Questioner: I am a very confused soul. I wanted to know if our thoughts are strong enough to keep us protected and safe?
Sadhguru: When it comes to these aspects of life – terminology is not a question of semantics. When you say I am a confused soul – a soul can not be confused. You are a confused mind.
Why is it so important to correct this? Because, if you do not understand the distinction between one thing and the other – suppose you go to a doctor because you have a cardiac problem. And you say, doctor my liver is giving me trouble. He will attend to something else. You know, isn’t it? So, it is very important. It is not a question of semantics. It is not just a question of splitting hair. It’s just like this – you have a heart problem but you go to a liver doctor. This is not going to be a solution. This is going to be more problems, because anyway once you go to him, he has to conduct a surgery – upon your liver, whether you have a liver problem or not! That’s part of the business, okay.
Your soul can not be confused
So, it’s very important. Your soul can not be confused. And, first of all, do not talk about a soul because it’s not come into your experience. And, if you talk about something which is not yet in your experience – to put it very bluntly, it amounts to lying. So, this is the first thing you must do. You must stop lying. Do not talk about anything which is not yet a reality for you. It may be said in the Gita. It may be written in the vedas. Everybody may be talking about it. It doesn’t matter. It’s not true for you. You do not talk about it. You do not talk about soul. You do not talk about heaven. You do not talk about God. Because it is not yet a reality for you. If you do not talk about these things, a certain longing will appear within you, which will lead you there. If you talk about it, you will satisfy yourself with gossip. The real thing will never happen to you. You will be fulfilled with gossip.
Gossip is a very fulfilling thing
Gossip is a very fulfilling thing, you know. Yes! Lot of people avoid reality, just by gossiping. Whole lot of people avoid reality, just by watching the cinema. Cinema is somebody’s gossip, isn’t it? Somebody’s story. I’m not against it, but I’m saying, is you are using it to enhance your life it’s okay. If you are using it to avoid your life, it’s a serious problem, isn’t it? And a lot of people are using it to avoid life. You know, you don’t have to do anything in your life. You go, just sit in a dark room, buy a bucket of popcorn…Somebody will love, somebody will fight, somebody will live, somebody will do everything – you just have to eat popcorn and it happens. You can cry and you can laugh and you can come out and it’s done. And they tell you when it’s ended. These days they don’t put that – ‘the end’ – anymore. You are supposed to figure, it’s over. There was a time when they would say – ‘the end’. Just in case you are not getting it. You may sit for the next show.
The least you can do for yourself is, do not bullshit yourself
So, do not deceive yourself. This is the least you can do for yourself is, do not bullshit yourself. If you do not bullshit others also, your life around you will also improve phenomenally. But that I will leave it to you, okay. That’s your decision. But at least with ‘this’ [pointing to self] one person, be 100% straight. No nonsense. You must do this, because this person deserves, and you owe it to this. That with this one at least – I don’t know in what kind of social and other situations you are, whether you can stop bullshitting to others. If you do that, you can build a phenomenal life around you also. If you can do it around yourself, it’s great. You will build something wonderful. If that is not possible, at least with this one person – do not bullshit this person. At least with this person – 100% straight.
So, this is simply because – there was a time when this culture was a vibrant spiritual atmosphere. From those times, it is a very depleted condition right now. That vibrant spiritual liveliness is gone, but the jargon is still floating around. Wherever you go people are talking about – soul, atma, parmatma, this, that. The jargon is still floating around in common language, and common atmospheres, though the fire is gone. Because of this – one way, it could have been a positive influence. But, it is also a negative influence, because you are talking about the highest things in a mundane way. So that, all the highest things will just die – just talking about it like gossip. People will discuss Gita on the tea shop. People will, you know – nothing wrong with the tea shop. I’m saying, not with the necessary focus, or sanctity that it needs. Sanctity not in terms of elevating it to some place. Sanctity in terms of – if you, if you want to put your hands into the milk, you would see that your hands are clean, isn’t it? Because otherwise it will go bad. This is just like that. If you want to put our hands into something, before that, a little bit of care. Otherwise you will become a confused soul – which is impossible. But you think it’s real.
