Questioner: Namaskaram, Sadhguruji. My name is Kartik. I’m from Hyderabad. So, I’d finished my Inner Engineering program three years back through Isha. So, I felt really blissful, I’ll be very honest. So, I just wanted to ask you this question that, many decades back when you were pursuing the path, the philosophical path to finding the solution, were you not even a little scared that you might have gone wrong?
Sadhguru: I was always wrong, but I was not scared. When I say I was always wrong – from the age of four, four-and-a-half years of age, all I had with me was a billion questions. I didn’t have a single answer. Nor did I find a single person, who could answer one question to me. Whoever you asked, at home or school or anywhere else, all they had was – they will quote, Krishna said this, Rama said this, this man said this, Mahatma Gandhi said this, like this, they will quote. I was not interested in quotes, I wanted a genuine answer, for these billion questions I had, I had a cloud floating around me of questions.
So when I saw that there are no answers, or at least, I’m not able to access anybody who has answers in this world – naturally, see, when you realize you don’t know anything, you would pay immense attention to everything, isn’t it so? See, suppose right now if I ask you to walk from here to there, effortlessly, you will walk. Suppose we make this hall pitch dark, and ask you to walk. You will become super alert, isn’t it? Hmm? If you don’t know where your next step is, will you become super alert or no? That’s all I became.
Because I didn’t know a damn thing in the world, I became super alert and observant. Smallest things – I paid absolute attention. As I paid attention and paid attention and paid attention to everything – when I’m saying attention, I’m not paying attention to some divine force or God or something. I’m paying attention to an ant, a leaf, a pebble, or just about anything. Okay? As I paid attention, absolutely – you must understand this, if your attention is keen enough, and relentless, there is nothing in the universe which will not open. Everything has to open. This is what human being is. If your entire energy, your consciousness, your intelligence, everything is focused in your attention, just anything in the universe will open itself.
So, when I observed certain things which are natural phenomena, I didn’t think nature could be wrong. I have not propounded anything of my own. I have not invented anything. I have not created anything. I have just observed the way creation is made, that’s all. If you think creation can be wrong, then maybe everything that I say is wrong. Because what I am saying is just what creation is always speaking. I’m just giving it a voice. I never thought in terms of is it right or wrong. I only saw it – this is how it’s happening, that’s all. How do you want to handle it? That’s a choice.
Something is happening here – how I want to handle it, how she wants to handle it, maybe different. But, what is happening both of us should see it the same way, isn’t it? What I want to do with it – see, right now, I want to do everything possible. The foundation is pitching crores of rupees behind this whole Cauvery Calling. It’s people’s money but we are pitching it on this. But somebody says, “I don’t want to do it”. But it doesn’t matter whether you want to do it or not want to do it – it’s your choice. But you must see what’s on the ground, isn’t it? You must see the reality the way it is. After that how you handle it, how I handle it, may be different. But if you want to whitewash it, and see it some other way, then you’re wrong. This is my understanding of life.
Most important thing is – unprejudiced, we must see, this is what is happening. I want to do something, somebody doesn’t want to do anything – this is two different ways of handling the same thing. That freedom you have. You can choose to handle it whichever way you want. Now Buckingham Cannal is there, every time I land in Chennai, I think this damn thing should be fixed. Living in Tamil Nadu, how come I have not fixed it, this bothers me.
But you buy a clothesline clip [put it on your nose] and walk around! You must understand, if you close your nose that means you’re taking everything through your mouth, which is worse. Hello? Yes or no? You’re literally drinking it through the air. Yes or no? So some people think this [closing their nose] is the best way to handle it. So, how you handle a situation can be different from person to person, but we must see reality as it is, isn’t it?
Right now it’s a fact. Soil is distressed. There’s enough science about it. It’s a fact, we’re running out of water, that’s a fact. And it’s also a fact, the same volume of water is coming in the form of rain for the last hundred years, nothing has changed. How we want to act, or we want to run away from this country is different ways of handling it. So, am I all right? I don’t know. All I know is, I’m just speaking what nature is speaking, what creation is speaking. If you think creation and creator are wrong, definitely I’m also wrong. I don’t mind being wrong.
