The Significance of 108-Yugas – The Tides of Time

The Significance of 108 – Why Is It So Important?
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In this excerpt from the Mahabharat program that Sadhguru conducted in 2012, Sadhguru looks at the nature of time and explains how the sages of Bharat had a phenomenal understanding of this most fundamental aspect of creation. He looks at the significance of 108, and why it turns up in many places such as the number of beads in rudraksha malas. He looks at how 108 is important not just for the human being but also on the scale of the Earth and Solar System.

Sadhguru: From the infiniteness of pre-creation arose three possibilities of creation. Through the limitless space, it chose to find expression in the form of time, energy, and gravity. These three fundamentals trapped this timeless, limitless space into a time-bound, limited creation. Of these three, time – the relentless time – elates and bludgeons, nurtures and gnashes, rises and falls. Time gives respite to no one. A worm or a bird, the hunted or the hunter, the ruled or the ruler, the slave or the emperor, beautiful bodies and wondrous palaces, prime of fame and angst of shame – everything goes back to nothingness, to dust and ashes.

Time is always on

Kala, time, is one factor that is relentlessly on. Either you ride this time and live a beautiful life, or you get bludgeoned by this relentless wheel of time. Either one is destroyed by the process of time, or one is delivered by the process of time. Either one is entrapped by the process of time, or one uses time to transcend and liberate oneself. Time is the most significant dimension of creation – not just a human concept, as most people believe. If there was no time, there would be no beginning and no end. If there was no beginning and no end, there would be no creation.

It is in time that we exist. It is in time that we were born. It is in time that we will die. If one understands the significance of time, the laws of time, the dharma of time and is in tune with the dharma of time, one is not just a jaya – one is a vijaya. One makes it here and one makes it elsewhere. Conversely, one who is not in tune with the dharma of time will get crushed and crumbled by the process of life. Life is just a play of time. Understanding this, the ancient sages, seers, and yogis of this region looked at time with enormous attention. Our idea of time is essentially based on the way we are connected with the immediate creation around us – the planet and the solar system.

The significance of 108

According to the Surya Siddhanta, an ancient Indian astronomical work, the sunlight moves at a speed of 2,202 yojanas in 0.5 nimisha. One yojana is nine miles. 2,202 yojanas amount to 19,818 miles. One nimisha is equal to 16/75 of a second. Half a nimisha amounts to 8/75 of a second, which is 0.106666 seconds. A speed of 19,818 miles in 0.10666 seconds equals 185,793 miles per second. This is approximately in line with the modern calculations, according to which the speed of light is 186,282 miles per second. Modern science has arrived at this number with great difficulty and all kinds of instruments, while a few thousand years ago, they got this number by simple observation of how the human system and the solar system function together.

The distances between the Sun and the Earth, the distances between the Moon and the Earth, the way the planet rotates and the impact it has – all these things have been looked at with great care. The diameter of the Sun multiplied by 108 equals the distance between Sun and Earth, and the diameter of the Moon multiplied by 108 equals the distance between Earth and Moon. The diameter of the Sun is 108 times the diameter of the Earth. That is why we have 108 beads in a mala.

I could go on with all kinds of fabulous figures, but the most important thing is the deep connection between the making of time and the making of the human body. You know, the planet is approximately round and it has a slightly tilted orbit. As it travels, as it spins, it forms a circle. Today we know it takes 25,920 years to complete this cycle. This tilt mainly happens because of the gravitational pull of the moon over the earth. And that many years are called one cycle of yugas[1]. Each of these cycles has eight yugas.

Earth and man

Back to one cycle of axial procession – 25,920 divided by 60 (which is also the number of heart beats per minute if you are healthy) – comes to 432. Four hundred thirty two is a number that comes up in various cultures – the Norse culture, the ancient Jewish culture, the Egyptian culture, the Mesopotamian culture, and very much in the Indian culture here. Why 432? If you are in good health and in good condition, your heart beats about 60 times per minute, which is 3600 per hour, and 3600 x 24 equals 86,400 heartbeats per day. If you divide 864 by 2, again you have 432.

