What is the Purpose of Life?
Sadhguru: Isn't it fantastic that if there is no purpose, you have nothing to fulfill, you can just live. No, but you want a purpose and not a simple purpose, you want a "God-given" purpose. It's very dangerous. People who think they have a God-given purpose are doing the cruelest things on the planet. Yes or no? They are doing the most horrible things and they’ve always been doing the most horrible things because when you have a God-given purpose, life here becomes less important than your purpose.
No, life is important. Life is important - when I say "life," I am not talking about your family, your work, what you do, what you do not do, your party - I am not talking about that as life. This is life (referring to the self), isn't it? Life is within you or around you? You’re mistaking the ambiance of life for life. Your home, your family, your workspace, your party - this is all ambiance of life. This is not life, isn't it? Yes or no?
Participants: Yes.
Sadhguru: You’re mistaking the ambiance for the real thing. No. Life is important because it's the only thing you know, you don't know anything else. Do you know something else? Rest is all imagined stuff. The only thing is that this is beating and alive and that's all there is.
This is the greatest aspect of life - that it has no meaning to it and there is no need for it to have a meaning.
So, is this important? It is of paramount importance. Not you as a person, that’s not important, but you as a piece of life - it’s very important because that is the basis of everything. When I say that is the basis of everything, the universe exists for you only because you are, isn't it? Yes or no? The world exists for you only because you are, otherwise it won't exist in your experience. So, in every way this is important.
So, what is the purpose for this? See, if you had a purpose and if you’ve fulfilled it, after that what would you do? Bored, isn't it? It is just that life is so intricate and so phenomenally intricate that if you spend a 10,000 years looking at it carefully, you still will not know it entirely. If you spend a million years looking at it with absolute focus, still you will not know it in its entirety. That’s how it is. Is there a meaning to it? The greatest thing about life is that there is no meaning to it. This is the greatest aspect of life - that it has no meaning to it and there is no need for it to have a meaning. It is the pettiness of one’s mind that it’ll seek a meaning because psychologically you will feel kind of unconnected with life if you don’t have a purpose and a meaning.
People are constantly trying to create these false purposes. Now, they were quite fine and happy. Suddenly, they got married. Now the purpose is the other person. Then they have children. Now they become miserable with each other. Now the whole purpose that I go through all this misery is because the children. Like this, it goes on. These are things that you’re causing and holding these as purposes of life and is there a God-given purpose? What if God does not know you exist? No, I am just asking, by chance. I am saying in this huge cosmos, for which God is supposed to be the Creator and the manager of these hundred billion galaxies, in that this tiny little planet and you in Houston, Tch… Suppose he doesn’t know that you exist, what to do? Possible or no? I am sorry, I am saying such sacrilegious things but is it possible or no? What if he doesn’t know that you exist?
The need for purpose has come because you’re trapped in your psychological structure, not in your life process.
What if he doesn’t have a plan for you? Like Obama care. Suppose, he doesn’t have an individual plan for you! Don’t look for such things. The thing is, the creation is made in such a way that Creation and Creator cannot be separated. Here you are a piece of creation. At the same time, the source of creation is throbbing within you. If you pay little attention to this process of life, you would not need any purpose. It’ll keep you engaged for a million years if you want. There is so much happening - so much means so much unbelievable things are happening right here. If you pay enough attention, a million years of existence, it will keep you busy or more.
Right now, the need for purpose has come because you’re trapped in your psychological structure, not in your life process. Your psychological structure functions from the limited data that it has gathered. Within that it rolls and right now, your thought and emotion has become far more important than your life. So, because of this you’re seeking a purpose as an escape from the trap that you have set for yourself. It is a trap set by you. You can easily come out of it. If the trap was set for you by somebody else, difficult to come out because they’ll set the trap in such a way that you cannot come out.
I am talking about life not marriage, that’s what I mean. So this is a trap set by you. This is easy to come out, but that is the whole thing. Why it is so difficult is, now you’re identified with the trap, you like it. You like it because it gives you a certain sense of safety and security and protection and individual identity. If you build a cocoon around yourself, it gives you safety, but it also imprisons you. Walls of self-preservation are also walls of self-imprisonment. When it protects you, you like it. When it restricts you, you do not like it. That is why we have doors. We like the walls because it's protecting us, but we have doors so that we can open it and get out when we want to. It doesn’t matter how nice it is, we still want to go out, isn't it?
