Below Sadhguru speaks about the personality as a costume we create for ourselves – one which, if we learn to keep it down, we can change and transform however we want.

Personality is a limited identity that you create for yourself, and a large part of it is an unconscious creation. This personality is essential as a tool for survival in social situations. This is a wall of protection that you build for yourself; a face, or a facade that you create for yourself. This facade, this face, this wall is useful to walk through the world to some extent, but at the same time, the walls that you built for self protection are also the walls of self imprisonment after a while. So, when you don’t know how to open these walls when you wish to, then the walls that you built for self protection will slowly suffocate you, which is happening to people. So, when I talk about personality demolition or destruction, we are talking about whether you can consciously eschew your personality now for ten minutes. It means, next time when you pick it up (your personality), you can pick it up the way you want it.

Suppose, I can drop these clothes now, and decide to wear another outfit, I can put on the clothes I want. This is because I can change the clothes whenever I want. Suppose these clothes are stuck to me, I can’t take the clothes off, nor can I wear a new dress. So personality, if you can drop it down, when you decide to pick up the pieces, you will pick it up the way you want. You can very easily drop the things that you don’t want and take what you want, and build new dimensions to it. You can transform your personality the way you want. If you choose to have one kind of personality today, you can do so and you can don another personality the next day.

Actually, that’s how a human being should be, because for different dimensions of work, and different dimensions of activity, you need a different type of personality. But now you’re stuck with one kind of personality, and this personality is constantly in friction with the rest of the world. all the friction in the world is due to the clash of two personalities all the time, isn’t is so, everywhere? If you would only make your personality more malleable, more moldable, now you could make anything out of it. If you remain like wet clay, you could shape yourself into any kind of pot, but now you’re a burnt pot, if you hit another pot, you’ll only crack and break. You would not be able to change your shapes.

So I’m talking about getting the burnt pot into an un-burnt condition once again, so that everyday you can reshape your pot the way you want it to be. Yoga offers this possibility. It does not mean a particular practice; yoga means a method, and a system and a science to use every aspect of life to see that you don’t get encrusted with life. You are, you make yourself malleable enough, flexible enough, not just in the body, in every level. You make yourself flexible enough; you will fit into any whole, any time. Any shape, wherever it’s needed, whichever way you’re able to fit in. If you go to heaven you’re in place, if you go to hell you’re in place. You’re never out of place anywhere, because everything that you do is conscious. Once you’re a conscious being, the question of suffering doesn’t arise; only when you’re an unconscious being suffering exists in life.

In this week’s Spot, Sadhguru answers a question regarding his view on one of the spiritual leaders of India. “I have no views about anything in this world, not just one person. I really have no opinion about anybody, actually, because why should you form an opinion about somebody? It is such a waste of life and energy.”

During the Q&A at Friday’s Darshan, I was asked about my views on one of the spiritual leaders of India.

I have no views about anything in this world, not just one person. I really have no opinion about anybody, actually, because why should you form an opinion about somebody? It is such a waste of life and energy. If you know something, you know something. If you don't know something, you don't know something. If you find something is good for you, then you go ahead. What’s the problem? If it is good for you, you should go ahead. What is the issue?

About me passing an opinion on somebody - I never thought, within myself, that I was so important that I must pass an opinion on anything for that matter. I don’t even pass an opinion on my dogs in the house. I just watch them everyday, seeing that maybe they will be different tomorrow and they are. I see how their behavior changes as they mature - how they were when they were puppies, when they became adolescents, and now that they have matured. So everyday, as they grow, I watch how they are maturing. It is quite an amazing thing for me to watch how a dog, which has reached a certain age, has formed his habits - he functions by instinct - but still, he has a character of his own. And between the two dogs, how different they are! The same breed, but how different they are in their character, likes and dislikes, and even the way they respond to people is not the same.

So when even a little puppy has so much character and is changing, isn't it a crime to form an opinion? I have never formed an opinion on anybody. I am not good at these things. Right from my childhood, I have been reading the newspaper, but as a rule, I never, ever read an editorial in any newspaper because it is somebody’s opinion and I’m not interested. I read the news but never the editorial because I don’t want to listen to anybody’s opinion, nor do I expect that anybody should listen to my opinion. When I speak, I am speaking what I see.

People reduce themselves into a bundle of opinions, which are essentially prejudices about other lives. The moment you form an opinion about someone or something, you cannot mingle in abandon, and that means you cannot experience anything or anyone but only soak in your own opinions. Opinions are like cataracts upon the eyes - definitely not for someone who is looking to enhance his perception or vision.

What is sadhana, and what role does it play on the spiritual path?

Sadhguru: When we say sadhana, we are not talking about any particular aspect. We are talking about using every aspect of life – both internal and external – so that it is a continuous nurturing for your life. Because the very nature of a human being is such, unless there is some dynamism, some movement in his life towards betterment within and outside of himself, he will feel frustrated. He has to keep moving to a newer and newer possibility. Sadhana is that which facilitates that.

Everything can be sadhana. The way you eat, the way you sit, the way you stand, the way you breathe, the way you conduct your body, mind and your energies and emotions – this is sadhana. Sadhana does not mean any specific kind of activity, sadhana means you are using everything as a tool for your wellbeing.

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Sadhguru looks at how confidence without clarity can be a disaster, and gives us a simple process to enhance our clarity.

Q: I want to know the difference between confidence and clarity.

Sadhguru: Let us say my physical vision is not good – I cannot see clearly – and I need to walk through a group of people. But I am very confident. What will happen if I walk through? A lot of people are walking through their life like this because they are confident. They cannot see a damn thing, but it does not matter; they are confident. This is disastrous for you and for everyone around you. If my vision is clear, I would walk through the whole group without touching anyone. If my vision is not clear, at least if I have the humility to see that I have no clarity, I would seek help and walk slowly. I may not walk as quickly as a man who has clear vision, but I would at least go gently.

People think confidence is a kind of substitute for clarity – it is not. Let’s say whenever you want to make big decisions in your life, either professional or family-related, all you do is get yourself a coin and flip it, “Heads we will do this, tails we will do that.” It will work fifty percent of the time! If you are right only fifty percent of the time, there are only two professions you can pursue – you can either be a weatherman or an astrologer. If you are in any other job, you would most likely be fired.

