Sadhguru explains that everyone is already on the spiritual path. The desire for more money, power, knowledge or anything else is a spiritual process too, but mostly misguided and conducted unconsciously. What needs to be done is to become more conscious and aware.
Full Transcript:
Questioner: Tell me about this you have said, ‘We should know this piece of life to it's fullest in this life. Even if we don’t know anything else, we should know this piece of life to our fullest.’ How to start? Where to start? And how to go about this?
Sadhguru: Just turn around… just turn around once. Just turn around. Just turn around, turn around. See, all of you see what's written on his T shirt. ‘A’, yeah – that’s where you start, ‘A.’ (Applause) Don’t start with Z, you must start with A. A means it's the beginning, isn't it?
Time 123:07
___ (Unclear) (Overlapping conversation)
So where should you start? Does it happen in stages? Where should you start? I think we have been repeatedly saying you can only start from where you are, you cannot start somewhere else. Don’t try to start anywhere; there is nothing to start. It's already… long ago it's been started. You are trying to just hasten it, that's all. You can't start it, it's already started. Your longing to grow has started, isn't it? Maybe you’re thinking of more money but that’s only your misunderstanding, but essentially you want to be something more – that’s a spiritual process; misguided but a spiritual process. You want to become powerful, you want to become rich, you want to become knowledgeable, you want to be loved, you want to have pleasure – all this is spiritual processes going in wrong directions, that's all. Unconscious conducting of… you’re unconsciously conducting a spiritual process. If you conduct anything unconsciously, you may flounder every step maybe off the mark, isn't it? If you walk… Now if I tell you drive home with your eyes closed, before you get out of the parking lot you will be in quite a bit of mess, isn't it?
So – we’ll keep the cameras down, please – you will be in quite a bit of mess. So now don’t try to start anywhere, just become more and more conscious. As you become more conscious it will naturally find its way. To be conscious, to be aware, what it means? If you try to be aware, you cannot be aware. People are always mistaking mental alertness for awareness. Mental alertness will enhance your ability to survive better. You can survive better with mental alertness but that is not awareness. Awareness means… right now are you here, right now?
Meditators: Yes.
Sadhguru: Do you know that you are here?
Meditators: Yes.
Sadhguru: That’s awareness. You’re aware, that’s why you know that you are here, otherwise you would not know. Suppose you… you do not know that you are here, isn't it? If somebody (Gestures), you know. So someone is dead, poke (Gestures), no awareness; somebody is asleep, poke (Gestures) - immediately there. Now you don’t have to be poked, still you are there. So what I am saying is your awareness anyway is coming in different stages. Have you noticed at different times of the day you are in different levels of awareness? Hmm? So it can be heightened. What is needed for survival naturally happens. Even when it comes to survival mode, not every individual is alert to the same extent.
Now you are driving on the street, not everybody is alert to the same extent; it's a survival process - driving, but not everybody is alert to the same extent. So even in the survival mode not everybody is alert to the same extent and that can be heightened. If you heighten this awareness continuously, a point will come it's… where it's no more about survival; something that is not needed for your survival will also come into your awareness. When that comes into your awareness – that which is not needed for your survival is bound to be a dimension beyond the physical. So when that comes into your living experience of life, you’re on, very simple. Those seven days, what we were doing with you is slowly wind you up, wind you up, wind you up in such a way that you become more and more aware. Suddenly after 5-6 days, you are like. (Gestures) After that if you kept up your practice, gradually it’ll move up every day, otherwise slowly you became dim once again.
Have you noticed this? You steadily keep up your practice, how your awareness is; you give it up and slowly voltage is going down. If voltage goes down, the light becomes dim. If light becomes dim, you see very few things. The voltage is really high, light becomes really bright and you see everything. This is awareness. So you don’t work on your awareness or your consciousness or your spiritual growth, you just work upon your voltage. You keep your energies up as much as possible and when energies are up you tend to get entangled with something. You make sure you don’t get entangled with anything. See, an adolescent is far more energetic than other people, but he is always getting into trouble because he has the energy, but he doesn’t have the stability. So to have the energy and to maintain the stability, if you do this… these two things if you do, rest will happen by itself, nothing to do. Simply sit and enjoy.