In a world that often seems to move at an unforgiving pace, where the pressures of modern life can take a toll on our mental well-being and sense of purpose, finding guidance from profound spiritual leaders becomes essential. Join us in an extraordinary journey as we delve deep into the realms of inner peace, work-life equilibrium, and the pursuit of success with the globally renowned mystic, Sadhguru.
In this exclusive interview, Sadhguru shares his profound insights on the pervasive issue of depression, unraveling the mystique surrounding its causes and unveiling practical approaches to overcome its grasp. His wisdom transcends conventional perspectives, offering a holistic view that integrates the spiritual and psychological dimensions of our existence.
As we navigate the complexities of our professional lives, striking a harmonious balance between work and personal well-being becomes a quest for many. Sadhguru, with his unique blend of spirituality and pragmatism, provides invaluable guidance on how to navigate the demanding landscape of work while preserving the sanctity of life outside the office.
How should one deal with depression and anxiety?
One of the simplest ways of establishing mental and emotional balance is lots of physical activity in a natural environment – ideally from an early age. Physical activity is a very important part of maintaining the chemical balance in the system. Over the last few generations, our physical activity has decreased substantially. Therefore, maintaining the chemical balance in the system becomes difficult.
Another aspect is being consciously in touch with the five elements of nature – earth, water, air, sunlight or fire, and space. In earlier times, human beings had to be consciously in touch with the elements. Suppose you are farming or walking in the jungle, you have to know what is happening with the different elements of nature and how they affect you at any given moment. Today, our contact with the elements has decreased drastically, which affects the balance in our system. Another factor is the type of food you eat – over-processed food should be avoided. If we take care of these aspects, we can considerably reduce the prevalence of depression and other mental disorders.
How to achieve work-life balance?
Your work has to be lived, and your life has to be worked at. There is no such thing as work and life; it is life and life. Would your life happen if there was no work? I am not referring to just the economic aspects. Work is very much life. If your work is not life, I do not see why you should do it. Do not make a demarcation between work and life. There are different aspects of life, and they need to be dealt with.
Nowadays, I see there is a “Thank God it’s Friday” culture. That means people are dead five days a week and only live on weekends. That is not a good way to live. You must live all the seven days.
One who knows the joy of activity will not want a break. For me, my work is a love affair. If I work 20 hours a day, I do not feel that something has been taken away from me. If you constantly strive to create whatever you care for, whether you are in a workspace or on the street, you will always feel like you are on a holiday. The physical body needs a break sometimes, but if you need a break from work, that means you are doing something you do not care for. If you are doing something you truly care for, why would you want a break? I would like to have 48 hours a day if it is possible, but even a mystic is not given extensions!
Does Karma exist? Why does it never impact genuinely bad people? Do you think we control our destinies or does destiny control us?
In this culture, we always tell you, “Your life is your karma.” Karma is generally projected as punishment or reward. That is not what it is. Karma means action. You are performing physical, mental, emotional, and energetic actions every moment of your life, in wakefulness and sleep. This incessant action accumulates in the form of a certain type of memory. All of it is not conscious memory; over ninety-five percent is unconscious memory. This is like you are creating unconscious software. As it builds up, this memory will start determining your tendencies, the way you behave, and the way you make choices. Because this is happening from within us and most people are not conscious about how this is happening, it makes you feel like another force from somewhere else is acting upon you.
When you say my life is my karma, what you are saying is that my life is my making. This is the most dynamic way to exist. This is the only culture where it has been clearly expressed that your life is not being made by some other force elsewhere, your life is being crafted every moment by you; it is your making. The only thing is, you are making it unconsciously. What you are doing unconsciously, if you do the same thing consciously, then you will become the maker of your destiny.
When we say a spiritual process, what this essentially means is that you are taking charge of your karma. You may not be able to change the past karma. It tends to play out.
But today’s karma is one hundred percent in your hands. If you take charge of today’s karma absolutely, what happens within you in terms of your experience can be immediately determined; what happens around you will be determined within a certain period. If you take charge of your experience of life, the quality, the content, and the destiny of your life can be entirely determined by you.
It is in this context that we are talking about karma. Every human being has to take charge of today’s karma, not cry about yesterday’s karma because that is unalterable. But if you take charge of today’s karma, yesterday’s karma does not influence who you are right now. And this dynamic way of existence – seeing that my life is my making, is the essence of transforming a human being from a limited entity to a limitless possibility.
How to be successful?
The right kind of action, the right timing, the right place – all are important for success. For these things to happen, you need perception and intelligence. That is all you must do in your life – constantly look for ways to enhance your perception and your intelligence. The rest will anyway happen.
If you can see life just the way it is, without distortions, you have the necessary intelligence to conduct it well. Now life has become a play, a game. You can play it joyfully and you can play it well for sure. If you can play it well, people will say you are successful.
But you should not be aspiring for success. It is a miserable way to structure your life. Never think, “I want to be successful.” Just see how to make yourself into a full-fledged being, and it will find expression. Once you have come here as a human being, the potential of what it means to be human, all the dimensions of who you are must be experienced. Only then I would say you are successful.
How should we address today’s digital distractions and addictions?
Technology is not bad or good. It is not technology that is the problem; compulsiveness is the problem. Whatever other technologies you handle – phones, computers, or social media – it is not as sophisticated as the human mechanism. The highest level of technology on the planet is the human system itself. Even a supercomputer is a small thing compared to the technology involved in the making of the human system. You should attend to this first. Then, everything else gets managed naturally.
As there is a science and technology to create external well-being, there is a whole science and technology to create inner well-being. As we have engineered the world the way we want it, it is equally important that we engineer our interiority the way we want it to be.
These days there are a variety of diets. People are confused. How do they decide which diet is good for them?
What kind of food you eat should depend not on what you think about it, or on your values and ethics, but on what the body wants. Food is about the body. When it comes to food, don’t ask your doctors or your nutrition experts because these people keep changing their opinion every five years. When it comes to food, ask the body what kind of food it is really happy. Try different foods and see how your body feels after eating the food. If your body feels very agile, energetic, and nice, that means the body is happy. If the body feels lethargic and needs to be pumped up with caffeine or nicotine to stay awake, the body is not happy, isn’t it?
If you listen to your body, your body will tell you with what kind of food it is happy. In terms of the quality of food that is entering you, definitely, vegetarian food is far better for the system than non-vegetarian. We are not looking at it from a moral standpoint. We are just looking at what is suitable for the system – we try to eat foods that would make you comfortable in the body. The kind of food with which your body would be most at ease and would not struggle to get nourishment out of, that is the kind of food we should eat.
Just experiment and see, when you eat vegetarian food in its live form, what a difference it will make. The idea is to eat as much live food as possible – whatever can be consumed in its aliveness. A live cell has everything to sustain life. When we cook the food, it destroys the life in it. Eating food after its process of destruction does not give the same amount of life energy to the system. But when you eat live foods, it brings a different level of aliveness in you. If you bring in at least thirty to forty percent live food – sprouts, fruit, and whatever vegetables that can be eaten in a live condition – you will see, that it will sustain the life within you very well.
Above all, the food that you eat is life. It is other forms of life that we are eating – the other forms of life are giving up their life to sustain our lives. If we can eat with enormous gratitude for all the living things that give up their life to sustain our lives, then the food will behave in a very different way within us.
Ranked among the fifty most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a Yogi, mystic, visionary, and a New York Times bestselling author. Sadhguru was conferred the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India in 2017, the highest annual civilian award, accorded for exceptional and distinguished service. He is also the founder of the world’s largest people’s movement, Conscious Planet – Save Soil, which has touched over 4 billion people.
