In a recent darshan, Sadhguru responded to a question about the Ecstasy of Enlightenment program with a rather unexpected observation about our times. Drawing from four decades of experience, he highlights a substantial shift in spiritual seeking – from an era when most pursued physical solutions to today’s reality where the vast majority come with deeper existential questions. With his signature wit and wisdom, Sadhguru reflects on what this evolution reveals about our collective consciousness.
Questioner: Namaskaram, Sadhguru. We are excited about the Ecstasy of Enlightenment program. What is it all about?
Sadhguru: From the day I burst forth into an ecstatic state within myself, all I have been trying to do is rub it off on people around me. Wherever I go in the world, not a single day passes without witnessing tears of joy, love, and ecstasy. This is the greatest blessing. The Ecstasy of Enlightenment program is just another effort in that direction. As my time in life grows shorter, I am now openly using the word “enlightenment.”
When I first started teaching in 1982–1983, trying to share what was happening within me, I found nearly 80 to 85 percent of the people came because they had some physical ailment. Some had cardiac issues, and asthma was particularly widespread in places like Mysore and Bangalore.
Today, a fantastic transformation has happened in society. Fortunately, a maximum of only 8 to 12 percent of people come because of physical ailments these days. Nearly 90 percent of the people come because they want to know something, they want to grow, they want something to happen in their lives.
From a generation of people thinking, “My backache should go,” to “To hell with my back; I want to know something more,” it has been a tremendous change. “For backache, I will go to the doctor. Sadhguru, give me something else.”
When you talk about ecstasy, people may think you are on drugs. You can tell them, “Yes,” because there is no greater chemical factory on the planet than the human body. You can produce whatever you want in it if you are a good manager.
If you are a lousy manager, you end up producing chemicals of anxiety, fear, and other emotions that you do not want. When you run an industry, business, or home, and the results are opposite to what you want, it obviously means you are a bad manager.
You have gotten so used to this kind of mismanagement that you think it is perfectly all right. How can it be okay when what should happen is not happening, and something else is happening instead? If your business, industry, or home is not producing the results you want, does it mean “the stars are bad,” or are you just a lousy manager?
The first step you need to take is to acknowledge that whatever happens, your life is your responsibility. Only then can you reasonably expect to create your life the way you want tomorrow. As long as you do not take responsibility when things go wrong, the right things will never happen. If you are a lousy manager, you must do something about it.
The simplest thing that you can do is become still; initially physically, then slowly on all levels. Illusions arise because of the fluctuations that are happening within you – physiologically, chemically, mentally, and energy-wise.
This whole process can be made very elaborate through the Yogic sciences, with endless systems to work with every aspect of the body. Sciences and methods are important when there is no alchemy. But that is not the way you should do things right now. When a Sadhguru is around, just work on your intensity, and the rest can be done. Intensity of life arises when you are not too scattered. If you are too scattered, you will not have enough energy to be intense, at least right now.
If you seek enlightenment, start by minding your own business. Most of your business right now is about society: You want to buy a car, home, or better clothes than others – it goes on endlessly. But if you look at yourself as life, what does this life want? You can see this only if you bring some stillness into you. Otherwise, every illusion looks absolutely real to you.
Take a little time off to work upon yourself. If you do not realize the nature, potential, and magnitude of life, you just live as a body – eating, sleeping, reproducing, and dying one day. There is nothing wrong with those things, but they should not become the main piece of your life. You have come to a point in evolution where you have the necessary awareness and intelligence to see beyond these things. If you do not, life is lost. It is all you have, so you must tend to it.
If you think you have something more than life, you are not yet a life; you are a marketplace. We may get many things for our use, but they should neither enhance us if we have them, nor should it diminish us if we do not. The question is not about having something or someone, or not. The question is, what determines the nature of your existence? If that question is properly addressed, then enlightenment is just a matter of intensity.
If you come to a certain level of intensity, we will crack the egg for you. If you try to crack it when it is not intense, it will go waste. I am here to crack the maximum number of eggs. You cannot remain in the egg forever – you must hatch. That is when life happens.