There is a city called Mangalore on the west coast of India. It is a beautiful, quaint, little town and I have been associated with this place for some time. I had not gone there for almost four or five years, and then I happened to visit. There was a homeopathic doctor there who was over seventy-five years of age, but he was still managing a small clinic. I went there to visit him, not as a client, but just to see him. The clinic is in the Malabar region – the land of the king cobra – snake bites are common. Outside the clinic there was an advertisement which said, “A common antidote for all types of snakes.” I know enough about snakes. I have lived with them, I have them all around me, I have been bitten by them any number of times, and snakes and me have been very closely associated for a very long time. So I know enough about them to survive.

Essentially in India, there are two basic varieties of venoms. One is a neurotoxin and the other affects your cardio-vascular system; a very small number of snakes have both. These are two completely different kinds of chemicals, so there cannot be a common antidote. Today, because people cannot identify what snake is what, doctors are administering an antidote for both together, which is very damaging for the system.

I went in and was in conversation with the doctor. Then I asked him, “How did you allow this board to come up in your clinic? This is not right. Someone is claiming there is a common antidote.” But he is a very wise doctor. He said, “See, almost ninety percent of the Indian snakes are harmless, and this antidote works ninety percent of the time.”

Ninety is a good percentage for anything. Confidence is like that. If a snake bites you, just look up at the sky and say “Dam-doom-dis-dis-dis!” the venom will go away, actually. Really! You must say it with enough vigor, it actually goes away… it works ninety percent of the time! And people will get more confident because it works ninety percent of the time. That is a fool’s way to exist, isn’t it? What you need is clarity, not confidence.

If we want life to happen the way we want it, the first and foremost requirement is to be clear about what it is that we really want. Even simple practices can go a long way in creating this. Every day when you wake up in the morning, sit up on your bed cross-legged, sit with your hands open, eyes closed and just look at everything you are not. Appreciate all that you have gathered – your home, your family, your relationships, your qualifications, your body, your clothes – everything. Be thankful for that. At the same time, identify everything that is not you as “This is what I have gathered” and mentally keep it aside. What you gather can be yours, but it can never be you. Spend ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes in the night every day. This will bring clarity. If one is properly initiated by a Guru, this particular process can take on a new dimension. But till such an opportunity comes in your life, you can do this by yourself. It will definitely have a big impact upon your clarity.

From rare native seeds to inspiring conversations on the future of farming, the Bharat Traditional Seeds & Vegetables Festival brought together over 3,000 farmers and featured 90+ stalls, all united by a shared vision.

These glimpses capture a celebration of Bharat’s rich agricultural heritage—where farmers, seed keepers, scientists, and innovators came together to preserve indigenous seed diversity, exchange knowledge, and inspire the next generation of regenerative agriculture.

Every native seed protected is a step toward healthier soil, resilient farms, nutritious food, and a more secure future.

Death rituals are not just for psychological solace, but come from a deep understanding of how the human system functions. Here, Sadhguru explains the important role of death rituals for both the living and the dead.

The Idea Behind Death Rituals

Sadhguru: This body is an accumulation. It is a piece of Earth that we have slowly picked up. Whatever we have picked up in body, we have to drop back atom by atom. When it comes to the mind, the discretionary intellect also gets dropped with the process of death. This whole information that is gathered – the subtler body and the subtler mind and the information that is referred to as karma, the software – is still intact, but the discretion is gone.

Let us say today you read that the stocks are down and you lost so much money. But you have enough discretion to think, "Okay, it's alright I've lost that, but I still have this. Let me be happy today,” and you can involve yourself in something and be happy.

If you lose this discretion, that is when you go into a compulsively depressed state. Now you will go by your tendencies, whatever kind of quality you have gathered. So when you lose your body, you also lose your discretionary intellect; after that you function just by your tendencies, whichever way they push you, depending upon the type of software you have.

Since there is no more discretion or discernment, if you put one drop of pleasantness into the mind of one who has left the body, this pleasantness will multiply a million fold. If you put one drop of unpleasantness, that unpleasantness will multiply a million fold. It is a little like with children – they go out to play until they are exhausted and cannot go on anymore, because they do not have the necessary discernment as to when it is time to stop.

After death, discernment is completely absent, even more than in a child. Then, whatever quality you put into the mind, it will multiply a million fold. This is what is being referred to as heaven and hell. If you go into a pleasant state of existence, it is called heaven. If you go into an unpleasant state of existence, it is called hell. These are not geographical locations but experiential realities that a life which has become disembodied is going through.

There are many rituals to see that you can somehow put a drop of sweetness into such a non-discerning mind so that this sweetness will multiply many fold and they will live comfortably in a kind of self-induced heaven. That is the idea behind death rituals.

Taking Care of the Dead

There are certain rituals through which it is possible to influence the course of that life, at least to some extent. It is from this basis that all these death rituals came. One of the first things people traditionally do if someone dies is tie the big toes of the dead body together. This is very important because it will tighten up the muladhara in such a way that the body cannot be invaded by that life once again. A life that has not lived with the awareness that “this body is not me” will try to enter through any orifice of the body, particularly through the muladhara. The muladhara is where life generates, and it is always the last point of warmth when the body is cooling down.

The reason why traditionally, we always said that if someone dies, you must burn the body within a certain time frame, because life tries to get back. This is also important for the living. If someone very dear to you died, your mind may start playing tricks, thinking that maybe a miracle will happen, maybe God will come and bring them back. It has never happened to anyone, but still the mind plays up because of the emotions that you have for that particular person. Similarly, the life that has exited the body also believes that it can still get back into the body.

The Science Behind Cremation

If you want to stop the drama, the first thing is to set fire to the body within one and a half hours. Or to be sure the person is dead, they have stretched it to four hours. But the body should be taken away as quickly as possible. In agricultural communities, they used to bury, because they wanted their forefathers’ bodies, which are a piece of soil, to go back to the soil that had nourished them. Today, you buy your food from the store, and do not know where it comes from. Therefore, burial is not advisable anymore. In earlier times, when they buried in their own land, they always put salt and turmeric on the dead body so that it quickly dissipates into the soil.

Cremation is also good because it closes the chapter. You will see that when there is a death in the family, people will be crying and wailing, but the moment cremation happens, they will become quiet, because suddenly, the truth has sunk in that it is over. This goes not only for the living but also for the disembodied being who has just exited the body. As long as the body is there, he or she is also under the illusion that they can get back.

