Why the Hell do I Exist?

Many who take to the spiritual path have this question every day in the morning when they have to get up at five. ‘Why should I do all this? The whole world wakes up at eight o’clock. Why should I get up at five o’clock? Everybody eats five meals a day. Why should I eat two? Everybody is looking happy, like Mother Earth. (Gestures to show round figure.) Why should I look like this?’ That is Mother Earth’s shape; that is not the human shape, but a lot of people are trying to imitate Her.

So this question always comes up, ‘Why should I do this?’ Of course traditionally, they would say, ‘You must realize yourself, you must realize God. You must attain liberation.’ But in the morning, you say, ‘I don’t want liberation. I just want to sleep. I don’t want to see God. I just want to eat well. I am really not interested in meeting God. I just want to meet the neighbourhood girl or boy.’ These thoughts will come up, they are very chemically supported. Spiritual longing is not chemically supported. But still, the question of ‘why’ becomes very big. ‘Why? Why?’

If you had the intelligence of a worm, there would be no ‘why.’ If you even had the intelligence of a buffalo – it is a bigger brain than you, at least a bigger head – you would not have these problems. The problem is what you see as creation. If you look at it closely enough, everything is contradictory. If you are just engrossed in one thing, it looks like it is complete by itself. When your hormones are spiced up and they are ruling your body and your brain, it looks like that is the very purpose of life. Then when you get married you think, ‘Why the hell did I get caught up in this?’ So the question is not about whether life works out well or not. The question is just whether you have a working head or not. If you have a working brain, it does not matter how well life arranges itself. ‘Why the hell am I stuck in this?’ will anyway come.

If you have observed and paid attention to the nature of the creation, you will have to learn to exist in contradiction, which makes you very compromised. Only somebody who is completely blind, only somebody who never pays attention to his own emotions, thoughts and actions can believe that he is all right. Otherwise, if you pay enough attention, you know it is all a terrible compromise. Wherever you are put, it doesn’t matter where, if you have a working head, it will ask, ‘Why? Why am I in this?’ People try to freeze their brains with all kinds of things, but it will not work. If you have an active working brain, the ‘why’ will come soon. If you have a frozen brain, it will come at the moment of death.

My blessing is the question, ‘Why do I exist, why am I doing this?’ This should come to you at the earliest possible time so that you have the necessary energy and strength, and you are not so heavily encumbered that you cannot choose the path which will liberate you from this ‘why’ and the torment of ‘why.’ The ‘why’ becomes very big – you cannot sleep. You cannot sit in one place peacefully. You cannot do anything properly because this is the very nature of existence. Only somebody, only a creature which is below the mind can settle into this existence. One who has a working mind cannot settle into this existence. Whichever way you look at it, you cannot settle into it. If you are put in a city, you cannot settle into it; if you are put in the jungle, you cannot settle into it; if you are put in a small hut, you cannot settle into it; if you are put in a palace, you cannot settle into it; because that is the very nature of the existence. Existence is created like this, so that the human being does not stagnate. Wherever he is, it feels meaningless and he wants to move somewhere else. How compassionate the Divine is, that it somehow keeps you on your toes.

When we were on the Kailash Yatra, I saw some slackness in the way some things were being done, so I called the volunteers and teachers and said, ‘What is the problem? Has Kailash become mundane because you are coming every year? People would give their right hand to be here. What is the issue with you?’ Then they said, ‘No Sadhguru, we are just tired.’ I said, ‘Tired is good. You are not dead. Tired is not a problem. You are not dead, right? You are young.’ Then one of the participants said, ‘They have just been on their toes.’ I said, ‘That is the best way to live your life.’ Do you think being on your backside is a good way to be? Being on your toes is the best way to be. That means you have a life that is happening. You don’t have a stagnant life. You have a life that is happening all the time.

You must be fortunate that things are always happening – seven days of the week, three hundred and sixty-five days, it is happening. That is one thing you cannot complain about in Isha. You cannot say, ‘Nothing is happening.’ Something is happening all the time. This is very important. May you know the joy of action that leads to stillness.