Popular American R&B singer Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson, better known by her stage name H.E.R., engages in a thoughtful exchange with Sadhguru regarding mental health challenges of artists in the music industry. Sadhguru emphasizes the importance of balance and joy amidst the burdens of expectation and commercialization. He highlights the power of stillness, silence, and Inner Engineering as crucial elements for mental wellbeing.
Sadhguru: Namaskaram. You started making music at the age of 10 and can play five different instruments. Some Gabi you are. [Laughs]
Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson: It’s an honor to talk to you.
Sadhguru: Please tell me, what shall we talk about?
Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson: Mental health – taking care of your mental health.
Sadhguru: Unfortunately, artists, particularly musicians, seem to have more than their share of mental health issues. Recent surveys say that out of 1,500 artists who were interviewed, nearly 73 percent have depression and bipolar tendencies. Which is very unfortunate because music is a phenomenon in human life. It might be the music industry which is causing all this. If people involved themselves in music just for the love of music, I think they would be doing wonderfully well.
Music is a great healer. It can bring great balance, tranquility, joy, and love into one’s life, but unfortunately, it’s bringing mental imbalances today. I think this is something all musicians should look at. If people who are doing what they love are becoming mentally ill, what about all the other people who are doing something just to make a living?
Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson: Yeah, I agree. Being a musician is a very sensitive place. Music is one of the most influential things because everyone loves it. No matter what language you speak, you can hear a piece of music and be impacted by it. And I think the people that are in it for the industry sometimes take advantage of this fragility for their own benefit. As an artist, you have no choice but to give and to put out what’s in you, into the world.
From my experience, out of that pure love for music and the pure joy, when you allow people to take advantage of that and to use you, then you end up being very drained, and it becomes very hard to listen to your inner voice because there are so many people who are attempting to influence your mind and your creativity, to package it and turn it into something that is not pure anymore.
Sadhguru: It’s not necessary to make such simple aspects of life so complex. The simple aspect of using your thoughts and emotions the way you want to, seems to take most human beings a lifetime. If you want to be peaceful, joyful, and productive in whatever you are doing, the most important thing is your body and your mind should take instructions from you.
What you call illness is just a case of your body, mind, chemistry, and life energies not taking instructions from you. So you are happening as an accidental force. When you’re accidental, anxiety is natural. It doesn’t matter what we do in life, everyone needs to find a system through which our body and mind takes instructions from us, not function in reaction to what’s around us. We are the only creatures on this planet who are referred to as beings. You are a human being. What this means is, you are supposed to know how to be. How far away from that people have gone.
Essentially, everyone wants the highest level of pleasantness for themselves. But this is not happening because you don’t understand the human mechanism. This is the most complex and sophisticated machine on the planet, but you have not read the user’s manual.
Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson: So, how do you get a hold of your own user manual?
Sadhguru: The human system is a subtle and sophisticated machine. Everything from the way you sit to the way you hold yourself affects the very chemistry and the organization of the body. There is a whole science and technology as to how we can create a blissful chemistry. One has to come in touch with that.
Yoga means you’re in union; you experience life beyond the boundaries of your body, in union with everything else. This is possible only for a human being. That’s why we are beings – we can be in such a way that the boundaries of our body are not the limitations of our life. If we do not explore this, we feel trapped. This is the nature of the human being. Human beings are not happy with the status quo; we are always looking for limitless expansion.
When an individual, society, nation, or humanity achieves affluence, every other life, from microbes to human beings, pays a price for it. But still, human beings aren’t even happy. They are losing their mind. The WHO says there will be a mental health pandemic in the next year or two. According to the United States Surgeon General, one in two Americans is feeling lonely. Loneliness is a state that incubates mental illness. Once you feel lonely, depression is the next step.
When 73 percent of musicians are getting sick, it is mainly because they’re exposed to high decibel sounds, which triggers the release of excess hormones in their system, and causes enormous stress across the body.
Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson: Wow. That’s very interesting. I never knew that.
Sadhguru: The important thing is to create spaces and times for yourself where you can simply be still and in silence. There is tremendous benefit in that. It is in the scape of silence that all sounds can happen. This silence is not to create something, write a song, or make music, but simply to be silent. It will change your neurological system and shift your brain plasticity. We have a whole lot of scientific studies showing that practicing a powerful process for a few minutes a day makes an immense difference in your body chemistry and energy systems.
Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson: Wow. I would love to see that. It’s very important for me, as I move forward in life, to remember the things that you’re telling me, because I think I’ve been moving accidentally.
Do you think sitting in silence will make a difference in my decisions in life, the choices I make, and the people I surround myself with?
Sadhguru: Unfortunately, most people generate their thoughts and emotions unconsciously, which makes it seem like the source of misery is on the outside. But in reality, it’s happening from within. There are means and methods and a whole science as to how to take charge of our interiority. There is a seven-step process. It’s called Inner Engineering. Go through the seven steps. It’ll make a world of difference to you.
Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson: Amazing. Thank you so much for this conversation. It really changed my way of thinking.