Mind can only be confused. If somebody has a clear mind, he must be a fanatic
Confused mind – possible. Mind can only be confused. If somebody has a clear mind, he must be a fanatic. You understand? The nature of the mind is confusion. That’s its beauty. It’s always confused, because it can’t figure anything. But in can gather everything and mull over it, endlessly. This is the nature of your logical mind. Mind is always going to be confused, unless you are a single track idiot, or you are a fanatic. Otherwise mind will be confused. A confused mind is good. If you know how to organise your confusion, if you know how to handle your confusion, if you know how to increase the enormity of your confusion consciously, if you can handle your confusion consciously – mind is a very productive instrument. If you are looking for a mind which is not confused, you can go for a brain surgery. You can remove half of it, there will be no confusion. Clear! The more intelligent you are, the more you will wonder, the more you will be confused about everything. The more profoundly you look at life, the more confused you will be. And, it’s good. Only somebody who doesn’t look at anything. Who has got a parallel vision – he is dead sure about everything. You must either be a idiot, or a fanatic. There is not much difference between the two.
You have to learn to use the confusion [of your mind] to your benefit
So, now your mind is confused. That is the nature of the mind. You have to learn to use the confusion to your benefit. If your mind is not confused that means, it is not constantly receiving. It is a blocked up mind. Your mind has become a concrete block, which is dead sure about everything. Otherwise constantly if you are perceiving more and more information, it is always confused, because it is always receiving much more than it can ever process. So much information. Everything that you see – if you see little more carefully, right in this room you can see so many things that you never thought possible in your life. Do yo understand? If you observe just one thing, it will happen like this. It is just that, people are seeing like ‘this’ [glancing around], and they don’t see anything. If they place enough attention to any one thing, you will see, a simple ant can keep your focus on for the rest of your life. It has so much in it. So, everything around you, if you pay enough attention, there is so much information – no way can any mind ever process it. Only an un-attentive mind thinks it knows everything. An attentive mind is always wondering and confused about every little thing in the universe. And, thats the way it should be. You should not suffer your confusion. You must understand, if you are constantly confused, that means you have a functioning intelligence. Yes!
So, once you have separated your soul and your mind – a non-existent soul, in your experience. The mind is receiving too many things from every direction all the time, endlessly. In wakefulness and sleep, the five senses are always perceiving endlessly. Most people are not alert to it, so their life becomes stagnant and boring. Confusion means there is still a possibility. Conclusion means, it’s death. So, don’t try to conclude and take away the confusion. Confusion is fine. Right now, do not imagine things which are not true.
Right now, you are not a life. You are a bundle of thoughts, emotions, ideas, opinions and prejudices
Confusion is because, never in the history of humanity anybody ever figured the nature of creation, nature of life in their mind. You can become life, and know life. You can never figure life, just understand this. Never ever can you figure life out. But, if you become an absolute piece of life, you will know life for what it is. So, the only way to know life is to become one. Are you one? Are you a soul! Are you a life? Are you a life, or no? You are. So, become that. Right now, you are not a life. You are a bundle of thoughts, emotions, ideas, opinions and prejudices. That is more dominant than the life in you, isn’t it? Yes or no? Your thought and emotion is occupying more space than the aliveness that you are. So, you are not experiencing yourself as a piece of life. You are experiencing yourself as a bundle of thought and emotion and whatever else. This is a wrong perception. Because you are alive, you may think. You understand? Not because you think, you exist. Because you are alive, you may think if you wish. But right now, the thought process has become so compulsive that people think, that is more dominant or is pre-dominant to life. It is not so. Your thought does not exist before life. Because you are alive, you may think.
Thoughts – if one’s thought is so – what to say – focused towards one thing in his life, nothing else seems to matter. Such a person is free, simply because of his thought. Not a confused thought process. That thought process will not protect you. But, if one’s thought is like this that it is absolutely connected to one thing, and one thing only – a focused thought. Such a thought can give you a lot of protection, and a lot of purpose, and a lot of capability. That’s a different thing. But right now you are not in that state. It’s better to use a simple tool. And, you don’t have to worry that somebody is going to affect you.
You need to understand this – if you protect yourself, you will also protect yourself from wellbeing. Do you understand? So, the protection should be such that only what is not necessary for you is filtered. You need a filter, not a wall. Yes? If you build a wall around you, it will protect you from life itself. Lot of people are doing this. They want to protect themselves from death and danger, but what they will succeed is – they will protect themselves from life. Even life won’t touch them. They are so safe. Don’t become like that. Life should touch you. Even if life smothers you, it’s better than remaining untouched by life. Thank you!
