Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

by Sadhguru

The only thing that stands between you and your well-being is a simple fact: you have allowed your thoughts and emotions to take instruction from the outside rather than the inside. On a certain day, a lady went to sleep. In her sleep, she had a dream. She saw a hunk of a man, staring at her. Then he started coming closer—closer and closer. He was so close that she could even feel his breath. She trembled—not in fear. Then she asked, “What will you do to me?” The man said, “Well, lady, it’s your dream!” What’s happening in your head is your dream. At least your dream should happen the way you want it, shouldn’t it? Even if the world doesn’t happen the way you want it, at least your thoughts and emotions should happen the way you want them to. Right now, these aren’t taking instructions from you because you are handling the whole human mechanism accidentally.

If you were on a desert island without food for ten days and suddenly God appeared before you, would you want Him to appear as a shining light or in the form of bread?

It took me time to see that people have assumed that stress is an inevitable part of their lives! They do not see that it is entirely self-created and self-inflicted. Once you take charge of your inner life, there is no such thing as stress.

They say how long a minute is essentially depends on which side of the bathroom door you are!

My mother used to do this as well: every day before she ate her breakfast, she would take one handful of it and go looking for ants to feed. Only then would she eat. This has been a tradition among the womenfolk in many families. An ant is the smallest living entity you can see around you, the most inconsequential organism you can think of. So, for that very reason, you feed it first. You make an offering not to the gods, or other celestial creatures, but to the smallest creature you know. This planet belongs as much to them as it belongs to you. You understand that every creature on this planet has the same right to live as you have. This awareness can help create a conducive atmosphere, mentally and physically, for consciousness to grow.

Right now, people want to do everything the hard way. I see people walking in the park in a state of tension. Whether you walk or jog, why can’t it be done easily, joyfully? This exercise may be causing more harm to you than well-being because you are going at it as if you’re going into battle!

Of all the loving acts that two human beings are capable of, the simple act of holding hands can often become the most intimate. Why is this so? Basically, because the nature of the hands and feet is such that the energy system finds expression in these two parts of the body in a very singular way. Two palms coming together have far more intimacy than the contact between any other parts of the body.

Bring precision into every movement, every gesture. This is one way of dipping your intellect in awareness.

All that happens the moment you believe something is that your stupidity acquires confidence. Confidence and stupidity are a very dangerous combination, but they generally go together. If you start looking at the world around you, you would clearly understand that what you know is so minuscule that there is no way to act with confidence. A belief system takes away this problem; it gives you enormous confidence, but it does not cure your stupidity.

Unfortunately, most human beings are doing much the same thing: they are labeling their compulsions, their limitations, as their choices. If you can joyfully do whatever is needed in a given situation, this is freedom. But limiting yourself to doing only what you like is a horribly compulsive way to live. This compulsiveness is the trick of karma—that ancient word that has been mangled by popular usage across the world.