Are you sometimes feeling drained and unable to make the most of life? In this article, Sadhguru dives deep into the concept of being “full-on,” offering insights on how to harness and maintain your emotional potential to create a joyful ambience in your life.
Questioner: Namaskaram, Sadhguru. My question is about “being full-on,” as you put it. While we have been in the ashram, I have been able to experience something I would call “full-on.” But when I go back to my routine of family, work, and deadlines, it somehow vanishes. How to maintain this full-on mode? Should I do more advanced programs?
Sadhguru: Full-on does not mean that you are constantly “pumped up.” The important thing is that you are experientially full-on. In terms of activity, there is no such thing as full-on. No matter how much you do, there is always something more to do, and a better way of doing it. The question is, is your experience of life full-on? The ultimate aspect of being full-on experientially is that you are experiencing everything as it is.
Experiencing everything as it is includes the breath, a tree, food, the soil, and the entire universe. Scientists today describe certain phenomena that occur in the universe with the word “entanglement.” Yoga has always used the word “coherence.” The whole universe is coherent; nothing is unconnected. Every subatomic particle is in coherence with everything else; otherwise, this complex system would not work. So if you come to such a state of coherence, then I would say you are full-on. But that may seem too far away.
Right now, even coming into coherence with your spouse and family is a challenge. When two individuals are attempting to reverberate as one, there are challenges. They may start believing that they are one, and may institutionalize their oneness, but they will never will be one. As we sit here, this is my body, and that is your body. Only if both of us are buried in the same garden, can we be as considered one body.
Similarly, this is my mind, and that is your mind. We may agree and overlap at times, thinking we are one, but in the next moment you will see this is my mind, and that is your mind. But there is no such thing as my life and your life. Life is a cosmic phenomenon. This is a living cosmos. You have captured a little bit, and I have captured a little bit. How enhanced your experience of life is depends on how much life you capture. Therefore, the yogic system is about doing processes and methods through which you become a larger possibility of life.
Not by doing more, thinking more, or having better things than other people, but by being here just as life, can you become a larger presence. That is possible, but it requires a certain amount of preparation. It is like blowing soap bubbles – you must practice. Suppose we were to blow soap bubbles, and mine came out larger than yours. I might then say, “Look at the big bubble; this is mine.” But both bubbles eventually burst. I cannot claim then that “this is my air.” It is all the same air.
So, what you are trying to do with Shambhavi Mahamudra is not to make yourself more energetic or do more work. That is just a consequence. Never work for the consequence. Let us say you plant a mango tree; then all you have to do is take care of the soil, manure, water, sunlight, and nourishment of the tree. If the tree grows well, mangoes will come.
The problem is that people are only interested in the mango, not in the tree. And no one is interested in what lies beneath the soil surface: the roots. If you only want mangoes, eventually, everything will be virtual. The only thing is you cannot eat such mangoes. Life does not work with this kind of approach.
So, you just have to increase the potential of this life. Do not try to do more because it would kill you. Right now, everyone talks about stress, mental illness, and the like as if these are normal occurrences, to a point where the World Health Organization is stating that there is going to be a mental health pandemic.
What is a pandemic? It basically means that if a few people have some problem, all of us will eventually get it. When we talk about a mental health pandemic, it means that there will be a time when almost everyone will be considered to be loony. This is not far away. When people think that suffering is normal, they are already loony.
That is how it is in a mental asylum. Everyone thinks they are normal, except the doctor. You need to understand that your suffering is not because of anyone else. Your suffering is because you do not know how to manage your own thoughts and emotions. If any of your faculties do not go the way you want, you will suffer. If your fingers were not doing what you wanted but began poking your eyes, you would suffer; it could make you go blind.
Similarly, right now, your thoughts and emotions are popping up, poking you all over, and making you not only go blind, but also become sick. All of this is happening because you are trying to handle life in parts, thinking about how to fix this or that. Being full-fledged does not mean that you are simply working like a crazy person. Being full-fledged means that, experientially, you are in your fullness.
Let us put it this way: do not worry about being full-fledged right now. Just maintain the necessary ambience. To become full-fledged, the most necessary ambience is that you are joyful by your own nature. If your thoughts and your emotions are doing what you want, you will be joyful. Joy is not the goal. Joy is the necessary ambience for this life to flourish.
If you do not create that ambience and think you can pump it up somehow, then the only joy you will have is if everyone around you is doing worse than you. That is not joy – that is sickness. So, should you go through more programs? What could be done in a moment takes a lifetime and a series of programs because most people come in installments. If you come to us absolutely, we will do it for you in one moment.
For you and many other people, there is something called Bhava Spandana. It is a complete emotional overhaul. This generation needs this more than any other generation before. Generally speaking, the 21st century generation is emotionally constipated. They will say all kinds of things, but they cannot really express anything within themselves. This is not good. You must be emotionally free-flowing because emotion is a tremendous power.
People have the misconception that being emotional is a sign of weakness. As misery is an emotion, so is joy. Whether the emotion is pleasant or unpleasant is a different matter. Emotion is not a weakness, but rather a power that propels a human being. For most of you, the strongest part of you is your emotion, not your body, intellect, or energy.
Only when you are emotionally charged about something, do you really go at full speed. But this is not finding expression due to an abundance of calculations. All the calculations you make come from a limited intellect that is functioning with limited data. Whatever conclusions you have about the world and life around you are based on that. The nature of the cosmos is such that neither people of science nor people of religion know where it begins and where it ends.
It is like a trillion-piece jigsaw, but you only find five pieces and make a conclusion about what it looks like. It is best not to do that. If you want your intelligence to be active, you need to understand that you do not actually know anything about your own life. Do you know where you come from or where you will go? The few things we have figured out are only socially relevant; but existentially, you do not know a thing about your life. If you recognize that “I do not know,” your intelligence will become alert.
Even when the body sleeps, your intelligence must remain alert. This is necessary for life. If you put your intelligence to sleep by following the conclusions of religion, philosophy, ideologies, or your own things that you have made up, you will have lost out on life. The nature of life is such that, essentially, we are all losers because time is the only possession we have. The rest is all imagination. We only have time, and we are constantly losing it. So, anyway, you are a “loser” – be a joyful one at least.
