Why Ancient Teachings Have Lost Their Power | Sadhguru

When Manjul said Annal Haqq, he was skinned alive by the people. Jesus, whatever he said, very powerful words, he did transform people who came in touch with him. But what a mess has been created with those words over 2000 years. All these spiritual teachings, best if they were not available to larger masses. Once you know that something is a method, it doesn't work for you. The divine is always welling up, though it is so omnipresent, you can still ignore it. That is the tragedy of it. The whole concept of renunciation came from this. The physical nakedness will not clear up the mess. All that is visible to the eye you can drop, but you can still carry a world of baggage on your head. Just for one moment, make yourself completely vulnerable. It is constantly called as God. It is not something that you pursue and catch one day. It is not something that you reach, nor is it something that you attain to. If you make yourself vulnerable enough, if you become defenseless enough, it gets you. It's more like the flu, if your defenses are down, it just gets you. If your defenses are up, if your defense mechanism is strong and active, you don't feel it at It is not an entity. It does not… It is not an entity. It is not something that resides in some geographical space. Life is its residence. In everything that's alive, divine is always welling up. It is just that one has to become sensitive enough, vulnerable enough to get it. The idea of packing you up in a tent like this is so that you get the flu. It's as simple as that. and as unattainable as that. A flu is not a simple thing. If you say, I want it, you don't get it. When you were a child and you were going to school, if today was a test day, you prayed to God, let me get a flu. Somebody else got it, not you. It's not easy to get a flu. If you're vulnerable, it just gets you without any effort. So all the sadhana that one does is not to attain, just to wear your defenses down, so that you become vulnerable enough, You've become available. In every grain of sand, in every piece of life, in every atom and sub-atom, it is constantly welling up. Though it is so omnipresent, so overwhelmingly present, you can still ignore it. It's the beauty of it, that is the tragedy of it, and that is the greatness of it. The very source of creation is so humble that it stands in such a way that you can ignore it. The divine could have stood up like a tower. Where nobody can ignore it, beauty of divinity is just that, though it's the very source of creation and it is the basis of everything that is pulsating as life right now including your own being, it stands in such humility that you can choose to ignore it. If one has to become sensitive enough not to ignore it, one thing is to understand that it has never left you because if it has left you, how would you be? What you call as myself, what you call as life is such a fragile play of elements. 5. This play cannot be on without the core player. Every moment he is on, though he is the core player, such is his humility, most people can never see him. It is because of this, having recognized the quality of the divine, That many devotees around the world Took on the same attitude. They always stand aside, never in the way. It is because of this, having recognized the essential quality of the Divine, any number of spiritual paths always talked about putting yourself aside, because that is the basic nature of the core player of the existence. People are calling upon God like he's gone far away, hasn't left you. That's the problem, that's the solution. On a certain day, a man was sitting in a local bar. I heard Macmillan is going through a facelift and he looked depressed and he was downing drink after drink. Another man who watched this man with some concern came up to him and asked, what's the matter? You seem to be really depressed and down. What is it? What happened to you? So this man said, my wife took everything I had and she left me today. And said, what is your problem? What are you complaining about? My wife took everything I had and she didn't leave me. He hasn't left you. He wants to take everything that you have. Otherwise you don't feel it, that's a problem. The whole concept of renunciation came from this. Renunciation is a small misunderstanding of this aspect. Unless you give yourself completely, unless you put everything aside, unless you make yourself vulnerable and defenseless, The very core of life is missing in one's life. So people gave up their families, gave up many of those things which mattered to them at one time in their life, their comforts, everything possible and walked away into the forest. This has always been the way. So is this the way? Whether you walk away into the forest or into the mountains or into a desert, even if you walk naked, you can still carry a world with you. The physical nakedness will not clear up the mess. Yes, it could be one of the steps. If you are too attached to certain things, it could help. All that is visible to the eye you can drop, but you can still carry a world of baggage on your head. So essentially, all these systems and methods