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“What is truth, and what is its nature,” was the question Arjuna asked Krishna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Sadhguru explains Krishna’s answer, and elaborates on the “ultimate nectar of life.”
Sadhguru: When Arjuna asked Krishna, “What is the nature of this truth that you are talking about? I am not able to grasp it,” Krishna said, “The nature of the truth is such that if you drink what looks like amritam (nectar), it will become visham (poison). If you drink what looks like visham, it will become amritam.”
The one thing that you don’t want in your life is emptiness. All the trouble that you take on in your life in terms of education, family, profession, money and problems, is because somehow, you want to ensure that your life is not empty. That’s all you are trying to do, at any cost. But if you become empty consciously, that is the ultimate nectar of life. And yet, in your normal perception, it is absolute poison. Nobody wants it. But if you drink it, it becomes your nectar.
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At the same time, all the other things that you thought of as nectar – whether it was knowledge, money, power, love or whatever – you ran after them, but what is it that has happened to you? Little pleasures have come to you but ultimately, by the time you look around, your life is gone. In trying to run after the so-called nectar, you are robbed of life. And all the bitterness and suffering on this planet is only because people are running after these things, isn't it? But if you go for that which looks like poison, your life will become nectar. That is the nature of the truth.
If the divine has to enter you and manifest itself within you, you need empty space. Otherwise, all that is there is just the devil of your mind. Only if emptiness happens, divine-ness will happen to you. You have known love, joy and peace only in moments of emptiness – all the beautiful things have happened to you only in moments of emptiness. But logically and mentally, you think emptiness is the one thing that you don’t want. It looks like poison, but it is nectar.
Hitting the Goldmine
If you run after fulfillment, it will be an endless run. You will never be fulfilled. There are three ways in which you try to fulfill yourself. You want your pocket to be full with wealth. You want your head to be full – you want to know everything. You want your heart to be full – you want to love and you want people to love you. These are the only three ways through which you are attempting fulfillment. Now suppose I give you all the money in the planet, will your pocket become full or can it take some more? It can take some more, isn’t it? So in the very nature of things, your pocket cannot become full. If I grind all the libraries on this planet and pour it into your head, will your head become full? No, it can take some more. So in the very nature of things, your head cannot become full. If you include the whole population as a part of yourself and love them, will your heart become full or can you include a newborn child also? You can, so this also cannot become full. So if you run after fulfillment, you will be on an endless run.
But emptiness is always full. That which is empty is absolutely empty. It is never half empty. There is no such thing as incomplete emptiness. To see this, it takes awareness, and only then you recognize the nectar of life. Otherwise, you mistake the poison as nectar and waste your life running after that. This is the fundamental of spiritual life. People think that someone on the spiritual path has given up everything. They have not given up anything. They have hit a goldmine. No problems, no nonsense.
Editor's Note: This article was published in The New Indian Express on 25 Nov, 2012 .