Only if you are riding the time, you will live an extraordinary life, which is what a human being and the human brain are designed for.

If you are healthy, you take about 15 breaths per minute. If you have done lots of sadhana, it could be only 12. 15 breaths per minute means 900 breaths per hour and 21,600 per day. 216 multiplied by 2 becomes 432 again. If you take the circumference of the earth – there is something called a nautical mile which is the real mile in the sense that it has something to do with the way the planet is. The other units of measurement were created for ease of calculation.

You know there are 360° in a circle. Likewise, there are 360° upon the planet, and each degree is divided into 60 minutes. One of these minutes accounts for one nautical mile. That means the circumference of the earth at the equator is 21,600 nautical miles – that is also how many breaths you take per day. That means the planet is spinning on time and you are doing well. If the planet was not spinning on time, it would be no good at all for us. If you are not in tune with it, it is also no good for you.

This is to show you time is not a concept that we invented – time is deep-rooted in the system, in the very way we are made. When we go into Mahabharat, there is so much talk about the yugas and how they function. I want you to look at the impact of time in human life from a different context. This is not something that someone thought up – this is a phenomenal and profound science. Yoga has always been deeply involved with this. It is just that we don’t believe in propounding theories about it. By practice, we try to attune the body to the times and spaces of creation, because without being in tune with them, you do not get very far. If you are not riding the time, you will live a mediocre life – probably a suffering life. Only if you are riding the time, you will live an extraordinary life, which is what a human being and the human brain are designed for.

The numbers in brief:

There are 2202 yojanas in 0.5 nimisha.
1 yojana = 9 miles
1 nimisha = seconds
2202 yojana in 0.5 nimisha = 2202 x 9 miles in 0.5 x (16/75) seconds
= 19,818 miles in 0.10666 seconds
= 185,793 miles/second

 

[1] There are 4 yugas: Kali, Dwapara, Treta and Krita yuga. Each of these occurs twice per 25920-year cycle.

 

Yugas, the significance of 108, and many more mystical aspects are the subject of the DVD “Yugas – The Tides of Time”. Purchase and download the video at Isha Downloads.

Yugas – The Tides of Time

The Significance of Dreams

Yogi and mystic, Sadhguru, looks at the significance of dreams and their various kinds, from ones manifesting unfulfilled desire, to aspects of tantra where dreams crystalize into reality.

Question: What is the significance of dreams? Are they a sort of warning or indication of something?

Sadhguru: Most of the dreams people go through in their day-to-day life are because there is an unbridled sense of desiring. Most human beings are not conscious of most of their desires. If they look at something, they desire that unconsciously. If they look at something else, they desire that. This is happening all the time for most human beings. Whatever they see, they desire it a little bit, but not consciously.

These desires build up in a huge way. If they have to be fulfilled in your life, you would need a hundred lifetimes – you have desired so many things! It is impossible for these to be fulfilled during the day, during the course of your life. So, dreams will find expression and you will not remember most of these dreams. Unfulfilled desires getting fulfilled in dreams is what ninety-five percent of human dreams belong to I would say.

The second state of dreaming

The second state of dreaming may have something to do with your subconscious, where sometimes you would not see exactly that situation, but a certain parallel situation which refers to some aspect of your life. Since the subconscious does not function within the realm of logic or the realms of time and space, you could already be seeing what could be tomorrow, but maybe not clearly. Usually, it may be a parallel vision. Let us say for example, you find that you are climbing a mountain and your legs are hurting but still you are not getting anywhere. Tomorrow morning you may go to the office and face an uphill task. Two to three percent of the dreams could be something like this.

Tantra – Crystalising dreams into reality

There are other kinds of dreams with which you can create. The whole aspect of tantra is just about using your imagination in such a systematic way that you go on creating. If you take your little finger and with your mind, draw a line along the outline of the finger without missing a single point, it will take a lot of practice and slowly, if you can do it 100% – for every point, you can actually create what you visualize. You can crystallize it into reality simply because you are using your mind in a certain way. The whole tantric procedure is just that – using your imagination and creating everything, point by point, and after some time you can breathe life into it.

