Questioner: I am doing meditation and am trying to stay mindful of being conscious. I wanted to know, how did you become so conscious?
Sadhguru: I did not say I’m conscious. I’m in a crazy state of abandon and intoxication all the time. Just look at my eyes and see, I’m always stoned. Never touched a substance, but that’s how I am – totally knocked out. So I didn’t say I’m conscious, I was only telling you, you should be conscious. Because there is…
The nature of this life is such, you have only that which you abandon
See, the nature of this life is such, you have only that which you abandon. The nature of life, even the phenomena around you, is like this. For example, right now this looks black not because it is black, simply because it’s refusing to reflect light, that’s why it looks black. This looks red, not because it’s red. It holds back all the other dimensions of the color, reflecting only red. So, what it throws out, becomes its quality. This is the nature of existence here. What you try to be, you will not be that. What you just throw out, that becomes you, isn’t it? If you throw money around, people think you’re rich. Yes? If you hold it, people think maybe you don’t have anything, isn’t it? So, what comes out of you, is what is yours, in a way.
So when you say mind, or being mindful, I do not know much about it, but I believe people are trying to think themselves into this moment. Be in the moment, be in the moment… why are you trying to be in the moment? Be somewhere else, and show me! Hello? Can you be somewhere else? No. You’re anyway here, so why are you trying to be here? So what you’re saying is, “Don’t think.” It took millions of years of evolution to get you to this level of cerebral capability, but now you want to give it up!
These are the only 2 things [memory & imagination] people are suffering
The two basic qualities which sets us apart from every other creature is, we have a very vivid sense of memory. Everything that happens we remember. This is why our experience has become our knowledge. And we have a fantastic sense of imagination. We can imagine something which is not yet, and work towards creating it. These are the only 2 things people are suffering. These are only 2 things – what happened 10 years ago, they can still suffer. This does not mean they’re suffering life, they’re suffering their memory. What may happen day after tomorrow, they’re already suffering. This does not mean they’re suffering life, they’re just suffering their imagination. They’re suffering their memory and imagination, 2 basic faculties which set us apart from every other creature.
You are ruing evolutionary process, you want to go back. You want to go back because you looked at monkeys jumping around happily on the trees. So you think it is a better way to live. But, evolution gone waste, huh? This [self] is a much bigger possibility. A possibility unrealized is always a big problem! Any possibility – if you don’t realize what is the possibility and grasp it, all possibilities look like problems, isn’t it? Right now, that’s a human problem.
You don’t have to be mindful. You should be mindless
So, you don’t have to be mindful. You should be mindless. Really. Just be in some state of abandon, and see how beautiful life becomes. Whether in work, or song, or dance, or whatever the hell you do, just throw yourself into it for a moment! Without any sense of being mindful, or conscious, or unconscious, or whatever, just see how wonderful life becomes. They are the most wonderful moments of your life, isn’t it so? Where you were absent. Thank you very much.
