A Yogi’s Guide to a Joyful 2017

“This year, set a target for yourself to see how joyful you will be and how much joy you will give to other people. There is no one who doesn’t want to be joyful and there is no one who has never known joy.”

—Sadhguru

Sadhguru gives us three tips for a joyful new year. Happy 2017!

Sadhguru: Ask yourself, “In the past year, how many full moons have I seen? How many sunrises have I seen? How many times did I stop and look at a flower blossom? How many times did I look at a butterfly fly? How many times did I smile to myself?”

This is the treasure of life! This would be a true measure for a day-to-day review. Day-to-day is from sunrise to sunset, moonrise to moonset, not from office to home, home to office, WhatsApp message to WhatsApp message. Day-to-day happens only because the planet spins, the Moon goes around and the Sun shines upon us. Being aware of this means you are alive to life and to the existence around you and within you. It means that you are not too engrossed with your own psychological drama.

I’m not saying you have to sit and watch the sun rise and set every morning and evening. But the question is, were you alive to existence around you? Or did you watch only the “best sunset” someone sent you on Whatsapp?

Secondly, in any business, it is important to maintain accounts. People think you have to do this for the Income Tax department, but the fact is that those who don’t keep accounts won’t know whether they are making profit or loss. You are busy keeping accounts of your money by hiring CAs and tax experts, but what about the accounts of life? This is a good day to check the accounts of life: Have you become more joyful? More mature? Are you wiser? Have you become more loving? Do you have more friends this year or have your enemies increased?

3 Hacks for a Happy New Year

First, forget this habit of setting resolutions. A resolution means you are trying to impose things upon yourself. If the government passes a resolution that all of you must hang upside down from a tamarind tree, won’t you protest? How is it any different if you pass a resolution? If you regiment yourself instead of living consciously, how is it going to help? Instead of imposing things on yourself, learn to mature into a better life.

1. Do yourself one favour this new year – at least on full moon nights, plan a trip to some place quiet, somewhere you can look up at the moon from. This used to be a common thing in India – on full moon nights, people would go to the temple, usually a hill temple, and spend time there until midnight. On a hill, you will obviously look up and see the moon. The idea isn’t to look up at god or something. It is just to let you see that there is so much existence around you and that you are a tiny little creature. And yet, how many things you think about yourself? In this massive cosmos, what a wrong perception you have of yourself! This is just to show you this!

2. This year, set a target for yourself to see how joyful you will be and how much joy you will give to other people. There is no one who doesn’t want to be joyful and there is no one who has never known joy. People know how to be joyful and they all want to be joyful…but! There is a big “but”! If you see that it comes to that “but”, know that you need to kick that butt!

In 2017, every time you look at your watch to check time, give yourself a smile. Because, what’s ticking away is not your watch, it’s your life. When you look at the watch, just think of how many have died on this planet in the last 10,000 years, in the last year, in the last one month, one week – how many died in one day! But you are still alive – you deserve at least a smile for that. Every time you check time, just know life is ticking away but you are still on – and give yourself a smile!

Editor’ Note: Sadhguru’s latest book, “Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy” is available on Amazon. Order in India or the United States.

This article was originally published in the Times of India newspaper.