Those who find a purpose in their life, they become so conceited. They will live within their own trap forever thinking that they’re doing the most fantastic thing.
So that is how it is with every trap that you set. It doesn’t matter how nice it is, you still want to go out. So, the psychological wall that you’ve built, which gives you some sense of identity, which gives you some sense of being an individual person and which gives you security, beginning to experience it like a trap; somewhere you want to break it. So, one way of not breaking it is to find a purpose. Those who find a purpose in their life, they become so conceited. They will live within their own trap forever thinking that they’re doing the most fantastic thing. And now you said I’ve found a purpose. No, I am just fooling around, really! This is not a mission. People think I am some kind of a missionary because of the energy with which I am going at it. I am not going at it with any zeal, but I am going at it with a certain energy because it's normal for me to involve myself like this in anything for that matter.
You know like last two months have been a blitz of activity; blitz means like without a day’s break, without an hour’s break it's been going on like over twenty hours a day nonstop. So, I was in London, I did a three-day event, then I went straight from there to Kumbh. From there all of us who went there caught a flu, but then I went straight to Hyderabad, that afternoon I flew and in the evening I started a program - three-day event. All of them went down who traveled with me, but with my flu I taught three days’ program. Then I came into the ashram and then samyama started that evening, eight days of samyama which is an intense process. The day samyama closed, we started the Yaksha program and the Inner Way program. The day that closed, we had the Mahashivaratri, then Brahmachari meet and teachers’ meet - going on like this. My busy day means I am sitting twelve to fourteen hours in the same place unmoving. Everybody goes to the bathroom, but I don’t.
So, I thought I need to move a little bit and I said, ‘Let's go golfing.’ So, we went into a mountain place close by and I went with three other people who traveled from somewhere else and came. In two-and-a-half days I did eighty-five holes in the mountains. They all came in turns, but I went all the way. Every round that you do you walk, no buggies and all that stuff, walking. Ten kilometers you walk in the mountains at 6300 feet, eighty-five holes in two-and-a-half days.
It is wonderful to exist here without any purpose. It takes a certain freedom from your psychological structure to be here without any purpose.
So, if I go like this. Is golf a purpose of my life? No. I approach everything with a certain energy. This does not mean I found a purpose in hitting a ball. Similarly, I am teaching Inner Engineering because I find it's useful for the people. If I see a little boredom in anybody’s face, maybe I won't teach after that. Because I still see people are eager and anxious wanting to know something, I am on. If I see people around me are bored, then maybe you’ll never see me teaching again, because I am not seeing teaching Inner Engineering as a purpose. Right now, I see it is needed.
So, it’s difficult for you to understand probably right now, but the things that I throw my life into, are things that don’t mean anything to me, really! You think Isha Foundation means a world to me? No. Right now, I see without a foundation, we cannot function. With great reluctance, I formed the organization. Now it's grown, grown beyond what most people understand - it's grown very big. Is it the apple of my eye? No. I don’t like apple in my eye, I like my eyes clear. I keep it clear of all apples. You know the last time somebody got into the apple trouble, what happened to them.
So, I am saying I am throwing myself at something with great passion. This does not mean that is the purpose of my life. It is wonderful to exist here without any purpose. It takes a certain freedom from your psychological structure to be here without any purpose. If you’re trapped in your psychological structure you need a purpose. Otherwise, your psychological structure will lose its integrity. That’s why the girl who was asking at that time, I said, “First thing you need is balance. If you have balance, then you can climb. If you don’t have balance, it's better you stay on the ground.” It's not safe for somebody who is not balanced to climb high. It's best you stay close to the ground. You should not climb.
So, first thing is to establish a balance, then you loosen your psychological structure, then it's a wonderful thing. If you are loosening your psychological structure without balance, which lot of people are doing today. See, why does somebody want to drink alcohol or take a drug? Because it loosens your psychological structure and makes you feel liberated for a moment but without the necessary balance. You have not worked for the balance, but you got freedom. Freedom without balance is destruction, anarchy, isn't it?
