Questioner: How does one handle expectations and dejections towards oneself from others?
Sadhguru: Don’t create expectations, there will be no dejections. It’s like – I throw a stone up, “Sadhguru, I throw a stone up, why is it landing on my head?” Well, that’s how it works on this planet. If you don’t want it to work like this, you must leave this atmosphere and throw the stone up, it just continues to travel straight up. This is how it works here – if you throw it up, it lands on your head. No?
Don’t create expectations, there will be no dejections
You are like somebody who plays Solitaire, you know? Yes? This is like playing Solitaire. This is just because – you’re like a person who wants to drive on the Mumbai street, without knowing anything about the vehicle that he drives. You don’t know how to drive, but you got into a car or motorcycle and tried to do. Motorcycle won’t cooperate at all, first moment you’ll fall, car is a little easier – anybody can make it roll, you know, because it’s on four wheels. So, if you drive, then you say, “Sadhguru, I’m driving, but there is so much fear. What to do? And people are dying on the street, what to do?” Well, that’s what will happen. So, if you want to drive it, you spend certain amount of time learning to drive before you hit the road, isn’t it?
This is also just like this, before you start your life, you must spend some time learning something about this machine, isn’t it? This body, this mind – how to use it? In what way it operates best? Shouldn’t we spend some time? Now you just jump into life, “and I create expectations, and I get dejected.” Obviously unrealistic, Isn’t it? So… “Oh, if I don’t create expectations, maybe I won’t do nothing.” That’s not true. Anyway you are doing something, isn’t it? Even the bees, and the birds, and the ants, and the elephants, are doing something, isn’t it? Hmm? Whatever they can do, aren’t they doing? So, that’s all you can do also. Whatever you can do, you can do; what you cannot do, you cannot do. So, we taught you Isha Yoga to remove all the other nonsense, you understand?
If you can look up on everything around you the same way, everything that you can do, you will do. What you cannot do, you will not do – what’s the problem? That’s how the whole existence is functioning, isn’t it so? If you ask this planet to spin backwards, can it do it? So, even Mother Earth cannot do it, so what’s the big deal? You are just a piece. Isn’t it so? The earth is spinning like this [clockwise], if you say spin [anti-clockwise] like this tomorrow morning, can it spin? No. So, what’s the big deal? You can only do what you can do. So, once you see this, your whole life will be focused on how to enhance your ability to do, not waste your time on silly expectations.
Instead of enabling yourself, you are wasting your time in silly expectations of yourself
Life will happen the way it happens not because you desire, it happens because you are enabled in a certain way. Instead of enabling yourself, you are wasting your time in silly expectations of yourself. So, instead of spending your time building fancy expectations, spend your time to enable this one [self]. What you are capable, that’s all you will do, isn’t it? Can you do something more? Can anybody do something more than what they are capable of? No. It is just that your capability can be stretched. Without stretching your ability to do, you are building expectations. It is just fundamentally wrong, isn’t it? No? It’s fundamentally wrong, isn’t it so?
“Now I want to run 100 meters in 7 seconds.” You shouldn’t think of this. You should just work on your legs and your lungs, and just run. Maybe, who knows, you will run it in 6 seconds. Who knows? Why are you worried about the time? You build your legs into as powerful a condition as you can build it, and just run – just for the simple joy of it. We don’t know what will be the time. 21 minutes? [Time it takes to do Shambhavi Mahamudra practice]
So, don’t waste your life in setting up expectations, because these expectations are not even yours. You are looking at your neighbor and setting expectations for yourself – it’s a very, very silly way of building your life, because your expectations are not even yours, isn’t it? I’m telling you, human mind is such – let’s say, in Mumbai everybody had only one leg. Hmm? You had actually two, but everybody had only one. They’re all hopping around, you will also do that, although you have two, because you are setting up your expectations looking at people around you. So, there is no need for any expectations – just enable yourself. Whatever the situation allows, we will do.
This is all you have to do – build your body and your mind in such a way that you can use it to the fullest capability
Just… this is all you have to do – build your body and your mind in such a way that you can use it to the fullest capability. So, whatever kind of situations arise in front of you, accordingly you act, not the fancy way you like. You know, right now we have started a whole different form of education in Isha called Samskriti – they have no formal education. They are just learning yoga, classical music, classical dance, Samskrit language, English language, and martial arts – nothing else. These kids know nothing, but you come and see them – absolutely like this [stable], because we are just teaching them to use their body and their mind to the fullest capability. You will see, by the time they are 18, they will be phenomenal creatures.
Because your success in this world is just this – the physical world, the success is just this – how effectively can you use your physical body and your mind. That’s all your success is. Is that so? Hmm? That’s all it is, isn’t it? A little bit of knowledge you need. The damn knowledge is all on the net, you don’t have to keep it in your head. Hmm? It’s all in the net, unless you want to do some specific kind of activity, for when you build some knowledge, you can do that. But that also – I would say, the whole education system, which is a little over 20 years right now, can be compressed to 5 to 6 years if people are of a certain mental capability. And every human being, almost every human being – except those who are impaired in some way – almost every human being is capable of this, if only you take off the silly expectations which are a crippling factor, because your expectation is, if somebody is doing this, you want to do one step more, even if that’s a crippled standard.
You don’t go about building expectations, you just work upon building your body and your mind to enable yourself, that you can use it to the fullest extent. We don’t know how you will use it. What you do in this world should be relevant to the situation in which you exist, isn’t it? Action is always about the situation, not about you. If this one thing, if you get it, then there will be no expectation. Simply you do what’s needed. In a given situation, you simply do what’s needed, that’s all. If you are placed in Mumbai, you learn the stock market. Hmm? If you are placed in Kanyakumari, you learn fishing. This also you do well, that also you do well – that’s all, wherever you are. That’s all there is, isn’t it?
