Career vs. Self-Realization

“The more you know about yourself, the greater the things you can do with yourself. With other instruments, you can only know them from outside. Your Self, you can know inside out.”

—Sadhguru

Sadhguru explores a question of time management – should we pursue Career or Self-Realization? The more you know about yourself, Sadhguru reminds us, the more successful you can be, no matter your vocation.

Q: If we want to achieve certain goals in our career or vocation, for our self-confidence and self-worth, this really keeps us busy. How do we find time for self-realization?

Sadhguru: Let’s clear whatever ideas you or anyone may have about self-realization. Do you have a cell phone? Do you use a camera? Isn’t it true that whatever instrument you use in your life, the more you know about this instrument, the better you can handle it? If you give a camera to someone who doesn’t know how to operate it, he won’t even get it turned on. If you give the same camera to someone who knows what it is, he will produce such magic out of it that people are willing to sit in the dark and watch it for hours.

If you drive with me, I will show you all the things you can do with a car. The more you know about something, what you can do with it is greatly enhanced. If this is true with everything that we handle, is that not true with your Self? The more you know about it, the better you can handle it. Do not think of self-realization as something that happens in a Himalayan cave. It did happen there also, but I want you to understand it from your context.

Self-realization means just knowing your Self. How could it be against your vocation? How could it be against anything that you wish to do in your life? I am asking you, how can you live an effective life without knowing anything about yourself? People are trying to teach each other how to be confident without knowing anything about the life process. Confidence without clarity is a disaster.

Unfortunately, we think confidence is a substitute for clarity. Let’s say we blindfold you and ask you to walk around. If you are sensible, you will feel your way, here, there, and slowly walk around, touch the walls, feeling with your feet and hands. But if you are very confident and walk without seeing, the rocks are not going to be kind to you. Life is not going to be kind to you either, if you are confident without clarity. To perform your activity in the world, to be successful in whatever you are doing, to do anything well in your life, you need clarity, not confidence.

The more you know about yourself, the greater the things you can do with yourself. With other instruments, you can only know them from outside. Your Self, you can know inside out. You can look at it from inside. If you know it inside out, it becomes like magic. Whatever you do will be magic. If you sit, you can do things, if you close your eyes, you can do things, if you sleep also, you can do things. If you are awake or asleep, you can still do magical things with this system, once you know it inside out.

Editor’s Note: In modern societies, enhancing the quality of our life has become one of our main objectives. In this pursuit, we tend to emphasize enhancing external situations: our job, business, family and the abounding accumulation of material things; in spite of all the efforts, our personal and professional lives are too often painfully lacking happiness and fulfilment.

In the ebook “Inner Management”, Sadhguru shifts our focus to the inside, pointing out a way to establish a true sense of inner peace and wellbeing. Download now.