The Importance of Death Rituals (Excerpted from Death – An Inside Story)

Death rituals are not just to assist the dead person in his or her journey, they are also for the benefit of those who are left behind, because if this person who dies leaves a lot of unsettled life around us, our lives will not be good. It is not that ghosts will come and catch you. But it will influence the atmosphere. It will influence those around, psychologically. It will also influence the quality of life around. This is the reason every culture in the world has its own type of rituals for the dead. Generally, a lot of it is to settle certain psychological factors of the near and dear ones. In some way, they did have a certain relevance and science behind them too. But, probably, no other culture has such elaborate methods as the Indians do. No one has looked at death with the kind of understanding and depth that this culture has. Right from the moment that death occurs, or even before it occurs, there are whole systems to help a person die in the most beneficial way. Having looked at life from every possible angle, they want to extract the most out of everything towards Liberation or mukti. If death is going to occur, they want to make use of even that to attain mukti, in some way. So they created powerful rituals for the dying and for the dead. Today, these rituals have become even more important because almost everyone on the planet is beginning to die in unawareness, without the necessary understanding of the life mechanism within themselves. In the olden days, most people died of infections and diseases. So people created a whole science to help them beyond their body. When they were in the body, maybe people around could not figure out what the ailment was or the person did not get the necessary treatment or something else happened and they died. So at least after his or her death, they wanted to help them in such a way that they did not hang around for too long and dissolved quickly. This is how the whole science behind these rituals evolved. Unfortunately, today, it has mostly become a meaningless ritual being done without the needed understanding or expertise.

When we do not take care of the dead properly, the adolescent children in that society will suffer immensely because of this. The first thing these disembodied beings go towards is adolescent life because that is the easiest and the most vulnerable human life around. Adolescence is like a human version of molting, where growth is very rapid, not only physiologically but in every other way. Because of this, during this period, life is very susceptible to influence. If there is any positive or negative energy around, adolescents are the first people to absorb it.

Among adolescents, girls are even more susceptible to these things than boys are. But pre-adolescent children— up to eight to ten years of age—are generally immune to these things. Nature has given them that protection, so you don’t have to protect them much. It is mostly children between ten to twenty years of age who can get affected. When I say affected, I am not referring to their hormonal stuff or them losing their way with drink and drugs. That can also happen, but there are other kinds of influences that they can come under. Today, you can see how much upheaval children are going through just to face adolescence. In the previous generations, adolescence was never such a struggle. One reason for this is that we are not taking care of those who have departed in an appropriate manner. It is like loose software hanging around and adolescent life naturally tangles with that. So either because of conscious knowing or by instinct, people in every culture in some way tried to create protective atmospheres for the adolescents.

Sadhguru gives seven important life lessons you should never forget to make your experience of life more profound and beautiful.

Life Lesson #1: Kill the lies

Sadhguru: Just spend a minute to identify at least one thing in your life that is not necessary and kill that today. When I say “kill,” don’t start thinking about your boss, mother-in-law or neighbor. You must kill something about you that is unnecessary for your life. Something like “I will kill my anger” would be too general and this is not something that you can achieve by determination – this requires consciousness.

Identify something specific that you will be better off without, where you can take a concrete step today – it does not matter how small it is. Choose one specific little thing that you will not do anymore, no matter what. “I will not be angry” would be a lie, because this is not yet in your control but it could be something like, “I will not speak angry words.”

Decide on something that you can do and that you will do. This is how to transform your life – by taking small steps. But you should actually do it – it should not pop up again. If you kill something, it should be dead. If you want to move towards the truth of life, your investment in that which is not true has to be reduced. It may not all vanish immediately, but you must reduce it step-by-step.

Life Lesson #2: Break the status quo

Look at life in terms of what can be changed and do something about it. Crying about things that you cannot change is a sure strategy to remain at status quo. At least once a month, every full moon day, consciously look at this and identify one small thing about yourself that you want to change. Like, “Every time before I eat, I will spend 10 seconds in gratitude for this food which is going to become a part of me.” Or, “Every time I use anything that is an essential element of my life, like the soil, the water, the air, and everything else around me, I will save 1% of it.” Or, “I will see to it that I only put on my plate what I can eat.” These small things will change your life and set you apart.

Life Lesson #3: Remember you are mortal

A significant thing every human being has to do is structure their psychological and emotional framework around the most fundamental fact of their life – their mortality. Right now, it takes a lifetime for people to understand that they are mortal; they need a heart attack or the appearance of a malignant lump somewhere to remind them.

You need to celebrate and enjoy every moment of your life because life does not wait for you even for a moment. If you were immortal, you could enjoy a hundred years each of depression, anxiety, madness and misery and then on the 500th anniversary, you could become joyful. But that is not the case. You are mortal and it is ticking away. So there is no time for frustration, depression, anxiety, anger or for any unpleasantness in this life.

In the ashram I always tell people, no matter what work you are doing, every day you must stick your fingers into the earth at least for an hour. This will build a natural physical memory, a bodily memory in you that you are mortal.

Life Lesson #4: Choose to live intelligently

Within yourself, is it more pleasant to be loving, or to be angry, hateful and jealous? Which is a more intelligent way to exist? Loving, isn’t it? All I am saying is, please live intelligently. This is not for someone else’s sake. It is pleasant and beautiful for you. Creating a loving world is not a service that you do for someone else. It is an intelligent way to exist.

You can create a loving world in every single activity that you do in your life. Creating a loving world does not mean doing something more or less. If you live your life constantly focused on what you want, it will unquestionably happen in your immediate surroundings, and it will also begin to happen in the larger surroundings.

Life Lesson #5: Determine the quality of your life

In many ways, most people’s happiness, peace and love are mortgaged to the external situation. So, if the stock market goes up you are happy, if the stock market goes down you are unhappy. But the quality of life is not about what is around you. Our ability to live joyfully here does not depend on the size of the house we live in or the car that we drive. These things make your life comfortable and convenient but the essential quality of your life is how you are within yourself right now.

Living joyfully and peacefully is not new to you. You were like that as a child, isn’t it? So, I am not talking about taking you beyond, I am just talking about starting at the square one of your life.

Life Lesson #6: There is intelligence in humility

The difference between a fool and an intelligent person is that an intelligent person knows how foolish he is; a fool does not. Noticing the stupidity of who you are is great intelligence. Anything in this existence – a tree, a blade of grass, a grain of sand, one single atom – do you understand any of these things fully? No. When this is your level of intelligence and perception, how should you walk in the world? Gently, with a little humility, respect and love for everything around you. If not love, then at least with awe, because you don’t understand a damn thing in this world.