If you go on trying to sieve every dream that you get, you will waste your time and life. So don’t pay any attention to dreams, pay attention to life.

Even today this is true, occult practitioners in India will make a doll out of cooked rice or some dough. They will work it up with all kinds of things and then make it actually walk – like a robot. It takes two, three steps and cracks up and falls apart. This is simply by using the power of the mind. If you train yourself just using the imagination, your dream process can become like that. You may have heard of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa feeding Kali and all these stories? They look like mumbo-jumbo but for him it was a reality. There were any number of people like this for whom it was a reality. Whether Kali comes or not, he makes it happen for himself. His mind is so crystallized on this, he actually creates the form. You can crystallize reality simply by using your mind.

Dream states can also be like this, but do not start wondering about the significance of dreams or imagining that every dream you get is going to happen. It will drive you crazy. Most of the dreams are just unfulfilled desires being fulfilled. If dreams are significant, they will manifest. But if you go on trying to sieve every dream that you get, you will waste your time and life. So don’t pay any attention to dreams, pay attention to life.

Dreams and Karma – Part 1

In the first of two parts, Sadhguru looks at the nature of dreams, and how they tie in with the unwinding of karma.

Sadhguru: When an individual dreams, it is called a fantasy. When a group of people dream, it becomes a society. When the universal dreams, it generally passes off as reality. A dream is a certain reality, and reality is a certain dream. The best thing about a dream is, when you wake up, it’s over. So it is with the so-called reality – when you wake up, it’s over. Medically, if we check the parameters of your body in sleep, it is just in a slightly lower state – you could be meditating. So sleep is just a more relaxed state of wakefulness, or wakefulness is a more agitated state of sleep.

Is this some kind of play of words, some kind of entertainment that we can think, “Okay, dream and wakefulness are the same, reality and dream are the same?” It is not so. You know reality only the way your senses interpret it for you. You do not know it the way it is. So what you call “reality” is an interpretation of your mind, what you call “dream” is also an interpretation of your mind. Whatever happens in your mind is another kind of reality. We can call it “psychological reality.” For most people, their dream is far more powerful than their thought process. Unfortunately, they don’t remember most of it.

The unwinding of karma

The process of life can be interpreted as an unwinding of that which has already been done. When we say, “Your life is the way it is because that’syour karma,” it simply means, your life is an unwinding of that which has already been done. But life situations may not collaborate very well with the karmic substance that you have. If you are trying to do a dream with eyes open and seek the cooperation of the world to do your dream, it is a hopeless way to live because the world will not cooperate with your dream. They have their own stuff. In a dream, you are able to create a conducive atmosphere for the kind of winding that you have. Only if life has gone beyond the unconscious unwinding of karma and it has become a conscious process, then, wakefulness is more meaningful. If life is limited only to unwinding of that which has already been done, a dream isdefinitely a better space to do it.

Can you accumulate karma in a dream? The accumulation of karma is not in the activity that you perform. It is in the volition or the intention of one’s action.

In the yogic culture, Shiva, the Mahadeva, is described either as utter sleep or absolute wakefulness. This is the state of a fully conscious one: either he does not exist, or he is on. There is no in-between reality for him because if there is nothing to unwind, there will be only stillness and awakening. There will be no dream state. When I say “dream,” I’m not only talking about the scenery that happens when you are asleep, even when you have your eyes open, you are in a dream state. Right now, how you are experiencing the creation is completely dreamy. It is not the way it is.

The power of the dream and the flimsiness of the dream are simultaneously present. For one who is lost in the dream, it is a powerful thing. For one who is looking at it from a little distance it is such a flimsy thing. It just depends on how you have positioned yourself in relation to your dream.

