In search of safety and self-preservation, we identify ourselves with many things. However, Sadhguru explains, once our mind becomes identified, it becomes prejudiced – unable to see reality the way it is. If our intelligence does not become entangled, the spiritual process happens naturally.

Full Transcript:

Sadhguru: If your mind or your intelligence does not get entangled with any identity including your body, including your own thought process, including your own emotion, spiritual process is very natural. If your intelligence is not entangled with anything, it's very natural for your intelligence to enquire and open up different dimensions of life.

You identify yourself with something in search of security, in search of safety, in ter… in search of self preservation, otherwise it's not doing anything else, please see. It gives you some sense of… false sense of belonging, which you will anyway shed some day. The moment you are identified with something that you are not, your intelligence is freaked. It will go in cycles around that. Whatever you are identified with your intelligence functions only around that, please see. Yes? If you identify yourself with your religion, your nationality, your family it works only around that. It's a certain type of prejudice, isn't it? A prejudiced mind cannot see; a prejudiced mind cannot reveal the reality of life, that's all it is. When I say prejudiced, it's on many different levels. ‘No, no, I am very broad minded, I am not prejudiced.’ Well, you have a broad prejudice, you know. Your mind is functioning with a certain identity. Once there is an identity it is prejudiced.

On a certain day a man died and he went to heaven. There, God himself opened the gates of heaven, welcomed him and God said, ‘See I have a few chores to finish and come; if you could just mind the gate for me for a few minutes, I’ll just come back.’ He felt really great; you know substituting for God. That’s nice. Substituting for God, filling in for God is not a small honor, isn't it? Keeping the gates, but it's okay you are doing God’s job. He was waiting for something to happen and to his distress and amazement his wife appeared at the gates. He said, ‘What, what, what are you doing here. This is not a local bar or something. How did you follow me?’ She said, ‘Well, I was just driving back from the funeral; I crashed the car and here I am.’ Then… when he entered, God had put a test for him. When he came to the gates, God had asked him, ‘See, my son, you have come here that’s fine, but you have to spell a word if you have to enter the heaven.’ So he had thought, ‘Oh my God! Is this old man a school teacher? He is asking for a spelling. Is there’s a… Is there a damn spelling test even here?’ He said… The God said, ‘Don’t you worry; it's a simple word.’ ‘What's the word, fatherFather?’ God said, ‘You have to spell the word, love.’ So then he thought luL-U, … lL… you know, he had told many people ‘I love you,’ but he had never written a letter. So he thought luL-U… lvL-V… loL-O… love L-O-V-E? God said, ‘You passed; come in.’ Say, ‘Okay, somehow I got in.’ Now when his wife came he said, ‘Okay, you have come here, but unless you spell a word you can't get in.’ She said, ‘Oh, come on! If you can spell the damn word and get in, can't I do it? Tell me what's the damn word.’ He looked at her and said, ‘Czechoslovakia.’

Mind is a very prejudiced thing. It all depends what you are identified with, you know. Whatever you are identified with, your mind rotates around that. Right now you are identified with many things that you are not, many. For example, if I say… I am speaking; as I am speaking suddenly if I pick this glass and say, ‘this This is my glass’ you will think okay Sadhguru has some problem, but it's alright everybody says he is wise; let's listen. After sometime I say, ‘this This is me,’ then you say, ‘Let's go, enough! This is too much!’ Please see this is what has happened to you. For example, there are many ways to look at this. For example - food appears on your plate. You say, ‘this This is my food;’ you eat it and then you say, ‘This is me.’ Isn't it so? What you call as ‘my body’ is just a heap of food or no? Yes? It’s the food that you have eaten, isn't it? What you accumulate can be yours; I will not dispute it for now, but it can never be you. Isn’t it so? Yes? Whatever you accumulate, it can be yours but can… but it can never become you, isn't it? Did you accumulate your body over a period of time? Yes or no? Yes or no?

Participants: Yes.

