What Does Self-Realization Mean?

Questioner: I want to leave this daily routine and dedicate myself fully to understand the real “I.” But the moment I think of my family, everything takes the backstage. How do I balance this?

When people hear the word “self-realization,” maybe it conjures up images in their minds of some Himalayan cave. I don’t want to talk about anything that is not yet in your experience because the moment we talk about it, you will lose touch with reality. If you start believing realities that are not yet in your experience, you will lose ground in the reality you are in.

Unfortunately, this is what has happened in the world in the name of spirituality and religion. God is not an enabling factor, God is unfortunately a disabling factor in most people’s lives because they believe God is going to take care of their food, their survival, their health, and their business. So, let us not talk about knowing yourself in some mystical way or another dimension. Let us talk about knowing yourself in the most practical way that we can look at.

Reading Your User’s Manual

If you want to work with anything, for example let us say you want to drive your motorcycle or car. The better you grasp what the machine is, the more control and freedom it gives you as to what you can do with it. Whether you are using your car, computer or even your cell phone, the more you know about it the better you can use it. Or even with the people around, your own family, friends or people who work with you, the better you know them the better you can deal with them. Whatever you wish to deal with, the more you know about it, the better you can handle it.

Why is it that you don’t see this about yourself? The more you know about this piece of life, which you refer to as “myself,” the better your grasp over this and the better your ability to handle it, which definitely gives you more access to life. In other words, self-realization is a way of knowing this piece of life in a much better way than the way you currently know it. You may know something about your thought process, your personality and your emotions – you may have been psycho-analyzed already – but you still do not know anything about the nature of this life – how this happens, where it comes from, where it goes, what is its nature. If you do not know anything about the machine that you are handling, you will handle it by accident.

Please look at this. What do you know about this piece of life? When you live accidentally and exist here as an accident, you are a potential calamity. Whether you actually become a calamity or not, you are a potential calamity. If you live here as a potential calamity, to be anxious and fearful is very natural, and that is how life is happening.

Do not think of self-realization as some weird thing that some yogi does in a Himalayan cave. It is not about that. It is just that if you want to live your life with a certain ease, you have to know this piece of life. If you do not explore and know this, how will you live with ease? When there is no ease, joy is out of question. When there is no ease and joy in your life, questions will come up, “To be or not to be?” People think this is a very intelligent question. This is the most idiotic thing you can ask yourself. This life process is such a phenomenon, but you are asking, “To be or not to be?” Such silly questions have risen in the mind because people have not realized the immensity of what it means to be human. Self-realization is not a choice; it is a must.

Editor’s Note: Excerpted from Mystic’s Musings. Not for the faint-hearted, this book deftly guides us with answers about reality that transcend our fears, angers, hopes, and struggles. Sadhguru keeps us teetering on the edge of logic and captivates us with his answers to questions relating to life, death, rebirth, suffering, karma, and the journey of the Self. Download the sample pdf or purchase the ebook.