So can you accumulate karma in a dream? The accumulation of karma is not in the activity that you perform. It is in the volition or the intention of one’s action. Are you capable of an intention in a dream? Can you decide, “Today, I am going to have this kind of dream?” No. There is no volition in a dream. So a dream is only a process of unwinding. Even during the day, most of the time you are only unwinding that which has already been done. Your anger, your ambition, your frustration, your love, your passion, your hatred, most of this is only unwinding of karma, not your doing. You will realize this only when you try to stop it. Let’s say you got very angry with someone yesterday, and today, you are determined, “I don’t want to get angry with this person.” But when you meet him you will see, once again you get angry. Obviously it is not your doing. Most of the time, you are only doing the reverse of what has already been done. Only when you try to transform yourself, you will realize this. This unwinding of the karmic process seems so real, seems like it is you who is doing this. When we say “karma,” we are saying, it is your doing. When one believes that whatever he is doing, he is doing out of his intentions, it is a very basic state of ignorance.

Losing self-interest

There is a chant that says, “It’s all you, Mahadeva, it’s all you. My evil is my mind’s doing, my actions are my body’s doing – where am I? I don’t even exist. It is all yours.” If a true devotee says this, then it is a very beautiful state of realization. If the mind says this, then it is a very gross level of cunning. Most human beings have learnt to pass the buck to someone else or something else whenever things that are happening are not to their liking. Only if you are willing to pass that which you like and that which you do not like, that which is failure and that which is success to someone else, it is okay. If your wellbeing and your distress both are being passed to someone, that’s okay. If you are only willing to pass your distress, not your wellbeing – you are trying to make a bad deal with someone. No one is going to buy this deal unless he is an absolute fool.

Even the dimmest person is very clever when it comes to his self-interest. Only when human beings get more and more intelligent, they are less and less concerned about their self-interest. The dimmer they are, the shrewder they are about their self-interest. Have you noticed this? Being interested in the limited self is a foolish thing. It’s a terrible loss that is happening to an individual human being and to humanity as a whole. When he could be interested and involved in the grandeur of the cosmos, he is interested in one little person who is not worth anything. When intelligence expands and starts looking at a variety of things, a human being is not so concerned about his self-interest. If one’s intelligence truly flowers, he has no self-interest.

Dreams and Karma – Part 2

In the second of two parts, Sadhguru looks at the nature of dreams, and how they tie in with the unwinding of karma.

Sadhguru: Karma is many things. We talk about the same karma on different levels, according to one’s perception right now. Karma means action. Whose action? “My action.” The first thing is to realize, “This unwinding is happening only because the winding has been done by me.” The unwinding looks oh so automatic. “It doesn’t even take my involvement. It just happens. My anger just happens, my thoughts just happen, my emotions just happen.” It does not even take an intention or involvement to make this happen. It is simply happening. It almost looks like it is some other creature doing all this. If you stay in silence for a period of time, and you just observe the way the mind is going on, it is almost like you are possessed by something else. As if it is doing its own thing. But it is only undoing your doing.

Now, is life all doing, dream all undoing? No. Life is a mixture of doing and undoing. The more unconscious you are, the more undoing is happening. If you become partially conscious, you will end up doing a lot more. If you become fully conscious, then undoing will happen very rapidly, doing will be completely held back. A partial level of consciousness always does more doing than undoing. Once you become educated, your doing and undoing gets pretty mixed up. You are capable of undoing and doing at the same time.

The role of education

On one level, your thought and emotion are working themselves out in unconscious ways. On another level, you have intentions to fulfill. This is happening to people all the time. I don’t want to blame it all on education, but generally, the type of education you receive is the reason for this – it sets up strong intentions in you. Today’s education is not a process of knowing, it is not a process of realization, it is not a process of developing your body or your mind to its fullest capability. It sets up very strong desires and ambitions within you.

This is a powerful tool for creating karma: intention. It is the volition which causes karma, not the action.

Educated people are suffering with limitless wants. They cannot eat a full stomach and happily sit and sleep. No. When they are eating, they are talking business. It is not because they have taken up the cause of the world, to create something, to build something, to make their lives or everyone’s lives wonderful. No. They simply want to do more of the nonsense that they are doing because very strong intentions have been set up, without any particular purpose. This is a powerful tool for creating karma: intention. It is the volition which causes karma, not the action.

