Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy

by Sadhguru

“Guru” literally means “dispeller of darkness.”

Homer to Popular Mechanics, Kafka to Kalidasa, Dante to Dennis the Menace.

When everything you do is a success, you tend to start believing that the planets revolve around you, not the sun!

Everything you have done in your life so far has been in pursuit of a single thing. Whether you sought a career, started a business, made money, or built a family, it was always because you wanted just one simple thing: joy. But somewhere along the way, life got complicated.

If your body feels pleasant, we call this health. If it becomes very pleasant, we call this pleasure. If your mind becomes pleasant, we call this peace.

If it becomes very pleasant, we call this joy. If your emotions become pleasant, we call this love. If they become very pleasant, we call this compassion. If your life energies become pleasant, we call this bliss. If they become very pleasant, we call this ecstasy. This is all that you are seeking: pleasantness within and without. When pleasantness is within,

it is termed peace, joy, happiness. When your surroundings become pleasant, it gets branded success. If you’re not interested in any of this and want to go to heaven, what are you seeking? Just otherworldly success! So, essentially all human experience is o...

Why do you need to be pleasant within? The answer is self-evident. When you are in a pleasant inner state, you are naturally pleasant to everyone and everything around you. No scripture or philosophy is needed to instruct you to be good to others. It is a natural outcome when you are feeling good within yourself. Inner pleasantness is a surefire insurance for the making of a peaceful society and a joyful world.

in order to achieve success, pleasantness has to be the fundamental quality within you.

your body and mind function at their best when you are in a pleasant state. It is said that if you can remain blissful for twenty-four hours, your intellectual capabilities can be almost doubled.

The only thing that stands between you and your wellbeing is a simple fact: you have allowed your thoughts and emotions to take instruction from the outside rather than the inside.

Moral of the story: bullshit may get you to the top, but it never lets you stay there!

If you go outward, it is an endless journey. If you turn inward, it is just one moment.

Whenever we have had to do something about our lives, we have taken it into our hands. Whenever it comes to other people’s misfortunes, we have a word to explain it: destiny.

If you do a certain amount of inner work, if you implement certain inner technologies— irrespective of your current tendencies, your past experience of life, your genetics, your environment—you can completely rewire yourself in a short span of time!

Unless you do the right things, the right things will not happen to you. Principles and philosophies are only of social consequence. It is time to wake up to yourself as an existential being, a living being, rather than a psychological case. Then your destiny will be your own. One hundred percent your own.

Responsibility does not mean taking on the burdens of the world. It does not mean accepting blame for things you have done or not done. It does not mean living in a state of perpetual guilt.

anger—usually provokes unintelligent action. Anger is fundamentally self-defeating. If you look at your life closely, you will find that you have done the most idiotic and life-negative things when you were angry. Above all, you were working against yourself. If you work against yourself, if you sabotage your own wellbeing, you are obviously choosing unintelligence as a way of life. I

your inner life, there is no such thing as stress. The point is that anger is rooted in your false perception that you can change

the second passenger and said, “Looking at your suitcases,

One of the biggest problems in the world today is loneliness.

“My ability to respond is limitless, but my ability to act is limited. I am one hundred percent responsible for everything I am and everything I am not, for my capacities and my incapacities, for my joys and my miseries. I am the one who determines the nature of my experience in this life and beyond. I am the maker of my life.”

In life, there is no “this” and “that”; there is only “this” and “this.” This means everything is here and now.

If you do not eat for a couple of days, you won’t think about God. You will only think about food.

If you still believe that everything will be okay the moment you find a new girlfriend or boyfriend, get a raise, buy a new house or car, then it is not yet time for yoga. Once you’ve tried all those things and more, and clearly know that none of it will ever be enough—then you are ready. So now, yoga.

Right now, for most people, these four dimensions are aligned in different directions. Your mind is thinking one way; your emotions pull you another way; your physical body another way; your energy another way. This makes you a potential calamity, an accident waiting to happen. You are being hijacked—you are being pulled apart, in four different ways.

