Questioner: Namaskram Sadhguru. The other day you had mentioned that thought is very necessary for one to take any action. Sometimes I feel that the action I have taken is based on a thought that’s not mine. Is that possible for someone to plant a thought in my mind? Making me think its mine?
Sadhguru: None of your thoughts are yours. None of your thoughts are really yours, please see. Thought is something that you generate from implanted information. All kinds of things hitting you. The way you think right now, depends on what kind of family you were born in, what kind of parents you had, what kind of education, what kind of society, what kind of social background, religious backgrounds – aren’t all these things deciding how you think? Yes or no? For sure, isn’t it? So, how can you say it is your thought? All kinds of people are working.
None of your thoughts are really yours
Can somebody plant a thought? Definitely. Definitely yes. If you are talking about, someone consciously wanting to plant a thought in you – is that possible? Very much possible. But, you shouldn’t get into this mode – because every time you do something wrong, you will think, somebody planted this in my… Even if you let somebody plant it in your head, it is still your doing, isn’t it? Yes? You let somebody plant a thought in you – that is also your doing, isn’t it? Oh – somebody planted a thought in my head – what can I do?
Can somebody plant a thought? Definitely
People are going about this, this has become a fashion – this is an Indian thing. When Indians got very affluent, many generations ago, and they got naturally lazy – they came to this, ‘God willing’. Anything you ask, they will say ‘God willing’. God willing, I will get up. Who knows when goddamn God is willing! If I do it – God was willing. If I don’t do it – He is no willing. This is a horrible trick. But it goes on in the world. Everything that matters to them, anyway they will do. If you ask something, they will say ‘God willing’. Yes! Will they say, if ‘God willing’, I will have my dinner? No – they will eat. If you say, can I have dinner? They will say, ‘God willing’.
So, can you plant a thought? Definitely, we can. In fact we can plant a whole philosophy into you, if you want. Why just a thought! A whole series of thought, a complex series of thought – we can plant into your head. But there are different ways of planting a thought. There are dark ways of doing it. There are straight ways of doing it. There are other ways of doing it, where a thought is not planted – you are made to think in a certain way. Purely for your wellbeing. This needs to be done. Otherwise you will just scatter yourself all over the place, and spend your life without any purpose, without getting anywhere.
The dark ways of doing it involves various dark arts, through which they will plant negative thoughts in your head. Where you will work for your own destruction. Straight ways of doing it, or the school teacher’s way – they are trying to tell you, this is better, this is better, this is better, you know. Constantly…. or the marketing manager’s way. Coca-cola, the real thing, the real thing, the real thing! Now, you say, the real thing. If I say ‘the real thing’, you will say ‘coke’. Everywhere it is written, around the world – real thing. So, that is just by repetition. It’s straight. If you want, you can reject it. With the first one, if you are vulnerable in some way, you have no choice. It will anyway enter your life.
There are different ways of planting a thought
The last way of doing it will happen, only if you are willing, open and receptive. Otherwise, that person who does the last way of putting thoughts into you, is not even interested in doing such things. Only if you are willing, open and you want to go in a certain way, but you do not have the necessary grit to hold onto something that you need to do – then a thought can be implanted into you in a different way.
So, if you are talking about negative thoughts being implanted into you – all you have to do is bring some simple meditation or something where your system gets organised in such a way that these things can not affect you. Or you must carry something with you, which will create a certain cocoon of energies around you, where these things can not affect you. There are various ways of preventing somebody else influencing. your thought.
So, I’m also willing to plant a thought into you – more than a thought in you. I can plant an explosive in you, if you want. Not a bomb, an explosive – you know there is a difference! Bomb is purely destructive. An explosive can be used in so many ways, isn’t it? If you want, I can plant an explosive – why just a thought! If you simply sit – boom, it goes. I can plant an explosive of ecstasy, if you want. You should simply close your eyes – chuk! Lots of people – if they just close their eyes, their eyeballs will go [pointing upwards]. Why just a thought.
Thought is a rudimentary thing, very surface thing. We can plant energy into you, in such a way that it guides your life wherever you are, whatever you may be. There are better technologies than thoughts!
