From navigating any terrain around the world to always making it to events on time, Sadhguru knows the importance of taking charge of his life. Here, he reveals why he prefers to drive himself, and why avoiding autopilot is the key to living life to its fullest. He also dispels the common misconception that a spiritual person should be docile and passive.
Questioner: Sadhguru, I always see you in the driver’s seat. When you have so much work to do, and in order to arrive safely, why don’t you appoint a driver rather than driving yourself?
Sadhguru: The problem is, I rarely see a driver who drives better than me. Normally, I drive myself almost everywhere in the world, and people ask, “How do you not get confused when in one country, they drive on the left side, and in another country on the right?” What is the problem? Do I not know what is right and left? This kind of confusion is happening to people because they try to run their lives according to set patterns. If you set patterns, certain things will happen automatically, mechanically.
But our lives are brief; even if we live to be 100 years old, it is too brief a life for our human potential to find expression. It is very important to run every aspect of your life yourself, as far as possible – even the so-called “involuntary” things. Yoga means to run a lot of “involuntary” things voluntarily. That is the pride of being a Yogi. The idea is to live and experience life as profoundly as possible because it is such a brief happening.
If you are very joyful and blissed out, 100 years will go by like 10 days. But if you are miserable, one day can feel like 100 years. Only miserable people have a very long life. If you are joyful, it will be over before you know what hit you.
It is very important to run every aspect of your life yourself, as far as possible – even the so-called 'involuntary' things.
There are many things that are not in our control. I encountered one such situation in Chennai when I was heading to a conference. It was someone else’s car, and they had their own driver. I did not want to say that I would drive, so I sat in the back seat. But this driver was going at a slow speed, probably out of fear of scratching this expensive car.
In these 40 years, I have not been late to a single event. But in this situation, the minutes were ticking away, and this guy was going at his own speed. When a traffic lamp came, I just got down from the car, opened the driver’s door, and told him to sit in the back. Then I drove myself.
Since the Mumbai blast, every hotel has security. Most of them do not know what they are looking for. They look around, show a mirror, and go. In front of me, a car went in, and before the gate came down, I blasted through. The security staff went mad, blowing whistles and things like that. I just stopped by the portico of the hotel, ran to the conference, made it just in time, and spoke for an hour and a half.
While I was running into the hotel, I noticed some journalists there. When I came back, they were still waiting there. They said, “In ancient times, Yogis used to walk. Now you drive your own car!” I replied, “In ancient times, everyone walked. Yogis walked a little better than the rest. Now everyone drives, and a Yogi drives better.”
Such questions come up because in the last 200 or 300 years, we have created this image that spirituality is a certain disability. Only if you sit in a certain way are you considered spiritual. But, if you look back on the history of this country, you will see that the people you worship – whether it is Rama, Krishna, Shiva, sages, or saints – they were all battle-ready. This was because in those days, it was part of the life they were living. Spirituality is not a disability – it is the highest level of empowerment that a human being can have.