are trying to put your defense mechanism down so that you can catch the flu. To be here, unconcerned, About what's next, to be here in such a sense of trust that whatever comes next is not at all the issue. These are all wonderful methods because all kinds of misuse and exploitation and once you know that something is a method, it doesn't work for you. You will learn a way to subvert that method, you will find a technique against the technique. So what new methods can we go about creating? We can go about creating, but it just takes a little while to corrupt that. It just takes a little application of your logical mind to find a way around that. You know, as many of you understand, being in silence means talking quietly. Nobody should hear you. You know, I just came from Washington, D.C. There was a junior officer working in Pentagon, and he had his own office space. He moved his table from one corner to another, another corner to another. Every day he moved it to different places. Then he moved his place, his table into his secretary space. Then he moved his table out into the corridor. He tried all those eight faces of the building. Then he moved his table to the men's room one day and he started working there. All these migratory trends. People watched but nobody said anything because in Pentagon nobody says anything to anybody, it's all a secret. Then he settled down in the men's room and started doing his work. They waited for a few days hoping that he will move elsewhere, but he settled there. Then nobody wanted to approach him, so they called the office psychiatrist. They told him the man is working from his… from the men's room. So, the psychiatrist casually walked in as if he had a business in the men's room and just tried to chat him up. Then he found the guy was quite normal and fine. Then he directly asked him, What is this? Why are you working from the men's room of all the places? He said, See, I moved my working space to every place in this building and at last I realized this is the only place where people know what they are doing. In this hall, you shift where you want. You don't know what the hell is happening around you, especially those innocent people who are just enrolled into inner engineering and they suddenly ended up here. They found so much sanity in those seven days. They thought they will find much more here. They won't find any sanity here because this is not men's room. Nobody knows what they're doing. Nobody knows what they're doing. But they're doing it with great intensity. That is the beauty of becoming spiritual, you don't have to know what you're doing. If you do anything intensely, it'll get you there, just anything. If you can maintain the intensity of your purpose and simply do whatever, it'll happen. Because it's as simple as catching a flu and as dicey as catching a flu. You never catch a flu when you want it. When you don't want it, it happens to you. When you prayed for it, it did not come. When you took all the care not to get it, It happened, so something that is so powerfully present in every atom of this creation is completely missed. Whatever we call as culture, whatever we call as traditions, whatever we today unfortunately call as religion is just imitation. No matter what you do, the moment you employ your mind to do something, you are in a some state of imitation, Either imitating your neighbor, Or your priest, or your pandit, or maybe some other creature that you have seen either in the zoo or in the forest. But the moment you employ your mind, you are in a state of imitation, because mind is functioning from whatever it has gathered. And hence, so much talk about going beyond the mind, which is so hugely misunderstood around the world. Any number of things have been said, When ascertained, Living possibility was alive. When a certain living master was alive, he said certain things in his presence. It was one hundred percent true. The moment he is gone, without that fire, if you repeat the words, they are not true anymore. Now you know that famous Annal Haq. When Manjul said Annal Haq, that means I am the truth, he was skinned alive by the people and later on stoned to death. If you go about on the streets and say I am the truth, nobody is going to do anything to you. You're safe, because there is no that kind of fire in those words, it is just a repetition. Same words, same words, but there is no necessary fire in it. There is no truth in the word, there is truth in the one who utters it. So all methods, whatever they have been given at a certain time, were absolutely true and relevant. At that moment it was true and it worked. Now, in a space which doesn't have the same energy, in a space which doesn't have the same fire, in a space which doesn't have the same intensity, if you utter the same words, they will just flop, just like mop cloth. You throw it at people, nothing happens. So all these spiritual teachings, methods, devices, which were employed by different masters at different times, It would be best if they were not available to larger masses because it doesn't serve any purpose other than misunderstanding and twisting yourself out of proportion. Whatever