whatever is thrown at you is nourishing. Whatever comes your way is wonderful for you, because whatever comes you know how to transform it into something beautiful. That’s devotion. Deal means, you want to get the flowers, you want to give the filth to somebody else. If you do that deal, after that you will get excluded, isn't it? You will get excluded from any group of people, or ultimately you will get excluded from the way the creation is happening. When we say yoga, we are talking about a union. A union means that you don’t exist here as a creature by yourself. You exist here as part of the divine. You exist here as part of the creation and the Creator, that you become one with everything. That you are not one little crawly creature who goes around doing its own thing, but the whole idea, the juvenile idea of freedom is that you want to do your own thing, isn't it?

A wrong idea, a wrong emotion, can cause much more pain and much more damage than poison. So this is why Asatoma Sadgamaya, Asatoma… ‘Sadhguru, already I said it,’ ‘No no no, you must tell it every moment of your life.’ Every moment of your life this is the journey that you’re moving from untruth to truth. Otherwise, what is not true can be made to look true in your mind. Once you make untruth into truth in your mind then, that untruth will poison the very way you exist. Then you wonder why suffering is coming in search of you. Well it's bound to. How else will it - if it doesn’t come, that means my life has failed. Suffering must come, if you’re doing the wrong things, isn't it? Someone very carefully went up the tree, another fool tried to run up and fell down. If nothing happens to him, the one who has the skill to climb up is a fool, isn't it? Yes or no? No? It is so, isn't it? One who has paid attention, one who has taken care to acquire the necessary skill to do something in a proper way, if him and a fool who has not paid any attention to anything, happens the same way, then the man who paid attention to all these things is a fool, isn't it? So I am not really against suffering. It's my wish that you should not suffer, but if you’re stupid and you want to do idiotic things to yourself you must suffer, because only if suffering comes you will stop doing stupid things. Suppose… do you see suppose, you have a wound which is drying up, you want to... If it goes deep enough, when it hurts, you stop. Suppose it did not hurt, you would pull out your intestines. Yes? Do not underestimate yourself. If there was really no pain in your body, as you sit in the sathsang, you know like how you blow chewing gum, you blow your lungs out, to show me how big a lungs you’ve got. Yes you would do. Don’t… do not underestimate yourself, do not underestimate your own stupidity. If somebody is doing something else to make your impression, you’ll take your intestines and… because if you as much as touch it with a pin, it hurts so badly.

Wherever you do not know the pain, you do not know the pain of a tree, you do not know the pain of an animal, you do not know the pain of other things, all those things you’re chopping, chopping, chopping, isn't it? Only this one you know, so you’re preserving. So it is fine, you’re doing good. At least you know this much. It just has to expand, that’s all. Now because you know the pain of what this is, you’re keeping this well. If you just begin to feel the pain of the mountain, you would keep the mountain well. If you understand the pain of the cosmos, you would keep everything well, isn't it? That is what yoga means - union, that everything has become a part of you, and devotion is that dimension, which will obliterate the boundaries, between what is you and what is not you very effortlessly.