The Biggest Mistake Spiritual Seekers Make | Sadhguru

Crowds gathered around him and he became a famous spiritual teacher but six months he was missing, nobody knew where he goes. One day a genuine seeker came and he looked into his eyes and his mind broke into many parts. Your energy, I'll possess it anytime I want, you've no choice about it. If you're really longing to know, I'll just do that, no talking. Your thought and your body, these are only two areas where you can resist. There was a man servant, any kind of ailment he's got a cure, out of his own body the medicine just comes and everybody claiming miraculous healings. So someone went and peeped in the window and then they found 14 years he just sat like this, his body was infested with worms. No need to practice anything, no need to do anything, it is the best teaching. If you've reached a certain stage of awareness where you can't fall back, we can call that enlightenment. Everything that's worth knowing about life has been known but such a being cannot hold his body, they're too good to be alive. If you have to know the intricacies of life, it won't yield unless you paid the necessary attention. People think it is long and arduous journey, need not be. About two centuries ago, there was a man in India who initially started out as a spiritual seeker but then he saw the opportunities all around him and became an entrepreneur. So he made it his yearly routine that six months in a year he traveled, he had the whole spiritual map of the country where different gurus were doing different things. So in every place two weeks, with each guru two weeks, two weeks, two weeks and traveled on to the next place, gathered everything and next six months he had his own place where he operated as a guru. So he thought he's not… he's genuine. He really thought if he gathers everything from everybody, all the bits and pieces from everybody, he will become the best one of the lot because they are all one, one piece, he's all of it together. Then he did this for a few years and he was carrying on with people, crowds gathered around him and he became a famous spiritual teacher but six months he was missing, nobody knew where he goes. People thought all kinds of things, he goes into the Himalayas, he meditates, he does this, he does that. Then one day to his misfortune, a Jainian seeker came to his place because this man's reputation spread. Generals, common folk were sitting and it didn't matter whatever he said, they couldn't, you know. He said the right things. One day a Jainian seeker came and the man came and sit here like that and he looked into his eyes and his mind broke into many parts. Then he started behaving totally irrationally. People thought what happened to him. He was the one who was talking about taking everybody to God and heaven and works but his mind broke just because he looked into the eyes of one Jainian seeker. He could have managed millions of people because he had gathered enough knowledge and he was continuing to study. That was the best part of him. They always told you a best teacher is one who is willing to learn, right? Yes? He was… he was right in every way but this horrible seeker came one day. This man is really seeking, his eyes burning and he looked into his eyes and his mind broke. This actually happened. So, what is this spiritual seeking? Why it seems so far away? Something that's within seems to be so far away because we have not left our habit of gathering and enhancing ourselves. We are constantly trying to enhance ourselves. The very fact that you have to enhance yourself means you are coming from a certain sense of inadequacy that you're trying to fulfill. This gathering business is not today's. There was a time human beings gathered bones and sticks and those kind of things. Then they thought they got really improvement. They got really civilized and improved themselves and they started gathering bigger things. They built homes and properties and land and animals and people of course. Then they thought they became even more civilized and then they started gathering knowledge. Then when they really… when their deception reached its peak, they started gathering knowledge about God and truth and everything. What is known as realization is just the reverse. Once it happened that there was a wave of religious persecution, so religion ran to God and wept. There is persecution. Everything that's valuable is being lost. The scripture, worship, charity is all being lost. God was just in a easy mode and he said, don't worry, let them be lost. Something much more powerful, something much more effective will happen if these things are lost. Self-knowing will happen when people stop gathering all these scriptures and other things, people will begin to know themselves. That will do better things than this. Don't you worry, let them persecute. See, that's why religious persecution never stopped. He never put his foot down. When human beings have no eye for the… when you have no eyes… I'm sorry, you start thinking eye. See, I know scriptures. Yes, I must give up the big eye, I must become small eye. I'm not talking about the eyes. When human beings have no eyes for life, because their eyes are set on something else that they believe, then they miss it. Once a man committed a crime and went to prison and he was sitting… he was put in solitary confinement. He was alone for ten years, never got to see anything except the dark room in which he stayed. One day, an ant crawled in, ten years after being in the cell. When he saw the ant, his interest went to the ant in such… he had never seen anything inside, the first time he saw an ant after ten years. So, he took the ant in his hands and really looked at it and he found this ant was such a lovely creature, an absolutely lovely creature. Then he wept. It took ten years of confinement for me to realize that ant is such a lovely creature. How long would it take for me to realize about everything else? Ten years of solitary confinement