If you just learn to walk like this, you will not escape a spiritual process. You don’t need any teaching. It will happen to you anyway. This is why in the eastern cultures, always, you bow down to whatever you see, whether it is a rock, an animal or a human being. Being in reverence towards the very earth that you walk upon, towards the air that you breathe, the water that you drink, the food that you eat, the people that you come in touch with and everything else that you use, including your body and mind, is a way of ensuring success in every endeavor that we partake in.

Life Lesson #7: There is no good and bad

Your inner world – if you want to call it that – should only be a reflection of what is around you. This may be diametrically opposite to some moral theories that say the outer and the inner should not touch each other, otherwise you would immediately get corrupted by everything around you. That is not true. You get corrupted by what is around you only when you have opinions about everything.

You look at one thing as good, something else as bad. You get attached to what you consider as good. You desperately try to avoid what you consider as bad, and of course that will rule you from inside. This is not the way to be. Seeing everything just the way it is – that is the way to be within. If you see something other than what is there, it means you are contaminating the world with your opinions and prejudices.

Creation is made so that you see it the way it is, not to make it the way you want to make it. This is an obscenity that humanity is committing upon the Creator’s creation. Such a magnificent creation – what is there for you to do? Absorb it if you can – nothing more – and even that is not simple because creation is phenomenally multi-tiered. So many phenomena are happening right here – one inside the other, all in one space, all in one time.

Everything that you think is past, everything that you think will be future is right here. If you see everything the way it is, if the whole creation reflects within you, if you can contain creation the way it is within you, you become the very source of creation. That is the way to be, inside and outside.

Editor’s Note: Download the ebook “Inner Management”, where Sadhguru reveals effective tools to enhance capabilities, change your life, and open up a new dimension that frees us from external influences. Set “0” in the price field to download for free.

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On the auspicious day of Jyeshtha Purnima, Sadhguru explores the profound significance of Kalabhairava – Shiva’s fierce manifestation as the very embodiment of time and the master of life and death. Through ancient legends, the story of Brahma’s fifth head, and the significance of Kashi, he explains how Kalabhairava dissolves ignorance, and stands at the threshold between life and death. Sadhguru also speaks about Bhairavi Yatana – the intense process through which lifetimes of karma can dissolve in the final moments of life – and why dogs across cultures are believed to sense approaching death. Touching on the symbolism of the numbers eight and sixty‑four in the Yogic tradition, biology, and mathematics, he reveals how these patterns echo through creation.

Watch the next episode of Sadhguru 360 on Guru Purnima (29 July 2026).

Sadhguru talks about prana, one's vital energy, and the benefits of pranayama.

Table of Content

1. What Is Prana?

2. 5 Types of Prana

3. Pranayama Benefits

4. Shakti Chalana Kriya – Working with Your Prana

5. Staying Focused Is Key

6. Shambhavi Mahamudra – Beyond Prana

Sadhguru: When I say pranayama, people tend to translate it in English as a breathing technique or a breathing exercise, which it is not. “Prana” means “the vital energy”, “yama” means to gain control over that. So, it is a subtle process through which one can gain control over his inner energies. These processes are taught in their depth because transforming inner energies are very important to stabilize the body and the mind.

What Is Prana?

Whatever you do in life, how your body, your mind, and your whole system function is ultimately determined by your prana. Prana is an intelligent energy.

Since prana has the karmic memory of the individual imprinted on it, it functions in each person in a unique manner. By contrast, electricity does not have memory or intelligence. It can light up a light bulb, run a camera, and do a million other things, not because of its intelligence but because of the particular device that it powers. In the future, there may be smart electricity too. If you manage to imprint energy with a certain memory, you can make it behave in a certain way.

5 Types of Prana

There are five basic manifestations of prana in the body. These pancha vayus – prana vayu, samana vayu, udana vayu, apana vayu, and vyana vayu – direct different aspects of the human mechanism. Through yogic practices like the Shakti Chalana Kriya, you can to take charge of the pancha vayus. If you gain mastery over these five vayus, you will be free from most ailments, particularly psychological ones. This is something that the world needs today.

Unless we act now, in the next fifty years, the number of people who are psychologically imbalanced, disturbed, or deranged will increase many times over, due to various factors in our lifestyles. We are handling many aspects of our lives in a grossly negligent way, for which we are going to pay the price. If you take charge of your prana, whatever the external situation may be, you will remain psychologically balanced. Right now, a whole lot of people are psychologically imbalanced, though not everyone may have a medical diagnosis.

https://youtu.be/GvIhe7-wsUQ?si=GfTUsu1V6eOq9bec

Pranayama Benefits

Suppose your hand does its own thing and pokes you in the eye, scratches, and beats you – that is a sickness. This is what most people’s mind is doing. Every day, it pokes them from inside, makes them cry, bawl, or worry – in so many ways, it creates suffering for them. That means it is sick, even if in a socially accepted manner. Every kind of suffering that human beings are going through day in and day out is created in the mind. This sickness has set in, and it will multiply because of the social structures, the technology around us, and various other influences.

Through yogic practices like the Shakti Chalana Kriya, you can to take charge of the pancha vayus.

One who takes charge of one’s prana can be one hundred percent assured to have unshakable psychological balance. This should also prevent physiological ailments to a large extent, though an element of risk remains due to various reasons, including infections and all kinds of chemicals and poisons that we are exposed to on a daily basis. There is no absolute control over what we take in through the air, water, and food, no matter how careful we are about what we consume. How much impact it has on us depends upon each individual.

Physiological health cannot be guaranteed one hundred percent for external reasons. But psychological wellbeing can be one hundred percent guaranteed if you take charge of your prana. If you are psychologically in an extremely good place, a few physiological issues will not be a problem. Most of the time, minor bodily conditions are less of an issue than the reactions to them that happen in your mind. How the pranas function within you, how they transact with the rest of the universe, how they enter a newborn, and how they leave the dead, all clearly show they have an intelligence of their own.

Shakti Chalana Kriya – Working with Your Prana

It takes a certain level of attention and awareness to know how the five pranas are functioning. The Shakti Chalana Kriya is a fabulous process, but you need to be attentive. It requires you to keep yourself focused for forty to sixty minutes. Most people can’t keep their mind on a full inhalation. Midway, their thoughts wander off, or they lose count or track. It takes months and years of practice to come to a point where you can keep your focus on the breath for the full set of cycles.

