When You Start Questioning Your Spiritual Path | Sadhguru

When somebody asked Gautama, is it better to walk with the company or alone? Gautama said, better to walk alone than to walk with the food. There are a few people who got all set in this spiritual path. They don't need anybody's company. But the rest of the people need some supportive atmosphere. Keeping a certain company of people to whom it makes something in their lives is an important part of one's growth. So satsang is to create an energy and atmosphere like that. Morning around 9.30, 9.45 to meet these guys. They are all pretty whisky. They want music, they want to drink, they want to meditate. Initially it looks like freedom. After some time you will see it just leads to degeneration. They are destined to all these. New people are even asked to drink coffee in the morning. I laughed and said, we are not afraid of coffee, nor are we afraid of whisky. We can digest both, we are capable of both. When one wants to pursue his ultimate nature, when one decides to walk a spiritual path, the one thing which is a great enemy is suddenly one day the doubt will come, am I just making a fool of myself or am I really getting somewhere? This question will come. Now this question is always there just behind the scene. Slightest disturbance it'll come. So keeping a certain company of people at least periodically meeting people who are on the path to whom it makes something in their lives is an important part of one's growth. The very few people I know who do not need the help of the atmosphere around them, they will anyway go. See, you should have seen it too. When I went to school, there were several students in the class. When we went there at the beginning of the year, these students would have studied the textbooks three times over before they came to the next year's class. So before the teacher says something, these guys know the subject better than the teacher. These guys don't need to school. Then anyway go back there to go. Oh, I'm there who anyway doesn't listen to the teacher. My intentions are totally different. I'm somewhere else. I don't need a teacher at all. When I want to pass the exam, anyway I'll pass. Rest of the time, I switch myself off for my academics. I have nothing to do with the academics there. So I don't need the teacher. For the in-between majority, over 90% of the people, they need the teacher. They need the school. They need the discipline of the school. These two extremes, one, the two kids with academics, they don't need the teacher. Another just doesn't care about the academics. He doesn't need the teacher. But those who care for academics but don't have the same level of preparation, they need a teacher. They need a school. They need all the works of the school, isn't it? So similarly, there are a few people who got all set with this virtual path. They don't need anybody's company. Anyway, wherever you put them, they keep going straight. They do not need any particular atmosphere. You put them in the most horrible situation, they will make use of that also for their growth. The rest of the people need some supportive atmosphere. So creating a situation like that is important. But at the same time, it's very important that we create this atmosphere with a certain sense of discipline and understanding and energy. Otherwise, what I see is in the world, most of the so-called satsangs, especially now, the modern satsangs are becoming quite renowned something. Gautama said, when somebody asked Gautama, is it better to walk with company or alone? Is it better to walk the path alone or with somebody's company, which is better? Gautama said, good company is invaluable. No question about it. But better to walk alone than to walk with a fool. If you make a journey with a fool, then, you know, you wish you were alone. So it's very important that we maintain the sanity of certain spaces, certain atmospheres in a certain way, so that it's used only for that purpose, nothing else but that. Today is a day of everything is hybrid. They want to mix up everything. They want to have music, they want to drink, they want to meditate, they want to do everything in one place. When you start off like this, initially, it looks like freedom. After some time, it just leads to degeneration. Initially, it looks like freedom was the problem. There was somebody, they were into some other kind of group and I've known these boys since my school days and they have set up their own kind of center. I didn't go visiting their center. I went visiting the boys, I had not seen them for three, four years. They have been in my programs, everything at one time. Now, they're following something else. They are my classmates when I'm in school. This is after many years. Somewhere in between that and my programs but now they're following something else, whatever that is. And I go there morning around 9.30, 9.45 to meet these guys. They are all drinking whiskey. I went there and I broke wrist. It's not my problem what somebody is drinking. It's their own. What they drink, what is my problem. So, I sat down and this has started. You people, they're listening to all these. You people are even not straight to drink coffee in the morning. We drink whiskey for anyone because people are under the second influence of the spirit. We are possessed in a way. I laughed and said, we are not afraid of coffee, nor are we afraid of whiskey. We can digest both. We are capable of both. We have chosen to be the way we are. Because we know the end result of what we're doing. We're not hodgepodge people. Do