Sadhguru: There is only one thing that is of immense value in your
life that is still with you; without going to office you can still
make your livelihood. When you need more power, you need to supercharge yourself.
This is why a human being has been invested with a certain level of intelligence.
Questioner: This question is from Divya in Chennai. Namaskaram Sadhguru,
I lost my job this week and I'm finding it very difficult to come to terms with it.
I worked with total involvement and was doing very well.
Losing all that I worked really hard for over the last twelve years
is already immensely painful. I understand the situation
but how do I accept the quantum of loss,
taking not only my past, but also mine and my family's future away?
Sadhguru: Namaskaram Divya. You must listen to me carefully because,
in your present condition when you're a little distraught,
you could easily misunderstand or misinterpret what I say.
There are choices in life but sometimes the choices are like this
Shankaran Pillai's wife was delivering their third child.
He had two daughters. He was hell-bent
that the third one must be a boy, tch (Laughs). It's an Indian problem, okay?
But the doctor came out and said, "It's a girl."
Shankaran Pillai was distraught. The doctor tried to console him,
"It's all right. It's a girl, but she could be a tomboy (Laughter)."
Then Shankaran Pillai said, "No doctor, it's okay.
Anyway, my second choice was a girl (Laughter)."
Sometimes in life choices are like this (Laughs).
So, twelve years of hard work – I'm not saying this to belittle whatever
problems that you may face, but hard work – twelve years hard labor you've been released.
Some celebration must happen for that. But
my salary, my money, my bills, my rent, children's school fees – yes,
these are there. But because we are commemorating
this week about World War I, compared to what people went through in terms of wars,
in terms of famines, in terms of massive cyclones,
earthquakes in various geographies, different things – compared to all that
this pandemic is a softball.
Because this... the result or the impact of this upon your life
will largely depend on your response.
In those situations people had no choice, it just happened to them.
Somebody decided there needs to be a war. Everybody else are just
plain victims, they have no choice; they just have to die.
Well, the whole world,
including you and me, have economic problems right now,
but our economic problems are such, whether it's pandemic
or stock market collapse or recession, it inevitably has to happen because
we're in an economic mode where it's always about more, more and more.
Somewhere some alignment will happen.
This may sound like a very cruel thing to say when you've just lost your job,
but I want you to understand… my father was saying this.
He is a qualified physician. He started his career in a
tuberculosis sanatorium in Mysore. It was his commitment
that at least for a year or two he will work in a tuberculosis sanatorium
because his mother died of tuberculosis when he was just four-and-a-half years of age or
five years of age, at the most – four-and-a-half I think. So, he was committed,
“When I become a doctor, I will serve in a sanatorium,”
and this sanatorium somehow it got organized that
later on when he built a home for his family,
it happened to be very close within a couple of kilometers, even today.
So, he joined for a salary of fifty rupees. Fifty rupees,
I'm telling you fifty five, zero fifty rupees. That is less than a dollar in today's world.
A qualified physician (Laughs), academically very up there.
Then, by the time he retired as a senior medical officer,
a chief medical officer or something like that in the Indian Railways,
he was getting 14,500 rupees. This week also
is one year after he passed away, on 8th of November. As a terrible son that I am,
I was not there. I had told him I won't be there because
I had commitments.Well,
so when my nephew, my sister's son joined up in a IT company a few years ago,
he started with some 35,000 rupee salary. My father just looked at him and said,
"You fool! Are you... Good for nothing you are,
you! they're giving you 35,000, I retired with 14,500 (Laughs)."
So I'm saying compared to previous generations, how much more we have,
how much more. So if we have to cut down our lives by ten, twenty percent,
let's not cry too much.
Your fathers, your grandfathers, maybe it might have been physically a little harder,
but they didn't live a bad life. They lived well in their own way.
So if we have to roll back a little bit, at least understand you're doing a
great ecological service. Economy has slowed down.
Yes, there is a lot of pain because of adjustment that we have to do with our lives.
It's not just for you Divya, for all of us, for everyone in the world.
Nobody is spared, that things have to roll back.