The purpose of life is to live and to live totally. To live totally means - before you fall dead, every aspect of life has been explored, nothing has been left unexplored.
So, first thing is to work for balance, an enormous sense of balance where even if you dismantle your psychological structure, you can simply live here. Dismantling your psychological structure is an important process because that is your trap, that is your security, that is your stability. At the same time, that’s your trap. Because the walls are set, you feel secured, but that’s also your trap. If you dismantle your trap, you also dismantle your security, isn't it? You also dismantle your sense of purpose. You also dismantle everything that matters to you. So, that will need balance. Without balance, if you dismantle you’ll go crazy. But, don’t look for a purpose because if you look for a purpose, you are seeking madness. If you find one, you are sure mad. Yes. If you think you’ve found a purpose in life you’re for sure gone crazy because only the insane people have purpose or people who have a purpose are insane in many ways.
These are things that you create in your mind and believe it's true, isn't it? Right now, ‘fighting for my country is my purpose.’ Right now if it's necessary, I’ll fight knowing fully well it's an unnecessary bloody fight. Yes. Then you’ll fight only to the extent it's necessary. If you think this is your purpose, you would want to destroy the whole world for what nonsense you believe in, isn't it? If something is needed, we will do it with absolute involvement. Tomorrow suppose I find all of you are enlightened, it may happen! Suppose I find all of you are enlightened, will I come here and say “See, what did you have? Maggi noodles? Your body, you accumulated. You are not the body, you are not the mind,” it would be irrelevant, isn't it? Yes or no? So when I see that you are enlightened, I’ll stop Inner Engineering. Right now, it's needed, we’re doing. This doesn’t mean this is the purpose of my life. This is an unfortunate necessity, but I will do it joyfully and with great vigor because I do that with everything, not just with this. Don’t think I only teach the program with intensity and vigor, I live my life like that with everything, I eat like that also. I will do everything with intensity and vigor, that’s how you’re supposed do your life, isn't it?
So, please do it that way. There’s no other purpose. The purpose of life is to live and to live totally. To live totally does not mean party every night. To live totally means - before you fall dead, every aspect of life has been explored, nothing has been left unexplored. Before you fall dead, even if you do not explore the cosmos, at least this piece of life (Referring to oneself) you must know it in its entirety. That much you must do to yourself, isn't it? That’s living totally, that you experience the whole of this, all dimensions of what this is. You did not live anything untouched. You just do that. That will take a long time. That’s good enough purpose for you.
What is the Purpose
of Life?
Question: Sadhguru, what is the purpose of life?
Sadhguru: If you were very blissful and ecstatic at this moment, would you think, “What is the purpose of life?” – No. Only when in some way, life has become burdensome, these questions arise: “To be or not to be?” “Is there a good enough purpose for me to exist?”
Your experience of life itself has not become grand and worthwhile enough. That is why you are trying to find a meaning. If just sitting here and breathing was ecstatic for you, you wouldn’t ask, “What is the purpose of life?” So, before you ask that question, the most important thing is you need to learn to enhance this life to its maximum potential. When I say “life,” you don’t even know what life is. All you have right now is your body and mind. Make them as pleasant as you can. Only when your physical body and mind are in a state of pleasantness, everything in you works at its best. Your intelligence works at its best only when you are joyful and blissful. If a human being manages to remain in a continual state of blissfulness, let’s say for 24 hours, one’s intelligence will double. There is enough medical evidence to prove this today.
Have you spent a single day in your life without a moment of agitation, irritation, anger, anxiety, or anything like that? In all these years, have you spent 24 hours just blissfully? Not just you, almost the whole of humanity has to answer this question with a “no.” If you are not blissful one day, that’s understandable. But not having been blissful for a single day – that means something very fundamental is wrong. Without understanding the fundamentals of what this human mechanism is, you are trying to operate it. It is just like you got into a car, you didn’t know what these three pedals were for, and you kicked any one of them whenever you felt like it. You know what a jerky driver you would be?
Right now your wellbeing is that jerky. You know moments of joyfulness, you know moments of love, you know moments of blissfulness, you know moments of ecstasy in your life – but you are not able to sustain this. It is jerky because you are trying to operate your life without understanding the sophistication of the mechanism you are handling.
