Get ready for a potentially life-transforming shift in perception with the guidance of Sadhguru. If you are feeling the urge to break limitations and discover deeper realities, this article is for you. Explore the metaphorical cage humanity lives in, the essence of freedom, and how to start your journey towards a more profound way to experience life. Don’t let life pass you by – dare to live deeply.
Questioner: Namaskaram, Sadhguru. I want to experience something profound in my life. Wherever I’ve been, I had some wonderful experiences, but nothing profound. I feel time is ticking away. What to do?
Sadhguru: First of all, it is a great blessing for an individual to realize that there is something more profound than where they are at right now. Most human beings are not even aware of this. They think what they are eating, drinking, and doing is everything. To become conscious that there is something more profound is a blessing. At the same time, do not approach the profound with a hunter mentality.
The most profound and the most profane both are here. What you need are tools to access the profound. Inner Engineering is about acquiring the necessary tools. Suppose I asked you to unscrew a screw from a piece of furniture, using only your bare hands. Chances are you would lose all your fingernails before the screws come out. If I give you a screwdriver, you will be able to remove the screw in a minute. But if I give you a screwdriver, and you put it into your ears and turn it, something else will happen.
Let us say you lived in one hall for your entire life. You did not know that there is a world beyond this. This is the state that most human beings are in – they live in their own little room, their own mind, oblivious that there is something beyond this.
So, at least you know there is something beyond this, and you are desperate to go there. If I give you a key, amidst all these walls and doors, you have to find that tiny little lock that it will fit in perfectly. If you stick in the key there and give it the right twist, then it will open up a whole new world for you. Wherever else you poke it in the doors and walls, or even your head, it will not open up anything. This is the nature of life.
The situation for humanity is this: In Yoga, there is a metaphor that states human beings are like a bird who has lived in a cage for a long time. Even when the door is blown away at some point, the bird will not leave the cage, because of the comfort of the cage, and the timely arrival of food. If you enjoy the freedom of flying, you have to find your own food. This freedom comes with some risks. Hunters may shoot you down, predators may catch and eat you, or you may crash into a building. Anything may happen.
There is a certain comfort in sitting in a cage. Human beings have a long Karma of sitting in the cage, even if the door is open. This is the case with most human beings. The evolutionary process has rendered you to a place where the door is open, but the comfort of being in the cage is very safe.
In India, when gang wars happen, some criminals will commit some petty crime and so they will go to prison where state-armed police is protecting; they are under state security, so they will be safer. Outside on the street, they might get killed.
This is just like that – you have gotten used to the comfort of the cage. The limitations that you set for yourself bring comfort. It is safe to live in a prison cell. We have done programs called Inner Freedom for the Imprisoned in prisons of southern India and some in the United States. The idea is that being in prison, you can be free within yourself.
Here is how I first got to conduct a program at Coimbatore Central Prison. Once, I was invited for a breakfast talk hosted by a local ladies’ club. Right next to the club, I noticed an unusually high wall; it was over 20 feet high. Being new to the city, this huge wall in the heart of it intrigued me, so I inquired about it. Then someone said it is the Central Prison.
I wanted to see who was behind this wall and found out that one of the superintendents of the prison was a meditator. When we told him that we wanted to do a Yoga program in the prison, they were initially skeptical. It took two and a half years for them to agree to it.
Due to security concerns, they could not give permission for me to stay there for the ten days of the program. So I went there every morning to conduct the sessions. Since then, these Yoga programs have become mandatory in the prison. In some aspects, this prison is a remarkable place. Situated on over 160 acres of land, it has some of the largest trees in Coimbatore City. You will find massive, over 100-year-old rain trees, each of them providing more than half an acre of shade.
I saw that in prison, food comes bang on time. Someone opens and closes the doors for you. It is a society by itself – people work; they have friendships; they have things going on. The only problem is that someone else holds the key. Though everything seems to be normal, there is a very deep sense of pain in the air.
Never have I managed to visit a prison and come out without tears in my eyes because of this deep sense of pain in the air. Most prisoners are actually fitter than people outside; they are safer, and there are less ailments, diseases, and infections inside the prison. Everything seems OK, but there is pain because this is the human condition – the most important thing is freedom.
Whether someone locks you up, or you lock yourself up, lack of freedom causes pain. People constantly keep themselves busy because if they were to just sit in one place, they would realize that they are actually imprisoned.
You could try this experiment: Simply sit in one place for three days, without doing anything. No phone, no television, no book, no distraction, no talking to anyone. Stay awake, eat well, and sit there. You will see what your mental condition is.
The longing to go beyond that is the first step. No one gets anywhere unless they have a longing to get there. Now we are talking about the longing to go beyond the limitations that are set by our physical nature. Boundaries are inherent in our physical nature. This desire for boundaries arises from our reptilian brain, a small part of our brain that is roughly the size of a fist. This part of the brain drives our survival instinct. There is another part of our brain known as the cerebral cortex, which constantly seeks to expand.
These two aspects may seem conflicting, but they are not. They are two different dimensions of life. Regardless of who you are, the physical body needs boundaries. You do not want any kind of intrusion on your physical body. Everything else within you seeks to expand. If you cannot make a distinction between what is physical and what is beyond, then there will be a struggle between wanting to become free on the one hand, and wanting to protect the boundaries of the body on the other hand.
A fundamental shift that needs to happen is for you to consciously disidentify yourself from your physicality. You must see that this physical body belongs to you, but it is not you. Like a piece of furniture belongs to you, but it is not you. You are using it right now, and that is fine. Similarly, this body belongs to you, but it is not you – this must be well established.
Do not look for freedom. Just identify what is binding you. If you break that, you are free.