In the karmic process, the unwinding is happening because of activity. The winding is happening because of strong intentions. The more you think of yourself, the stronger your intentions become. When I say intentions, I’m not talking about great intentions – I’m talking aboutstrong intentions. When you are in anger, you could be unwinding, but you could also be winding. You may just burst into anger and cool down. Or you can burst into anger and then create an intention: “You know what I want to do to her?” Now you will be winding in a big way. Anger is just an explosion. Anger is just an unwinding of something that has happened within you. Anger may breed hatred. Hatred is an intention. Hatred is anger which has taken on an intention. Jealousy may be an unwinding, we can say envy is an intention – it is jealousy that has taken on an intention. Now, with a certain coolness, even if you are angry, if you become hateful, you don’t show your anger or hatefulness anymore. You put on a cool face and do the hot things, isn’t it? Lust for example is an unwinding. Passion is winding because it is an intention.

The so-called sophisticated

If you find expression to all the thoughts and emotions that happen within you, you would come out almost brutish. To polish that, you create an intention – that’s winding. This so-called sophistication is suicide because you constantly wind faster than you unwind, because the mind becomes two-faced. On one level, it is unwinding, on another level, it has its own intentions. You will see the so-called sophisticated people – when I say “sophisticated,” I mean socially sophisticated people not truly sophisticated people – they always suffer much more than simple folk. Simple people’s anger, hatred, and prejudice find open expression. They may look crude but in terms of cunning, they are many points below the so-called sophisticated people. The more sophisticated people, initially they learn to deceive others. After some time, they become experts and they can even deceive themselves. Their intentions are not even revealed to themselves.

Education enhances that capability because of the variety of exposure it gives you without proper understanding of how the human mind functions, how it evolves, what can make it flower, what can make it turn dirty – these things are not being looked at with any profoundness. Information is simply dished out in all kinds of forms to all kinds of people. So generally, people unfortunately are making use of education to wind themselves up. In terms of the world around them, in terms of information, they may know more, but in terms of life process, educated people are generally more ignorant than the illiterate. If you go to a simple illiterate peasant’s house in India, his sense of life, his sense of his body, his sense of his physical comfort, his sense of what works with somebody and what doesn’t is so much more clear-cut and sensible than that of most of the educated communities in the world. Because he doesn’t have so much confusing thought in his mind. He is not loose in his head, which has happened to a large segment of educated people. It is not that education itself is the culprit, it is because there is no guideline as to how to make use of it for one’s wellbeing. So unfortunately, education which should have been empowerment, education which should have been clarity, has brought more confusion about the life process itself.

So wakefulness and dream – it is best that you do not distinguish between the two. I want you to see either both these states as dream, or both these states as different levels of wakefulness. This is one kind of dream, that is a deeper dream. Or this is one kind of reality, that is another kind of reality. If you see it this way, you can make both into a process of unwinding rather than winding.

How To be Creative: 3 Reliable Methods That Can’t Fail

Finding inspiration and increasing your creative output should become easier with these three methods from yogi and mystic, Sadhguru, that focus on how to be creative.

#1 Find Your Inspiration Everywhere

Sadhguru: Everything that human beings have created is only an imitation and modification of what is already there. It doesn’t matter what kind of machine you create, still, the finest mechanical and electronic systems and the most complex chemical factories are there in your body. Or, if you look at creativity in terms of art, everything that you do is just a small imitation of nature. There is no real creativity as such. Creation has already happened. You only imitate creation.

So if you are wondering how to be creative in any field, all you have to do is observe in the deepest possible way. If you develop a sense of observing every little thing that you do and every little thing that is happening around, it brings enormous vision as to what you can do with everything.

Creativity need not necessarily mean that you invent something fantastic. Someone can be creative about how they sweep the floor. If you develop the means to truly observe what is happening within you on all levels of who you are, then you would be enormously creative. But even if you just observe what is happening around you constantly, you will see there is always a way to do the same thing in a more innovative way.