one thing and find out the next thing. We're not that kind of people. We know exactly if you do this, what will happen. So, I'm not against you whiskey. You drink. You drink whatever you want. I'm not even drinking coffee in the morning. Not because I'm afraid of coffee. Simply because we want to keep ourselves in a certain way. That's very important to be in a certain level of aliveness and awareness. We don't want to lose it. We don't want to damage our systems in any way. So that's why we are like this. And this is freedom. We get whatever we want and still we are on the spiritual path. You can't do this. You can't do that. What kind of spirituality is that? Nobody said you cannot do this. You cannot do that. See, even to live a physical life here, nature has put some limitations. You can't do certain things. You cannot do certain things, isn't it? Now, from this dais, if I want to jump and have fun, I can jump. Suppose this dais is 100 feet tall. See, why can't I do this? What kind of life is this? Don't I have the freedom to jump from wherever I want? Then you know what it has to do. Not because it has anything against me. Simply because I'm being stupid, so there's a price to pay. So similarly, it's alright if you drink whiskey. Every day in the morning, if you start naturally after sometime, you'll end up drinking through the day. The only safety of drinking in the evening is you'll fall asleep sometime. Now you woke up in the morning and you start drinking this whiskey, then invariably after sometime you'll end up drinking through the day. You drink for a year or two, then you will know where you will be. So this is a sathsa. This is a place where people are meeting and in the name of freedom, they meditate, they drink whiskey in between, they talk to each other about spirituality, this, this, that. Then they feel like taking the drink whiskey. Nothing wrong with whiskey. It is just that it brings unawareness. Intoxication is unawareness, isn't it? If unawareness is what you're seeking, nothing wrong with it. But if you're seeking awareness, then it doesn't help, that's all. So maintaining a sathsa, how we keep it and what we do with it is very, very important. This is one kind. Another kind of extreme is anything that you do, you're supposed to feel guilty about it. If you take the five major religions of the world, make a list of all the things that they call as sin, you will understand to be alive is to be sin, isn't it? Just to be alive is a sin. That's how they made it out to be. All the time you have to feel guilty about your very existence. This is another extreme. This is one thing. This is another thing. Now what I said just now, this whiskey business is just a reactionary, a childish reaction to what has been done in the past. They restricted everything. So these people are trying to break it with. It's just a reactionary attitude. When you react to something, you're invariably bound to it, isn't it? Now with all religions have been operating like this. On a certain day, a man was walking in the seafront. You have a proof of a man walking in the seafront. A salesperson came to him and pulled out a toothbrush and said, Toothbrush hundred euros. Man said, what nonsense? This is robbery. Who is going to pay hundred euros for a toothbrush? The salesperson looked very hurt. Then he put the toothbrush inside, pulled out a packet and said, Sir, homemade cookies, just five cents. The man said, okay, that's like it. That looks like it's on discount. He paid five cents and bought the cookies. He put it in his mouth and said, yuck, that tastes like ----. The salesperson said, it is sir, how about a toothbrush now? Would you like a toothbrush? You make people feel guilty about every damn thing, every process of life. And now there is a solution. One is singing on that extreme, another is singing on this extreme. Both ways one will destroy himself. The realities of life, if we do not know how to walk in the middle, then you will get crushed somewhere, this side or that side, either in guilt or in departure, you'll get struck. If you're aware and walk it in a balanced way, in a middle path, when I say middle, I'm not talking in terms of, you know, making a compromise with everything. When you're aware, you naturally walk in the center. Only when you're unaware, when you're going in a moralistic way, you will swing this way. When you have reverse morals, you swing that way. So moral and immoral are not true. One person has one kind of morality, another person has reverse kind of morality. So not that he doesn't have morality. He's also moral person, but he's against the moral. So he has a reverse moral. Isn't it so? They're not totally immoral. They're always a reverse moral. They have a different kind of morality of their own. Even the man who is drunk on the street corner has his own kind of morality, isn't it? Because he cannot live without it. Only person who walks life in absolute awareness can be truly immoral. Truly immoral because he's no more guided by morals. He's guided by life, simple process of life. He's guided by the source of life within himself. He's not guided by what he believes in or disbelieves in. So satsang is to create an energy and atmosphere like that. It will be very useful and wonderful to maintain a space like that. At least once a lot if you can keep a certain space that it will all come together and experience this. It will be very good. I think push it to work towards it. We've been doing it. Let's get that going. That'll be an important process for one to continue on on the channel.