Fulfilling Human Potential

Many ambitious professionals spend a great amount of time developing and implementing strategies that will help them achieve greater levels of success. They opt for that impressive job title and higher pay. They strive for fame and fortune as a means of reaching what they see as their full potential.

Yet many ultimately find that, despite all their hard work and long hours spent accomplishing their goals, they never come to a place of full satisfaction and fulfillment. They still face daily frustrations with their careers and other aspects of their lives.

Maybe how we define reaching our full human potential is the problem. Sadhguru explains this possibility and how we can reach our full potential.

Sadhguru: As a human being, your only duty is that you grow to your full potential. If you grow to your full potential, your very way of being is absolutely useful. The best things will happen around you; there is no need for you to do any duty.

If you do not know how to make yourself happy, is there any possibility of you making the world a happy place to live in? If you do not know how to manage your body, mind, and emotions, can you manage the world? It is not going to happen. If you do not know how to keep yourself, you will definitely not know how to keep the world. So, don’t worry about your duty; see how to nurture yourself to the highest possible level. Then you will do what you should do.

As there is a science and technology for external wellbeing, there is a science and technology for inner wellbeing. Yoga is an inner technology. When I say yoga, don’t think in terms of impossible physical postures or twisting yourself like rubber bands. This is a deeper understanding of your own body, mind, and energy, and about creating an inner situation where you are joyful and peaceful by your own nature. Being peaceful and joyful is not the ultimate goal in life; it is the most fundamental thing in a human being’s life. If you cannot be peaceful and joyful, you are incapable of exploring any other dimension within yourself.

So, to be peaceful and joyful, we have simple methods. If you just make your life energies function in a certain way, you are naturally peaceful and joyful by your own nature. The physical in the existence is constantly under threat because the physical is always within limited boundaries – it is always demarcated. With anything which is demarcated, there is always a fear of losing it. For instance, this physical “you” is constantly under threat. No matter how healthy, strong, or young you are right now, tomorrow morning you may be dead. I am not wishing it upon you, but you may be dead, isn’t it? Because the physical is under constant threat. Nobody can avoid it.

Fear has become so fundamental simply because your experience of life has not gone beyond the physical. If we had explored and established ourselves in other dimensions of experience, the body would not be such a big issue. But if you establish yourself in other dimensions of experience, the body becomes an easy thing to handle. Life or death won’t make such a big difference.

What you refer to as “destiny” are those situations which are going on without your permission; they seem to be unfolding themselves without your intent. I know you have been told that God is making your destiny and plotting your life for you, but I think you are adult enough these days. There is no such thing as destiny. Whatever you call destiny is something you have created unconsciously.

You are doing more things unconsciously than consciously. I would say, for most average, educated, intelligent human beings, only about two percent of their life is conscious. They create an enormous amount of their life unconsciously, which leads them in so many directions.

The whole effort of all spiritual processes is to see that you create your life consciously instead of blundering through it. Once you make that effort, you will see more and more of your life becomes self-determined, not predetermined. If you have mastery over your physical body, 15 to 20 percent of your life and destiny will be in your hands. If you have mastery over your mind, 50 to 60 percent of your life and destiny will be in your hands. If you have mastery over your very life energy, 100 percent of your life and destiny will be in your hands – every moment of your life can become self-determined.