Once the Guru Leaves…
“Suppose I leave tomorrow, is your spiritual journey going to end? Definitely not. Instead of piloting it from outside, it could be piloted from inside.”
—Sadhguru
Questioner: Sadhguru, we are all on this bus journey with you as the driver. At some point, you may decide to hop off the bus. You have two types of passengers. Those who are focused on the destination – even if you put the bus on auto pilot, they should be okay. But you also have passengers who are focused on the driver – the destination doesn’t matter to them. What happens to them if you put it on auto pilot?
Sadhguru: People have gotten interested in the driver only because of the destination that he represents. If you have a dream about going to a certain destination, the man who drives the bus becomes a part of your dream. You may be thinking “Sadhguru” with tears in your eyes, but if I go to the next village, they are not even bothered who I am, because they are not interested in going anywhere. They have not even thought about it, so what I represent does not mean anything to them.
Your interest is the destination, but the destination is abstract, while the driver is something that you can relate to. Therefore, in your understanding, the driver has become important. But actually, the important thing for you is the destination. The way the mind understands, knows, and perceives things is like this: “If the driver is not there, will we really get to the destination?” You have no trust in the technology of auto-piloting. You think if it is put on auto pilot, it will not happen, which is not true.
The question is, “When are you going to go – before me or after me?” Maybe I will outlive you – I have not made up my mind when to go. Does this mean I have an unbounded amount of time? Right now, no. If one wishes, one can earn that. But it needs a lot of hard work, just to drag on for a few more years, and I am not the kind to do that. Suppose I leave tomorrow, is your spiritual journey going to end? Definitely not. Instead of piloting it from outside, it could be piloted from inside. The initiations that you have gone through, whether it is shoonya or anything else, are not empty procedures or a bundle of instructions – they are a huge investment of life energy. If you keep it as a seed in your belly, you do not feel its presence. You have to create the necessary atmosphere for it to become a big tree, then there is no way you cannot feel its presence.
The unfortunate reality for most masters in the past has been that the spiritual processes that they started gathered much more momentum after they left. The physical absence makes the other presence very powerful – it always greatly enhances the other dimension. If I went tomorrow, it would also be to your benefit, so there is no need to be concerned. But it will not happen tomorrow – sorry to disappoint you.
