When will this end, when will things get normal, is this the new normal? Juggling between work and personal lives in these not-so-normal times has not been an easy task for most of us. These are indeed stressful times and as a result of coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19, many of us aren’t just worried about the health, but also about our livelihoods and futures.

With uncertainty prevailing and our mortality in question more than ever before due to the pandemic, we turn to the man who seems to have all the answers, and probably the happiness mantra too.

Spiritual guru Jaggi Vasudev, an artist, an adventurer, who rides a motorcycle, plays golf, is known to his followers around the globe as Sadhguru. Author of more than 30 books, including one of the bestsellers ‘Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy’, 62-year-old promotes “yoga taught in its full depth.” Among other things, Sadhguru’s mantra for happiness and mental well-being is ‘fix the inside’.

In an exclusive interview with Opoyi, Sadhguru decodes for us the very meaning the Life and… the Death.

Read on for more insightful answers by Sadhguru:

1) “Who am I?”  How to answer
this question?

Sadhguru: Only when the pain of ignorance tears you – that
you are existing here but you don’t know a thing about yourself – knowing is
not far away. Because whatever you wish to know is within you – who can stop
you from knowing it? It is just that the longing is not deep enough. Till then
this question is just entertainment, philosophy. Only one who knows the pain of
ignorance, is a genuine seeker. Others are all made up seekers. I want the pain
of ignorance to sink deep into you. Then everything that is worth knowing in
the existence can be known in just one moment.

2) How to build habits that help humans take
full control of themselves?

Sadhguru: A habit essentially means you are operating like an
automation, you are operating unconsciously, compulsively. You have fixed
realities where you do not have to think. Do not try to automate your life. A
human being is supposed to function intelligently and consciously, not like a
machine.  

The fundamental of being human, in comparison to other
creatures on the planet, is that other creatures are habitual. The beauty of
being human is that we are capable of doing everything consciously. What an
animal does unconsciously, we can do the same thing consciously. A human being
has the choice to eat, breathe, walk and do everything that we do either
unconsciously or consciously. The moment someone does something consciously,
suddenly that human being looks very refined and wonderful.  

There is no such thing as good habit because in terms of the
evolutionary scale, you are trying to regress. If you do not move from a
compulsive mode of activity to a conscious mode of activity, you will never
realize the immensity of what it means to be human. The whole science of the
spiritual process is to empower you to operate consciously. Instead of trying
to develop good habits – which don’t exist – pay attention to bringing a little
more awareness and consciousness.

3) Sadhguru, we live in uncertain times with a
pandemic holding us to ransom; how does one live each day with joy instead of
fear?

Sadhguru: Only if a dimension beyond the physical becomes a
living reality within a person, will one become free from fear of death. The
physical is constantly under threat because it is always within limited
boundaries. There is always a fear of losing anything which is demarcated. I am
not wishing it upon you, but no matter how healthy, strong or young you are
right now, tomorrow morning you may be dead, it is possible. If you strive to
transcend your experience beyond the physical limitations of life, then fear
will evaporate.  

You are asking, “In these uncertain times, how can I be
joyful?” You cannot depend on the outside to bring you joy because the outside
never happens 100 percent the way you want it to. Joy is about how you are
within yourself. As there is a science and technology to create external
situations the way we want, there is a technology for inner wellbeing that can
be employed to create your inner situations the way you want. If your mind and
emotions take instructions from you, you would definitely keep yourself joyful.
 

4) How does one deal with self-isolation and the
loneliness that comes with it?

Sadhguru: If you are alone and feeling lonely and miserable,
that means you are in bad company!  

All human experience has a chemical basis to it. What you
call as joy, misery, stress, anxiety, agony and ecstasy are different kinds of
chemistry. If you have a chemistry of blissfulness, then whether someone is
around you or not, you are fantastic. Yoga is a way to create a stable and
blissful chemistry within yourself, and enhance your ability to deal with the
ups and downs of life. Once your way of being is not determined by anything
outside of you, there can be no such thing as loneliness.

5) So many cases of suicide and depression among
the youth, what has led to this?

Sadhguru: We have the shameful distinction of having one of
the world’s highest suicide rates for youth. We have indoctrinated a younger
generation into believing that their happiness is commensurate with the marks
they get, the number of degrees they acquire, or the wealth they accumulate.
When they realize that this is a pipe-dream, the result is bewilderment and
despair.  

What we omit to tell them is that doors in life don’t open
because of the qualifications you have. Doors open because of who you are. The
human mechanism is the most sophisticated piece of technology on the planet,
but the problem is that people are handling this supercomputer with a pickaxe
and a wrench! We think fixing outer conditions will fix our lives. This is a
myth we have perpetuated for too long. Fixing the outside might bring
convenience into our lives, but definitely not wellbeing.  

