Sadhguru answers a question about whether thoughts can be planted in our minds. He says that there are many ways to plant a thought – dark ways, straight ways, and ways where you are made to think in a certain way, for your own wellbeing.


Questioner: Namaskaram swami, the other day you had mentioned that thought is very necessary for one to take any action, sometimes I feel the action I’ve taken is based on a thought that's not mine. Is that possible for someone to plant a thought in my mind making me think it’s mine?

Sadhguru: None of your thoughts are yours. None of your thoughts are really yours, please see. Thought is something that you generate from implanted information, all kinds of things hitting you. The way you think right now depends on what kind of family you were born in, what kind of parents you had, what kind of education, what kind of society, what kind of social backgrounds, religious backgrounds, aren’t all these things deciding how you think? Yes or no? For sure, isn’t it? So how can you say it is your thought? All kinds of people are working.

Can somebody plant a thought? Definitely. Definitely yes. If you’re talking about someone consciously wanting to plant a thought in you, is that possible? Very much possible but you shouldn’t get into this mode, because every time you do something wrong you will think somebody planted this in my… Even if you let somebody plant it in your head, it is still your doing, isn’t it? Yes? You let somebody plant a thought in you, that is also your doing, isn’t it? ‘Oh somebody planted a thought in my head, what can I do?’ People are going about this; this has become a fashion everywhere. This was an Indian thing. When Indians got very affluent many generations ago, and they got naturally lazy they came to this, ‘Godwilling.’ Anything you ask them they’ll say ‘Godwilling. ‘Godwilling I will get up.’ Who knows when goddamn God is willing? If I do it, God was willing; if I don’t do it, he’s not willing. This is a horrible trick, but it goes on in the world. Everything that matters to them anyway they will do. If you ask something they’ll say, ‘Godwilling.’ Yes? Will they say, ‘If God-willing I will have my dinner?’ No, they will eat. If you say, ‘Can I have dinner?’ they’ll say, ‘God-willing.’

So can we plant a thought? Definitely we can, in fact we can plant a whole philosophy into you if you want. Why just a thought? A whole series of thought, a complex series of thought we can plant into your head but… there are different ways of planting a thought. There are dark ways of doing it. There are straight ways of doing it. There are other ways of doing it, where a thought is not planted, you are made to think in a certain way purely for your wellbeing. This needs to be done, otherwise you will just scatter yourself all over the place and spend your life without any purpose, without getting anywhere. The dark ways of doing it involves, very… various dark arts through which they will plant negative thoughts in your head, where you will work for your own destruction. The straight ways of doing it are the school teachers’ way, they’re trying to tell you, this is better, this is better, this is better you know, constantly. Or the marketing managers’ way. The Cococola – the real thing, the real thing, the real thing, the real thing. Now you say, ‘The Real Thing!’ If I say, ‘The Real Thing,’ you will say, ‘Coke.’ Everywhere it’s written, around the world,‘real thing’. So that is just by repetition. It’s straight, if you want you can reject it, but the first one if you’re vulnerable in some way, you have no choice, it will anyway enter your life. The last way of doing it will happen only if you’re willing, open and receptive, otherwise that person who does the last way of putting thoughts into you, is not even interested in doing such things. Only if you are willing, open and you want to go in a certain way but you do not have the necessary grit to hold on to something that you need to do, then a thought can be implanted in you in a different way.

So if you’re talking about negative thoughts being implanted into you, all you have to do is bring some simple meditation or something where your system get organized in such a way that these things cannot affect you or you must carry something with you which will create a certain cocoon of energies around you where these things cannot affect you. There are various ways of preventing somebody else influencing your thought.

So, I’m also willing to plant a thought in you¸ more than a thought in you. I can plant an explosive in you if you want. Not a bomb, an explosive. You know there’s a difference? Bomb is purely destructive, an explosive can be used in so many ways, isn’t it? If you want I can plant an explosive, why just a thought? If you simply sit, boom it goes. I can plant an explosive… explosive of ecstasy if you want. If you simply close your eyes tshuck… There’re lots of people here, if they just close their eyes, their eyeballs will go pop. Why just a thought? Thought is a rudimentary thing, very surface thing. We can plant energy into you in such a way that it guides your life wherever you are, whatever you maybe. There are better technologies than thoughts.