Don’t try to make an inner journey, says Sadhguru. If you can simply sit, even for a moment, without going anywhere in body, mind, emotion or imagination, then you’ve already made it.

Full Transcript:

Questioner: Sadhguru I want to firstly thank you for being there in every aspect of my life, from last few years. Sadhguru, just I want to ask you is, it’s about the direction. Like... The inner journey, like whenever I’m taking the inner journey I’m getting caught up with do... the right thing, wrong thing, the correct, the not correct, the conduct... I’m not clear, I don’t understand, what is this inner journey? How do we take it? How do I take it? How do I take this inner journey?

Sadhguru: Where do you want to go?

Questioner: (Laughs) I… (Laughs) I don’t know. I want to go within me, Sadhguru. I just don’t know, because I once saw one of your videos, you said that it’s the direction which... should be set right first and then the journey starts.

Sadhguru: Now, we should have this properly figured out because Inner journey if you have to make a journey, you need distance, isn’t it? Yes? You understand what I’m saying? If you have to make a journey you need distance. Without distance, there is no journey. How far away are you? Hmm? How far away are you? I want to know. Hmm? So if there’s no distance, how will you make a journey? Somebody’s conning you. Yes? Somebody’s taking you for a ride. Isn’t it? Because the fundamentals of making a journey is you need a distance. No distance means, how to make a journey? So don’t try to do any inner journey. But ‘I want to go inside,’ inside of what? Who wants to go inside of what? ‘I want to go into myself,’ what is that? Can anybody go into themselves? I’m asking you. If you’re this, you’re this. Isn’t it? How can this go into this? This can go into that, that can go into this. This cannot go into this. Isn’t it? ‘Oh Sadhguru, you’re just playing with the words, but what about the inner journey?

There is no inner journey. All the words that are used in language can only describe the outer, so the language is of the outer. So whatever we speak is only around that, never that. We can speak around it, nobody can speak it. If anybody thinks, ‘This is it’ he needs treatment. Doesn’t need a guru, he needs a psychiatrist. Yes? Guru is for people who are normal, but who wants to know something more. If you’re abnormal, you need a psychiatrist, not a guru. Yes? Treatment.

So don’t try to make any journey. Just do one thing, go home today, don’t try to go anywhere, no outer journey, no inner journey, just sit let me see. If you can just sit for one moment, you made it. But the problem is if you sit here, you want to gallop somewhere. Just simply sit here; in body not going anywhere, in mind not going anywhere, in emotion not going anywhere, in your imagination, not going anywhere. Don’t go anywhere. Simply sit. That’s it.

So inner journey no journey! You are already here; if you were not born, then you had to make a journey to find you. You are already here. Are you here? I want to know, are you here? You’re already here, so what? ‘If it’s that simple, why don’t I get it?’ Because you want a journey. You think if you sit here, your life will get wasted. You have to go somewhere. All the time, you have to go somewhere. No! Just sit here and see. There’s a beautiful story. In Tamil Nadu, during the British era, this happened in 1920s or so, and the British were ruling the place. They had officers who were titled as the Collectors. You still have Collectors in Bengal? Do you have Collectors? They were called Collectors because their only fundamental duty, fundamental and their only duty was to collect taxes. Collect all the time, wherever they go. So, there’s nothing much to collect in the villages because people are barely scratching the bottom of their pot to eat. So, in that also they collected. Agriculture was heavily taxed, in South India, I don’t know how it was in Bengal. I think it was heavily taxed means over fifty percent tax on agriculture So, Collectors regularly visited temples, not out of devotion but to collect whatever came there because big collections happened in the temples. So every temple had to keep an account of their expenses. So, in this particular temple, the Collector came and he looked through the account books and there, thirty rupees expense has been put for a month, not for one day, for one month. ‘Onnu pannatha swamikku sapadu’ that means a man who doesn’t do anything , food for him, thirty rupees per month. The Collector looked at this and said, ‘Why are we feeding this man who doesn’t do anything?’ So, they tried to explain, the trustees, ‘You know, this man is doing nothing but not just nothing, he’s doing nothing-nothing.’ (Laughter) ‘No, no, no. In Her Majesty’s world, if you want to earn a living, you have to do something. A man who does nothing, we cannot feed him. Stop it!’ But the trustee said ‘No, no, no, no, not like that, this man is, you know, really doing nothing, you know.’ (Laughs) ‘Then definitely he must not be fed. Call it off. We cannot afford to spend thirty rupees on this man who does nothing.’ Then there was a wise trustee, he said, ‘You do one thing, you come here. I will show you this man who does nothing. You sit with him and do that nothing for some time, you will understand. (Laughter)

So, they took the Collector and made him sit down. There was a man simply (Gestures)… (Few laugh) simply sitting there. The Collector came, they said ‘You sit down, and just do nothing for five minutes. Just see, what it is.’ So Collector, ‘What’s the big deal about that, I will also do nothing.’ He sat. Two minutes he could not sit. But this man simply sat. Things happened to him like he had never imagined possible, just sitting there. He said, ‘This is not possible, just feed this damn man.’

So, doing nothing, is not a simple thing. It is the simplest thing. Yes? The simplest thing in the world is to do nothing, isn’t it? But right now you have invested so much in the reverse direction, it’s picked up momentum. Now, to reverse it and do nothing, looks like an impossible thing. So, you want to do inner journey also now. Suppose there’s too much traffic there, what will you do? No, suppose there’s too much traffic and it gets jammed, what do you do? Tch, tch. If you try to make a journey there are problems of traffic, isn’t it? (Laughs) All the other problems will come. And if the light goes red what do you do? (Laughs) So don’t make any journey. Don’t complicate something that’s so simple. Just understand, you’re a piece of life. You are not a thought, you are not a emotion. You are not flesh, you are not bone. You are just life. Constantly remind yourself, that ‘I’m just life. All these things happened to me, body happened to me, thoughts happened to me, emotions happened to me, marriage happened to me, children happened to me, but I’m just a piece of life. Is it true? Or am I psyching you up? Hmm? It’s true? Please just live with the truth, rest will happen. Just live with the truth, everything else will happen. You’re just bloody lying to yourself all the time, all kinds of things which are not true, all the time. Please see. In how many ways you’re lying to yourself. Please look at it sincerely. Just stop the nonsense. It’s all here. (Gestures) What is there? It’s the simplest thing. But you don’t want to be simple, you’d like to be a little complicated, isn’t it? Simplicity looks like stupidity, but it is not so. Everything that’s profound is simple.