Can there be an end to suffering? Sadhguru tells us where the source of suffering is and explains that there are methods to go beyond it, to become a Buddha.

Full Transcript:

So, technology, because the technology is subjective…now, the technologies that you are handling are objective technologies. Now, I’m talking about a subjective technology; it’s about you. Here, you are the software that you’re trying to handle. Fundamentally, if you look at yourself, right now you are operating according to the software that you have become. Please see. What kind of family you were born in, what kind of parents, what kind of school, what kind of friends, what kind of atmosphere, what kind of religion, what kind of society, that’s the kind of person you are right now, isn't it?

So, software was written into you, haphazardly, by anybody and everybody that you came in touch with, not by trained professionals. Just about anybody who came, they put in something. Wherever you went, somebody stuffed something into your head. You had no choice from where to receive, where not to receive. If you say, ‘I don’t like this man. I don’t want to receive anything from him’ you will receive much more from him than anybody else, that’s how this one is. So, right now the very way you think, feel, understand and act in your life is just the way your software is, isn't it? Yes? The very way you move your body is the way your software is, I want you to understand this; it is so deeply conditioned. If you…somebody you know very well, somebody whom you’re very familiar with is walking one mile away, you can’t recognize anything about that person but just the way he moves you know it is this person, isn't it? Because the very way his body moves only moves whichever way his software is written but this software was written unconsciously. Now, if we want some freedom to happen, if we want some transformation to happen we have to create a little space between you and your software. If you’re too identified with it, you’re just lost in it, that’s all you’ve become. Now you have to create a little distance.

You’ve heard of a word called Buddha? Hum? If I say Buddha, probably you always think of Gautama the Buddha. Gautama is not the only Buddha. That’s not his name. He became a Buddha. There have been thousands of Buddhas and there still are. What Buddha means is…Bu means buddhi or the intellect; Dha means Dhadha, one who is above. One who is above his intellect is a Buddha. Once you’re above the intellectual process, suffering is finished in your life because all suffering is manufactured there in your logical mind. When you’re into your intellect, when you’re stuck in your intellect you’re a nonstop suffering human being. Wherever you’re put you have a way of creating some kind of suffering – your fears, your anxieties, your tensions, your stress. Just see, people are capable of suffering just about anything. Yes? Isn’t it so? People are capable of suffering just about anything in the world, please see. If you’re not educated, you will suffer that. If you get educated, you suffer that. If you don’t find a job, you’ll suffer that. If you find a job, you suffer that. If you’re not married, you’ll suffer that. If you get married, you suffer that. If you don’t have children, you suffer that. If you have children, you suffer that, isn't it?

People are capable of suffering just about anything – this is the nature of the intellect. Once you’re into the intellect, this is how life is. If you’re below the intellect, you won’t suffer so much. Animals don’t suffer as much as you suffer. Physical things, if they’re taken care of, they’re quite okay. They don’t have the kind of suffering that human beings know, isn't it? So, if you’re below the intellect you don’t suffer so much, like you asked that question. If you’re below the…if you’re above the intellect, you’re a Buddha. If you’re below the intellect, maybe we can call you Buddhu. If you’re in the intellect – nonstop suffering. So, to avoid suffering, people are inventing many ways to go below the intellect. Excessive eating, alcohol, excessive indulgence in physical pleasures – these are all the ways you’re trying to avoid the torment of the intellect for some time. You get drunk and you feel good for a few hours but then life will catch up with you with more intensity; it won’t let you go. Now, this being, which was below the intellect, somehow evolved into the intellect. The only way out for this is to evolve beyond the intellect.

So, the fundamentals of yoga, the technology is how to go beyond this. ‘So, how to do it now?’ Subjective technologies cannot be explored in uncommitted atmospheres. You need a very committed, focused atmosphere; otherwise it’ll not be in your grasp. It’s not a teaching, it’s a method. To implement a method, you need to be in a certain way, in a certain level of commitment, in a certain level of receptivity; otherwise it doesn’t work, because…see, now if you go into a chemistry laboratory, you take this chemical, this chemical, if you put it into it something happens. But if you’re not willing to put it into it, if you sit here and think and think and think, what will…what will this do, what will that do, you will come to all kinds of wrong conclusions. Till you put it there, you won’t know. Maybe it’ll explode in your face but till you put it there you will not know what it is about. But now, you are the chemical, you are the chemist and you are the experimental process. Everything is you! Now, you need a different kind of laboratory; otherwise it doesn’t work. If it was objective we could have just written a book and given it to you; but because it’s subjective, you have to be taken step by step because it’s a completely different dimension of perception and experience altogether. ‘But is it possible for me?’ It is possible for every human being.

Internally, all of us are equally capable, we are not capable in different ways. All of us are capable of joy, isn't it? Yes? If you have been joyful for one moment, that means you’re capable of joy, isn't it? It is just that you’re unable to stay there, that’s the whole thing. There is no human being on the planet who has never been joyful. Every human being has been joyful at some point, that means he’s capable of joy. It is just that he’s unable to stay there, so he needs a technology as to how to maintain the atmosphere within himself. It’s possible.