Well, maybe nobody is spared is a wrong thing to say because certain types of
businesses are flourishing, stock market is booming (Laughs).
So maybe somebody is benefiting; that's a good thing.
Let's not resent that. But a whole lot of people
they have to cut down their life. Well, this has been the preachings of various
ecological activists that you need to cut back. It's happening.
“Well, how do my children go to school? How do I manage my home?
How do I manage this? How do I pay the bank loan?”
There are problems. I'm not saying there are no problems. There are problems.
But the most important thing is that you’re alive, your family is alive,
people that matter to you are alive. Keep it that way because that's the most precious thing.
And don't get into this mode, "Oh, I've lost my job. I lost everything."
You have not lost everything. There's only one thing that is of
immense value in your life, that is your life itself, so that is still with you.
Some accessories will be lost, maybe you will realize some new talent
that without going to office you can still make your livelihood.
See this virus made me a painter. Hello? I'm raising funds for the foundation
and its various projects through my paintings. Whoever believed
that I would become a painter. I never imagined. I just put my hand to it and it works.
So this is a time to innovate. This is a time to explore.
This is a time to enhance who we are.
This is a time also to cut down our expenses, limit our excesses,
and bring our life to some sense. So,
this loss of job, don't make it too distressing, no need to become distraught.
There is a second choice, you know (Laughs), it...
there are various ways that you can do some enterprise.
What kind of enterprise? We don't know. It may work, it may not work.
Essentially, you're not struggling with life,
your mind is struggling with the uncertainty of not having a job.
Shankaran Pillai, in the month of December,
bought up over 100,000 calendars, 2020 calendars, for
three cents apiece – 100,000 calendars in the month of December.
So people said, "What are you going to do with this? The year is almost over.
What will you do with this?" He said, "Ah, you don't worry,
just in case it comes back, I will make a whole lot of money." Like this,
we have lots of expectations. Some expectations crash,
it's not really a bad thing. Yes! Some expectations crash,
not a bad thing at all. "Oh, Sadhguru, it's easy for you to talk,
maybe, dadada, everything is great for you." No!
You just have the responsibility of three to four people on your hands
and you're worrying your head out. I have the responsibility of thousands of people,
millions actually. We've committed to the farmers that we will do certain things.
We're not going to go back on that. We will fulfil that.
Well, it's going to be much harder, much more work.
But will we do hard work? No! We will key up our joyfulness.
We will key... key up our energies, so that,
you know, when you need more power, you need to supercharge yourself.
That's what we will do. We will not go back on our commitments,
nor should you. Whatever commitments you have of family, children,
anything else if you have, you should not go back on that. You must see how.
This is why a human being has been invested with a certain level of intelligence
time to exercise that, not to set into an automatic mode,
“I got a job, so I don't have to think anymore, just have to go there and come back,
my life is taken care of.” No!
That's not the way to live. Survival is not the end game for a human being.
Survival has to be taken care of, that's all, but that's not the end game.
Here, I have thousands of young people, volunteers,
who are doing things in their life which is not about themselves.
It's not about their survival because I've infused them
with a certain sense of madness, that they don't have to worry about their survival.
Because if you're really concerned about everybody's well-being,
you don't have to worry about your survival, world will take care of you to whatever extent.
If you are not particular how you survive... No, no,
most of the time the problem is you want to survive better than your neighbor, tch.
Because of that, it's an endless problem. In this competition
of trying to be better than everybody else or somebody else,
how many silly things human beings are doing, is unbelievable.
Well, your activity should match
with the situation. Do not ever expect
the situation should be frozen, always like this, always you have a job,
always this is going to happen. No,
your activity should match the situations in which you exist.
This happened. Three ladies were discussing
about what to wear for the evening party that they were going to.
Then one of them said, “No, no, that you can't wear what you want.
You are required to wear something the same color
as your husband's hair.” Then one said, “Okay, I have a black suit, no problem.
I'm going to wear that.” The other one said, “Oh,
I think I have to go and shop. I don't have a gray dress.
I have to go and get it. I need to go and get a salt and pepper kind of dress.”
The other one looked distraught and said, “Oh my god. I'm not coming (Laughter).”