The end-of-the-year holiday season is full of celebrations and various traditions. Along with Bodhi Day, Christmas, Hanukkah, Pancha Ganapati and Kwanzaa is New Year’s Eve. Traditionally, the change from the old year to the new year is celebrated at midnight with a champagne toast; however, many people gather for parties and social events for hours before ringing in the time change.
Many social events often involve the consumption of alcohol and other drugs. Some people state that they consume alcohol because it lowers inhibitions and allows them to relax. However, it comes with serious side effects. Alcohol poisoning is a serious problem, but other dangers include poor decision-making, memory impairment and other health problems.
AAA statistics of traffic patterns around the holidays indicates that 95 million Americans are driving on or about the times of Christmas and New Year’s Day every year. Since so many people use their own vehicles to get them to and from events with friends and family, the risk of being in a car accident increases. Added to this precarious time period is the increased number of drunk drivers.
Sadhguru offers us a better way to celebrate.
Sadhguru: “Every human experience is backed by a chemical basis. People try to put in chemicals either in the form of drugs or drink or whichever way, to manipulate their chemistry into a pleasant experience. If all you are seeking is a little bit of pleasure, I am not against it. But if you are a pleasure seeker, wouldn’t you be interested if you were given an opportunity to have a much bigger pleasure? If you could learn to be drunk all the time and fully alert, wouldn’t you be interested?
I don’t think there is anything wrong with alcohol, I am ignoring it because it doesn’t have enough kick in it. I am constantly drunk on something else – simply drunk on life. I can get intoxicated on just my inhalation and exhalation. People have fallen for alcohol because that is the biggest thing that they have seen. I am offering them a different drink, a drink which is much more intoxicating than alcohol. Most people who have tasted this with me have given up alcohol, not because they think it is bad, but because they think it is kindergarten stuff. They have grown beyond it.
The question is not about wrong or right. This is not a moral standpoint. It is just that it is very limited. You drink a little bit tonight and tomorrow morning you get a big hangover. But I can be drunk twenty-four hours of the day – no hangover, it doesn’t cost anything, and it’s good for health! Isn’t this a better way to drink? We look at alcohol, drugs and all these things as kindergarten stuff because we can get intoxicated a thousand times over just with our aliveness. Why simply wine? You can get drunk with the di-vine.
When I say “Inner Engineering”, I am talking about a technology where you can create a chemistry of ecstasy all the time, consciously. Right now it is happening accidentally, triggered by somebody. Whatever you can do unconsciously – by looking at the sunset, or by looking at your loved one – you can also do consciously. That is the basis of Inner Engineering.
Within you, you have experienced peace and turmoil, joy and misery, ecstasy and agony. So you are capable of all these things. But right now you are conducting this whole experience and chemistry unconsciously. You can also conduct it consciously. That is the whole effort of all spiritual processes – to see that you create your life consciously instead of blundering through it by creating it unconsciously.”
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