we’ll pick Rama as an example because Rama is a big icon in India.
See, he’s born as a king, and he’s coronated as a king.
But because of some crazy situations,
he’s forced to go and live in the jungle with his new bride, a young woman he marries.
She is a princess, she’s made to live in the palace.
But now, with this young woman, he goes and lives in the jungle.
So today, in some stupid movie, you may they may show you scenes of how she is floating around in the jungle no.
You go and live in the jungle (Gestures) (Laughter/Applause).
However pretty you think you are right now, one month you go live in the jungle (Laughter),
we can’t recognize you after that (Laughter).
So this princess, forced to live in the jungle, and fortunately his brother follows him.
Knowing the difficulties that they may face, he leaves his own family, goes there to serve his brother and his sister-in-law.
I was touring Andhra Pradesh just ten days ago ten-fifteen days ago, I’m in a small town.
one fourteen-year-old school girl stands up and says,
“Sadhguru, how is it possible that Sita gets kidnapped and taken to Sri Lanka, and Rama walks all the way from Ayodhya to Sri Lanka".
How is it possible? Is it true” (Laughter)?
Then I asked her, “See, you are still a young girl. One day, you will find a man.
When you find a man, would you like to find a man
that if you get lost somewhere, he will walk all the way (Laughter),
or he thinks it’s not practical (Laughter/Applause).
and find a girl next door? What would you like?”
Even the fourteen-year-old girl knows she wants a man who’ll walk all the way.
So, then he went there, collected some Tamil people,
built an army (Laughter) – yeah, yeah, it’s a Tamil army (Laughter)
then fought a battle, went to Sri Lanka, burned down the entire city, brought back his wife, with great difficulty.
In the process, he lost many people, who were dear to him, but he brought back his wife.
But political pressure became so much, he had to put her through kind of a fire test – whatever – of the day.
Then he made her his queen and started ruling the nation.
Again some political situations forced him She was pregnant.
At that time, he had to again send her back to the jungle.
No sonogram (Laughter),
so he does not know whether it’s a boy, or a girl, or boys, or girls, what.
She goes into the forest and delivers two boys - twins.
Unknowingly not knowing that they are his children, he fights a battle with them.
He could have killed them, not knowing they’re his children.
If you somehow, so happened by accident, you killed your own children –
can’t be a worse tragedy in your life, isn’t it? Terrible thing to do.
He almost got close to it, he… almost killed them.
But fortunately, they did not die in the battle.
And then she died in the jungle, never again saw his face.
You call this a successful life (Laughter)? I’m asking you (Laughs).
You call this a successful life?
No,
but we worship him, not because he was a super success of the day.
Any one of these events happened in your life, most people would be broken, bitter for the rest of their life.
No matter what happened, he never became bitter, he never became angry, he never became hateful.
He took all the action that he had to take, he fought battles, but never got angry,
never became hateful, never became bitter in his life.
Though what life threw at him was one tragedy after another, he remained above it, and we worship that (Applause)
because essentially essentially in your life, this is all it is.
What the world will throw at you, it is not hundred percent your choice.
To some extent, we can control, that’s about it.
World may throw anything at you, we don’t know what it will throw at you.
It may throw disease at you, it may throw death at you, it may throw bullets at you, it may throw shame at you,
it may throw all kinds of things.
But what you make out of it is hundred percent yours.
Now, this one thing, if you take charge – no matter what world throws at you,
you will turn it into your well-being – then where you go, what kind of situations you live, whether you go to heaven or hell,
doesn’t matter because whatever is thrown at you, you know you will turn it into well-being.
This quality is what we are worshipping.
This quality is what is worth worshipping because this is true with every one of us.
If world throws nastiness, you will become nasty. World throws bitterness, you will become bitter.
World throws anger, you will become angry.
This is the way most human beings live.
Because he lived above that, we said he is God-like.
But what happened in their life, the physical events of their life, if you look at it, it’s one big tragedy.
At the age of thirty-two, you got nailed, had a terrible death.
You call that a successful life? No.
But we bow down to him, because it seems – we don’t know, but we believe,
or people have believed always – that even when he was nailed,
he said, “They know not what they are doing, forgive them.” For that, we bow down to him.
Not because he got nailed, because getting nailed is not a successful life, isn’t it?
But even if you nail him, he did not lose his quality.
For that, we bow down. So that’s all that matters to us (Applause),
whether they existed or not, that they are an inspiration for you.
Whether everything that’s said about them is true or not, even this is not your problem.
You’re not a historian (Few laugh), all right?
You just need some icon to move towards a better way of existing for yourself, that’s all.
What does it matter?
Krishna did not exist, Jesus did not exist – what does it matter to you?
2000 years ago, whether a man lived or did not live, or it’s just a figment of somebody’s imagination –
what does it matter? It is the quality that matters, isn’t it?
We recognize these qualities as great qualities.
In some way, trying to emulate them,
to whatever extent one can – that’s what we’re looking at.