Sadhguru: One reason why
the spiritual process has become
the mainstay of recluses,
that spirituality is not for people who want to be vibrant and alive,
because generally a spiritual person means
he must be like a goat: he should eat like a goat,
he should live like a goat.
If you show any life, maybe you're not spiritual.
If life’s experience has sunk deeper than the physical,
you must be much more alive than anybody else.
But just the reverse has been propagated for a long time;
because of this, large segments of society have given up the idea of being spiritual,
because they think if they have to be spiritual, at least they must eat badly,
they must dress badly, and they must live badly.
If you want to create a situation within you
where spirituality is not something that you learn from somebody,
but something that you naturally live...
I must tell you a story. Are you okay for a story?
There were two brothers,
a father and two sons, rather.
As the sons grew up and the father got old,
he told them that he's dividing his property into two,
equally for both of them.
He had large acres of fertile land.
In those days, the question of dividing the land never arose,
it was only a question of dividing the produce.
You could only divide the produce that came out of it,
you never divide the land as such, because it was unwise to divide the land.
Today we’re paying for it: everybody owns half an acre in this country,
and nothing is productive [Laughs] because we divided the land.
So, he divided the produce of the land between his two sons equally.
One son got married, and he had five children.
The other son never got married.
So, both of them got equal quantities of grain
at the end of the year when the harvest is done.
So, the son who was married with children, who had a large family,
one day a worm got into his head;
you know, worms get into your head sometimes? Yeah?
A worm got into his head, and then he thought,
“I'm married, I have a large family; I get one portion of the grain,
and my brother, who is alone by himself,
he gets another portion of the grain.
And in a few years, my sons will grow up, and they will take care of me.
But my brother has nobody – what will he do?
He deserves more than me,” he thought.
So, in the night he filled a sack of grain,
carried it and put it in the brother’s storage.
So, whenever he felt like this, in the nights,
in secret he carried a bag of grain and put it in his brother’s grainage.
After some time, the same worm got into his brother’s head also.
He thought, “My brother has five children and a wife to support, I have nothing.
Why do I need so much? But my brother will not accept my generosity.”
So, in the night he started;
both of them, unnecessary labor was happening. [Laughs]
So, this reverse osmosis was going on for many years.
They were getting old.
One day, both the brothers carrying these bags of grain came,
and they met at one place.
They looked at each other, and they realized what's been happening.
They felt very embarrassed.
They felt very embarrassed,
and they looked the other side, and continued their activity.
So, that spot where they met and they felt very embarrassed,
they avoided that spot, because...
it reminded them of their generosity – clandestine generosity –
which put them into some discomfort.
They passed on, and after many years the town's people wanted to build a temple.
So, they were looking for a site where to build it.
Then after much searching they decided,
that spot where the brothers met in the night,
looked at each other, and felt totally embarrassed of their own generosity,
they felt that’s the best place to build the temple.
So, if you don’t create that space within you, you don’t build a temple.
If you want to live in a temple,
it's very important that you create this much space within you,
that somewhere you reach out where you don’t have to.
Somewhere you step out of your survival instincts and do something with life.
That your life is not all dedicated to instincts of survival,
you step out and do something; if that little something doesn’t happen in your life,
you don’t have a space to build temple within yourself.
No temple, no divinity – it lives a barren life.
You know how to survive, you will eat well. Yes.
You’ll eat well, but you won't live well.
You'll have everything, but you'll have nothing if you don’t have the temple within you.
So, if we want spiritual process to become a natural part of our lives,
it is not because you attend a program,
or go somewhere and listen to somebody, that you become spiritual.
You create that little space.
Divine is an orphan in this world, he's waiting for space like that constantly.
If you create such space, you don’t have to install a deity – it fills up.
If you just create that space, a deity will come and fill up by itself.
You don’t have to go inviting some deity, you don’t have to create one,
it will anyway happen.
It is because people are completely dedicated to their own survival instincts,
wherever they go, it continues.
When your whole life is dedicated to your survival...
there are two fundamental forces within you,
one dimension of you is always survival.
Just see, every aspect of your life, why you’ve done what you’ve done,
it's in pursuit of survival, isn’t it?
When I say survival, survival is on many different levels:
physical survival, psychological survival, emotional survival,
financial survival, social survival, any different varieties of survival.
But almost everything that you do is for survival, isn’t it?
Maybe even the spiritual process, because... heavenly survival,
you want to go there, and survive. [Laughs]
So, as long as the survival instinct is on,
it's very natural that you build walls and walls around yourself.
It’s very natural to do that. But there is also another dimension in you,
which is constantly wanting to be something more than what you are.
If you look at it carefully, it wants to expand in a boundless way.
So, the process of turning spiritual does not mean turning away from the world,
because your idea of the world is just the kind of impressions that you have in your mind.
Becoming spiritual means you have deepened the process of life in such a way
that it's no more a question of memory,
it is no more a question of thought and emotion,
something far deeper than that has begun to happen within you,
something else has started moving within you,
which is not of the body, or not of the mind.
Once a dimension beyond the physical and mental has become a living force within you,
then you’re spiritual; not because you believe this or that,
not because you enrolled in a program you turn spiritual,
something beyond the physical has become a living reality for you.