You don’t have to make the heart beat, the liver perform all its complex chemistry, or even try to breathe; everything that is needed for your physical existence to manifest itself is happening on its own. The body is a pretty complete and self-contained

Right now if you have a backache, the biggest issue in the universe is your back. Other people may not understand that, but for you, that is the biggest issue. Even if God appears before you, you will plead for your backache to go away! You will not ask for any-thing else because the physical body has such power over you. When it doesn’t function as it should, it can rob your life of every other aspiration.

The magnetic equator of the planet flows through India. A few thousand years ago, yogis pinpointed the exact location of the magnetic equator and built a whole string of temples along this area for very specific reasons. One of the most famous temples is the South Indian temple of Chidambaram, which was set up for those who sought ultimate spiritual union.

The body responds the moment it is in touch with the earth. That is why spiritual people in India walked barefoot and always sat on the ground in a posture that allowed for maximum area of contact with the earth. In this way, the body is given a strong experiential reminder that it is just a part of this earth. Never is the body allowed to forget its origins. When it is allowed to forget, it often starts making fanciful demands; when it is constantly reminded, it knows its place. This contact with the earth is a vital reconnection of the body with its physical source. This restores stability to the system and enhances the human capacity for rejuvenation greatly. This explains why there are so many people who claim that their lives have been magically transformed just by taking up a simple outdoor activity like gardening.

allergic conditions. If you tend to fall sick very easily, you could just try sleeping on the floor (or with minimal organic separation between yourself and the floor). You will see it will make a big difference. Also, try sitting closer to the ground. Additionally, if you can find a tree that looks lively to you, in terms of an abundance of fresh leaves or flowers, go spend some time around it. If possible, have your breakfast or lunch under that tree. As you sit under the tree, remind yourself: “This very earth is my body. I take this body from the earth and give it back to the earth. I consciously ask Mother Earth now to sustain me, hold me, keep me well.” You will find your body’s ability to recover is greatly enhanced.

Young women have an advantage because they are also in sync with the lunar cycles. It is an advantage, but a lot of them treat it as a curse. It is a fantastic possibility that your body is both connected to the solar and the lunar cycles. Nature has granted this advantage to a woman because she has been entrusted with the responsibility of propagating the human race. So she has been given some extra privileges, which unfortunately have been perceived socially as disadvantages. People do not know how to handle the bonus energy generated at that time and hence treat it as a curse, and even a kind of madness. (The word “lunatic” is derived, as we know, from “lunar.”)

Relief from something that you cannot hold within you is always the greatest pleasure, isn’t it?

whole yogic science behind what to eat, how to eat, and when

A single seed is capable of making the entire Earth green. Consequently, consuming anything in seed form can greatly enhance human health on many levels.

Mastication involves grinding and then thoroughly mixing the food with the saliva; hence the design modification in the jaw. If mastication happens properly, close to fifty percent of your digestive process would be finished in the mouth. In other words, the stomach region is expecting partially digested food to efficiently complete the process. In modern life, people are in such a hurry that we gulp our rush-hour lunches without the food being properly masticated. The stomach is burdened not only with undigested food, but also with partially destroyed food. Today’s kitchens have largely become places where food is efficiently destroyed.

If you eat raw meat, it takes between seventy to seventy-two hours to pass through your system; cooked meat takes fifty to fifty-two hours; cooked vegetables twenty-four to thirty hours; uncooked vegetables twelve to fifteen hours; fruits one and a half to three hours. If you keep raw meat outside for seventy

There is much emphasis laid nowadays on eating protein. It is important to understand that only three percent of our body is composed of protein and excess protein consumption can cause cancer.

The word ayur means “life span” and the word veda means “science” or “knowledge.” So, Ayurveda is the science of extending the human life span. It is a system that uses external plant life and earth elements to promote health and to correct systemic irregularities. Knowledge systems like these were intended to assist those who are incapable of doing the necessary yogic practice to achieve the same ends.

