Embark on a thought-provoking expedition with Sadhguru as he elucidates the intricate mosaic of our Karma. Who placed that initial stone in the bag we carry? Join us as we peel back the layers of Karmic tapestry to uncover the truths that shape our destiny.
Questioner: Namaskaram, Sadhguru. If I consider all my Karma as a bag of pebbles, when it was empty, who put the first pebble?
Sadhguru: Oh, you are carrying that many pebbles? If your Karma feels like a bag of stones, I am sorry. You could carry a bag of flowers and enjoy the fragrance. But stones are useful – you can build many things. And if you do not know what to build, at least you can throw your Karmic stones at someone, figuratively speaking.
From day one, I told you that you are responsible. But you are asking me who put the first pebble. This is similar to how asking “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” is perceived as an intellectual question by many people.
This happened: Shankaran Pillai and his college friends went for a party in a restaurant. Once young men start drinking, they start telling tall stories, all the tremendous things they have done, which they never did. And with every drink, the stories get taller and taller. This is a man’s effort to be a superman, because he is not man enough. If you are man enough, you can be very ordinary and still be fantastic.
Our old program brochure used to say, “From ordinary to extraordinary.” People used to ask, “Sadhguru, how will I become extraordinary? Will I grow something?” No, you will become extra-ordinary, more ordinary than others; simply as life was made. I did not say special – I said extra-ordinary.
So, as drinks go in, people want to become more and more special, not ordinary. With alcohol in their systems, they become bigger and bigger, so “super” sometimes that heads will clash. A lot of violence happens in the world when people are drunk: verbal violence, abuse, physical violence – everything happens under the influence of alcohol because they think they have become superhuman. They are not just men – they are supermen. Naturally, they wear their underwear on the outside, like Superman. When you do not know such fundamental things, you are in trouble.
So, Shankaran Pillai went out with his friends. He was hungry; he likes to eat, not drink. So, he was just sitting there. They were all drinking and talking about all these big, big things they can do. When you are done with the big physical things, you want to do something intellectually great. So, someone raised the question, “Which comes first: the chicken or the egg?” A big argument ensued. Shankaran Pillai was just waiting for the food to come. Then one guy said, “Hey, what’s the problem with you? Don’t you have any opinion? Which comes first: the chicken or egg?” Shankaran Pillai said, “Whichever you ordered first will come first.”
Is misery first or ecstasy first? Whichever you ordered first. Who put the first pebble? Who is the basis of your burden? There is no such thing. The misconception of what is you and what is not, is your making. The tree understands that it is one with the soil; without it, it would not exist. Human beings are the most intelligent idiots on the planet who do not get this. Soil first or death first? What you see as soil is the death of trillions of organisms, including human beings.
Who put the first pebble? We could blame it on your parents because they contributed to your existence, but they only provided a body and some memory. What you make out of it is entirely yours. If your mother or father mistreated you, they did so based on what they knew best. You are now acting based on what you know best. What you know has to grow into a different possibility; only then will you get enhanced. It is too late to change your father now. If you know so much about your father and what was wrong with him, you must be beyond that.
There is no point in searching for the first pebble and what was wrong with it that might have caused your suffering now. There is no first or last pebble. It is just that you have misunderstood life. You are soaked in the ignorance of individuality. You think you are separate – that is the suffering. That is the first pebble we could say. You are not breathing, drinking, eating, and living consciously. Everything that you consider to be you right now, every cell in your body, you have gathered from outside.
Every thought, word, and letter in your mind has been gathered by you from outside. Thinking that you are separate from the rest of existence is not intelligence; it is insanity. Do not try to find reason in insanity. If you find reason in insanity, you become a hopeless possibility. Insanity means you have left reason behind.
Right now, you are trying to live life by twisting reason to suit your convenience, with no accountability. When you restore reason and stop twisting it, you begin to see things as they truly are. If that is not possible for you, at least bring in accountability, recognizing that whatever you are right now is your making. Do not look for a pebble that someone else put in you.
If you expect people to do nice things to you, you will be disappointed. I have lived long enough to be able to say that. All my friends are dying. The local media was interviewing a 104-year-old man, asking, “What is the best thing about being 104?” He said, “No peer pressure.”
No matter who did what, you must be 100 percent accountable for the way you are right now. If you establish this one thing, you will start walking in the right direction. Otherwise, you will be going in circles for the rest of your life searching for whose fault it is, or who did this to you. Whatever someone else may have done, whatever you think is good, bad, ugly – it only added to your life if you are sensible. Whether people did pleasant or unpleasant things to you, if you are not lost in your memory, anything that anyone does or does not do to you can enrich your life if you are conscious.