#2 Learn to See Without Distortion

Sadhguru: If creativity has to happen, we have to develop a certain level of un-distortedness in the mind. If you carry the baggage of life with you all the time, you cannot see anything the way it is. In yoga, we always describe the mind as a mirror. A mirror is useful to you only if it is clean and plain. If it is undulating or has accumulated something, it does not show you things as they are. The nature of a mirror is such that if you stand before it, it carries you in full glory. If you leave, the mirror leaves you 100%. It will not retain even a little residue of who you are. The next person who comes and stands in front of the mirror is also reflected in full glory. If a million people look at themselves in a mirror, they will not leave an iota of their quality in the mirror.

If you can keep your mind in such a way that the exposure to life does not leave any residue on your mind, then you see things just the way they are. Then there is room to innovate and create every aspect of your life. If you are just receptive to life, if you become a reflection of life rather than becoming a mind and a jumble of thoughts, this is what is generally considered as creativity.

#3 Get Involved With Everything

Sadhguru: If you don’t make any distinction as to what is important and not important or what you like and don’t like, you see everything just the way it is. But the moment you decide what is mine and not mine and what is important and not important, how will you get involved with that which you think is not yours? Where there is no involvement, nothing functions well. When you are deeply involved with everything that you are in touch with right now, only then do you see everything clearly, the way it needs to be seen. When you see things like this, it is very easy to create anything because it is just a question of what material you have in your hands and how to put it together.

When Hesitation is a “Sin”

Questioner: Sadhguru, you said intelligent ones wonder. Does wondering not create hesitation? Krishna said hesitation is a sin. Is this not a contradiction?

Sadhguru: Krishna said hesitation is a sin because when you hesitate, you miss everything. A man who has chosen to act should not hesitate after the plan has been clearly drawn out. If everything that needs to be done has been thought out, but at the moment of action, you hesitate, you will ruin everything. But before the decision to fight the war was made, Krishna thought and rethought it, and did everything possible to avoid the war – he did not see this as hesitation.

Duryodhana wanted to go to war on the spur of the moment, while the Pandavas and Krishna himself deliberated on what to do. But once the decision is made and you are on the battlefield, do not hesitate. If you hesitate in a moment of action, it will lead to ruin. Let’s say you are driving on an Indian highway – that is a unique situation. Both ways, there is traffic, with no median in the center. You want to pass, you generally know how much power you got, but traffic comes your way. If you go quickly, you will pass, but a moment of hesitation, and you can be in trouble.

When you are in action, you must be in pure action. If you allow action to happen, a different dimension of intelligence functions within you. You do not have to think – there is something else that just acts. Sportspersons experience this – if they think and hesitate for a moment, it can be disastrous. Krishna spoke to Arjuna, who is also known as Savyasachi, which means he is an ambidextrous warrior. They say when he got into action, he became like a blur – people could not even see what his hands were doing. A man who is capable of such a dimension of action will be ruined if he hesitates. Krishna told him that.

When I said, “Intelligent ones wonder – idiots are dead sure,” it was in a different context, in terms of “fools rush where angels fear to tread.” Intelligence will always probe and see which way to go, what the best thing to do is. Stupidity just walks into everything. Probing time may seem like hesitation, but it is not in the sense that Krishna meant. This is not contradictory – it is a different context.

What is the source of thoughts?

Questioner: Sadhguru, what is the source of thoughts?

Sadhguru: In terms of content, the source of your thoughts is the accumulation of your sense perceptions. In terms of substance, a thought is just a reverberation – you can give it any form. When the reverberations become continuous, the thought process picks up momentum. Through meditation, you calm down the reverberations into stillness. The reverberation that you experience as thought right now would on a lower scale of evolution be instinct. Instinct is not exactly the same as thought – there is much more clarity in instinct than in thought.

Instinct is a lower form of thought, or thought is a higher form of instinct.

A thought can be formed one way or the other – it can be contradictory. Instinct is clear-cut. Animals that are lower on the evolutionary scale seem to be so much surer about their life than human beings, because their reverberations are on the level of instinct. Instinct is always about survival – mostly physical survival. If you look at a worm for example, it seems to be surer – it just knows where to go, because it follows its instinct.

