Sadhguru’s surprising revelations may change everything we thought enlightenment is. If we work towards it on a particular level, it may actually be quite attainable! Read on to find out more.
Sadhguru: When you look at the way you live your life, you will notice that you are ruled by compulsive emotions. Let us say today happens to be your wife’s birthday or your husband’s special occasion. You really want to make sure nothing goes wrong – but that is the day anger comes up in you, for no reason.
It happened once. Early one morning, Shankaran Pillai was walking on the street in the neighborhood, loudly cursing, “Let the devil take over your life! Let worms come out of your mouth!” Like this, he went on and on. One of his neighbors stopped him and asked, “Whom are you cursing like this early in the morning?” He said, “It does not matter whom. Sooner or later, someone is bound to come by.” It is not about anyone or anything. It is a compulsive emotion that is coming out. Whoever is around you becomes the victim.
People try to control their emotions their whole life, but nothing changes. The way the mind functions is just the way your karmic substance is. It depends on what kind of accumulation you have. To go beyond the compulsiveness that a certain type of accumulation creates within you, either you have to rise to a different level of awareness, or you have to transform your energies.
Raising the level of consciousness is not out of the question, but it is very tricky and can be deceptive. People believe their level of consciousness is very high, but if you put them to the test, they will fail miserably because the nature of the mind is such that it can deceive you till the end. Most people are using only a minuscule of their mind, so they think it is simple. But actually, it is a very complex instrument.
People believe they have changed, but actually, it is just that their situations have become a little more conducive. If situations become extreme, they are back to the same place again. Raising your level of consciousness means you are looking at life in such a way that you are not subject to the processes of life; external situations do not decide who you are. That is also a possibility, but most of the time, it is a great deception game.
Transforming your energies is a more certain and solid way because you cannot fool yourself or imagine things. All you need is a certain dedication and involvement in your practice. If you work sufficiently upon your energies, with the right sense of understanding and guidance, you can easily get enlightened on the level of the energies. Your consciousness may not have gone beyond, but your energies will be enlightened.
In the last 20–25 years, we have created many people whose energies are enlightened, but their consciousness has not risen. We are working on it in a certain way, but we do not try to raise people’s consciousness in a big way because it can take you on the wrong path for a whole lifetime, and at the end of your life, you realize you have been fooling yourself. So, we allow the mind to mature slowly. You can still do stupid things, but because your energies have reached a certain peak, these stupid things do not really rule your life anymore.
Your life could go waste in asking someone how to deal with your body, mind, and emotions. You have all the tools right now to deal with them. If you really sit down and do samyama[1], your mind becomes like your neighbor. If you wish, you can love him; otherwise, you can leave him alone. Samyama is like a vaccine. You do not have to fight the virus – you just take a shot, and it is finished.
A Guru is one who dispels your darkness. He is not a Guru because he helps you touch the floor, tackle your mental problems, or be a little more peaceful. He is a Guru because he is able to throw light on dimensions that are not yet in your experience. That is the purpose of him being here. So, deal with your nonsense as quickly as possible. You have all the tools at hand.
[1] Advanced meditation practice offered during Isha’s Samyama Program
There is a beautiful story about a Zen master called Eno. When Eno came to the monastery, the master looked at him and declared to everyone else, “Eno is enlightened.” The next day, he put Eno in the kitchen to work for the next 12 years. This is because only his energies were enlightened, but his consciousness had not risen. We have hundreds of people around us today who are energy-wise enlightened, but their consciousness has not risen, and we are not in a hurry for that. It will mature slowly.
There is a certain process we have been doing with close groups of people for a long time. If you place the whole attention on the Sushumna Nadi and it is properly touched, it becomes alive, and it glows. Once it glows, the energies will mature and become enlightened within a very short period of time. Shiva has also spoken about it. He said, “When the spinal thread is touched, a light begins to glow in and around you.”
You will have the glow of an enlightened being, but you will not have the consciousness of an enlightened being. If you simply sit quietly, you are a powerful being. If you open your mouth, you are a fool. That is how you will be. But it is good to be this way, and it is easy to achieve. All you need is dedication. Especially when I am around, it is very easy to do. If we just touch the spinal cord, it can glow.
Questioner: Sadhguru, how do I know if my spinal cord has been touched?
Sadhguru: For almost all the Isha meditators around the world, whatever is happening with them in terms of energy is not because of the teaching. The spiritual process is purely existential. Your thoughts, belief systems, ideologies, philosophies, and opinions have no place on the spiritual path. We use Inner Engineering as an effective tool to level the mind. It is a device to level out the resistance in the psychological process. It makes you feel like a fool so that you do not attach yourself to your ideas, values, and whatever nonsense you believe in.
The moment you do not identify yourself with all that, there is an opening. The moment that openness happens, your spinal thread will be touched. Whether you let it glow or you resist and create more heat than light is up to you.
Questioner: So how can I cultivate it further?
Sadhguru: If you want to cultivate it further, you have to pay a lot of attention to it. You have to pay attention with everything that you have. What you have right now is still not enough because there is more, but in an unmanifest state. You do not have access to it. Even all of your mental attention is not there right now.
At different times of your life, and even at different times of the day, you are at different levels of attention. If you are doing your work, you are at one level of attention. If you are eating something that you like very much, you are at a different level of attention. Whatever peak attention you have had at any time in your life is just a small part of what you are capable of.
If I leave you in the middle of the Velliangiri Mountains, where it is pitch dark at night, without a torch or anything, and you hear wild animals, suddenly, you will be on a different level of attention. If it is a question of life and death, you will become attentive in a completely different way.
A few years ago, when we were a small group of people at the Yoga Center, I took them on a trek on a railway track between Subramanya and Mangaluru with a 36-km stretch that has over 300 bridges and over 100 tunnels. Some of the tunnels are over a kilometer long; even in the day, it is pitch dark there. If you are in a place like that, your attention becomes very heightened. If you can keep your attention like this every moment of your life, then you will really glow.
