Sadhguru: They were in the concentration camp in Germany at that time, World War II,
and they come and call numbers.
Those numbers are going to the gas chamber.
There is a young man, his number is called.
The guy is terrified.
A rabbi came up to him and said, “Son, don’t, don’t fear this like this.”
A few days later the war ended and this man lived.
Sadhguru chants Asatoma Sadgamaya...
There’s a very beautiful incident that happened.
There’s a guy who you know, who wrote about it later.
They were in the concentration camp in Germany at that time, World War II,
and every day they come out, they come and call numbers.
Those numbers are going to the gas chamber.
So when they call out numbers, people hide under the...
this, that, they’ll be dragged, beaten and taken.
It’s a horrible thing.
So you don’t know, tomorrow your numbers may be called.
Every day they live in terror, “Tomorrow it could be my number.”
Because they have a certain capacity for the gas chamber,
they can only take that many numbers per day.
And also for the world, they don’t want to look like a whole concentration camp died in one day.
They died slowly out of sickness and illness and this and that.
So every day, fifteen, twenty numbers will be called, and they have to go.
So one day,
there is a young man, his number is called.
The guy is terrified, he doesn’t want to go.
He’s shivering and crying and…
A rabbi came up to him and said, “Son, don’t, don’t fear this like this.”
And he took off his shirt, gave it to him, “You wear my shirt with my number, I’ll wear yours.”
In that fear and that overwhelmed with the possibility of death,
he took out his shirt and gave it to him.
The rabbi wore the shirt and went.
He went to the gas chambers.
A few days later the war ended and this man lived.
And you know, somebody actually wore your shirt and went.
He could have lived
and this fellow, his whole life was transformed because of this,
that this rabbi actually walked to death knowing fully well where he’s going, no chance.
When a man is like this, for him attaining is no problem.
He doesn’t have to go and die in the gas chamber, but just being like this,
that I’m willing to keep myself aside and do what’s needed right now;
just very casually, no big fanfare about it.
Now, for this man knowing the ultimate is not far away, it is very simple.
Gautama said, "When you are really hungry, when you badly need food,
if you give away your food to somebody else, you will become stronger, not weaker."
No logical human being would accept such nonsense.
But it's hundred percent truth.
If you know how to give away that which matters most to you at a certain moment,
it leaves you enormously capable, enormously strong, not weak.
To have that strength to give away what matters to you is not a small strength;
it’s a tremendous strength, isn’t it?
To give away things which don’t matter to you, that means nothing.
To give away that which matters most to you is everything, isn’t it?
Right now, what matters most to you is ‘yourself’ of course, isn’t it?
You say, "No, no, no, my child, my husband, my wife…"
It’s not true, what matters most to you is yourself, isn’t it?
If you can give yourself up…
If you can just throw yourself into something,
not because it is going to buy you a ticket to heaven,
not because you will realize mukti out of it, not because of anything; simply to give away.
You know, Ramana said, “Atma Gnanam Athi Sulabam”
– knowing the ultimate, self-knowledge is the easiest thing.
It is, if you know how to keep yourself aside.
When we make an attempt to break the threshold of where we are, it can lead to lots of confusion.
For those aspects for which you have no answers, I will answer,
just deepen the question.
Just make the question very intense within you, I will take care of the answer.