We can say instinct is a lower form of thought, or thought is a higher form of instinct – whichever way you want to look at it. Instinct has minimal reach – it is always about your immediate surroundings. But your thoughts need not be about your immediate surroundings – they can be about anything. That is why you think of so much nonsense that does not really concern you. You think about all kinds of things – heaven, hell, a million years later or a million years ago – thoughts can go anywhere.

In the evolutionary process, as the body evolves, the reverberations that happen within also evolve from instinct to thought. Thought is a certain freedom – it gives you larger access to life. But at the same time, thoughts create total turmoil in human beings. All suffering is because you do not know which way to think and what to do. If you went by your instinct alone, you would know what to do. Life would be much simpler, but also very limited. There would be no possibilities other than survival.

After instinct evolved into thought, and the thought process became excessive, the struggles have arisen, because the thoughts happen involuntarily, according to the sense impressions that you have gathered. The thought process has become a problem for people only because they are not aware that it is just a reverberation. These reverberations can take any form, or you can experience them just as reverberations without giving them any form.

In a way, the process of Shoonya meditation is just that. It is not that your reverberations have stopped, as yet – it is just that you have stopped attaching forms or meanings to them. Being aware enough not to attach forms or meanings to every reverberation that happens within you is an enormous freedom, and it releases you from the past content of your mind. Or in traditional words – it is unbinding your karmic structure, because you are not giving it any form or meaning anymore.

The whole process of Isha Yoga is about not giving a form to the reverberation that you are right now. Your thought is a reverberation, and in a deeper way, what you call as “myself” is also a reverberation. Life itself is a certain reverberation. Modern physics is proving that the whole existence is a certain reverberation of energy. The physical body, thoughts, emotions, and everything else are different aspects of the reverberation that existence is. In human beings, this reverberation has evolved from an instinctive state to a thought state, which is a freedom because it gives you a larger access to life. At the same time, without the necessary awareness, all suffering that human beings are going through is just in their thoughts – it is in the way they think.

Editor’s Note: This article is based on an excerpt from the July 2014 issue of Forest Flower. Pay what you want and download. (set ‘0’ for free). Print subscriptions are also available.

Stop Thinking Yourself Out of Life

Stop Thinking Yourself Out of Life

Sadhguru tells us the story of when Aristotle met Heraclitus, to illustrate how we tend to get lost in our thought process and lose perspective in life.

Sadhguru: Someone told you, “I think therefore I am.” Is that really true? It is only because you exist that you can generate a thought, isn’t it? Your thought process has become so compulsive, and your focus has shifted from your existence to your thought to such an extent, that now you are beginning to believe that you exist because you think. Even without your silly thoughts, existence is. What can you think, really? Just the nonsense that you have gathered and recycled. Can you think something other than what has been fed into your head? All you are doing is recycling old data. This recycling has become so important that people even dare to say “I think, therefore I am.” And that has become the world’s way of life.

Because you are, you can think. If you choose, you can fully be and still not think. The most beautiful moments in your life – moments of bliss, moments of joy, moments of ecstasy, moments of utter peace – were moments when you were not thinking about anything. You were just living.

Do you want to be a living being or a thinking being? Right now, ninety percent of the time you are only thinking about life, not living life. Have you come here to experience life or to think about life? Everybody can think up their own nonsense whichever way they want; it need not have anything to do with reality. Your psychological process is a very small happening compared to the life process, but right now it has become far more important. We need to shift the significance to the life process once again.

Aristotle is known as the father of modern logic; his logic was immaculate. He was intellectually brilliant, no question about that, but he tried to stretch logic to all aspects of life, and in many ways he was crippled.

There is a story, I do not know if it is a fact, but it smells true. One day, Aristotle was walking on the beach. A glorious sunset was happening, but he had no time for such petty daily events. He was thinking seriously about some great problem of existence, because for Aristotle, existence is a problem, and he believes he is going to solve it. Thinking seriously, he was walking up and down the beach. There was another man on the beach who was doing something very intensely – so intensely that even Aristotle could not ignore him.