That is why Shakti Chalana is always taught in tandem with Shoonya. The Shoonya meditation is to bring yourself to a place where, if you close your eyes, the world is gone in your experience. This is a blessing all of you should earn at some point. Only if you make yourself like this, are you capable of staying focused on something. Forceful concentration is not going to achieve anything.

If you close your eyes, the only things that should exist for you are your breath, your heartbeat, processes in your body, and the workings of your prana. Only what is happening inside is life. What is happening on the outside is just imagery.

Staying Focused Is Key

Shoonya and other sadhana are towards that. How far you go is a different question, especially in today’s world. I am not against what is happening today in terms of life around. But unfortunately, to be flaky has become fashionable – profound is out. With such an attitude, there is no way you can move your attention to how life works within you. This does not mean that it is not possible for every human being – it is. It all depends on what importance you ascribe to it. If you make it your number one priority, everything within you will organize itself accordingly.

If your priorities are in different directions, you will go all over the place, not getting anywhere, in terms of life on a fundamental level. On a social level, you may be getting somewhere. On a physical level, your body is going straight towards the grave – at the most, you can extend the route a little. As far as your mind is concerned, it is going round and round. Only if you focus on the fundamental nature of life will you really get somewhere. The life within you is the only real thing – the rest are just projections. But right now, most of the attention is on projections, not the real thing.

With the Shakti Chalana Kriya, the transformation happens gradually. Taking charge of your prana and its different activities in your system is a fantastic process. The Shakti Chalana Kriya works on that level. If you practice it, you are strengthening the very foundations of your system.

Shambhavi Mahamudra – Beyond Prana

The Shambhavi Mahamudra has the potential to let you touch the dimension that is the basis of all that is. But you cannot actively make it happen. You can only set the ambience. We always refer to Shambhavi as “she.” There has to be devotion for Shambhavi to yield. You can only come in touch with the source of creation – there is nothing for you to do with it. Shambhavi also has an element of pranayama in it, which brings many benefits.

The important thing about the Shambhavi Mahamudra is that it is a tool to touch the source of creation, which is beyond prana. This could happen on the first day, or you could be doing it for six months and nothing happens. But if you keep it up, the day will come when you touch this dimension. If you touch it, suddenly everything is transformed.

Editor's Note: Learn Shambhavi Mahamudra Kriya in an Inner Engineering course near you, or explore advanced courses to learn the Shakti Chalana Kriya and Shoonya meditation. Find all upcoming program with the Isha Yoga Program Finder.

A version of this article was originally published in Isha Forest Flower - June 2017.

Sadhguru demystifies brahmacharya, revealing why monkhood is important, and what makes it an integral part of every spiritual path.

Sadhguru: “Brahman” means “the divine” or “ultimate”; “charya” means “the path.” If you are on the path of the divine, you are a brahmachari. To be on the path of the divine means you have no personal agendas of your own. You simply do what is needed. You have no personal ways of deciding where you should go in your life, what you should do, or what you like and dislike; all these things are simply taken away from you. If you do this unwillingly, it can be an absolute torture. If you do it willingly, it makes your life wonderful and beautiful because there is nothing to bother you anymore. Life is so simple. You simply do what is needed. Once you have given yourself like that, you do not have to bother about the spiritual path or worry about your spirituality. It is taken care of.

People may think a brahmachari is making a great sacrifice and is being denied life. But it is not so at all. If someone is a brahmachari only by dress, it is true that life is torture. But for a person who is truly walking the path of the divine, the petty pleasures that the world offers will become totally meaningless. Once you enjoy the inner pleasures of your being, the external pleasures become totally meaningless.

For example, let’s say someone wants to climb Mount Everest. He prepares for years, probably for a lifetime, and then he is in the harshest climate, denying himself every pleasure of life, of comfort, family, society, and everything that people normally want to have. But do you really believe he is denying himself? Or is he making another possibility, which you can never imagine, real in his life? Anyone who has created anything worthwhile in their lives have naturally denied themselves a lot of simple pleasures that other people are having. Maybe you are not eating well, sleeping well, taking your afternoon nap, sitting with your wife or husband, or having dinner with the family. But you deny yourself everything because you want to create something. That is true with every person who has created something worthwhile in their life. The same is true with brahmacharya. A brahmachari is on the path of the ultimate. Because of that, their attention is not diverted to other things that people think are valuable.

A Taste of the Divine

My work as a Guru is just to give you a taste of that ultimate, so that your life goes into a tizzy and you want to go for it. You have had a taste, and now you cannot stop. You want to know the power, the beauty and the joy of it. Brahmacharis are people who have had a taste of that, and now they want all of it. They do not care whether they eat or not. They do not care whether they drink, smoke, and enjoy other simple physical pleasures that other people are addicted to. They have had a taste of the ultimate, and now they want it all. They will not settle for anything less.

If people sleep through their life in the name of comfort and security, they are wasting their life. They must go all the way. This is not my desire; it is their desire also. Today you have a desire to fulfill something, but if that happens, you want the next one, and the next one, and the next one. If you carefully look at your desiring process, you will see that you are not willing to settle for anything limited. There is something within you which does not like boundaries. There is something within you which is always longing for the ultimate. It is not my idea or philosophy that you should seek the ultimate. You are seeking the ultimate in unconscious ways anyway. If you seek in unconscious ways, you will always remain frustrated and the chances of finding it are remote. It is better to seek what you want in a conscious and focused way. Brahmacharis are those people who are seeking what you are seeking, but they are seeking it one hundred percent consciously.

In that sense, everyone should become a brahmachari – not necessarily in terms of lifestyle, but internally. Everyone should be on the path of the divine. Brahmacharya does not just mean celibacy. That is just one of the aspects that have been taken up as a supportive system. To become a brahmachari means you are ecstatic by your own nature. You can be married and still be a brahmachari. It is possible because you are joyful by your own nature instead of trying to extract joy from your husband or wife. This is how it should be. The whole world should be brahmacharis. Everyone should be joyful by their own nature. If two people come together, it should be a sharing of joy, not extraction of joy from each other.

Why Brahmacharya Is Important

If one is just seeking realization at the end of his life, it could be taken care of in many different ways. I can fix a date with you for that day! But if one wants to explore, but become a useful instrument in making it happen to many other people, then brahmacharya becomes significant. Brahmacharies are an investment for the future, to keep spirituality in its pristine purity and transmit it from generation to generation. A small, core group of people are needed. They are initiated in a particular way which turns their energies in a completely different direction. Everyone need not take that step, nor will we take everyone because it is not necessary, and neither can they put in the sadhana that it demands.

