Questioner: Sadhguru, like India has Mahabharat, are there any other countries with a rich written history?
Sadhguru: Most of the cultures with a long and rich history, like the Norse, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Incan, or Mayan, are not living cultures anymore. If you look at it in that context, the only ancient culture that is still living is India. All the other great cultures live only in the museums today. It is very important that we preserve the multidimensional nature of this culture, otherwise it will also become archival.
The Invaluable Freedom of Creating Your Own God
If a hundred people gather behind one god, then they are a fighting force. If everyone has their own god, you cannot fight for him. In this culture, you are supposed to have an Ishta Devata – a god of your choice. If you do not like any of the existing forms, you can create one. This will definitely ensure that you are peaceful. This culture is one of the most valuable things on the planet right now because this is the only culture which is not god-oriented but liberation-oriented.
Anything that came from this land was not God-oriented or heaven-oriented – it was towards your mukti. Liberation is the highest goal; God is just a stepping stone. If you are capable of skipping God and reaching your liberation, do it. If you want to go step by step, you climb. We can create any kind of god you need. For every age, every thought and emotion that you have, we have a god or goddess for you because we know the technology of god-making. It is not just a belief system – it will function as living divinity in your life.
This is the only culture which is not god-oriented but liberation-oriented.
This culture is not about looking up to God but about becoming divine and living as a divinity. You want to raise this piece of life that you are to that dimension of existence where there is no distinction between who you are and what you refer to as divinity. The very nature of the culture is a scientific process. Unfortunately, we have not taken care of this science properly for the last six to seven hundred years.
The science is still relevant but the expression is not because there has been a gap of a few generations. If it was being transmitted live, it would have been relevant, but because of conquerors, a lot of things went underground and never came up again.
It is very significant that we preserve this science as a live process. It need not be protected; it needs to be lived. If you protect it, it will become archival. You have to live it. That is what we have been trying to recreate here – the science of living as spiritual beings. Spirituality is not a teaching – it is the way you exist. For you to exist that way, you need to create the necessary ambience.
A Simple Practice to Create an Ambience for Growth
There is a simple thing that I have been telling people, and you could also take it up.
When you pick up the phone, if you are speaking in English language, you say, “Hello.” If you are speaking in some other language, why not say “Namaste,” or “Namaskaram?” When you say “Namaste,” it is a very profound statement. “Hello” does not have that profoundness.
If you go into a temple, you do “Namaste.” If God appears in front of you, you do the same. If you see a beautiful mountain, this is what you do. Whether a knowledgeable person or an idiot comes, you do the same. It means that whether you see a man, woman, or rock, you want to recognize that the hand of the Creator is active in every piece of creation. You bow down to that. In this way, you are setting up an ambience for your evolution.
Indian culture is all about creating the necessary ambience for a human being’s spiritual growth.
Even if I give you a super seed that can produce a tremendous kind of crop, it is not going to grow if you keep it on a rock. The necessary ambience for growth has to be there, otherwise it is not going to happen. Indian culture is all about creating the necessary ambience for a human being’s spiritual growth. It has become distorted in many ways, but the fundamental thread is still not gone. That spiritual thread is the greatest thing we can offer to the world.
A Synergy of Sciences for Every Human Being to Live Well
Other parts of the world have achievements in physical sciences and technology. It could become the greatest exchange of people and knowledge base. We have the knowledge of the internal – they have done well with the external. Two sets of people have two different dimensions of knowledge. If both of us see that we need each other, it is a perfect formula for everyone in the world to live well. But people may choose to fight instead of living well.
That is because if we do not create the necessary ambience for spiritual growth in the world, you can teach as many practices as you want, build as many temples as you want, but people will not go very far. You have to create an ambience of life where there is a reminder every moment. This culture is about constantly creating an ambience for your growth so that you have the necessary receptivity for grace.
A Final Word on the Significance of Grace and the Law of Life
The Mahabharat program has essentially been an exploration to make you see the significance of grace in your life. If you are not available to grace, it does not matter how much money you have, you will not live a beautiful life. This is not my curse, this is the way life works. This is dharma, the law of life. If you go by it, life will be a beautiful flowering. If you do not go by it, you will unnecessarily struggle with the very forces of creation. You cannot fight them – you can only ride them. It is like surfing. Just ride the wave. If you try to fight it, it will smother you.
This is not some kind of philosophy. This is simple sense. If you want to move on the ocean, you have to ride the wave; you do not fight the wave. And what we are talking about is not just an ocean. We are talking about creation and cosmic forces where an ocean is just a drop of water in the cosmic space. In this cosmic space, you learn to ride the wave. Dharma is just that – how to ride the wave and not be smothered by it.
