Go Beyond New Year’s Resolutions and Create What You Care For

A New Year’s resolution is a tradition, commonly practiced in the Western Hemisphere, but also found in the Eastern Hemisphere, in which a person resolves to change an undesirable trait or behavior or to accomplish a personal goal in the coming new year.  This tradition started when the Babylonians, at the beginning of each new year, made promises to their gods that they would return borrowed objects and pay their debts. The Romans continued this tradition by making promises to the god Janus, for whom the month of January is named.

Many people today might indulge in making New Year’s resolutions, but most people fail to see them through, either because their goal is too big or their resolution to do so is too small or inconsistent.  Sometimes it is just a party game and, after the New Year’s celebration, not even taken seriously.

Sadhguru offers a different perspective on an old tradition.

Sadhguru: “In this vast existence, there is no such thing as “Old Year” and “New Year”. These are all demarcations that we as human beings have made. Why we have made these demarcations is because we need some measure to our life, some guide, some milestone to tell us whether we are going forward or backward. Now I am this many years old – have I moved forward, have I moved backward? So, this is once again a new year, this is time for you to measure, in the last one year have you moved forward as a human being? Maybe your business has gone forward, maybe you made more money, you got your daughter married – that’s not the issue. Have you become a little better human being in one year’s time? So, for the coming year, for the New Year what are you going to do? You make up your mind, what you are going to do. Some marker to tell you that in one year’s time you will be a much better human being than you are right now. More joyful, more peaceful, more loving – a better human being in every possible way. This is something that you have to decide.

If you feel the world around you – when I say the world, I mean the human part of the world around you – you will see your experience is a cacophony of voices, thoughts and emotions. These voices, thoughts and emotions are all an outpouring of confusions of many different levels and states. With a very distorted perception of the current reality, these voices, thoughts and emotions are formed and expressed. When man is in this level of confusion, when he is subjugated by the misconceptions of reality around him, the pain and suffering that he creates for himself and the people around him is very unfortunate.

We are always trying to create our life based on the current reality that exists around us at this moment. This moment whatever may be with us is not the point. Where we want to go tomorrow need not be connected to where we are right now. What we want as the highest in life, it need not have anything to do with our present situation. If we enslave our visions to current situations, then it is once again settling for what is attainable, what is easy, what you think is possible. It is not in terms of thinking what is possible or not possible. It is just in terms of seeing what is your vision, what is the highest that you can seek in your life.

If man has a vision of what he wishes to do with himself and the world around him, it is not beyond his capacity to create it. It may happen in this lifetime, it may take a couple of lifetimes but what we want will definitely come. For that person, for whom his vision of life is clear to him and he just seeks it every moment of his life, the highest things will come and fall at his feet. It is only because man is a bundle of confusion, it is only because man is most of the time seeking what he doesn’t want – things that he really wants never come to him. This lack of vision and will in his life is fundamentally because of a distorted understanding of the world around us.

What you know as the highest, you just seek that. It doesn’t matter whether it is going to happen or not, simply living with that vision itself is very elevating, is itself very liberating, is itself a very joyous process for any person. Whether it is going to happen tomorrow or after hundred years is not the point. But you have a vision and you are not concerned about whether it is possible or not possible. You are not concerned whether it is easy or difficult, you are not concerned whether it is attainable or non-attainable, or in other words, you are not concerned about the result in the end. It is just that you have a vision and you give your life towards it. This is one of the easiest ways to attain the highest also – to simply give yourself to what you want, not caring whether it is going to happen or not. It is a spiritual process by itself.

Vision is an important way of transcending limitations within and outside ourselves. If one wants to live here without being burdened by vision, without being burdened by will, then that person should be absolutely innocent. Such a person can simply live here – he does not need any vision. He does not have to have a will about anything, if he is absolutely egoless and childlike. If it is not so, it is very important that man lives with a vision.

It is time to really create a vision within ourselves as to what we really care for, not just for today. If you look deep enough, your vision will be the universal vision. Whether everything else happens or doesn’t happen on the way is not the point – whatever you have known as the highest, simply seeking that with undivided attention. That is a simple way of knowing life here and beyond.”