The consumption of a spoonful of clarified butter (ghee in India) on a daily basis a few minutes before a meal does wonders for the digestive system. If you eat clarified butter with sugar, as in sweets, it is digested and turns into fat. But clarified butter with out sugar can cleanse, heal, and lubricate the alimentary canal. Additionally, the cleansing of the colon will immediately manifest as a certain glow and aliveness in your skin. Even those who prefer not to consume dairy products could experiment with this because clarified butter passes through the system largely with out getting digested.

My great-grandmother, a wonderful old woman, often considered eccentric by those who didn’t know any better, would frequently give away her food to ants and sparrows. Tears of bliss would be streaming down her face as she did this. People around her kept saying, “Why don’t you eat, old woman?” She’d simply reply, “I am full.” But all those advisers died a long time before she did. She lived on and died at the incredible age of a hundred and thirteen! 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. Just a simple act like this loosens you from your identification with the physical body.

If you want an element of spirituality to enter your life, the first thing you must do is drop these rigid ideas of virtue and vice, and learn to look at life just the way it is.

Spirituality does not mean moving away from life; it means becoming alive to the core, in the fullest possible way. With age, physical agility may diminish, but the level of joy and aliveness need not. If your level of joy and aliveness is declining, you are committing suicide in installments.

Inert minds are not a problem. Someone who is very simpleminded and whose intellect is still not effervescent has no trouble. He eats well and sleeps well. It is only people who think too much who cannot eat and sleep properly! Simpleminded people perform all the activities of the body far better than the so-called intellectuals of the world.

If I think you are a wonderful person, I will have sweet emotions toward you. If I think you are a horrible person, I will harbor nasty emotions about you. If you make someone your enemy and then try to love him or her, that is hard work. Let us not make hard work of the simple aspects of life.

When everybody was talking about going to heaven, Gautama the Buddha said, “You say everything is fine in heaven, so what will I do there? Let me go to hell and do something to help others, because anyway I cannot suffer.”

There is really no such thing as conditional love and unconditional love. There are conditions and there is love. When you talk about love, it has to be unconditional. The moment there is a condition, it just amounts to a transaction.

Love is never between two people. It is what happens within you, and your interiority need not be enslaved to someone or some thing else. Try this for fifteen minutes or so: go sit with something that means nothing to you right now—maybe a tree, a pebble, a worm, or an insect. Do it a few days in a row. After a while, you will find you can look upon it with as much love as you do your wife or husband or mother or child. Maybe the worm does not know this. That doesn’t matter. If you can look at everything lovingly, the whole world becomes beautiful in your experience.

AKKA MAHADEVI Around nine hundred years ago in southern India, there lived a female mystic called Akka Mahadevi. Akka was a devotee of Shiva. Ever since her childhood, she had regarded Shiva as her beloved, her husband. It was not just a belief; for her it was a living reality. The king saw this beautiful young woman one day, and decided he wanted her as his wife. She refused. But the king was adamant and threatened her parents, so she yielded. She married the man, but she kept him at a physical distance. He tried to woo her, but her constant refrain was, “Shiva is my husband.” Time passed and the king’s patience wore thin. Infuriated, he tried to lay his hands upon her. She refused. “I have another husband. His name is Shiva. He visits me, and I am with him. I cannot be with you.” Because she claimed to have another husband, she was brought to court for prosecution. Akka is said to have announced to all present, “Being a queen doesn’t mean a thing to me. I will leave.” When the king saw the ease with which she was walking away from everything, he made a last futile effort to salvage his dignity. He said, “Everything on your person—your jewels, your garments—belongs to me. Leave it all here and go.” So, in the full assembly, Akka just dropped her jewelry, all her clothes, and walked away naked. From that day on, she refused to wear clothes even though many tried to convince her otherwise. It was unbelievable for a woman to be walking naked on the streets of India at the ti...

One morning a man walked into his office and told his boss, “Boss, I want you to know, three big companies are after me. You must give me a raise.” His boss said, “What! Which companies? Who wants you?” He said, “The electric company, the telephone company, and the gas company.”