You know, people who think too much about their own nonsense end up ignoring life around them. They are the people who don’t smile at anybody or even look at anybody in the world. They have no eyes to look at a flower, a sunset, a child or a smiling face – or if it is an unsmiling face, they have no inclination to make it smile; they have no such small duties or small cares in the world! They ignore all the life around them because they are all busy, solving the problems of existence.

But Aristotle could not ignore this man, and he closely observed what he was doing: this man was going to the ocean, coming back, going to the ocean, coming back, all with great intensity. So Aristotle stopped and asked, “Hey, what are you up to?”

The man said, “Don’t disturb me, I am doing something very important,” and went on and on.

Aristotle became even more curious and asked, “What are you doing?”

The man said, “Don’t disturb me, something very important.”

Aristotle said, “What is this important thing?”

The man showed a little hole he had dug in the sand, and he said, “I am emptying the ocean into this hole.” He had a tablespoon in his hand.

Aristotle looked at this and laughed. Now, Aristotle is the kind who can spend a year without a single moment of laughter, because he is intellect. It takes a heart to laugh. Intellect cannot laugh; it can only dissect.

But even Aristotle laughed at this and said, “This is ridiculous! You must be insane. Do you know how vast this ocean is? How can you ever empty this ocean into this little hole? And that too, with a tablespoon? At least if you have a bucket, there’s some chance. Please give this up; this is madness, I am telling you.”

The man looked at Aristotle, threw the spoon down and said, “My job is already done.”

Aristotle said, “What do you mean? Forget about the ocean being empty; even the hole is not full. How can you say your job is done?”

The other man was Heraclitus. Heraclitus stood up and said, “I am trying to empty the ocean into this hole with a tablespoon. You are telling me it’s ridiculous, it’s madness, so I should give it up. What are you trying to do? Do you know how vast this existence is? It can contain a billion oceans like this and more, and you are trying to empty it into the small hole of your head – and with what? With tablespoons called thoughts. Please give it up. It’s utterly ridiculous.”

If you want to know the experiential dimensions of life, you will never know it with petty thought. It does not matter how well you can think, human thought is still petty. Even if you have Einstein’s brain working within you, it is still petty because thought cannot be bigger than life. Thought can only be logical, functioning between two polarities. If you want to know life in its immensity, you need something more than your thoughts, something more than your logic, something more than your intellect.

This is the choice you have: either you learn to live with creation, or you create your own nonsensical creation in your head. Which option do you want to exercise? Right now, most people are living in thoughts, something in a psychological space, not in an existential space. And so they are insecure, because it can collapse any moment.

The planet is spinning on time. Not a small event. All galaxies are going perfectly well, the whole cosmos is doing great. But you have one nasty little thought crawling through your head, and it is a bad day.

You have the freedom to think whatever you want. Why don’t you just think pleasant thoughts? The problem is just this: you have a computer for which you have not bothered to find the keypad. If you had the keypad, you might type the right words, isn’t it? You don’t have the keypad, and you are punching your computer like a cave man, so all the wrong words keep coming up. Try this with your computer; the result will look like an obscenity.

You have lost your perspective of life because you think you are much more than you are. In cosmic space, if you look at yourself in perspective, you are less than a speck of dust, but you think your thought – which is less than a speck in you – should determine the nature of existence. What I think and what you think is not of any importance. What is important is the grandeur of existence — the only reality.

You have heard of the word “Buddha.” One who has risen above his intellect, or one who has risen above the discriminatory and logical dimension of his life, is a Buddha. Human beings have invented millions of ways to suffer. For all this the manufacturing unit is just in your mind. When you have risen above your mind, this is the end of suffering. When there is no fear of suffering, there is absolute freedom. Only when this happens, a man is free to experience life beyond his limitations. So being a Buddha means that you have become a witness to your own intellect. The essence of yoga and meditation is just this: once you have a clear space between you and your mind, you experience a completely different dimension of existence.

The next step

You could try this simple practice. Set your tap – or any similar contraption – in such a way that only five to ten drops fall per minute. See if you can observe each drop – how it forms, how it falls, how it splashes on the ground. Do this for fifteen to twenty minutes a day. You will suddenly become conscious of so many things around and within you that you are completely unaware of right now.