All of us have eaten mangoes, but how many of us have planted mango trees, made them grow, and then eaten mangoes? Most people have eaten mangoes because someone else planted the mango trees. In every society, out of a thousand people, at least ten people have to take care to plant mango trees. Similarly, a few people have to take the path of brahmacharya. People who are willing to dedicate themselves to others’ wellbeing are needed in society. If there is no one thinking about others’ wellbeing, that society is definitely heading for ruin. That is what has happened to society right now. There are very few people thinking of everyone's wellbeing.

Why Brahmacharis Are Necessary

Essentially, this human mechanism is a certain energy system. You can keep it with many openings and transact with the world in a certain way, or you can make this into a close-circuit system so that it becomes very integrated. A rocket goes up because it is firing only on one side. If it fires on all the sides, it is not going to go anywhere; it will just dissipate itself. Or it will go somewhere without direction and fall apart. What we are trying to make out of a brahmachari is just that they fire only on one side. One that fires only on one side is going to go straight up and there is a particular purpose to creating such a system.

When you have a close-circuit system like that, it becomes a powerful instrument. This instrument could be deployed in so many different ways. It is a weapon with which you can bomb the world with a spiritual process.

Monks have been there in every culture because wherever there was a genuine enlightened process, they always wanted some mechanisms to be wired in such a way that they were completely integrated systems, without any outside transaction. Those systems are needed if you want to shake the world in a certain way, create certain processes, and access certain things. If you want to put a satellite beyond the atmosphere, you need a rocket. If you want to just fly around in the atmosphere, an airplane will do. That is the difference. When you are planning and projecting to do something which is beyond certain limitations, brahmacharis become necessary.

Rocket-like Energy

If you get into a rocket, the idea is to break all existing limitations and go to another dimension. It needs an enormous amount of fuel. And as the rocket is going up, it is dropping weight. If it carried the same weight throughout, it would never have enough fuel to go all the way.

Let us say, you have to go to the office, you could do it in a TVS Moped. Or you could do it in a car, but you would need more fuel. Or you could do it in a helicopter which uses much more fuel. But now if you want to use a rocket, it consumes thousands of times more fuel before it even leaves the ground. But you do not use a rocket to go to your office. It is meant to break all the existing limitations and go to another dimension.

Similarly, to just go to office, come home, and crib about this and that every day, you need a certain level of energy. If you want to not just go to Brahman, but use Brahman as a walkway to the Divine, you need lots of energy. When you need that kind of energy, you need to look at what the most energy-dissipating processes in your life are. All those things need to be contained. And as you go, you must drop as much weight as you can.

Parvati’s Sadhana

There is a story in the Yogic lore that illustrates this. Parvati was a princess, but she wanted to marry Shiva. Shiva dismissed her and said, “Get some man. All you need is a man.” She said, “No, I want to woo you.” She knew that dressing up and flaunting herself in front of him is not going to work. She understood that it needs intensity of sadhana. So, she sat there. He looked at her and dismissed her, because her level of sadhana – “Aum Namah Shivaya” – does not mean a thing to him.

She realized, “He is laughing at me because I am concerned about my body, because I cover myself and eat food.” So, she gave up food. She only ate two leaves a day to sustain the body, and used another two leaves to cover herself. So, they call her “Dwiparna” – two leaves.

Shiva still looked unimpressed. Then Parvati dropped one leaf. She started eating only one leaf and, being a woman, used another one to cover herself. Then she was called “Ekaparna” – one leaf. He was still unimpressed. So, she stopped eating altogether and removed this one leaf she had covered herself with. She sat naked and without food, simply absorbed. Then she was called Aparna – without leaf. Nothing to cover, nothing to sustain, all cycles broken. This is brahmacharya.

Crossing the Physical Dimension

Brahmacharya means to power yourself in such a way that all cycles are broken – to such an extent that the biology and other things around you cannot hold you down. Everything that dissipates energy is broken. It is like the burning of fuel in a rocket – all energy that is being created is going in one direction. That is why it goes up the way it does. If the energy went in five different directions, the rocket would not go anywhere. It is the same with you. If everything becomes unidirectional, then you will go somewhere, but if it goes in five different destinations, it is obviously not interested in going anywhere.

There are stories in the Mahabharata and Ramayana, where if you try to kill one man, and one drop of his blood falls, one more guy comes up. If a hundred drops fall, a hundred guys come up. They are talking about a human being who has made himself so potent that every drop of his blood functions like semen. Every drop that falls can recreate another being. This is the significance of this dimension of life. If a single cell can make another human being, it must have immense potential. Something that is that potent could be transformed into great fuel if you want to shoot up and go beyond the physical dimension, which is a power by itself. If you want to cross the physical dimension, you need to engage your body in a completely different way.

What Does the Path of Brahmacharya Involve?

Question: What does the path of brahmacharya involve? And how can one know if one is capable of living like that?

Sadhguru: Brahmacharya means to be like the breeze – that is, you do not stick to anything. The breeze is going everywhere, but we do not know where it is coming from right now. Brahmacharya means simply being life – to live the way you were born – alone. Even if your mother happened to bear twins, you were still born alone. Brahmacharya means to be in a very close association with the Divine and to live like that.

Brahmacharya is not a great step. It is just to exist as life is. Marriage is a great step – you are trying to do something very big! At least, people believe so. Brahmacharya means you allowed your life to happen just as the Creator made you; you do not make anything out of it. There is no step. If you do not do anything, you are a brahmachari. The sadhana and other disciplines are only to help a brahmachari stay like that because once you pick up material from this planet, the qualities of this planet will enter you and try to rule you. One basic quality is inertia. Even to wake up in the morning, there is inertia. To be on the path of the Divine means not to give in to the way of the earth. Another quality of earth is compulsive movement. If you pick up a piece of this earth, you become like the earth. It tries to take you in circles. Cyclical movement is the basis of everything that you call as physical in the universe. If you move in a circle, however large the circle is, you always come back. Those who want to be on a straight path, for them, it is the path of the Divine, not the planetary trajectory. One takes brahmacharya as a path and a discipline instead of as a natural process, so that they do not get into the cyclical motion of life. They do not want to succumb to this.