in a dark room, that's how much time it takes to realize how lovely an ant is, to realize how lovely creation is or how lovely the creator is. Just about fifteen days ago, yeah, two weeks ago, in my house, we sit on the floor for lunch and dinner. Table is there but it's a kind of table where you sit on the floor and eat. So, they put a pillow for me there. So, it is lunchtime and so I went and I saw a snake was all curled up under my pillow. I looked and I knew if it's a snake, then everybody will be hopping around and all that. So, we just had lunch. Then lunch was good and I just forgot about the damn snake. Much later in the afternoon, lunch was around eleven o'clock, around three o'clock somebody discovered that there is a snake under my pillow. Then lot of excitement and then I remembered okay and I went and sent him to the forest. Maybe he just came for lunch. So, we are living in spaces where everything is crawling in, so we could be missing out everything. Suppose you saw a snake after you have not seen life at all for hundred years, then it would be a phenomenal creature. Even now it is actually. So, it is not because you are unable to see. It is not because you do not have the necessary faculty to see that you are not seeing. Unwilling to see, just unwilling to see, not unable to see. If you are disabled, that's different. If you are unwilling, that's very different, isn't it? This is unwillingness. So, how to wake you up? Gently coax you for the next hundred years or throw cold water or use a hot iron or just say pretty things to you and just leave you where you are. That's a choice. Namaskaram Sadhguru. What is enlightenment? I searched on the internet but I wasn't satisfied with the response. When you say I am interested in knowing what is enlightenment, it's a very American question. I don't know how to put this across to you but nobody would ever ask such a question in India, nobody. They'll never ask. But now people who are educated do ask but I am saying traditionally nobody would ever ask such a question. But today when I say east and west, I am not talking about countries. I am talking about two kinds of attitudes. There are lots of westerners in India, there are lots of Indians in America. There were… So, what is enlightenment? Whatever I say will anyway not satisfy you because I am incapable of saying what it is. I haven't met anybody who is capable of saying what it is. I don't think there ever was anybody who was capable of saying what it is. But we have to say because you need to have a new definition for enlightenment, a little better one than what you had with the internet. Internet is a… I mean, it's a contribution by millions of people. So, we have to better that somehow. I think just now what I was saying, this man went… six months in a year he traveled. If he was today, I think he would have gone on the internet. He wouldn't have taken the trouble of traveling. So, it just says heightened states of awareness. They are right actually. It is, if you've reached a certain state of awareness where you can't fall back. Many people reach many states of awareness but they can fall back. They can again fall back. If you've reached a certain state of awareness where you cannot fall back, maybe, I wouldn't, but maybe you can call that enlightenment. I wouldn't call that enlightenment person. But the way you use the word is subject to many things, you know. People say we are living in an enlightened society. Isn't it a very common word people are using these days? Yes? People are using those words, isn't it? People who are little well-to-do in any society think they are an enlightened society because they've just learned to say, please, thank you, sorry. They think they are an enlightened society. Nobody can define it because except the enlightened ones, nobody has seen it. And the enlightened ones never lived. The enlightened ones who lived consciously invested in ignorance, otherwise they couldn't live either. Enlightenment cannot be embodied. Enlightenment and embodiment, not possible. So if an enlightened one has to remain embodied, then he makes a certain investment in ignorance, consciously, does his best to be ignorant. Because of that he manages the body. So you just want a little better definition than what you found on the internet. Enlightenment means everything that's worth knowing about life has been known. That again means heightened state of awareness or a heightened state of perception. Actually somebody asked me, Ramana Maharshi, do you know everything? He smiled and said, everything worth knowing. So their idea of everything, you know what? Do you know what's happening in my mind? That's not worth knowing. Only a fool would invest time to know those things. So everything worth knowing has been known and that knowing cannot be held in the body. So if the body has to be held, one has to be ignorant to some extent. At least a percentage of ignorance has to be maintained, otherwise you can't hold the body. So enlightenment cannot be embodied. So that cannot be held in a body, can definitely not be held in a definition either. Because body is a definition. You are a defined form only because you have a body, otherwise, isn't it? Your body is a definition. Your body is a definition of who you are, isn't it? A clear definition. This was not there, it will be all over the place. So that which cannot be embodied cannot be defined. So is this some clever play of words to continuously deceive people? It very much seems like that. I would think so. If I did not know, if I am not who I am right now, I would definitely think so if somebody spoke to me like this, that this is just one clever play of damn words. Because that's all it is actually. Trying to deal with a dimension beyond definition with words is just a clever play of words, nothing else. If only you came here not to receive anything, you just came here because there's no other place to be for you. If you came like that, I would just do that, no talking. Then you