Everything that you think — even that you are a human being, a man or a woman — has been taught to you in comparison with something else. If you just sit as pure life and simply look at yourself, keeping aside what your mother or your father told you, if you just sit here as simply pure life, not as somebody’s daughter, wife or husband, if you are willing to keep your identifications down for one moment, you will see that you are just pure energy. It is a clear, distinct experience for every human being, if they are willing. That is all life is.
What impressions you make upon this energy that is right now functioning as an individual form is up to you. You may allow your mother or a cinema star or a book to make a deep impression on you. I am not here to judge whether this or that impression is better — some impressions bring you happiness and some impressions bring you unhappiness. Whether it brings happiness or unhappiness, an impression from outside is a certain kind of limitation that you are putting onto yourself. You are setting a beautiful prison for yourself.
Only when you try to reach out will you see how restricting it is. Maybe you never want to reach out and are very happy. I know a lot of people who are happy just eating dosa, drinking coffee and sitting half asleep — that is their idea of happiness. But no being will ever be satisfied with anything limited or limiting. After some time, this dosa becomes a cancer in them. Not necessarily a physical cancer, but it bothers and eats them up — just the comfort of life is eating people up. Affluent people are suffering much more than poor people because the plain comfort of life is eating them up. If you settle into any limitation, life will not allow you to be there.
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, an internationally renowned spiritual leader, is a visionary, humanitarian, author, poet and speaker. He can be contacted at www.ishafoundation.org
