Navratri is a time to celebrate the divine feminine in the form of the three goddesses Lakshmi, Durga, and Saraswati. Sadhguru discusses the different qualities that each of them represents, and where your focus should lie for you to live a full life.
Questioner: Sadhguru, how important is the Goddess Lakshmi in our life?
Sadhguru: Lakshmi is a way of embodying prosperity and wealth. If a human being is well, to be wealthy or not should be a choice. We have linked wealth and wellbeing a bit too much. That makes us believe that we can be well only if we have a certain amount of wealth. That is not the case because what is wealth in India may not be considered wealth in some other part of the world. Wealth is a comparison with someone who has less than us.
Let us not gauge our life in terms of what we possess or what we have taken from the world. Let us understand life and the value of life in terms of our wellbeing, which is determined not just by our physical and mental health, but by our sense of peacefulness, joyfulness, and blissfulness within ourselves.
If these things are there, how much we possess, how much we use, and what we do will be determined by the times in which we live. What we have today in our lives is not all our doing – it is a consequence of the times in which we exist. If you existed here a thousand years ago, would you own a car? Definitely not. So, let us not imagine that everything we possess is our doing. To some extent it is ours, but largely, it is a consequence of the times in which we exist.
Lakshmi, Durga, Saraswati and their Qualities
Questioner: But Sadhguru, we aspire for so many things, like wealth, knowledge, and power. Between Lakshmi, Durga, and Saraswati, what should be the order of significance in our lives?
Sadhguru: The order should definitely be Saraswati, then Durga, and then Lakshmi. First knowledge, gentleness, care, and concern for everyone around you. Then power. And then wealth. That should be the order of things. Otherwise, if you have wealth but no knowledge and no care and concern for anyone, then wealth can become a very crude process. A lot of times, it is has happened that wealthy people have created the basest kind of cultures in the world. It is very important that Saraswati comes first, then power, and then wealth.
If you want to be number one in the world, it simply means you enjoy everyone else’s failure.
People are always comparing themselves with someone else, and they want to have a little more than their neighbor. If someone has 10 rupees, you want 20 rupees. If they have 100, you want 200. If they have 200 crores, you want to have 400 crores. It is not about the quantum of money – it is about comparison with people around you. If you are in a village where someone is earning 100 rupees a day, you think you are rich if you have earned 200 rupees. But if you are in Mumbai, you have different standards.
Unfortunately, your mind has been trained to always want to be better than someone else. If you want to be number one in the world, it simply means you enjoy everyone else’s failure. This has to change. When we enjoy other people’s failures, you cannot call that wellbeing; it is a kind of sickness.
Comparison Kills Growth
It is important that as human beings, whatever activity we are doing, we should be able to do it in the best possible way and take it to the highest possible level we can with whatever competence, capability, and resource we have. If we focus on this, we will create wellbeing for ourselves and for everyone around us.
A mango tree is not aspiring to produce coconuts – it wants to be a full-fledged mango tree. Every life in the world is aspiring to be a full-fledged life. Similarly, a human being is also aspiring to be a full-fledged human being. But right now, because most human beings have not experienced that fullness within themselves, they are always comparing themselves with someone else and trying to be better than someone else.
Trying to be better than someone else means you want to be on top of someone else. That means, in some way you want everyone to be less than you; that is not a good aspiration. It is important that you as a life find full expression. Your competence, capability, and intelligence should find full expression. It need not be in comparison with someone else.