So, “What is the purpose?” This question arises because you have not experienced the grandeur of existence. You have not experienced the magnificent nature of your being. That is why you are asking, “What is the purpose? What should I do to make this life meaningful?” You don’t have to do anything. If you could sit here for one moment and experience this, you would know you don’t have to do anything. Just being alive is grand enough.
After reaching a certain level of success and security, people often wonder, what’s next? What is the meaning or purpose of life? People who live day-to-day or those who are hungry don’t seem to ask these questions. So somewhere, the understanding is there within every person that there is more to life than the typical rudimentary things.
If you look at every other creature on the planet, the moment their survival is takes care of, their problems are over. Survival is their only problem. However, for humanity, once survival is taken care of, are their problems done? For most people, survival is taken care of, they want something more. More money, more food, more drinks, more pleasures, or whatever it is, people want more. People are looking at many of these things for a sense of fulfillment.
After a while, many people gain an understanding that life is beyond them. When existence is so large, how can we become significant? Nobody wants to feel that he/she is insignificant. Nothing they have done or accumulated has given them a sense of fulfillment. So people wonder, “what is the purpose of my life?” Let’s hear what Sadhguru, a realized yogi, has to say about the purpose of life.
Sadhguru: “The birds are busy gathering their food. Their food is trying to escape and live its life. And the cockroaches are busy, or maybe they were busy in the night and now they are resting. Everyone is conducting their life. You are sitting here and thinking, “what is the purpose of life?” Where did you get this problem?
You got this problem because a certain level of intellect was given to you. Now you have this problem of thinking you are too important on the planet. Human beings are so full of themselves that they think there must be some God-given purpose, a special purpose for them – that too, for each one of them. They are all working at cross purposes and they thing they are doing God-given duties.
All those people who believe they are doing God’s work, I hope God takes them and gives them some work there, not here. I have been telling him, “Please don’t send your soldiers here, keep them there. Why do you send them here? We don’t need protection, we are okay as long as it is on. When it is time to die, we will die. If you are so concerned about your security, keep them there.” But he keeps sending them here! Conquest, you know, same old problem – imperialism. If God has to send his soldiers to Earth, he is trying to colonize the planet Earth. Not successful, but trying. If you are successful in colonizing a place, you can withdraw the soldiers. If you are not able to withdraw the soldiers it means it has not been successful.”
Sadhguru: If you were very blissful and ecstatic at this moment, would you think, “What is the purpose of life?” – No. Only when in some way, life has become burdensome, these questions arise: “To be or not to be?” “Is there a good enough purpose for me to exist?”
Your experience of life itself has not become grand and worthwhile enough. That is why you are trying to find a meaning. If just sitting here and breathing was ecstatic for you, you wouldn’t ask, “What is the purpose of life?” So, before you ask that question, the most important thing is you need to learn to enhance this life to its maximum potential. When I say “life,” you don’t even know what life is. All you have right now is your body and mind. Make them as pleasant as you can. Only when your physical body and mind are in a state of pleasantness, everything in you works at its best. Your intelligence works at its best only when you are joyful and blissful. If a human being manages to remain in a continual state of blissfulness, let’s say for 24 hours, one’s intelligence will double. There is enough medical evidence to prove this today.
You don’t have to do anything. Just being alive is grand enough.
Have you spent a single day in your life without a moment of agitation, irritation, anger, anxiety, or anything like that? In all these years, have you spent 24 hours just blissfully? Not just you, almost the whole of humanity has to answer this question with a “no.” If you are not blissful one day, that’s understandable. But not having been blissful for a single day – that means something very fundamental is wrong. Without understanding the fundamentals of what this human mechanism is, you are trying to operate it. It is just like you got into a car, you didn’t know what these three pedals were for, and you kicked any one of them whenever you felt like it. You know what a jerky driver you would be?
Right now your wellbeing is that jerky. You know moments of joyfulness, you know moments of love, you know moments of blissfulness, you know moments of ecstasy in your life – but you are not able to sustain this. It is jerky because you are trying to operate your life without understanding the sophistication of the mechanism you are handling.
