As you age, do you seem to greet the unfolding of your life with less enthusiasm? As toddlers, we eagerly explored our environment and easily opened ourselves to hugs and new experiences. The teenage years held thoughts of promise and strong desires to be different from our parents, as our radical energy flowed amidst the desire for fitting in with our peers and dating. Then reality struck, and we needed to make life choices concerning money and survival that our modern society demands if we are to function within its goals.
There certainly have been and still are many distractions along the path to life fulfillment. Money, cars, computers, iPhones, and other entertainments of all kinds. These distractions are marketed with promises of living our lives to their fullest. But is humanity any the better for it? -any happier? Has modern convenience and technology led us to a life of continuous bliss and contentment? It certainly does not appear so. Wars, daily personal disagreements, discontentment at work and at home continue worldwide. Can you say that you are really fulfilled, or do you seem to still be struggling with life, walking uphill most of the time?
Read the discussion between Sadhguru and Oscar award-winning filmmaker Shekhar Kapur. They speak about how to reach life’s fullest potential and why we have forgotten about the simple things. Sadhguru offers his wisdom and gives us hope for living a life of fulfillment.
Shekhar: In the way that we’ve become, are we destined to or condemned to in the society we live in – let me not call it modern society – where we live now in the urban society that we live in, are we condemned to the search for the maximum potential life or somebody that can lead us to that idea – just the fundamental idea of the maximum, the full potential of life as you call it? Why are we condemned to that? Was it at some time very different? Why should we, in a modern – or this society-be like that?
Sadhguru: See, there were many societies. This culture used to be like that. You know the history of this country. About six to eight thousand years ago, when the Aryan invasion happened first, people who built Harappa and Mohenjo Daro obviously had sophisticated minds, okay? But I am sure you also read this in your textbook when you read high school – the British wrote these text books and they said, “Harappa and Mohenjo Daro had very organized drainage systems.” (laughs) You’re only interested in how they handled their poo and pee. (laughter) Is that all that mattered to you, because you had such bad drainage systems in your own place, that’s all you could think of?
Why didn’t you think about, six thousand years ago, if people had to build such sophisticated places and large temples and things, what were they made of? What was their intelligence? What was their thought? What was their consciousness? What were they thinking about or what was their state of experience of life that they were so content they built wonderful cities and had no armies to protect themselves? That means: what was the consciousness of the people there? How did they live? No, they had drainage systems. This is what you read in your textbook. I also read the same nonsense in the textbook. (laughs)
So why is it that we are discounting human experience and paying so much attention to the roads that we’ve built and drainages that we’ve built? Yes, those things are needed, but for what? To make…enhance human experience, isn’t it, of this life? No, right now that’s completely gone. Nobody’s talking about enhancing human experience. How to expand…enhance human experience means “be plugged in and look at everything through your phone.” It’s just dazzling you but it’s not enhancing your experience in any way. It’s numbing your senses, that’s all. It’s numbing your instruments of perception; it’s not enhancing your experience in any way.
Shekhar: So why are we going that way?
Sadhguru: Because everybody is getting educated. Till this generation there was no right to education. If a man just wanted to graze his cattle and walk around, he could do it. If he just wanted to run around in the mountains, he could do it. Not anymore. Today every human being on this planet must belong to some nation; he can’t just be somewhere on such a big planet. Till about hundred years ago, more than sixty percent of the people did not belong to any nation. They just lived. Now, you must belong to a nation. If you must belong to a nation, you are surging a…serving a large society to keep the national interest going. No, why can’t people just live? No, nobody can live by himself. You…(laughs) you must have an ID tag hanging around you. Even in the ashram you can’t walk without an ID.
Shekhar: Right. (laughter)
Sadhguru: Because we are…we are sub-serving the human life and making something else more important. No. The only and only purpose of life is for this piece of life to find its ultimate possibility. Whether you’re an earthworm or a grasshopper or a bird or an animal or a tree or a human being, this is the only purpose every life has, that it wants to grow to its full potential, not be something else. Maybe you look at this tree and think, “Oh, I can take the flowers and do pooja.” Or you look at that tree and think, “Oh, this will make good furniture.” But the tree is not thinking about furniture, it just wants to grow to its full size and full possibility, isn’t it? You may have ideas of furniture. Similarly, if I look at you…your father looks at you and thinks, “What is he going to become?” He may have ideas. No, this life has no such ideas. This life just wants to become its fullest possibility. That possibility unfortunately has very, very…very, very narrow windows in the world. Here and there. Rest is all making you a cog in the wheel, you know.
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