Never look up to anybody, never look down on anybody.
just learn to look at life for what it is
you will effortlessly navigate through your life
Superscript: Is There a Need to be Humble?
Moderator : Sadhguru all through school and college
we are taught to give importance to ourselves, self-love, self-confidence, self-esteem.
Sadhguru: What is this self-love? What’s happening in your school?
Moderator: In society I mean in general.
They teach us to give importance to ourself to such an extent that we no longer know how to be humble,
so can you please tell us how we can become humble again?
Sadhguru: Oh! See there is no need to be humble or there is a need to be arrogant.
Now that you are asking me this question, let me tell you.
My daughter travelled with me,
alone with me in the car when she was three-and-a-half months old.
I drove all over the country with this little baby in the car. So she grew up in many people’s homes.
I made one rule because everybody, this is the problem with adults. When they see a child,
they pounce on them like… like predatory animals. They want to teach something.
It is such a everybody want to teach one, two, three, four or A B C D or Mary had a little… little lamb.
I said, “See, I don’t want her to know A B C, one, two, three nor do I care whether Mary had a lamb or not”.
So one rule is you can play with her, nobody is going to teach her anything. So she grew up happy.
By the time she is eighteen months, she was fluently speaking three languages.
Because nobody taught her anything, she is listening.
She is not chanting “Mary had a little lamb”.
No rhymes, no language, no mathematics, simply life.
I thought I will never send her to school but only reason was because you know her age group is important.
So she went to school and when she was around twelve years of age, she came home one day little disturbed
about what happened in the school.
Then she said, “You are teaching everybody so many things, you are not teaching me anything.”
I said, “See, I am not known to do things unsolicited. Now that you have come let’s see.”
See this is all you have to know, “Never look down on anybody, never look up to anybody.”
And she looked at me like this. What about you, kind of thing.
I said, “Not even me”.
If you look upto me, you will completely miss who I am.
If you look up to me, probably you will make a picture and nail me to your wall.
But you will miss the whole point of who I am.
You must look at me as I am. Not looking up. Never look up to anybody, never look down on anybody.
This looks very simple, but try it and see.
In your mind you have decided what is good, what is bad,
what is high, what is low, what is virtue, what is sin, what is filth, what is wealth, everything.
Everything is already determined.
Once you have done this, there is no way.
You cannot look up at something or look down on something.
What you think is bad, you will look down, what you think is good, you will look up.
If you remove this and just learn to look at life for what it is, you will effortlessly navigate through your life,
effortlessly.
Right now, this is the problem.
You are looking up to some people, looking down on some people and trying to be humble with them.
There is no need to be humble.
Treat everybody as rough as you treat yourself. That is if you treating yourself rough.
If you are pandering to yourself try with others.
Then you will get tired, then you will treat them rough anyway.
Yes.
So this is simple. I am telling you the same thing what I told her. It worked miraculously for her.
Never look up to anybody, never look down at anybody. Just see everything the way it is.
This is the fundamental of this culture.
If you go to the temple, what do you do?
Hi hmm?
What do you do?
If you ever go to a temple what do you do? Namaskaram.
If you see a man, what do you do? Namaskaram.
You see a women, what do you do? Namaskaram.
You see a tree, what do you do? Namaskaram.
You see a rock, what do you do? Namaskaram.
A cow, snake, donkey, monkey. Everybody Namaskaram.
Because fundamentally this is what it means. This is called Vairagya.
Vairagya does not mean giving up your life and going somewhere. There is nowhere to go.
Unless you go with that guy outer space they are going to send you out with a one way ticket, I believe.
Otherwise where is there to go? Wherever you go it is still life, isn’t it? So Vairagya means this.
Literally means Vairagya means beyond color. It means you have become transparent.
If you are transparent every dimension of life can pass through you. But leaves you untouched.
You can handle life to the extent you wish. What you can handle you handle,
what you cannot handle you don’t.
But in your life, if you do not do what you cannot do, that’s not an issue.
But if you do not do what you can do, you’re a disaster.
The moment you think something is good, something is bad, somebody is high, somebody is low.
Many, many things that you can do, you will not do in your life. Simply because you think it is bad.
Simply because you think it is low or high or whatever nonsense.
So in our lives this is what is most important because it’s a brief life.
It’s a limited amount of time for the human potential to flower.
In this life, here if you are choosing what to do and what not to do? No. Everything that you can do must happen.
What you cannot do, it doesn’t happen, it’s okay. (Applause)