Question: there is a lot of teaching out there about positive thinking and how it can transform your life. Yet, there is something about people who are always repeating positive affirmations that seem shallow. Is it that simple? Can positive thinking help you get rid of karma, or at least keep you from creating more karma?
Sadhguru: The reason these people have lost depth to their life is that they have become frivolous by focusing their attention only on what is convenient for them, which they call “positive.” They want everything quick. There is no dedication to anything. Suppose someone has to become a scientist, he has to study for years. Such steady focus is mostly missing in the modern world, because there is too much of this kind of teaching: “Don’t worry, be happy. Everything is fine. Just enjoy yourself!”
If you watch those people who always talk about “Be happy,” depending on their lifestyles, within a few years they end up depressed. It will invariably hit you very deep because your energies are apportioned for different possibilities according to your karmic structure. There is something for your pain, your grief, your joy, your love, etc. This is called prarabdha karma. It is not just in your mind. Karma is data. Your energy is functioning according to this data. The prarabdha is like a coiled spring. It has to find its release. If those things do not find expression, if you deny them, they will take root in a completely different way.
It is important that you simply see everything the way it is. You do not deny anything. If grief comes, grief. Sadness comes, sadness. Joy comes, joy. Ecstasy comes, ecstasy. When you do this, you are not denying or trying to stop anything. At the same time, everything is happening, but you are free from it.
Question: We’re living in an overly-competitive world where everyone wants to be the best. Competition pushes us to do better but it seems like a never-ending race. Should we compete or drop out of the race?
Sadhguru: If you really look at it, you do not want to be the best, because you do not know what is the best. All we want is to be better than the person next to us. This is a disease because what you are enjoying is not what you have; you are enjoying what someone does not have. This sickness has caught people from an early age. They teach you, “You must be first rank.” You never asked, “What about the other children?” “It doesn’t matter! You must sit on top of everyone’s heads, only then life will happen!” This will not lead to wellbeing — either yours or the world’s. Instead of being the best, what is important is that this life finds full expression — you unfold all the possibilities that you hold within yourself. This life should not go unfulfilled. Whether it is better than some other or not is not the issue.
Competition is okay for the short-term. You want to run a race, that’s fine. Just to test our grit here and there, we can play and race like our life depends on it! But life is not a race. If life becomes a race, and if you want to win, you must hit the finish line first. You know what that means? So, you better not win, you better not be the best!
So, you do not have to be the best. You just have to be the best that you can be. Everything that you can be must happen.
Question: How do I overcome the fear of failure?
Sadhguru: There is no such thing as failure. Failure is an idea because success is also a stupid idea. Instead of trying to change the world, change the idea. If you just change that, everything is great. If you were a beggar on the street, today if you could walk into the restaurant and eat a masala dosa, this would be the height of success. So, you have gotten trapped in social situations and this idea of success is not even your idea. Your religion, your society and your culture have trained you to believe that this is it. Do not become a slave to someone’s idea; that is the first and foremost success.
For one who is seeing this life as a stepping stone for a larger possibility, there is no failure. For one who is looking at the simple events of this life itself as the goal of life, there is failure and success. Various situations in your life can either be used to make yourself stronger and better or you can sit and cry. This is the choice you have. Your business, your marriage, your children, all these things are just a stepping stone. This is not new to you because in this culture, they have always told you, “Your life is about mukti.” Your marriage, your business, your social life — these are all just the means to get there. Either you go with it or you go without it but whether you are a sanyasi or you are in samsara, your only goal is mukti.
Sadhguru is a Yogi, mystic, visionary and a New York Times bestselling author. He is also the founder of the world’s largest people’s movement, Conscious Planet – Save Soil)
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