Saguru
Sadhguru corrects a common misconception that spirituality is about finding oneself. In fact, it's the opposite.
Sadhguru: The word "seek" tends to create misconceptions in people's minds. When we say "search," we mean we are trying to find. Seeking and finding are linguistically related. But when it comes to spiritual processes, they are not related. The seeker is not trying to find anything—especially not anything specific. Because I don't know, I search. For most spiritual seekers, this fundamental correction is required.
The idea or idea that one must find the meaning, source, or purpose of life has caused great harm to spiritual seekers, plunging them into an empty and endless process. The ignorant constantly drive spiritual seekers to find themselves in some way. Maybe starting out on this path requires a fruit to attract you, because only temptation works for you – so something needs to be set up. Yet spirituality is not about finding itself, it is about losing itself. You are willing to lose everything you call "myself."
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > ultimate ablation</h1>
It would be great if one could just sit and forget oneself in meditation. If something like this is unlikely to happen, play a game or dance and let yourself melt away. If you can't do it yet, let yourself melt into the work. It doesn't matter what you do, first learn to dissolve yourself in a way.
If you try to find yourself, you will be caught in an endless process. Human beings are constantly eager to be a little more than their current selves. If he only knows money, he wants a little more money; if he knows power, he wants a little more power; if he knows love, he wants a little more love. There is always something within a man that is not satisfied with what he is. Whichever way you know best, you're trying to do a little more because something within you doesn't like boundaries and is always looking for infinite experiences. Imagine if you needed to find infinity, when, how long would it take you, and where would you find it? It will be an endless process. However, you can lose yourself. It's easy because you're a finite being. If you lose yourself completely, everything that needs to be found, is found.
Whatever aspect of life, [losing yourself] needs to be in an "open" state: through your work, activities, and many other things, see how to lose yourself, not how to build yourself. A person who thinks he has somehow established himself is a lost person. When you feel more and more stable, you naturally become more insecure. Have you ever noticed that the more orderly your life becomes, the more insecure you become? When you were a kid with nothing, you had a good time. Then, when you're young, even if you don't have anything, you can still hang around in torn jeans and not feel like a big problem. But as life becomes more orderly, you have more things, and with a family, children, bank deposits, possessions, you will find yourself becoming more and more insecure.
Most people are always trying to be amazing. Look at the way the body is constructed, look at its ingenuity — whatever you give the body, whether it's a banana, an apple, or a peanut, the body will turn it into what it wants. Give it whatever you want and it will only create one person. It has such wisdom and ingenuity that it is now trapping yourself. The flesh is a possibility and a trap. You can only call this place home if you have the freedom to come and go. If you go into your own house and you can't get out, it's prison. That's what's happening now.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > intrinsic work</h1>
If you try to lose yourself and don't see yourself as important, you won't be stuck in the house anymore. You start to function and experience something that goes beyond this [physical] level. Slowly, as the walls of this home become more and more loose and porous, it is possible for you to transcend the flesh. But if you're going to lose yourself, it's definitely inner work. If I try to poke a hole in you, it will hurt and I may still be in trouble. So it has to be internal work — there is external aid, but it has to be internal work.
If you want to lose yourself, the most fundamental thing is your likes and dislikes. Everything else is based on this. Most people's personalities are simply based on what they like and hate. I often hear statements like this in the United States, where people say, "I'm a person who likes to drink coffee," "I'm a person who likes to drink green tea," "I'm a person who likes to drink beer." Essentially, your personality is your likes and dislikes. If you like something, it will be positively exaggerated in your mind. If you don't like something, it's negatively exaggerated.
Once you start the process, if you have a sense of exaggeration within you, we'll say you have personality. If you have a strong sense of likes and dislikes, we would say you have a strong personality. If you have extreme likes and dislikes, we would say you are a tyrant. If your likes and dislikes reach an abnormal level, we'll call you crazy. But even if you take the first step, you have to know that you are crazy – just not strong enough to be discovered, but you are a hidden lunatic! You start the process. Maybe you'll spend your whole life trying to regulate and control it, maybe you'll lose control of it, depending on what life throws at you.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > try this simple exercise</h1>
I want you to try this simple exercise. Find three things you like and three things you hate. Maybe the stuff you hate is people – don't get them over! Get their pictures. Now look at what you like, if you want, you can hate it. You hate things, and you can actually like them if you want to. The only thing needed is exaggeration. You can swap what you like for something you hate, and what you hate for something you like. But you'll be back in the same state again – it's just that you like different things and hate different things.
Do such an experiment because it is very important that you understand that all your likes and dislikes are not real. You're just making it up in your head, "I like this, I hate this." "Even poison tastes good whenever you like!" Do this a few times – today you like this, tomorrow you don't like it. You like something, hate it for a day, you hate something, like it for a day. Continue switching. After a while, you know you've been playing a stupid game and ruining yourself. Don't do this to yourself.
Do you want to play your stupid drama in your head for the rest of your life, or do you want to understand this life and experience it, or at least be touched by this life? This is the reason for life to exist, to make it happen with full power, to bloom with full possibility. Life is not for you to put on your own drama. This is not your stage. This creation is a stage for the source of creation to dance freely. Life gives you a little freedom to do little things, but don't start thinking that these are true and crying to death. It's not your drama. Simply allowing this cosmic drama to touch you is the meaning of life.