very simple teachings like, because we are here, like Jesus, whatever he said, very powerful words, he did transform people who came in touch with him. But what a mess has been created with those words over two thousand years, what a mess. Simply because people who are not in any kind of experience repeat the same words. People who do not have the same fire burning within them are uttering the same words. Priests and pundits are repeating it and chanting it and making it more and more meaningless and ridiculous. And they themselves realize this is ridiculous and then they start modifying it. Yes, they start modifying it because they themselves can see this is nonsensical stuff. Whatever this guy spoke, it is not nonsensical. It worked like a miracle at that moment because even if he did not utter any words, still it would have worked. It was just an excuse. Even if he had not said anything, it would have still worked. So what is burning within you is more important than what you're doing and what you're saying. The devices, any number of devices that we may offer to you, you must understand, They are designed essentially to wear down your defenses so that you can catch the flu because the infection is welling from every atom in the existence. You can't miss it unless you are really a wall. You can't miss it, they can't miss it because it's not in any one place. If it is hiding in one place, you searched everywhere and you missed it. When it is in everything that can be and cannot be, how can you miss it? Now the problem is just that, we are so engrossed, the little entertainment that is happening in our own minds, your thought process is… you cannot even make a thirty-minute movie out of it, yes or no? Maybe a three-minute, possible. You try to make a… you just sit down here and try to build one cinema, thirty-minute interesting cinema in your mind, with all the aspects of it, just see. You won't make it, most of you. Only few minds can make it, isn't it? Because it is so scattered, it is so unfocused and it is so purposeless and it is not coming from any particular basis. It is just things bouncing off your mind, just like that. Why are we paying so much attention to that? Why is it so important? Something that is so scattered and so messy and so purposeless and of really no consequence either to you or to anybody in the world, that you cannot even meditate. You are worried what your mind is saying. Let it say whatever the damn thing it wants to say. What is the problem? That is why I told you, you must pick someone that you do not like and be with them because then you will learn to ignore the other person. Similarly, if you learn to ignore the nonsensical activity of your mind, then you will see in every cell in your body, it is constantly welling up. Nobody can hold it down, only because it's on. You are on, everything is on. If it withdraws, everything will collapse into itself. It's all kept up. I think an appropriate description of the existence comes from the East. In India, we always say, this is a divine play, this is a divine dance. The whole creation is the play. Now you're having a hard time with your life. And you wonder what kind of play is this? Please play with somebody else. They're calling it a divine play, not in terms of your life situations, but in the very way life is happening right now. The essential nature of life, from the subatomic or even beyond that, is just all happening because of that one fundamental energy which is keeping everything up. If it withdraws, everything will collapse into itself. Today, there is scientific evidence to tell you that there can be a whole galaxy active and alive and tomorrow morning, all of it can just collapse into itself and disappear and become one vast empty space. There is scientific evidence for this. This is something that every realized being has always been saying that the play of the divine is on. When he chooses to withdraw, everything will just evaporate as if there never was anything. Without a trace, without a footprint, when this existence just implodes into itself, it will not leave a trace. There will be nothing to see that it was all there because it's so clean. It is so clean and perfect, the process of creation, so perfect that you can ignore the creator. Only because it is so perfect, you can ignore the creator. If it had some imperfection, you had to call forth on the creator all the time. It is so perfect, we can ignore and deny the creator. I think the creator finds best compliment only when people stand up and deny his very existence. That means creation is truly perfect. People who are constantly looking up, Calling forth for God, they believe creation is not good enough. Always he has to hold their hand and make them walk. But those people who have become confident with life and deny the very existence of the creator, they are paying the highest compliment because they are saying this creation is so perfect. We can forget the creator. We can ignore the creator. We can even vehemently deny his very presence. That's the best compliment that one can get. If you create something, if you create an organization, if you create a mechanism, if