Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Read in Telugu: ఇన్నర్ ఇంజనీరింగ్… బ్రహ్మానందానికి ఒక యోగి మార్గదర్శన.

I ’m here in New York City, on the day of the official launch of the new Inner Engineering book. This book has been in my mind for twenty years. It is one more step in our offerings. All this has been systematically planned. With the initial fourteen-day Isha Yoga program, we built a strong volunteer base, which in many ways formed the backbone of the foundation. From there to the one-week Inner Engineering program, Inner Engineering Online, and now the Inner Engineering book, we have gradually lowered the bar so that Inner Engineering reaches large numbers of people. We have put parts of the Inner Engineering program into the book now, which is something we have never done before. The book works almost like a small program by itself. All our other titles are inspirational. This book is transformational.

I will be on the road for a whole month, with many events in major cities and universities across North America. Such a tour will never happen again, mainly due to time constraints. People anticipate the events with a lot of excitement, knowing they can expect the unexpected. Nothing is preplanned or standard. Looking at the people, I decide what we do. This is not just about launching the book. This is about creating an element of experience for anyone who comes. This is my first book for Western readers. When people read it and hear me speak in their language, their style, considering their cultural values, it immediately syncs with them. That is when it makes a difference. The main purpose of this book tour is to touch America on a large scale. If America takes to the inner dimension, the rest of the world will follow the lead.

This book is very different in presentation and content to all the self-help books and books by Indian Gurus that are on the market. It is not based on a scripture, religion, or philosophy. It comes from my experience of life, which gives it a very unique perspective. It is relatable to anyone because it comes from within – not from a particular tradition or culture. This is not Eastern or Western. This is an inner dimension that every human being needs to explore. This is not about God. This is not about converting you into something. This is about making you who you really are. Right now, through your identifications of gender, nationality, race, religion, and so on, you are converted into an amalgamation of things that are not “you.” Essentially, you are just life. But you may have never experienced that. My business is that you become pure life again.

America has been described as the land of milk and honey. Milk and honey are good if you drink them in small quantities, not when you drown in them. The pursuit of happiness is enshrined in the American constitution. But today, there is too much pursuit, without knowing in which direction to find happiness. And the entire world is aspiring for what is considered as the American dream. But this “dream” is most destructive. The Living Planet Report says that if all the 7.2 billion people on the planet lived the lifestyle of an average American, we would need four planets. But we only have half a planet left. This is the natural consequence of a society that fixes their lives and goals based on the assumption that by engineering the outside, everything is going to be all right.

It is time to understand that human happiness and wellbeing cannot be addressed by fixing the external world. You can sit in an air-conditioned room and still be boiling within yourself. You should expect that in a country like the United States, which is one of the most affluent nations in the world, people are fearless and free. But unfortunately, that is not the case. People are only free in a physical sense. There is such a deep-rooted fear and misery in people. They may be driving their dream cars, but they are on the edge. The smallest thing and they will snap. This happens with the affluent everywhere, not just in America. This is why Inner Engineering is super important. Only if you fix your interiority, can you really enjoy the physical things and comforts that you have.

We have sufficiently engineered the world – time to engineer our interiority. Changing the outside can take a long time. Changing your interiority can happen in a moment. The only thing is you need to be willing. This is not a teaching. This is about inducting you into a dimension that is beyond physical nature. Right now, your entire experience of life is limited to the physical aspects of your existence. And everything that is physical about you, you have acquired. For ninety-nine percent of the people on the planet, their whole life revolves around what they have gathered. It may be a man, a woman, your own body, your house, your qualifications, your money, or whatever else. What you gather can be yours, but it can never be you. If you get this, it will transform you.

Right now, America unfortunately is inspiring the world towards too many life-negative things. Most people in the world understand America as a splurge. I want to see that America takes the leadership of doing the right things. Then the world will do the right things. There are two fundamental things that all of us owe to the world in some way. One thing is to leave the physical world a little better than the way we found it. I think we will seriously fail in that. Too much damage has been done. We can’t fix it in our lifetime. But we can start doing the right things in that direction. Another, most important thing is that we make sure the next generation is better than us. Unless we seriously work towards that in the next ten, fifteen years’ time, we will fail in that aspect too.

How many people in New York City can sit quietly and peacefully by themselves, without television, drama, movies, friends, not even a glass of wine? Probably ninety-five percent are using some kinds of chemicals to make themselves peaceful. To be joyful, they need a stronger dose of something. To be ecstatic, they need really hard stuff. This is the sad state of affairs. If we don’t do something significant in the next fifteen to twenty years’ time to turn human consciousness around, in another sixty to seventy years’ time, ninety percent of the population will be on hard drugs. It is a natural aspiration in human beings to have a pleasant experience of life, and to constantly enhance the pleasantness in some way. If you don’t give them an inner opportunity, they will go for outside solutions like drugs. This is what we want to change.

Human beings need to learn to simply be joyful, without any reason. This is not about me. This is not about Isha. This is something that needs to happen to humanity. It needs to happen through a transformative process that is not religious, that does not divide people, and that does not require a particular background or capability. Every human being can pursue this and make a difference for himself or herself, and for the world. America is responding to the Inner Engineering book in a tremendous way. All events across America are fully sold out. Those who can’t make it to the events, get yourself the Inner Engineering book – one way of having me in your home.

Editor's Note: Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy­­, Sadhguru’s new book, is now available in the US and UK and online on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.in (as an import), and other online stores.