Questioner: Can you give us 2 tips that you think that we could live to our peak, as an example to others?
Sadhguru: See, when we use the word ‘peak,’ naturally you want to go mountain climbing. That means, you want to do something others cannot do. It’s not necessary, because the peak is not in what you’re doing outside, the peak is in the way you experience it, isn’t it?
Somebody can do something very small, with very profound experience. Somebody can be doing big things without any sensitivity to what’s happening around them. So essentially, what you’re looking for – just look at this as yourself as a life, right now you’ve become so many social entities, you may be lost in that, but actually you’re life. Most people realize they’re alive only when they’re threatened with death. Till then, they’re something else, they’ve become so many other things. No, no, no, no matter what work you’re doing here, you’re just a piece of life, isn’t it?
It is a fortune that certain things happen through us, which will impact many other lives – wonderful. But still, this is a life only if this life functions in its best possible way, everything else will happen. Best possible way means what? Is this very clear that you are not taking your own apartment when you go. I mean, when you die and leave, you’re not taking – they tell me you’re creating very nice apartments – you’re not going to take it, right? Your own accommodations you can’t carry, you know that. So obviously, the only thing that is left here is, the profoundness of your experience, isn’t it?
How profound is your experience? To make our life profound, somebody says, if you have education you can do this. Well, everybody went to the university – I didn’t. Somebody said, if you have money you can do it – everybody ran after it. Somebody said, if you can get married it will happen – everybody got married. Somebody said, if you have children then it will happen – everybody did that. Somebody said, this is not it, you must get power in the world, so, people ran after that. Essentially, what should happen inside, you’re trying to cause from outside. Hmm? What should actually happen within you, you are trying to cause it from outside. Yes it is possible, sometimes it can be stimulated from outside, but it has to happen within you.
All human experience comes from within you. Is that so? Your joy and misery, pain and pleasure, anything and anything, agony and ecstasy can only happen from within you. The question is only – your joy, your peace, your love, your ecstasy, is it on push-start, or is it on self-start? I’m talking about upgrading technologies. There was a time in 1950s, if you bought a car, you needed 2 people to help you in the morning, because it’s a push-start. If you got one in early 60s, it’s a crank-start, you need one person to help. Today all our cars are self-start, right? Technological upgradation.
Things which are most vital to you, the profoundness of your experience, the pleasantness of your experience here – but right now it’s all in push-start. If you have to be happy, how many people we have to fix in this world? If you have to be peaceful, we have to fix the entire world. So, there is an endless amount of conditions, for your experience to be in a certain way.
And in pursuit of human well-being we’ve turned the world upside down, we’ve ripped the planet apart, but still we are not the most joyful generation. We are definitely the most comfortable generation ever. Never before another generation of people have enjoyed these kind of conveniences and comforts, as you and me are enjoying right now, isn’t it so? Never before. But can we say, with all these comforts, we are the most joyful generation? No. Not true. I’m not saying we are more miserable, but definitely we are not the most joyful. Are we peaceful? No. Are we loving? No. So, our experience of life is still like how the caveman’s experience was. Same anxiety – that guy was worried, “Where’s my food?” You are worried, “Where is my next apartment?” Endlessly, you think it’s different – it’s not different. It’s rudimentary, isn’t it? Hello?
The idea of organizing our survival process the way we have organized is, we need not be concerned about it, isn’t it so? Hello? You open the tap, water comes. Don’t think it’s a small thing. Just 100 years ago, water means you had to go to the river with a pot on your head. So, today all this convenience that we did – why? Because we don’t have to concern ourselves with daily survival, everything is organized. Now we believed, if all these things are organized, we will sit here blissed out. Well, that’s not happened. It’s not happened simply because we have not taken charge of ‘this’ [self].
So, peak of human life does not mean you climbed Mount Everest. I have gone up Everest, you know that? No, you didn’t know? To the top? Yeah, very top. Somebody went up there, and took a photograph with my picture in his hand. So, I believe I’ve been there.
Questioner: It’s much safer.
Sadhguru: More sensible, too! Because this guy who went there took a picture with my picture in his hands, came down and said, “Sadhguru, out of 12 people that we started out, only 2 of us made it to the top, and I took the picture, and I came down. We were there just about 40 seconds, right on the top, because winds were picking up speed, we had to come down. Only 40 seconds – I looked around, and I couldn’t see a thing! And I came down – now I’m wondering, why did I do it?” Because you wanted to know the peak of suffering. It’s not a simple physical challenge, climbing Everest is not a simple physical challenge. I’m not saying you should not climb, all I’m saying is, the peak can only happen within you, it will not happen outside of you.
So, if the peak, and the valley, and the very bottom, can only happen within you, people can sit in a palace and be depressed. Like they are at the pit of their life, isn’t it so? Hello? So similarly, that is possible – you can sit on the street and be on the peak. Can I tell you a little story?
There was a sadhu – a sadhu means a mandicant. In India we have full-time spiritual people, all right? Nowhere else in the world, I think very few, but here we have a lot.
So, this sadhu was settling down under the tree just outside a small town for the night, in the evening. Another man came, and he saw this sadhu, and he said, “Where is the diamond? Where is the diamond? Give me the diamond.” The sadhu looked at him and asked, “What diamond?” So the man said, “Yesterday night God appeared in my dream, and said under this tree there will be a sadhu, and he has a big diamond – if I ask him, he will give it to me.”
The sadhu said, “Oh, that diamond.” And he put his hand in the bag and pulled out a diamond the size of a man’s skull. This big. And he gave it to him. This guy took it, hid it in his clothes, and ran home. As he was going home, he was struggling whom to tell, whom not to tell, what will happen if anybody comes to know, they will kill him and take this diamond. He got really freaked by the time he got there. He went there, he looked at his wife, “Oh my God, she can’t keep a secret, you can’t tell her.”
So he went straight to the bed, put it under the pillow, and slept on it. So his wife came and said, “What are you lying down for? Come have dinner.” He said, “No, no, I’m not hungry.” Because he doesn’t want to leave the diamond for a moment. And she thought he’s not well, and she left him. But he couldn’t sleep the entire night. One thing is, he was worried how to deal with this diamond. Another thing is, with such a big rock under your pillow, you cannot sleep. He struggled the entire night what to do, what to do, what to do. By morning 4 o’clock he was completely freaked out.
Then he went to the sadhu and he said, “Yesterday I came and asked you for this diamond. Without even checking my identity, you just gave away such a big diamond. The most expensive thing on the planet, you just gave it away! If you have to give away a diamond like this, you must have something within you which is far more precious than this. What is that?” Then the sadhu said, “Oh, you’ve come to your senses. Throw the damn stone, and come and sit here, we will see.” It’s time to do that.