you create a system, if it doesn't need any of your interference, that means it's a perfect system, isn't it? Every day you have to tinker with it, that is not a perfect system. Only when you are no more needed but everything goes on just fine as you intended, that's a perfect system, isn't it? So, both in denial. And in appreciation, you are still only complimenting the essence of creation. So it doesn't matter whether you go this way or that way, the important thing is that you become conscious. You become conscious of how this is happening. If you do not become conscious, if you go as you come… It once happened, one man wanted to join a college, a university, But by mistake he entered a mental asylum. After he filled in his papers, he realized that he's in a mental asylum. Then they said, this is a mental asylum, this is not a college, you can go. He said, what is the big difference? What is the big difference? I will stay here. So the man in charge said, there is one big difference. Here, unless you show improvement, you won't get out. There you can get in and get out, getting worse many times. Here it's not like that, unless you show improvement you don't get out of this place. That's a big difference. So with the life process, you can get in and get out, not getting any better, not showing any improvement, in fact doing worse than you were. Most people are doing worse than they were in the first quarter of their life, isn't it? Isn't it so? Lot of people are aspiring, even many so-called gurus are saying, I want to become a child. What does being a child mean? A certain level of incapability in body, a certain level of incapability in mind, yes, that's a child. I want to be a child because you find a child seems to be little more joyful than you. So people are aspiring, I must become a child once again. Even the so-called gurus are saying, I want to become a child. Suppose you were six years of age and in body and mind you stopped growing. Or at least in mind you stopped growing. You may be all your life he he he he he, do you want to become that? If you become like that, we will not call you enlightened or evolved, we will say you are a retard. If such a thing happens to a human being, such a human being is treated with compassion and care and support. That is not something that anybody aspires for. In case it happens to anybody, Always such a being, we treat them with extra care, extra compassion, extra support in everything that we do. Because for some reason, life has stopped progressing and become constant. But who would aspire for something like that? Only somebody who does not know how to handle the evolved nature of his mind and his mind has become a torture instead of being a miracle. Now you will wish, if I did have this, if I was a dodo, I would be better off. When I went to Mauritius Islands, you've heard of Mauritius Islands? This is a place where the bird dodo comes from. Then I said, I want to see. They said, no, we killed all of them. What? I asked, don't you have one even in a zoo? At least in a cage. They said, no, we killed all of them. I said, how did you manage that? They said, the birds were so dumb that you could walk up to them and beat them down with a stick. They never took off, they never ran, they just stood there and we hit them down and we ate them up. And I said, such a helpless creature, so defenseless, maybe spiritual he was. Even if you beat him, he did not even defend himself nor did he try to escape. You know, Jesus told you if somebody slaps you on one cheek, show him the other one. Maybe they were like that and you guys didn't leave one of them, at least for me to see. And in some way their brains might have infected you too. Because you ate their body, brain, everything, you never know. So, to be spiritual is not an effort. To be conscious is not an effort. Oh, Sadhguru, that's an insult. You gave us all this sadhana with how much effort I've been doing it and now you say it's not an effort. Do you know what it takes to get up at 5.30 in the morning and… It doesn't take any effort to catch flu, doesn't it? It doesn't take any effort. This is just that at a certain moment, When you did not protect yourself with, what is that, air bone, is it? Does it really protect us? Whatever. On a certain, at a certain moment, at a certain, on a certain day, when you did not protect yourself, you got it? That's all you need to do. If you allow one moment here, where you don't protect yourself, you become vulnerable to me, I'll give you the flu. It doesn't take anything else, no great methods and miracles, No great effort. Just for one moment, make yourself completely vulnerable, unprotected, naked of all defense mechanisms. Simply being here will give you the infection. You cannot escape it because this is not like the flu virus that it has to go from one place to another. This is everywhere, you just have to catch it or rather you just have to let it grip you from inside. There is nothing to be done about it. All the doing is only to bring you to a state where you become defenseless. If that sense of simple vulnerability is there, there is really nothing to do. You could enjoy the trip.