Struggling with motivation in your Hatha Yoga practice? Gain insight from Sadhguru on breaking free from patterns, finding the right support, and surrounding yourself with inspiration to reignite your motivation and elevate your practice.
Questioner: Namaskaram, Sadhguru. For years, I have been doing my Hatha Yoga practices daily. But lately, it seems like I’m losing my involvement and interest. I feel weaker, less motivated, and more vulnerable. What should I do?
Sadhguru: There are patterns in every one of us without exception. One aspect of Hatha Yoga involves being stubborn. You must become stubborn because the karmic impressions within us will compel us to go along with the rut, or certain patterns. It is like driving on mud tracks during the rainy season when they are full of slush.
When you are in a rut full of slush, no matter where you would like to go, you can try all you want, but you will not get out of the rut. The power of a rut is that it takes you in the same direction.
Everyone has their own stuff. The question is only, are you stubborn enough to come out of it? If you can fly, you will come out of it. But if you are not the flying sort, you must be stubborn. When I say the “flying sort,” there are some people who, if they close their eyes, that is good enough – I do not really bother whether they are doing their morning Hatha Yoga or not.
Flying people do not have to worry about their ruts. But walking people must worry about the road condition and all the obstacles they may encounter. Flying people must worry about the weather a little bit. But walking people have to worry about every pebble, every stone, every thorn, every slippery place, and every marshland they step into.
These patterns will determine what kind of terrain they get into. Especially when they get into bad terrain – maybe in terms of physical situations, psychological situations, or emotional patterns – when they get into compulsive terrains that determine how they should be, they must show their stubbornness: “You do what you want. I do Yoga.”
It is almost like Karma is a possession. It possesses you from the inside and makes you do things that you do not want to do, or does not allow you to do things that you want to do. In a way, you are possessed; not by some outside ghost – your own Karma possesses you. The past is possessing the present and destroying the future possibilities.
A ghost is a life that is past. So, in a way, your Karma is like a ghost because it is a life that is past which is gripping your present, not allowing you to do what you want to do. Especially if such things occur, you must be stubborn. If you do not have that stubbornness, you will get washed away.
Initially, you may experience listlessness, and a lack of focus and commitment to what you want to do. Over time, it will make you depressed and lifeless. This is the reason why on the spiritual path, we always created what is called a Sangha.
A Sangha is a supportive atmosphere with a few other people who are also on the journey, who also have their own struggles and problems. It is not a place to share each other’s problems and cry for one another; you just understand that everyone has their problems. Some people carry their problems with a smile on their face, and some people are carrying their problems in a way that everyone can see. Ultimately, that is the choice.
Regardless of the way your own ghost tries to catch you, it is trying to make you do things that you do not want to do and prevent you from doing what you really want to do. Then what you need is Hatha and a little Sangha, a little connection. Today, for Sangha, you do not have to physically host people; technology has made it possible to do Sangha online. Every month, we are offering a Sat-sangha.
You have to find some way to stay in touch with people who support you. People who are on the same path will help you stay committed. If you meet the wrong people, they may say, “What? You get up at 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning?” You need to meet the kind of people who say, “What? You get up at 5? I get up at 3:45.” You should meet people who are more committed and determined than you.
It is a great privilege to constantly meet people who are more than you. In society, many individuals are trying to meet someone who is less than them because they feel more comfortable being better than others. You must aspire to always meet people in front of whom you feel like nothing. That is good because even if you feel like nothing, you are way above a lot of things in the world. By meeting people who are better than you, your aspirations grow, and your ideal of what you should be will evolve.
That is what you need to do; and above all, practice Hatha Yoga. Hatha Yoga is an acclimatization for going to hell. But you cannot send Yogis to hell because after doing daily Yoga, if you were to put them in hell, they would think it is heaven.