would know what this is, that this is not a clever play of words, this is something else. But if you want to understand, if you're interested in knowing something, you want to receive and take something home, then I can only play with you with words, more and more words. I underestimated the world, otherwise I would have educated myself a little more, so that I would have learned more words. Because recently I happened to be in a conference with a person who is supposed to be a world famous spiritual guide and he was talking and I happened to be in the audience because I was talking next and I suddenly found the man was very nervous looking at me and I just looked at this, it was, it was amazing and pathetic at the same time. This actually happened, I don't know when and I know where it happened but I don't know when. This is a story my grandmother used to say. Once there was a man servant working in one of our families, in our native place. He was very lazy and all the time, those days if they didn't work, they would, you know, he was getting it constantly. One day he just disappeared. Years passed off, a few years and then there was news that one, a very spiritual person from somewhere has come. He has a cure for everything, any kind of ailment he's got a cure and he produces the medicine out of nothing, out of his own body. The medicine just comes and he gives that medicine and everything gets okay. So people gathered and he started giving medicine to people and everybody claiming miraculous healings because most people are not really sick, they're just sick in their head, you know. They just need some boost. So this lady from this family also went, by then this man is gathering lots of crowds. She went and the arrangement is like this that, you know, he's locked in a room without anything. He doesn't even have clothes, he sits there alone and he produces lot of medicine and tomorrow he gives it to everybody and everybody feels great. Then she also went to see him and she saw him and she just looked at him. That means this guy is looking like our Siddha. That was the name of the servant. He looks like that guy. So she looked at him like this, like that. That guy just avoided her. He didn't want to look straight into her. Then she got really suspicious. Many things had changed about him. He shaved his head and he's trying, you know, his clothed in spiritual robes and works. So she became suspicious. She knew almost it is him but she couldn't believe that this lazy guy has become a spiritual whatever. So she sent somebody to see how he's producing the medicine. So someone went and peeped in the window and then they found this guy is just sitting alone and taking off all the dead skin and dirt from his body, rolling it into small pills and giving it to people and people were finding miraculous healings. It worked. What's your problem as long as it works? Then, you know, he got the treatment again. So when I was just watching this world famous spiritual guide who is hugely celebrated in this country and I just watched, I just remembered this Siddha. That guy was pulling it out of his body, this guy is pulling it out of his mind with the same dirt, nothing different. When I just sat there, I really remembered this incident. I just thought, okay, this is a modern Siddha. He's just rubbing it off his mind what all he gathered from everywhere and so definitions and definitions naturally will come out when people are rubbing it off like this. Whatever the definition, it's just the dirt of somebody's mind that's been rubbed off someone's mind. What you… let's not use the word because the word is many things. Whatever is the highest state that a human being can attain. Now, in your own words, you said those poor people in your neighborhood are lost cases when you compare to these people, these are shining lot. So somewhere you understand that people can be in different states. You understand that, isn't it? Everybody is a human being but everybody is not in the same state of experience and being. So you understand somebody can be here, somebody can be here. So whatever is the highest possible state one can attain to, whatever that is, we can call that enlightenment. If a human being reaches to his ultimate potential, when I say potential, not of action and capability, potential of being, of experiencing, of knowing, then we can call him enlightened maybe. But such a being cannot hold his body. They're too good to be alive, so they go away unless they make some investment, conscious investment in a certain level of ignorance. You can't hold the body or you can also hold the body because you understand the complete mechanics of the body, then also you could hold it but still that itself is ignorance, that you're holding it is ignorance. So without investing in some amount of ignorance, you can't be embodied. Otherwise, embodiment and enlightenment cannot be together. I have many layers of resistance and I wish you could help me out of it. Just because a few people had nothing to do on a particular weekend and they went through a Bhava Spandana program, we're assuming that they're all absolute seekers, which is a mistake, isn't it? So assuming that your domain and your problem is your thought, your emotion goes with thought, it's not different. And your body, the comforts and conveniences of your body, these are only two areas where you can resist. Your energy, I can possess it anytime I want, you've no choice about it. Yes? You see that? I can possess your energy anytime I want, you don't have much choices about that. It's only your thought and your body. See what you can do about these two things, rest I will do. Simple, isn't it? Just these two things, your body and your thought, that's all. Rest of it, definitely when you ask, do you need my permission? If I have to touch your body, I need your permission, isn't it? Isn't it so? If I have to touch your emotion and thought also, I need your permission to some extent, isn't it so? With your energies, I