Sadhguru: Good evening. Good evening, everyone.
Suhel Seth: Good evening, Sadhguru.
Good evening ladies and gentlemen.
Sadhguru and I have known each other for some time, I was privileged to be at the ashram for a day.
Taken by him in a souped-up 1967 Suzuki Jeep, I got the year right?
Sadhguru: Toyota.
Suhel Seth: Oh, Toyota (Few laugh).
Same thing, Japanese.
And we went around, and I saw the enormous body of work that he’s doing.
All my life, I was accustomed to a different kind of spiritualism which began after 7:30 in the evening.
But for the first time I noticed how humanism, injected through a philosophy which is neutral,
except passion about life, can really impact the lives of people he and the foundation touch.
So let’s first begin with a personal…
Sadhguru: Shall I say something?
Suhel Seth: Please.
Sadhguru: Today morning, somebody called me and said,
“Sadhguru, is it true that your’re having a conversation with Suhel Seth (Few Laughs)?”
I said, “Yes.”
“Sadhguru, how can you do this?
He is the most unspiritual kind (Laughter).”
I said, “If he was really spiritual, I have no business with him (Laughter/Applause).
If he’s unspiritual, he’s my work (Applause).”
Those who are unspiritual are my work and… and the thing is,
if you want to have a conversation, they should be able to talk, and the man can talk (Laughter/Applause).
Suhel Seth: So it’s one – zero. (Laughter)
But I haven’t said in whose favor yet (Laughs), no...
Sadhguru: I said good things about you.
Suhel Seth: I know, I know, it’s a very nice way of starting, you almost muzzled the anchor before.
No but interestingly, let’s start with that,
why do I have to be publicly spiritual?
Or believe in someone, or a foundation, or a philosophy?
Isn’t spiritually something that doesn’t need definition, if privately I’m a good human being?
Sadhguru: See first of all,
people’s idea of spirituality comes from the common calendars that hang on their walls.
They think…
Generally in this country, this image has spread –
if you say I am spiritual, first question they ask is,
“What are the things you cannot do?”
So their idea of spirituality is it’s some sort of a disability.
Spirituality is not a disability, it is a tremendous empowerment.
You must be able to do more things than normal people do, if you’re spiritual.
But generally, they think spiritual means you will not be able to do anything.
I mean something as simple as – because you mentioned the car I’m saying –
people will… initially they used to say, “Oh he drives his own car, how is he a guru?”
I said, “Well if I have a chauffeur, will I become a better guru?
I drive my own car, I cook my own food, I do my own things.
Is that a wrong thing to do?”
So, this idea of what is spiritual and not spiritual
is something that I have been trying to bring proper perspective to.
There is no human being on the plant who is not spiritual in some way,
it is just that some people claim the mantle.
Suhel Seth: No. So, let’s… let’s stay with this.
If you were to define spiritualism as we know it
and I’m not talking about the misconception, which you’ve just touched upon.
How would you define spirituality?
Well, let me tell you what the flip side is.
In India, we have more gurus than we have traffic lights.
Sadhguru: Not true (Laughter).
Suhel Seth: We do.
Okay, not gurus...
Sadhguru: There are… there are more road…
Suhel Seth: God men, god men (Sadhguru laughs).
Magicians.
And there’s almost a belief, and I really want your views on this because
I’ve heard you espouse on this brilliantly earlier.
There’s almost a feeling that the man or woman must subjugate, bow down,
and it’s another kind of dependency that is created.
So what in your mind is the essence of spiritualism?
Sadhguru: I will leave the word “spiritualism”, because I don’t know what that is.
Spirituality essentially means
that you have strived to make your experience of life beyond the realm of the physical.
For you, what is beyond the physical is a living experience, it’s not a belief.
When you’re in pursuit of this, your condition is this - that you are a seeker, you are not a believer.
Because belief essentially means you have concretized your assumptions about life and beyond.
Seeking means you have realized that you do not know.
“I do not know” is a tremendous possibility.
Only when you see “I do not know,” the possibility of knowing becomes a living reality for you.
Seeking, longing, wanting to know – this becomes a possibility.
So spirituality essentially means
either you have reached a place where your experience of life is beyond your physical nature,
you’re able to touch that which is beyond physical.
Or you’re in a state where you are seeking
that means you have admitted your ignorance about the nature of this existence and your own existence.
Suhel Seth: Do you believe that sometimes
our insecurities or our egos prevent us from admitting to our insecurities, and that we need the quest?
Sadhguru: I said I don’t… I said I’m not for belief (Laughs).
Suhel Seth: Well, you know, in a manner, people will…
Sadhguru: No. No, no, I’m… I know,
it’s become so much a part of our daily language
– I believe this, I believe that, then I believe other things, everything.
So I’m trying to banish the word belief.
What you know, you know.
What you do not know, you do not know.
What’s the problem with this?
What I know, I know.
What I do not know, I do not know.
It’s wonderful and human of us to see, what we do not know as we do not know.
Unless we see that, we will never strive to know.
So when it comes to this, about people not admitting their ignorance –
because I think it is the nature of education,
it is the way we’ve been conducting lots of things,
where ignorance is considered a bad thing.
Ignorance is a borderless thing, okay.
Ignorance is a borderless reality.
What you are yet to know is a limitless possibility.
What you know is a tiny little thing.
So you are identifying with the tiny little thing that you know
and you’re ignoring an immense possibility which you do not know.
A constant admittance that I do not know so much about this existence,
is what makes you into an active, open intelligence.
Otherwise you will become… there are words, which I don’t want to use (Laughter).
Suhel Seth: Over time, we’ve seen more and more spiritual movements take shape in our country,
in countries elsewhere.
We’ve seen more and more people across strata, across income, across education, actually take to this path.
Why do think that’s happened?
Sadhguru: See, this is a fundamental human longing.
This can never be put down.
This is…
Wherever you are, as a human being, you want to be something more.
That something more happens, you want to be something more.
This is an endless thing.
If I make you the king of this planet...
I will not, okay? (Laughs)
Suhel Seth: No, neither will I become (Laughter).
Sadhguru: So, even if you’re made the king of this planet, you will naturally look at the stars.
This is the nature of human intelligence.
You cannot…
I mean people think spirituality means to be content with what you have.
Contentment is containment.
That is not the nature of human intelligence.
Human intelligence does not want more, it wants all.
All cannot be had physically.
Unless you transcend the physical nature, you cannot have all of it.
This longing may not find conscious expression in most people
but generally, we say, if it finds physical expression –
simple, basic physical expression – we call this sexuality.
What you’re trying to do is, what is not you, you’re trying to make it a part of you.
If it finds a mental expression, it gets labeled as conquest, greed, hmm… or simply shopping (Laughs),
whatever you want to call it (Laughs).
If it finds an emotional expression, you will call it love, compassion.
But if it finds a conscious expression,
generally in this country, technically, we call it “yoga”
because the word “yoga” means what is you and what is universal has become one.
The word “yoga” does not mean twisting your body or whatever else.
It means your experience of life has become one with the existence, or the normal English term is spirituality.