Sage: Sadhguru, can you speak about – you know, you mentioned about the fact that it is not about trying to change past Karma. So, therefore, can you speak about the power of intention, and why intention is so important. And, you gave beautiful examples in the book that illustrated, you can be doing the same thing, but somebody’s intent, their intention makes all the difference for, you know, more accumulated karma or not.
Sadhguru: Well, it happened once that Shankaran Pillai went to his lawyer and he wanted to divorce his wife. The lawyer asked, why – you have been ok with her, what’s the problem? Shankaran Pillai said, her table manners are so bad, her table etiquette is so terrible, I can’t live with her anymore. But the lawyer asked, you’ve been married for 18 years, only now you realised her table etiquette is bad! He said – well, only yesterday afternoon I happened to pick up a book on table etiquette. As I read it, I realised her table etiquette is terrible, so I want to divorce her.
So, people are constantly changing their intentions. Holding on to certain intent means, holding on to a basic plan. Rest of the plan can go whichever way, whether it will go as a straight line, as a curve, or a zigzag, we don’t know – there are many life situations. But the basic intent has to be held in place.
Your intent cannot be held in place unless you change your identity
Your intent cannot be held in place unless you change your identity. In the sense – if your identity is too much about your body, or your intellect, or your emotions – then you can only operate as an individual. So, your intent is very important, but at the same time more than the intent – the intent is a consequence of the type of identity you have taken.
If you have taken an identity of being very very strong person, then you will see with best intentions, still worse things could happen. I must tell you that, the most horrific things on the planet have happened with best intentions. People who believed that they are doing great things, they did the most horrific things. People who even today believe they are doing God’s work, they do the most terrible things in the world right now. Because intention without fixing the identity, uh could become very powerful weapon.
The most horrific things on the planet have happened with best intentions
The most important thing is to fix the identity. How small is your identity, or how large is your identity, will determine even what your intent is. Your ability to develop an intent, what sort of intent – please understand this, somebody who is committing a crime, he also has a strong intent. Somebody who’s doing something else, many nations, businesses, uh you know, various kingdoms in the past, they all believed they had a good intent of conquering the world. And you know the consequences of those intents, all right. We have suffered imperialism, maybe not so much here. You have also suffered to some extent. But in other parts of the world, in Africa, Asia, we know the fruits of imperialism, what we have gone through because of that. But in their minds, their intent was a powerful wonderful intent, of their idea for one world, okay.
It’s very important that we first fix the identity
So, it’s very important that we first fix the identity. If you fix the identity as not a limited identity, but as a cosmic identity, then intentions will naturally flow. See, whatever you identified with, with that you always have the best intentions. You don’t have to culture those intentions. You have a little baby, now you don’t have to think I will do only good things to this child. It’s rubbish. You don’t even have to, you don’t even need a thought like that. Because you see it as yours, naturally all the intention is there. You just have to see the world as yours, you have to see this universe as yours, and it is yours.