never waited for your permission, I never have, anyway. These two things need permission. So if you use these two things, you know how to keep it aside and there's no issue. Just these two things you must take care, rest I'll take care. Namaskaram, Sadhguru. I have heard that Ramana Maharshi told his disciples that there is no need for one to do any practice. One should simply be. So Ramana said there is no need to do any practice. I think especially in the morning that looks like the best teaching. In this weather, morning 5.30, definitely you will be reminded of Ramana. It is the best teaching, I agree. Ramana said no need to practice anything, no need to do anything, no need to teach anything. There is nobody to teach, nobody to receive, all is fine. Yes, what he means by that is that you must simply sit here, not read Ramana, not do something else, just sit here. That's what he did. Fourteen years he just sat like this. His body was infested with worms, you know. His body was infested with actually worms. They were eating up his body, but he simply sat. That's what he means by saying no need to do anything, simply sit. Are you there? I see you people take off the jacket, put on the jacket, take off the jacket. Every two degrees change. You are putting it on, putting it off, putting it on, putting it off. Where is the question of simply sitting till worms eat up your body? No need to do any practice, simply sit. That's what he said. That's what he did. So let it not be taken in the wrong context and misunderstood. I think I've told you about Summaikar Swami, Vannopannadu Swami. I've told you the story of Vannopannadu Swami. This was during the British Raj. During the British Raj when the British were ruling India, all the South Indian temples especially were taken over by the British because each temple had kgs and kgs of gold, huge heaps of gold because the Hindus decorated their gods with every kind of jewelry that they could. Diamonds and gold in heaps every temple had. Every day they want to put a new kind of jewel to their gods and these temples also had lands, thousands of acres of lands. Every temple had thousands of acres of land but especially the jewelry was very attractive. So they took over. In Tamil Nadu itself about 100,000 temples were taken over. That is in one state, I'm saying. So totally maybe about three quarters of a million temples were taken over in many places. All the temples which had good jewelry and money, only they were taken. The smaller temples were never taken. So they took over and all that was slowly transported. The Great Britain… Last time I was in London, I was just taking a walk on the banks of Thames and there, there was a… there's a manhunt. You know what's a manhunt? The stone thing. So I was just looking how come this thing is here because the rock and everything is very different and it seems this was… this was in some Greek city and the explanation they put under that was some captain, somebody in a fit of patriotism, he carried this beautiful manhunt from that city and brought it to London, okay? So like this they had many fits of patriotism and they took away. Really you must see this if you ever go to London. There it's properly inscribed, this captain somebody in a fit of patriotism, he carried such a huge rock and came away to London. So because of this epileptic attacks, they took over all the temples and it was all being slowly transported back home. So they kept a strict vigil on all the accounting procedures of temples. The local administrators, British administrators kept a tight control over the money because this was the nature of the culture that even people if they don't have to eat it's okay but they want to contribute to the temple, that's how they lived. So lots of money flowing, so they kept tight accounts. So in this particular temple in the accounting procedures, in the accounting the collector, they are known as collectors because they only collected, they were not known as administrators. Even today unfortunately we carry that name collector because they only collected. Taxes and taxes and taxes they collected for everything and they went. Unfortunately even after the English have gone for 60 years now, even today the same name continues because they have also become just collectors. So the collector saw in the accounts, monthly account this is 25 rupees to feed Onnopannadu Swami. Onnopannadu means a Swami who doesn't do anything in the account book. So the collector saw this Onnopannadu, what is this? No, this Swami doesn't do anything. You don't do anything, you cannot eat, that is the law under Her Majesty's service. If he has to eat, he has to do something. The temple priests begged, sir, this is not ordinary man, he doesn't do anything but he's not an ordinary man. I'm not interested in all that nonsense. If he wants to eat from Her Majesty's budget, he has to do something. The village priest didn't know what to do. He went and, you know, spoke to the village elders like this, Onnopannadu Swami is there and collector says don't feed him, 25 rupees per month. So the village elders went to the collector and spoke to him, see this is not an ordinary man, he doesn't do anything but he's not, he's something else. Must come and see. One day they brought the collector to the temple. He looked at this man, this man was just sitting. There is a, I don't know if you have seen even Ramana's postures, Onnopannadu Swami, so like that he was sitting. He looked at him and half-starred the man is. What's so big about him, he's just sitting. So the village elders said that is not a simple thing just sitting, none of us can do it. You try and see. Just sit in front of him as he's sitting. What's the big deal, he thought it's he's a sport for anything and he went and sat down like this in front of him. More than 10 minutes he couldn't sit. He wanted to move, especially in this man's presence, he just couldn't sit. Then he got up and said okay 25 rupees. This happened in a different way. Once