A Not-So-Merry-Go-Round

If you are very conscious, brahmacharya involves nothing; it is very simple. You wake up every day in the morning like you were just born, and you go to sleep like you would die. In between, you do whatever is useful to everyone, because you have still not reached that place where you can exist without activity. You need to do something. The idea is that the activity should never be about you, because if it is, you will pile up entanglement. So, you constantly do activity which is not about you. You do so much activity that when you go to bed, you do not have a moment – you fall asleep like you are dead. Then you wake up before the birds and get busy. The rest will be taken care of by grace.

You need not do too much, because we invest a certain amount of energy to “manufacture” a brahmachari. Actually, it should not be necessary. If they simply did not do anything, they would be there, but the ways of the earth rule from within because after all, you cannot keep your body down. It has a huge karmic pile of memory, so it has its tendencies. These tendencies are not natural to your being, but this vehicle – the body – tends to go like this. Suppose you are driving a car which has a small alignment problem. You have to straighten it; otherwise it will keep pulling one way. The body also has an alignment problem. Once it bends or turns, it is just a question of time before it completes the circle.

But because it is taking a certain period of time and one’s awareness is not in any great place, every time you pass the same spot it looks like a new place. If you sit somewhere in the afternoon, the whole place looks in one way. If you sit there during sunset, it looks different. If you come at midnight, it looks different. You may think you have come to a different place every time, but it is just a question of time, season, and short memory.

Admitting Your Madness

What you have is a dis-aligned vehicle or a vehicle which is attuned to go in circular motion. Whether you are doing a twelve-year cycle or a three-month cycle, the difference is only a question of percentages of madness. If you are doing a three-month cycle, everyone can see that you are mad. If you are doing twelve-year cycles, people do not make out, but if you are sincere, you know you are crazy. The only thing is you can fool the world into thinking you are okay. You must sincerely look at yourself – do not worry about the social impact, you do not have to admit it to anyone – within yourself, are you not quite insane? I want you to sincerely look at this. If you are sincere and straight about yourself, you know you are quite off.

If you have become so much of a social being that how you look is all that matters to you and how you are does not matter, then you can go on for many lifetimes. If how you are matters to you, if your being – and not what someone thinks about you – has become very important for you, if it is not another person’s opinion which is crafting your life but the nature of your being, then you will naturally be on the path of the Divine.

Can you harness the power of the mind to manifest what you want? Is the law of attraction real? How does a devotee’s desire find manifestation through faith? Sadhguru answers all these questions and more.

Table of Content

1. The Power of Mind

2. A Single-pointed Mind is Powerful

3. Clearing Your Slate

4. How to Manifest What You Want

5. The Universe Yields to Both Faith and Commitment

6. Sadhguru Debunks the “The Law of Attraction” Myth

7. Guided Meditations to Manifest What You Want - Chit Shakti Meditations by Sadhguru

The Power of Mind

Sadhguru: Whatever people aspire for in their life – whether it is to grow a business, build a house or whatever else – the thought: “I want this” arises. Once this thought happens, most people focus their energy towards that something through action and start working towards it. If their action is incisive enough, their thought becomes a reality. That is the usual way people function in the world. But they do not know how to infuse or empower that thought with a certain dimension of energy.

If you have some mobility in your energy beyond the physical body, and if that mobility becomes a conscious process, you can sit in one place and make your energies go somewhere else. However, if you do this without gaining sufficient mastery over your own life energies, you may not know how to pull the energies back into you. You can lose your life like this. You will see, if someone’s desire is beyond a certain pitch, they always die young. Most people’s desires are fickle. They desire something today, something else tomorrow – it keeps changing. But if someone desires very powerfully towards something, they die young whether that something happens or not. Especially if that something happens, they die young because they know how to throw their life energies out, but do not have enough mastery to do the work and come back.

A Single-pointed Mind is Powerful

Thought itself is a reverberation and an energy. You cannot generate a thought without energy. It is just that because it is happening in such a haphazard way, maybe it does not have the necessary energy to manifest itself. You can generate so much energy with your thought process that you could kill someone. When your mind is single-pointed, it is a powerful instrument. Unfortunately, most of the time this single-pointedness happens to people in a negative way, not in a positive way. An angry mind and also a lustful mind are very single-pointed minds. That is why in Indian culture, children are always warned, “When you are angry, do not say anything negative about somebody,” because if your mind has become single-pointed with anger, it can easily manifest itself.

Let us look at the process of generating a thought. Is your thought conscious or is it just an outcome of a million things that have already gotten into you? When your thought process is unconscious, most of the time it is like mental diarrhea. There is no control over it. It simply rambles because there is old stuff inside. This is just like, the more bad food you have in your stomach, the more your diarrhea goes on. When you have mental diarrhea, you cannot call it a thought.

A woman once invited a few friends for dinner. She served dinner and then told her 6-year-old daughter, “Why don’t you say the blessing?” She wanted to show off her daughter a little bit. The daughter said, “I don’t know how to say a blessing.” The mother said, “Just repeat what mummy says.” So the girl very religiously bent her head, held her hands together and said, “Why on earth did I invite all these people for dinner.” Aren’t these things happening to you? You want to meditate, but your mind is talking so many things.

Clearing Your Slate

If you want to write on a blackboard, first you have to wipe it clean. Only then will you be able to write clearly. If a million things have already been written on it and you write something else on that, no one can figure out what you have written. And after some time neither will you. You have to first clear the space and then generate a thought consciously.

If people have cleared their space and then have a thought, this thought really matters because this has come out of a conscious process. Once this thought is on like this and it is held in that clarity, it can be infused with energy. If you generate a thought in your mind consciously and if it is single-pointed, it will find its way in the world. It will manifest itself naturally. And if you have little more control over your life energies, you can tweak it further.

How to Manifest What You Want

Everything we as human beings have created on this planet first found expression in the mind, then it got manifested in the outside world. The wonderful things that we have done on this planet and the horrible things that we have done on this planet both have come from the human mind. If we are concerned as to what we create in this world, it is extremely important that first we learn to create the right things in our mind. If we do not have the power to keep our minds the way we want, what we create in the world is also going to be very accidental and haphazard.

If you generate a thought in your mind consciously and if it is single-pointed, it will find its way in the world. It will manifest itself naturally.

If you bring your mind to a certain level of organization, your body, emotion, and the fundamental life energies get organized in that direction. Once all these four dimensions of you are organized in one direction anything that you wish happens without even lifting a finger. It would help to assist it with activity, but even without doing any activity you can still manifest what you want, if you organize these four dimensions in one direction and keep it unwavering in that direction for a certain period of time.

