STAGNATION is a certain disease. It is anti-life. Stillness is a tremendous amount of life not manifesting itself in any way. It is just there – potent. That is God. God is stillness, not stagnation.
The mind is stagnation. Sadhana (spiritual practice) is a force which moves you from stagnation to stillness, but between stagnation and stillness, when they are together, there seems to be very little difference since your logical mind only understands in terms of moving and not moving.
Physically, stillness and stagnation could be seen as about the same, but qualitatively they are worlds apart. A person who is meditating and a person who is sleeping may look about the same.
Externally, there may be no difference between stillness and stagnation, but internally, there is a tremendous difference. From stagnation to stillness, from ignorance to enlightenment, that is the difference. In a way, it is the same thing, only the quality has to change.
But how can you know the qualitative difference when you are drowned in ignorance? This is why the movement of sadhana has to go full circle.
Depending on how stupid a person is, that is how long the sadhana has to be. Physically, mentally and emotionally push yourself to the limit and see what is there. If you stop for every little discomfort, you will never know what it is. Just push yourself to the limit. You have pushed to the point of discomfort but do not let up; push it up one more point and yet another point. It has to be pushed to the ultimate, to the optimum.
Only then can the mind dissolve by itself. You do not have to do any other kind of sadhana.
This is the only sadhana needed. All other activity in the form of sadhana is just to get this one thing done. One should be in such a way that your sankalpa (resolve) is unshakeable.
Why someone is asked to go and live in the Himalayas for 12 years is not because if they live in the Himalayas the rocks could give them enlightenment. It is because he is even willing to waste his life for 12 years, with all kinds of hardship, just to seek the truth.
If that kind of sankalpa has come, that man is very close. In a way, it is like literally wasting your life. When the whole world is eating well, drinking well and enjoying themselves, you are sitting there in the cold and chanting, ‘Shiva, Shiva, Shiva,’ knowing nothing might happen. Shiva probably will not come and bail you out. When you are hungry, you are plain hungry. When you are cold, you are just cold. You know it may turn out to be hopeless being there. In spite of that you stay, because the most important thing in your life is something else.
When that sankalpa comes, it does not take 12 years. In one moment, it can happen. Nobody needs to wait for 12 years. This can be the moment. It is because you do not use this moment that you have to wait for the next one. This is always the moment.
Ranked among the 50 most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary and bestselling author. Sadhguru has been conferred the “Padma Vibhushan”, the Indian government’s highest annual civilian award, in 2017, for exceptional and distinguished service.
