Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Role of sadhana in enlightenment - Sadhguru

It is not that something like enlightenment “happens.” Enlightenment never happens. It is there; it is always there. The sadhana that you do is just to see it is there, you understand. You are not doing sadhana to construct divinity within you. All you will construct is only ego. When I went to the US, everybody there is talking of self-development. How to develop the self? You can develop the body; that is fine. You can develop the mind; that is fine. You can develop the ego, which everybody does anyway. How can you develop the self? And if you could develop the self, better discard it, because it is an incomplete stuff. Only that which is incomplete can be developed, isn’t it? If something is already all pervading, eternal, how to develop that?
Self is one thing that you cannot develop. Everything else you may develop. You can develop the land, you can develop the earth, but you cannot develop the self. And if it can be developed it is better you put it in the storeroom like everything else. That is why Gautama went about saying, “You are non-self. You are Anathma.” People were talking too much about athma, then slowly it took the egg shape. So now he knew a chick will come. People will sit on it and make it hatch also (Laughs). Initially they said, “hell and heaven.” To which he said, “There is no hell and heaven.” “That we also know, but it is about reaching the Divine, God.” He said, “There is no God.” “That we also know. Our Upanishads also say we are Athma.” He said, “There is no Athma.” Then they said, “No, no, no the consciousness!” He said, “There is no consciousness. It is just that you are conscious that there is no consciousness; that is all.” See, everything he demolished because everything that can be demolished must be demolished. That is the whole sadhana.

So sadhana is not about building something. It is not about creating divinity within you, not about becoming enlightened. It is simply there. Sadhana is just a way of opening your eyes. Sadhana is like an alarm bell. Some people need just a buzz - they wake up. That is all sadhana is. A long alarm bell - it must be piercing. You know, these days kids have those new James Bond watches. In these watches there is a small knife-like object which comes out and pricks you, along with a beep, beep sound. So if somebody is too thick skinned then we have to really poke. The whole thing is a process of just waking up, that is all. We are just stuck to one level of reality.

Waking up to another level of reality, can it just happen? Nothing to happen, if your involvement with this is total, so total that you transcend it. Or you are not at all involved, absolutely no involvement with what’s here, then also you see the other. These are two ways, either with 100 per cent involvement or zero involvement. Then you become loose in the present reality. Then you see the other reality within you.

So never seek enlightenment. The moment you start seeking you get rooted into this reality; please understand that. Without seeking you must work, that is the thing. When people have nothing to get they can’t be intense. That is their problem right now. That is exactly what you need to learn.

When a person doesn’t seek anything but still he can act totally, with utmost intensity, then there is a way. If you seek, then something else happens; you get entangled with this, then nothing happens. So the whole process of spiritual dimension or the path is just because people don’t get this distinction. They have a mind which doesn’t allow them to be intense and involved with anything where there is nothing to get. That is the reason why it seems to be a great sadhana or struggle; otherwise, it is nothing. If you see this aspect, if you just eliminate this one calculation – “What can I get?” and simply you know how to throw yourself into everything that is around you, then 90 per cent of the sadhana is over in one stroke. Simply, it’s over.
If one’s relaxation is absolute, if you were utterly relaxed, relaxed to a point where you have no individual existence then there will be no need for sadhana. But the ego knows no relaxation; its existence is in a certain effort or tension. You have accumulated tensions, that is why sadhana is needed. Sadhana is not an effort to get somewhere; it is a tool to drop the effort and the need to get somewhere. Enlightenment is not an accomplishment, but a homecoming.