Sadhguru: Did you accumulate your mind over a period of time? Yes? But both these things right now you call as myself, isn't it? And it doesn’t stop there. It just extends into many things - your home, your car, your things, your money, your children, your husband, your wife, a million other things; your religion, your ideas, your ideologies, everything. You are identified with too many things which you are not. Once you are like this, your intelligence is freaked. It's a wonky intelligence; , it's lost its penetration. It simply repeats old nonsense. You’ve heard of Tenali Ramakrishna?

Participants: Yes. Sadhguru: Oh! Tenali Rama was just jester in Krishnadevaraya’s court. Similar things happened also with Akbar and Birbal, but we will stick to the South Indian story. It so happened when Krishnadevaraya was young, because of some political reasons his mother had to leave a few month old Krishnadevaraya with another woman for care and go somewhere. For more than 18 months the child was separated from the mother, but he was under the care of another woman who also had a child who was a few months older than Krishnadevaraya. So this woman nursed Krishnadevaraya as her own child. She breastfed him and he grew up. Later on his mother came back, took him and then he became a great emperor. So this boy who was that woman’s son… Krishnadevaraya always treated him as a brother, as an elder brother because ‘we We drank milk from the same mother, so we are brothers,’ that’s how he considered this. So as… as an expression of his gratitude, he gave away a few villages to this boy and he said, ‘Okay, you make your own kingdom.’

This village bumpkin got these few things and within a few years he squandered everything and lost everything and again back to the square one. Krishnadevaraya went on to become a great emperor. Then one day, this man who was over 30 years of age at that time thought, ‘my My younger brother has become a great emperor and I am with nothing; let me go there and see if I could get something out of this,’ and he went. Krishnadevaraya welcomed him as… as you would welcome a elder brother; he gave him all the necessary honors, all the necessary hospitality and gave him a place in the court. He just looked at this; Krishnadevaraya had gathered a scintillating array of talent in his court. He looked at all this - all kinds of debates going on, concerts going on, on a daily basis; he was just amazed and above all this Tenali Rama such a brilliant assistant. Then he lamented with Krishnadevaraya, ‘You are so successful, you have become a great emperor because you have such intelligent people around you. If only I had people like you around me, I would also become a great emperor. Particularly this Tenali Rama, if I had someone like him with me, I would also become a great emperor.’

So Krishnadevaraya felt bad about this and he asked, ‘What shall I do, my brother?’ He said, ‘If you can give this Tenali Rama to me, I will go and build a great empire of my own.’ So immediately Krishnadevaraya called Tenali Rama and ordered, ‘You must go with my elder brother; he wants you.’ So Tenali Rama said, ‘Oh your elder brother wants me, why? I can send my elder brother with him.’ That looked like a good idea for Krishnadevaraya, because he is not eager to lose Tenali Rama but at the same time his elder brother is asking. He doesn’t know what to do. ‘Oh, you really have an elder brother, I did not know? ‘KnowNo, I have a elder brother. Let us send my elder brother with your elder brother.’ So they went and asked this man, ‘So, Tenali Rama’s elder brother is willing to come with you, is that okay?’ So this fool thought, ‘If Tenali Rama is so intelligent, his elder brother…’ He said, ‘Fine.’ Next day he is to leave and a huge send-off has been organized. So in the full assembly of the court, everybody has assembled and Tenali Rama came with a bull on the rope. He walked into the court. Krishnadevaraya saw this and asked, ‘What is this, why have you brought this bull into the court?’ ‘Know No my lord, this is my elder brother.’ He said, ‘What nonsense! What is this you are trying to do?’ ‘KnowNo, we drank milk from the same mother.’

Once you get identified with something that you are not, your intelligence is no good. It just becomes repetitive. So this repetitive intelligence is what we are referring to as karma. When we say… when we see somebody going through certain patterns irrespective of the situations in which they exist - sun came up wonderfully today morning, but somebody is miserable, hum, flowers are blossoming, weather is good, everything is great, but somebody is miserable, then we say, ‘Oh, this is his karma.’ Why we are saying this is - this is his own doing, because he has set up patterns which are just repetitive. He is not able to enjoy the sunrise; he is not able to enjoy the beautiful breeze; he is not able to enjoy the fragrance of the flowers; his karma is going on. What is going on in his head is what rules him. This is his karma. Karma means action - your action or in other words, your experience of life is 100% your doing; nobody else’s doing.