Are Yogis Doing Anything About the Violence in the World?

“The worst violence that is happening on the planet is in your mind. You are constantly stabbing yourself. You may have all kinds of exotic names for this, like pain, misery, depression, or panic attack.”

—Sadhguru

Q: Why is there so much violence and suffering in the world? Why are the yogis not doing their bit? Why is Adiyogi going to sleep when he is needed most?

Sadhguru: Let us say tomorrow morning, I will stop all the violence on this planet. What will you do after that? Will you live absolutely fulfilled, joyful, exuberant, and fantastic? No. You will find new problems. The worst violence that is happening on the planet is in your mind. You are constantly stabbing yourself. You may have all kinds of exotic names for this, like pain, misery, depression, or panic attack. All that has happened is your own intelligence has turned against you. I want you to know this – once your intelligence turns against you, no yogi, Adiyogi, or god can save you.

If you look back on the history of humanity, we are living in times with the least amount of violence. Of course, there is imminent violence with nuclear bombs and the like, but day-to-day violence is way lower than ever before. There are aberrations in human societies, and it would be great if that goes. But if you cannot remove the violence in your mind, how do you expect it to disappear from this planet? What is happening in the world is just a larger manifestation of what is happening in your mind. Tell me the day when there is no anger in you, there is no irritation in you, there is absolute blissfulness in you. On that day, we will make it work.

This reminds me when I was designing the 112-ft face of Adiyogi, I worked with a group of people, and it took nearly two-and-a-half years to get the face the way we wanted it. I did not express this to people, but I wanted a face that is still, but exuberant and intoxicated at the same time. The most exuberant dimension of life is stillness because it is from the stillness of the space that everything else has come. But we are so enamored with the little activity of the atoms and the molecules that we are missing the larger landscape on which all this happens. We are talking about a dimension which takes you beyond all this.

Editor’s Note: A book like no other, “Adiyogi: The Source of Yoga,” is an extraordinary tribute to Shiva, the Adiyogi, by a living yogi; a chronicle of the progenitor of mysticism by a contemporary mystic. Get your copy now!

A version of this article was originally published in Isha Forest Flower February 2018.