It is time for a paradigm shift. All human beings, without
exception, are capable of turning into the architects of their own joy, the
masters of their own destinies. Yoga offers us the key.  

6) Your book about death… Why death and not
life?

Sadhguru: There are many aspects to life. There is birth,
childhood, youth, and old age. There is love, tenderness, sweetness and
bitterness of relationships, joy of success, fulfilment, pain, and pleasure. If
you have kept your mind in a reasonable level of perception, these are all
things that you can grasp. But the most defining aspect of life – death – is
beyond the grasp of any mind – no matter how intelligent, smart, or
intellectual you think you are. It is only because we are mortal that life is
playing out the way it does. If we were not mortal, there would be no
childhood, no youth, no old age – we can even question if there was birth.

Death is the baseline of life. If you do not understand
death, you will never know life,

nor can you handle life, because life and death are like
inhalation and exhalation. They exist together, inseparably.

Of all the events in your life that may or may not happen,
death is one event that will definitely happen. Everything else in your life
may happen many times over, but the final moment when you transcend the
limitations of your physical body will happen only once in your lifetime. It is
the last thing that you will do, so is it not very important that you make it
happen most gracefully and wonderfully?

In a way, from a spiritual perspective, what did not perhaps
happen in life can be accomplished at the moment of death, if it is handled
sensibly. With just a little bit of preparation, guidance and even a bit of
help, what is now considered a catastrophe can become a huge opportunity for
spiritual possibility. If you are unprepared or become fearful of it or are
ignorant of the ways of life, you will create resistance towards it and miss
that possibility completely. So everyone should know how to die by themselves.  

A book on death has been long overdue.

7) At the lowest point in our life, what is that
one thing that we should think about?

Sadhguru: Now, what is a “low”? What is it that happens
within you? Fundamentally, you expected something to happen and it did not
happen. You expected somebody or something to be your way or the world or the
destiny to be your way, and it did not happen. In other words, you are simply
against what is happening; that’s all. Maybe you are against a person, maybe
you are against a whole situation, maybe you are against life itself.
Accordingly, the depression will run deeper and deeper.

The question is do you want to allow yourself to be fully shattered.
You will see many things that don’t work out in your life, are a great blessing
later on. Whenever something hurts you there are two options: you can either
become wounded or you can become wise. This is the choice. The more things hurt
you early on in your life, the wiser you should become, isn’t it? But
unfortunately, most people become wounded. This is simply because they just
need an excuse to turn their own intelligence against themselves, that is all.

8) Can you list 5 things a person can do instantly
to ward off suicidal thoughts ?

Sadhguru: Objectivity is useful to understand the physicality
of life, but if you look at your life itself objectively, there is no meaning
to your life. If you examine or approach your life 100% logically, there is
simply no reason why you should live. Moments of extreme logic are moments of
suicide.

Dissect your life objectively, logically – do not look at
your life’s experiences: do not think of your child’s face, the flowers in the
garden, the birds in the sky, the sunrise or something beautiful that you have
known, just think logically. First thing is you wake up in your bed tomorrow
morning. Now, you actually have to get out of bed – that is not a small feat.
Then you have to go to the toilet, then you have to brush your teeth, then you
have to eat, then you have to work, then you have to eat, then you have to
work, then you have to eat, then you have to sleep. Tomorrow morning, same
nonsense. You have to do this every day for the next 50 years. Tell me, is it
worth living? But if you look at some beautiful experiences of your life – a
moment of tenderness, a moment of love, a moment of joy, it may mean a world to
you.

The more and more you look at your life logically, and try to
find a meaning, you will become more and more suicidal. You have not
experienced the immensity of what it means to be life.

9) Tell us more about Sadhguru cool quotient.

Sadhguru: In yoga, there is a term called cool fire. It is a
cool intensity. The birds are flying around and bees are buzzing around, plants
are growing, but all of these are just small sparks from the earth. The earth
looks like it is simply there, doing nothing, but she is phenomenally intense.
It is because of that intensity that all these small things have popped up. In
the winter months if you look out of your window, it looks like the world is
coming to an end; everything is barren. But when spring comes, in twenty-four
hours’ time, suddenly, life bursts forth because the earth is like cool fire –
intense but just there.

People always understand meditation as doing something
quietly, a way of calming yourself. That is just one aspect of it, but
meditation can be explosive – it can ignite a new fire in you that you have not
imagined possible. This is the fire of life burning within you. Instead of
having a fire which burns you, it is like having a very cool fire that is fully
on all the time and does not burn any fuel. It just burns by itself. I am a
cool fire.

10) What is Sadhguru’s happiness mantra that one should swear
by?

Sadhguru: A single mantra for everybody’s happiness is – fix
the inside!