So, “What is the purpose?” This question arises because you have not experienced the grandeur of existence. You have not experienced the magnificent nature of your being. That is why you are asking, “What is the purpose? What should I do to make this life meaningful?” You don’t have to do anything. If you could sit here for one moment and experience this, you would know you don’t have to do anything. Just being alive is grand enough.
After reaching a certain level of success and security, people often wonder, what’s next? What is the meaning or purpose of life? People who live day-to-day or those who are hungry don’t seem to ask these questions. So somewhere, the understanding is there within every person that there is more to life than the typical rudimentary things.
If you look at every other creature on the planet, the moment their survival is takes care of, their problems are over. Survival is their only problem. However, for humanity, once survival is taken care of, are their problems done? For most people, survival is taken care of, they want something more. More money, more food, more drinks, more pleasures, or whatever it is, people want more. People are looking at many of these things for a sense of fulfillment.
After a while, many people gain an understanding that life is beyond them. When existence is so large, how can we become significant? Nobody wants to feel that he/she is insignificant. Nothing they have done or accumulated has given them a sense of fulfillment. So people wonder, “what is the purpose of my life?” Let’s hear what Sadhguru, a realized yogi, has to say about the purpose of life.
Sadhguru: “The birds are busy gathering their food. Their food is trying to escape and live its life. And the cockroaches are busy, or maybe they were busy in the night and now they are resting. Everyone is conducting their life. You are sitting here and thinking, “what is the purpose of life?” Where did you get this problem?
You got this problem because a certain level of intellect was given to you. Now you have this problem of thinking you are too important on the planet. Human beings are so full of themselves that they think there must be some God-given purpose, a special purpose for them – that too, for each one of them. They are all working at cross purposes and they thing they are doing God-given duties.
All those people who believe they are doing God’s work, I hope God takes them and gives them some work there, not here. I have been telling him, “Please don’t send your soldiers here, keep them there. Why do you send them here? We don’t need protection, we are okay as long as it is on. When it is time to die, we will die. If you are so concerned about your security, keep them there.” But he keeps sending them here! Conquest, you know, same old problem – imperialism. If God has to send his soldiers to Earth, he is trying to colonize the planet Earth. Not successful, but trying. If you are successful in colonizing a place, you can withdraw the soldiers. If you are not able to withdraw the soldiers it means it has not been successful.”
ESSENCE OF LIFE
How to live a
meaningful life?
Sadhguru explains
The Isha Yoga Centre at Coimbatore is a haven for tired souls. The place has a lot to offer for people struggling to stay sane amid the hustle and bustle of modern life.
In an exclusive interview with THE WEEK, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, founder of Isha, talks about how to enhance and enrich your life and make it more meaningful.
Excerpts from the interview:
How would you define a meaningful life? How can one make his life more fulfilling?
Everything that we do is in some way contributing to someone’s life. If you see how to make this a conscious process of contributing to everyone’s life through your work, then your life will be very different. Contributing does not mean that you will not make money in your business. If you constantly see how to give your best to everyone around you, then profit will happen—you don’t have to worry about it.
Contributing is not about money or material—it is basic volition of your life. If you make your life into a contribution, then your life will become truly meaningful and worthwhile because you are creating what you care for.
If you are creating what you care for, then it will be a joy to go to work every day. With this, you will never die of stress, believe me. You may die of exhaustion, but you will not die of stress. That is a very good thing.
The moment you are seeing how to contribute, the moment there is a certain pleasantness of experience within you, your body and mind will function at their best. There is substantial scientific and medical evidence to prove this. If your body and mind are not functioning at their best, do you believe you will attain success? Success is a consequence of harnessing all that you have to the best possible result. If this has to happen, you must be in a pleasant state of experience. Then the more you do, the better you should feel. This will only happen to you if you are always looking at how to make a contribution to everything around you.
Why are we here? What do you think is our purpose in life?
If you were feeling really ecstatic, would you ask about the purpose of life? You are asking this question because in some way, the experience of life is not good enough. Most human beings have become a bundle of thoughts, emotions, ideas, opinions and prejudices. That means your psychological drama is hijacking your life. Most of the time, you are only thinking about life, not living it. You have come here to live life, not to think about it.
