Sadhguru: Yoga activates one's inner energies

WHEN I first landed in the United States a few years ago, one term I heard everywhere was “stress management”.

Why would anybody want to manage their stress? I can understand if you want to manage your money, your business, your family, your property. But why would anybody want to manage their stress? It is because you have established a whole culture of believing that stress is a part of your life.

Stress is not a part of your life. It is not the nature of work you are doing which is causing the stress; it is just that you have no control over your systems. You do not know how to function smoothly within yourself. That is why you are stressful. Have you seen – in many situations – one person would be stressed out and another person would go through it effortlessly? So, stress does not happen because of the situation. Stress occurs because of your inability to manage your inner situation.

If you could experiment, if you keep your palms facing down and breathe deeply, you will see breath will happen one way. If you turn them around, face them up and breathe, you will notice your breath will happen in a different way. If your palms are facing down the maximum expansion and contraction will be in your diaphragm. If you turn them over it will be higher up, in the chest. So just by turning your palm over, the very way you breathe is changing.

This is not just about your breath. The way your energies function in the body is changing.

Your body, your mind, your emotion, and your energies – these are the vehicles through which you are travelling through this life.

Without any understanding about it, without any control about it, without any subjective experience about it you are trying to live your life; it is an accidental existence.

When you exist accidentally, if you manage to get somewhere in life, it would be an accident.

So, you need to do something about this. You need to get a grasp of your body, mind, emotion and energy. If this does not happen, you will live life by accident.

You will always hope the situations would work out well. If you are seeking to expand the scope and play your life, if you are seeking challenging situations, then you have to do something about the way you function.

Challenging situations mean that you want to face situations you have no clue about. If you are going to get stressed, naturally, you will avoid those situations.

When you avoid those situations, you will naturally avoid all the growth possible for your business and for yourself. When you fine-tune yourself to such a point that the fundamental faculties function so beautifully within you, naturally, the best of your abilities will just flow out of you.

Yoga is the science of activating your inner energies in such a way that your body, mind and emotions function at their highest peak.

When your body and mind function in a completely different state of relaxation and a certain level of blissfulness, you can be released from so many things most people are suffering from.

Suppose you come and sit in your office, and you have a nagging headache. Your headache is not a major disease, but it takes away your whole capability for that day. Just that throbbing ache takes away everything. With the practice of yoga, your body and mind will be kept at their highest possible peak and you will be relaxed all the time.

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.