3 I's for Spiritual Growth: Letting the Sacred Seed Grow

Sadhguru looks at how every individual has the seed of the Creator within, and gives us 3 “I’s” to help us allow it to grow.

Read in Telugu: ఆధ్యాత్మిక ప్రగతికి మూడు సూత్రాలుర

Sadhguru: Some time ago, someone asked in a satsang, “I have seen so many spiritual teachers, but I have never been drawn to anybody like I am drawn to you. What is it that you have?” I said, “I don’t have anything that you don’t have. It is just that all of us were given a seed that has the possibility of boundlessness. You are very careful and good, so you preserve the seed. I destroyed the seed and made it into a tree.”

If you want to make a seed into a tree, the seed has to go. It is quite stupid to keep the seed as a seed, but unfortunately, preserving yourself is considered smart in society. Allowing yourself to be demolished, to destroy the limited possibility of what an individual person is, is not considered smart. So after all, you are very smart, so smart you even conned life.

The Weeding Process

All of us have come with the same seed. Though every seed has come with the same possibility, between a seed and a tree, there is a journey to be made. If you want the seed to become a tree, you have to nurture it, you have to protect it; there are weeds that you have to take care of – too many weeds. The same silly weeds have been bothering humanity for a million years. Human beings have still not figured out how to handle them. Simple things like anger, hatred, jealousy, fear, doubt – the same silly weeds have lasted too long because weeds do not need any nurturing or protection – they just grow. But if you want a sacred seed to sprout and prosper, you have to weed the place, cultivate the land, manure it and make sure enough water and sunlight find their way. If you are afraid of the harshness of the sunlight and avoid it, you will also avoid its life-nourishing warmth.

That which is the basis of life is also that which ends life. That which bakes also burns. If you are a good cook, you bake; if you are a bad one, you burn. If you want to avoid the sunlight and go stand in the shade, you will miss the warmth of the life-nourishing light. Baking bread is a very simple but subtle operation. One who knows, does it effortlessly. One who does not know burns it up and produces coal. Making the spiritual process work is very simple if you give in to the whole process. It is very hard if you resist and struggle with the simple process that is set forth.

Do not waste your time constantly going through the same nonsense that human beings have gone through for a million years. It is time to do some new nonsense at least! The same nonsense: this moment it is true, the next moment it is not true; this moment it is great, the next moment it is not great. “I thought you were wonderful, but you are terrible.” This moment “Oh, this is it” and the next moment, you have doubts. Do not do this to yourself. If it were some unique nonsense you were doing, fine; but these are the same old weeds. There are no new weeds – people have done it all. This damn weed-growing business is a very simple process. Any fool can do it.

3 I’s for Growth

In the US, we have the Isha Institute of Inner-sciences. That means “iii”. What do these three I's stand for? One is instruction. The next is integrity. The third “I” is the intensity of purpose.

Carefully look at the instruction and stick to the instruction. The next is integrity. When I say integrity, any spiritual process given to you is towards inclusiveness. If you are trying to make yourself exclusive, it is lack of integrity. Right now, you are inhaling what everyone is exhaling. If you say, “I don't like this, I will not inhale any bit of air which has been inhaled by any other creature on this planet,” you are dead. So you are very inclusive when it comes to survival. In body you are inclusive, in mind you are exclusive. This is lack of integrity.

The third “I” is the intensity of purpose, that the whole process is not to make yourself big, but to dissolve yourself into nothingness because what you are seeking is boundlessness, not bigness. You become boundless not by becoming big. “Big” still has a boundary. Only when you become a zero are you boundless. So do not use this to make yourself great. Use this as a process of dissolution.

If you maintain these three things, the spiritual process will work miraculously well. You have to look at it every day. “Oh I know it,” – it doesn't work like that. This is not something you do just before your kriya. When you wake up in the morning, check this – “Am I being like this today?” It will work miraculously. Just because you desire something, it will not happen to you. You must do the right things. Only then it happens to you.

If you just maintain this, the whole process will take you towards an all-inclusive state. Not because it is my idea or my desire for you, but because that is the nature of the Creator.

Editor’s Note: Sadhguru dives deeper into the role of a Guru in a seeker’s life, in the free ebook “A Guru Always Takes You For A Ride.”