The Universe Yields to Both Faith and Commitment

You might have heard of people who asked for something and it came true for them beyond all expectations. Generally, this happens to people who are in faith. Let’s say you want to build a house. If you start thinking, “Oh, I need 50 lakhs to build a house, but I have only 50 rupees in my pocket – not possible, not possible, not possible.” The moment you think, “not possible,” you are also thinking, “I do not want it.”

On one level you are creating a desire that you want something, on another level you are saying that you do not want it. In this conflict, it may not happen. Faith works only for those people who are simple minded. It never works for people who are too much of thinking. A childlike person, who has a simple faith in his God or his temple, goes to the temple and says, “Shiva! I want a house. I don’t know how, you must make it for me.” There are no negative thoughts in his mind. Those things are completely removed by the simple act of faith. Now he believes that Shiva will do it for him and it will happen. Is Shiva going to come and build your house? No. I want you to understand God will not lift his little finger for you. What you refer to as God is the source of creation. As a creator he has done a phenomenal job. But if you want life to happen the way you think it should happen, with how much focus you think, how stable is your thought and how much reverberence is there in the thought process will determine whether your thought will become a reality or just remain an empty thought. What is possible and what is not possible is not your business, that is nature’s business. Nature will decide that. You just see what is it that you really want and strive for that. If your thought is created in a powerful way, without any negative thoughts bringing down the intensity of the thought process, it will definitely manifest.

If you take charge of yourself, now you are not in pursuit of your happiness; you are not tensed about anything; there is no sword hanging over your head.

Today, modern science is proving that the entire existence is a vibration. Similarly, your thought is also a vibration. If you generate a powerful thought and let it out, it will always manifest itself. Generally, people are using faith as a means to remove negative thought. But once you have become thinking human beings, your faith is not too deep. It does not matter how much faith you think you have, somewhere doubts always crop up. The way your mind is right now, if God appears right here, you will not surrender to him; you will want an investigation as to whether he is really God or not. With this kind of mind, you should not waste your time on faith. There is an alternative which is commitment. If you simply commit yourself to creating what you really care for, now once again your thought gets organized in such a way there is no such thing as whether it is possible or not. There is no hurdle in your thought process. Your thought flows freely towards what you want. Once this happens, making it happen will also naturally follow.

To create what you really care for, the first and foremost thing is that what you want must be well manifested in your mind. Is that what you really want? You must look at it, because for any number of things in your life you have thought, “This is it.” The moment you reach there, you realize that it is not it – it is the next one and the next one. So, first of all you must explore what it is that you really want. Once that is clear and you are committed to creating it, now there is a continuous process of thought in that direction. Once you can maintain a steady stream of thought without changing direction, it will definitely manifest as a reality in your life.

Sadhguru Debunks the “The Law of Attraction” Myth

Questioner: How does the law of attraction really work?

Sadhguru: It does not work.

Questioner: So what works? Can you design your destiny?

Sadhguru: You can determine your destiny and you should because that is what being human means. All other creatures on this planet have compulsive cycles that they live by. It is okay for them because that is all they are capable of. Actually, if you look at your life, you are not doing anything greatly different from what the other creatures are doing. They are born – you are born. You grow up – they grow up. They reproduce – you reproduce. They die – you die. Nothing very different, but we can conduct these same simple things consciously. That is the significant thing about being human. If you conduct your hand consciously; now this hand will do what you want. If you conduct your thought consciously, it will do what you want. If your thought was doing what you want, you would keep yourself blissful, not miserable. If you are blissful, your life would not be in pursuit of happiness. These things that people think are the greatest things in their life – to be peaceful and joyful – would not mean a thing to you when you are blissful. If that happens, your entire life process will come to a total ease. Right now, you are like a crouching tiger – you always have to get something. There is nothing to get. If you sit here, your life is complete – now it is at total ease. When it is in this kind of ease, it will become perceptive. Just pursuing a profession, making money, or even being joyful or falling in love, nothing means anything to you, because the highest level of pleasantness is happening to you just sitting here.

What would you do with that life? Naturally, you would explore something that is not in your perception right now. This is how spiritual process begins; this is how you take charge of your life. If you take charge of yourself, now you are not in pursuit of your happiness; you are not tensed about anything; there is no sword hanging over your head. You will do everything to the fullest, to the hilt.

Whatever happens, you know that you will still be fine. Now you will naturally do everything wonderfully well because there is absolutely no concern, since you are not a vested interest anymore. You will do what is needed, without any effort. What someone else thinks of as a great feat, you will do it joyfully and playfully.

Guided Meditations to Manifest What You Want - Chit Shakti Meditations by Sadhguru

Using the power of the mind to create what you want in your life is called Chit Shakti. The Sadhguru App gives you access to four Chit Shakti guided meditations that will help you to manifest love, health, peace and success in your life.

Come Alive: Changing the Way You Experience Life.

Q: Sadhguru, a while ago, I used to feel an overwhelming connection with Mother Earth, and I was extremely grateful for that. Then, maybe because of lots of work and gaps in my sadhana, somewhere this intensity died down. Could you please explain what happened?

Sadhguru: No matter what comes into your life, even if it is the highest level of Grace, if you take it for granted, it will not just weaken but vanish after some time, in your experience. This is happening to people all the time, right from their birth. Look at yourself or anyone else around you – are they experiencing the bounty of what life is offering all the time? How many people are experiencing all that is beautiful around them? The air that they breathe, the water that they drink, the food that they eat – how many of them are truly enjoying it? They think there is some greater purpose other than life. They have a mission of their own.

Those who think they have a mission other than life are the kind of people who take up “God’s work” and fight with the rest of the world, because other things have become more important than life to them. They can do terrible things because of what they believe in or what they think is more important than life itself. Terrorist attacks are dastardly expressions of that, but in some way, every human being is doing it. They may not be doing it to other lives, but they are doing terrible things to their own life. They do not really experience life in any way.

For a whole lot of people, life is not just burdensome – it could be miserable or torturous. This is not because someone is physically torturing them but because they think they have something else to do on this planet, other than living. I am not talking about being alive just in a medical sense but being truly alive and in tune with everything. Being alive to everything in existence is your only business. If you stay really alive to everything, you will know the bounty of the planet, you will know the beauty of the sky, you will know what is beyond – everything will be within your perception.

If you think you have something more important to do than being alive, death will come. You may not be dead in a medical sense but dead to everything around you. If you have moved from life to death, it is time to get back to life. Death will come anyway – don’t hurry it up.