During a question and answer session, one seeker told Sadhguru that having experienced something of the beyond, he still found himself getting stuck in pettiness. How could he best overcome this to better establish equanimity, he asked. Sadhguru responded, “Even though the taste of the beyond is somewhere on your tongue, you still can get entangled, because you’re becoming a little bit of an inflated personality. You’re a little in love with yourself.”
While many of us have heard somewhere that we must love ourselves before we can love others, perhaps there’s another way to see it. Sadhguru counters this idea with a different outlook on love: “Love is an effort. Love is a longing to include something as a part of yourself. Love is a process, love is a possibility where you could become larger than who you are, you could become more than what you are, by inclusion,” and, “If you say, ‘I want to love myself,’ now you’re heading toward schizophrenic condition, now you’re creating two in one. If you want to ensure that you never go insane, the first and foremost step that you need to take is, you take away all divisions, and you see this is an individual; an individual means, he cannot be further divided, he is indivisible, you cannot divide him anymore. This is one entity; you can’t make it into two.”
He goes on to say, “Because with the taste of the Divine on your tongue, you’re trying, or you have the necessary foolishness in you to fall in love with something so limited, which you call as ‘myself.’ That is a sure sign of madness.” So what is the way out of this madness?
“You have to be a realist, you’re willing to see everything the way it is: no hype, no depression. Just the way it is – most important, extremely important. We need you in reality – only in reality you grow. Growth is possible only in reality! It’s the existential which can transcend. There is no such thing as transcendence in the psychological sphere of your life. Transcendence has to be existential because it is in the existential that your essential process of life is rooted in. What is happening in your mind, your thoughts and your emotion, are psychological; they are just a small offshoot of life – it’s not life. Right now, it may be keeping you fully engaged. Your thought and your emotion may be keeping you fully engaged right now, but it is just a small offshoot of life – it is not life. You can think what you want, even if you’re fast asleep, you’re still life. In fact, you’re more life when there is no psychological activity.”
“If you have known a few moments of what you call as beyond, those were a few moments where you were free from the psychological. Those few moments of freedom from the psychological you are more present than ever. Years of living – a few moments where you’re free from the psychological process were the most significant moments of presence in your life. So…that little taste that you have known you must invest your life in that direction, not what your thoughts say, not what your emotions say.”
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