Questioner: Is our activity and success determined by how well we can channelize our mind, body and energy?
Sadhguru: So, is the quality of my activity, the nature of my activity: definitely determined by what kind of body, what kind of mind, what kind of energy that one carries, isn’t it so? Isn’t it so?
Just now, when I was getting onto an airplane in Atlanta, there was a lady who was standing with me, and she was wearing so many things, jewelry, and big, big bracelets, and everything. Then, she pulled out a few smaller ones, “Should I pull out this also?” The security, TSA, is saying, “Yes, yes, yes, everything.”
Then I was telling her, “See, they shot bin Laden – still it doesn’t work.” He’s completely changed our lives, at least the way we travel. You have to take off your shoes, you have to do this, you have to get into a machine where they take off your pants. Yes! Either you’re patted down, or you go and stand in a machine, pants off – one of these things you have to do.
So, he’s a very successful man. You might have shot him, but he is a very successful man, because he has influenced our lives more than we have ever influenced his life, isn’t it so? Yes, or no? Has he not influenced our life more than, almost anybody? He’s just influenced our life to a point, just the way we exist has changed, isn’t it? Hmm? Now an airport means, you have to think ‘Oh!’ you can’t go joyfully on your vacation, you have to take off everything before you enter an airplane.
So, our idea of success, or the quality of success, is essentially coming from what’s happening in our minds, what’s happening in our body, what’s happening in our energy, isn’t it so? Yes? Definitely so, isn’t it?
So, making your body very pleasant, making your mind very pleasant, making your energies very pleasant must happen, before a man embarks on success. If he is unpleasant in his body, unpleasant in his mind, unpleasant in his energy – if he seeks success, he will spread unpleasantness all over the place. His idea of success will be such, because you can only do what you are, you cannot do anything other than what you are, isn’t it? Yes, or no? Can you do something more than what you are? You can only do what you are.
If you’re feeling very pleasant right now, you will think of doing pleasant things to everybody around you. If you’re feeling unpleasant right now, you will naturally do unpleasant things to people, isn’t it? If I meet you when you are very happy, I’m sure you are a wonderful man. If I meet you when you are unhappy, frustrated, angry, you are capable of being nasty, aren’t you? Isn’t this true for every human being? Yes, or no?
So, the problem with Osama bin Laden is not about whether he is good or bad, he is in a certain state of unpleasantness. For whatever reason, he is angry! Anger is unpleasantness, isn’t it? When a man is angry, this is what happens. The more powerful he is, the more successful he is, more unpleasantness he is capable of spreading, isn’t it? Yes, or no?
So, definitely how you keep yourself – before you embark into the world, before you touch any other human being – to make this one [self] utterly pleasant is a fundamental responsibility, isn’t it? Before you touch another life, you must make this [self] life a very pleasant process, then whatever you touch, you touch in a pleasant manner. If you make this unpleasant for some reason, whatever may be your reason, you will naturally spread unpleasantness in the world.
