Sadhguru: Hatred can move people to do cruel things

Q: EVEN if the global community decided to dismantle all their weaponry, how can we make sure that there won’t be another Adolf Hitler who will spread violence, death and destruction?

Sadhguru: Adolf Hitler, by himself, was a powerless man. People empowered him, isn’t it? Unfortunately, for ages (not now), most leaders in the world moved people through hatred. If you want to move a group of people to do something and you tell them, “Those people are the problem. If we take care of them, everything will be okay,” people are willing to go and die for it – because there is an enemy.

The more people are revved up with hatred, the quicker they get up and do something. If you create an enemy, you can have whole nations fighting, dying, whatever. But to make people rise into action without creating an enemy takes intelligence, awareness, and tremendous energy – otherwise, it will not happen. When there is an enemy, they get all fired up and go, because of the instinct of self-preservation.

This is a simple trick humanity has fallen for, again and again. It takes place even today. When you create an enemy, even if it is an invisible enemy, people will go into such fear and self-protection that otherwise sensible, socalled simple, peace-loving human beings will kill without any problem. You can just drive them into that.

So, Hitler is a great lesson. We should always remember him, and what we can do to ourselves. If we forget him, we may repeat the same mistake all over again.

People who stood by him were well-educated – doctors, scientists, engineers. They were not idiots, but one’s intelligence can be so easily hijacked, simply by stirring a certain emotion, by creating a certain enemy, just with a certain idea or philosophy.

So never forget Hitler because the same thing may happen again, any moment. I see millions of potential Hitlers all around. It is just that, fortunately, they are not as potent as him. Powerless they are, but by intention there are lots of Hitlers everywhere.

Hitler had a great dream – he wanted to create a super world. And what a disaster!

Probably no individual human being has caused that much pain and suffering in such an organised way, ever before. And I hope nobody else will do it ever after. The man believed he was doing the best thing that can be done to the world.

So, good intentions are not going to save the world – how you are will make the difference. And how you are will change only if you can breathe, walk, sit, do everything joyfully. If you cannot be like this, whatever you do will be poison.

Only when you are pleasant within yourself, you feel pleasant about everything around you. And only when you feel pleasant about everything around you, you move around with a certain sense and value for life around you.

Otherwise, it does not matter how much morality you carry in you, how many scriptures you remember, you will find ways to do the cruelest possible things.

Ranked among the fifty most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary and bestselling author. Sadhguru was conferred the “Padma Vibhushan”, the Indian government’s highest annual civilian award, in 2017, for exceptional and distinguished service.