Don’t try to invent all kinds of purposes for life. If you explore the nature of this life that you are, you will know that life does not need any purpose—life is too phenomenal by itself. If you experience this life in its fullness, life is a purpose unto itself.
We often hear stories of people who committed suicide soon after they reached the pinnacle of success. Why is modern life so stressful?
We usually think of “success” in terms of what we could do and where we will stand in the world. What I see is, generally successful people are far more stressed and suffering a lot more than the not-so-successful people. Success means essentially, you are sitting on a good perch. So if someone sits on a perch which they are not equipped to sit on, success kills you. If one is successful because of social trends, educational qualifications or family backgrounds which carry him to certain places, then he suffers constantly. If you want to enjoy your perch, it’s very important that before you engineer situations for success, you first engineer yourself.
Essentially, people’s stress and suffering have nothing to do with success or failure. Stress is happening to you not because of the work that you are doing. All that is happening because you have not learned how to handle the basic faculties of your body and mind. Every human experience has a chemical basis to it. You may call it stress, anxiety, bliss, or ecstasy, but everything has a chemical basis to it. As there is a science for external well being, there is a whole science as to how to create your inner chemistry. Yoga has many methods through which you can create the right kind of chemistry where being peaceful and joyous comes naturally to you.
Why do human beings sometimes experience an existential crisis? How can one overcome it?
Everything has become a crisis in people’s lives. Adolescence was a crisis, finding a career was a crisis, midlife is a crisis, old age will be a crisis. So when are they not in a crisis? If they sense a little bit of a crisis, that is when most people freak out. Especially for a crisis, it is all the more important that you function at your best at that moment, but that is when most people give in.
This dimension can be easily transcended if a person is willing to invest a certain amount of time upon themselves. If you think what you are doing is important, then the first thing that you need to do is work upon yourself. Various types of methods are available through which every human being can do this. There are ways to improve the very way the fundamental life force within you functions—there is a whole science and technology for this.
Want a high? No
drinks, no hangover
– just you!
It’s that time again when people get sloshed at parties and wind up with massive hangovers to start off their new year. If you know someone like that, be a good friend and let him know about this post.
Sadhguru: Every human experience is backed by a chemical basis. People try to put in chemicals either in the form of drugs or drink or whichever way, to manipulate their chemistry into a pleasant experience. If all you are seeking is a little bit of pleasure, I am not against it. But if you are a pleasure seeker, wouldn’t you be interested if you were given an opportunity to have a much bigger pleasure? If you could learn to be drunk all the time and fully alert, wouldn’t you be interested?
I don’t think there is anything wrong with alcohol, I am ignoring it because it doesn’t have enough kick in it. I am constantly drunk on something else – simply drunk on life. I can get intoxicated on just my inhalation and exhalation. People have fallen for alcohol because that is the biggest thing that they have seen. I am offering them a different drink, a drink which is much more intoxicating than alcohol. Most people who have tasted this with me have given up alcohol, not because they think it is bad, but because they think it is kindergarten stuff. They have grown beyond it.
The question is not about wrong or right. This is not a moral standpoint. It is just that it is very limited. You drink a little bit tonight and tomorrow morning you get a big hangover. But I can be drunk twenty-four hours of the day – no hangover, it doesn’t cost anything, and it’s good for health! Isn’t this a better way to drink? We look at alcohol, drugs and all these things as kindergarten stuff because we can get intoxicated a thousand times over just with our aliveness. Why simply wine? You can get drunk with the di-vine.
When I say “Inner Engineering”, I am talking about a technology where you can create a chemistry of ecstasy all the time, consciously. Right now it is happening accidentally, triggered by somebody. Whatever you can do unconsciously – by looking at the sunset, or by looking at your loved one – you can also do consciously. That is the basis of Inner Engineering.
Within you, you have experienced peace and turmoil, joy and misery, ecstasy and agony. So you are capable of all these things. But right now you are conducting this whole experience and chemistry unconsciously. You can also conduct it consciously. That is the whole effort of all spiritual processes – to see that you create your life consciously instead of blundering through it by creating it unconsciously.
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