Henry Ford hired a efficiency expert and the efficiency expert is trying to you know perk up the whole thing all over the Ford motors and working quite well. He's screwing up everybody a little bit, tightening the screws on everyone. So one day Henry Ford asked how is it going. He said it's all going great. It's just this one guy who sits there, he pointed to him. Always with his feet on the table, he just does nothing. He just sits there, always his feet are on the table. Henry said who's that guy, let me see. He came and he saw. Then Henry Ford said don't disturb that guy. That guy has come up, you know in the past he's come up with an idea which made a fortune for the company and even when he came up with that idea he had his feet on the table. So don't you try to take his feet off the table. So no need to do anything, you don't know what he's doing. You hear the words or you see him not doing anything and you try to do the same thing. It will not be the same thing. If you can simply sit like Ramana, even if worms are eating you up, you can simply sit. Then you don't have to do any practice. You are exempted from all practice. Now you're not like that. You're taking off and taking on your jacket 12 times in a day. Now you cannot simply sit, you got to do things. It's very different. I must ask Sadhguru, is it possible to understand the mechanics of the body so we can retain the body after enlightenment? It definitely is a possibility. It's not that it is not possible. It is just we are still going through hoops with fundamental aspects of life, basic aspects of life. Then you can't pay the kind of attention that these things need. If you have to know the intricacies of life, how life is made, if you want to know, rather let me use the word creation, it won't yield unless you paid the necessary attention, absolute attention. This is the reason why people think it is long and arduous journey, need not be. It is very long and arduous because, see suppose you drove from Detroit, was it very long and arduous? No, you're sitting in a 21st century car, what the hell, in ten hours' time you're here. It is neither long nor arduous, okay? Suppose your car is made like this, that its engine works intermittently, every minute it's on, every minute it's off, would it be very long and arduous? That's all. That's all it is. Your attention is on and off, on and off, on and off. So it's very long and arduous. If your attention was just on, it's just a short journey. It is not even a journey, actually. Opening your eyes to life is not really a journey. But to understand the mechanics of how creation is, yes a certain amount of focus and one thing is realization, a little bit of learning also, not a little bit, quite a bit of learning also is involved in it. But without the necessary realization, learning won't mean anything. So we are waiting for the realization. If not the ultimate realization, at least some level of realization that you're not going through hoops for simple basic aspects of life. If you stop going through hoops for tiny things in life, then it would be maybe time to look at how to learn a few things. I've made attempts to set a few people on that. I thought all this should not be lost. Right now I'm sort of resigned to that. Anyway this will be lost with me. If people realize that's enough, we will set up procedures and methods and energy investments to help people towards that realization. But all this knowing, I… there was a time when I worked hard with people to get them there. But what I see is even back in India, it's so difficult to get people to work hard toward these things because this needs hard work, lot of hard work. If you're really longing to know, it's not hard. Everything is fine with you. When there is no such longing, it feels like torture. And initially you go into it willingly after you… after sometime you think I'm torturing you. This has happened again and again. So I'm not given up, given up. But generally I'm okay if… if nobody gets there in terms of knowing, it's okay. As long as people are on the path of realization, if they're not really striving to know the mechanics of creation, it's all right. I've… I mean I'm not given up, given up but I'm okay because I have to work really hard with them first of all. Unless people are willing to work hard enough, trying to work hard with them just becomes ridiculous, you know. Once I'm on, I don't know how to stop. That's my problem. If I sit here and if… if I see little fire in somebody's eyes, I forget that you need to go to the bathroom, you need to eat because I forget that I need to go to the bathroom or eat, so I forget about your bladder also. When I've forgotten about mine, what's the problem with yours? So once I'm on to something, I'm… I'm on. But I don't see people are like that. People are on and off, on and off, on and off. So it becomes difficult to work. So we're just working towards realization. If people attain towards that liberation, that's good enough. A few people we are still working. I'm not saying there aren't anybody working. There's some people working on those things but the rate at which they are going, they will need lot of time. I don't think we have that much time on hands. They will need lots of time at the pace at which they are going. You can see if somebody is reading, you know, studying and learning at a certain pace, you can say, okay, in eight years' time, he can become a doctor. If he's reading at a certain pace, you can say, okay, in fifty years' time, he can become a doctor. Yes? Or if he's reading at a certain pace, you can say, okay, in a few lifetimes, he will become a doctor. This is just like that. After all, it's physiology on a deeper scale, that's all. So if you're willing to learn at a certain pace, then we know how long it's going to take. No, no, no, I'm doing. It's fine you're doing but I don't want to… I just have a life term. I don't have a 300-year sentence. I just have a life sentence here. I am not Agastya or something.