Sadhguru: Role of yoga in spirituality

A GROUP of students were once raising funds for some community work and they happened to knock on a particular door in the neighborhood. An 88-year-old lady opened the door. She asked them in and they explained the work they were doing for the community. They told her the different options they had through which she could contribute to their work. Then they said, “You can make a pledge for the next three years; you don’t have to pay it all up front.” She said “At my age, I don’t even buy unripe bananas. Making a pledge for three years? No way!”

 A person on the spiritual path should be like this – you don’t even have time to buy unripe bananas; you have got to be in a hurry. Once a little laxity comes, it will take a lifetime. If you are in a hurry, it is very quick. 

 In your life, there may have been certain moments of extreme intensity and ecstatic states within you. Just imagine life like this – whatever is the peak experience that you have touched in your life, not necessarily in yoga but anywhere in your life, if you could stay there constantly every moment of your life, do you see how free you would be from the many little things which nag you and pull and push you all the time? You may not have touched the highest peak, but whatever peak you may have touched, even at that peak if you lived, you would be free from so many things that bother you on a daily basis. Nothing would really be a problem in this world.  

Right now, it is just in a few moments here and there that something really worthwhile has happened. The rest of the time, we have given ourselves to simple processes of the body. The body knows only two things – self-preservation and procreation. It does not know anything else. But if you reorganized the energy in this body, this same body can be transformed in such a way, that it can function like the divine. When I say divine, I am not talking about you as a being. I am just talking about the body itself. The physical body itself can be transformed into a divine entity if we reorganize our systems in a particular way. 

 The whole system of yoga is oriented towards this. Gradually, if you give it sufficient attention and practice, you will see that this body is no longer just a physical entity. 

 It can function and operate in a completely different dimension. Its very presence can become different. 

 So, once these energies begin to transform themselves, certain changes will happen. The problem with people is that they are always aspiring for something to happen to their life. They are bored with what is there. But if anything new happens, they have a fear about it. This is like wanting to drive your car with the hand brake on – it does not work like that. If you want to drive, you must take off the brake. If you don’t want to drive, you should not get into the car at all. 

 It needs a little steady application, where it is a continuous steady rise, so that in a couple of months or a year, you should find a significant difference in the way you are. You must keep at it steadily. Twenty-four hours your spirituality should be on. What does spirituality being “ON” mean? 

 “Does it mean I can’t go to the office? I can’t be with the family?” You must make everything into a spiritual process. Talking to somebody, working in the office, every single activity, every breath that you take - if you make it into a spiritual process, you will see within a few months, you will be in a completely different space where your presence will be cherished in the world – not just by human beings, every other being will respond. Even animals and plants will respond to you in a wonderful way. You just have to keep it going. If it is off and on, off and on, it will take lifetimes.