Of Aspirations, Whims and Desires

Q: I have come to a point where I have been noticing a lot of trends and patterns in my own life. I feel like I have all these aspirations, but then I also get discouraged fairly easily and I abandon my aspirations. I kind of give up or scale back and then start over again, continuing with that cycle. What are things we can do to break this cycle, or at least find the way to be aware of it and go in a more positive direction, moving forward.

Sadhguru: There is something called a whim, a desire, a longing. You can have a whim for one thing today, and another thing tomorrow. You can desire or long for one thing today, and another thing tomorrow. But an aspiration comes with a non-return valve. You know what that is? If water or any liquid passes through a non-return valve, it cannot come back after that. It has no way to turn back.

You can generate desire in a moment. You can long for something within five minutes. But aspiration does not just come. Most human beings on this planet have no aspiration in their life. They have desires, they have longings, they have needs, they have whims, but they have no aspiration.

Aspiration is not something that you can turn on and turn off. You just said, “I have come to a certain stage in my life.” I was hoping that you were going to talk about your aspiration. No, you are still talking about your desires that scale up and scale down.

Blowing Hot & Cold

Desires get hot, you know. Any machine gets hot because it is inefficient. The more the friction within a machine, the hotter it gets. If it has come to a certain level of smoothness within itself, then it is cool. It can be working at an incredible level but still very cool. An aspiration is that kind of a desire. There is an element of desire in it, but it is no longer blowing hot and cold. It is simply on. It is not something that you have to fuel every day. Once you have it in you, the aspiration does not go away. Do what you want, even if you fall dead, it does not go. It pursues you for lifetimes. It is a stitch that holds your lives together as one. Many lives will be held together as one life, simply because of an aspiration. Blessed is one who has an aspiration in his life because for him, many lives will get stitched into one. Once many lives are stitched into one, you do not have to tell such a person stories about how it is all cyclical. You do not have to tell him anything.

When the Last Moment Comes

Spend some time in finding the aspiration. It is important, because otherwise life becomes a stagnant life. It will become whimsical. You will pursue something as if that is all that matters for some time – or worse, until the moment of death. If you have been around people who are dying,  you would have seen how most of them die. The dearest people in their life, who meant everything to them till probably a few hours ago, when that moment of death starts coming, they will look at these people like they are complete strangers. Do not believe the movies where till the last moment, he holds your hand and all that stuff. That is not how it happens.

It does not matter how much emotion has flowed between two people. At that moment, when you look at somebody, they look like a total stranger. The play of the physical gives you so many illusions, as if it is all real. When the physical play starts to go down, suddenly all the play connected with it will not mean anything.

If this is your last moment of life, how would you look at everybody around you? That is how you should look – not all the time, but you must be able to look. Then, every human being will have the same aspiration. That one moment can be more than any scripture that you ever read, because suddenly you look at life the way it is.

This needs to happen for every human being, that you look at your life, the nature of your existence here, not in the tiny little scope that is happening around you. Whether it is an ashram or society or town or city, it is a small circle that is happening. That is not the end of it. You at least have to look back in time and see, there was actually a world here without you. You must go back and have a look at that world, and at how the world will be without you. Then you will have a better perspective and your aspirations will get into place. Otherwise, your desire and longing will drive you in so many directions, making you believe it is all true.

Editor’s Note: The “Power to Create” meditations for Peace, Love, Health, and Success (also known as “Chit Shakti”) enable each one of us to become our own alchemist, by empowering us to transform long cherished desires into reality. Try them out!