Breaking Your Barriers of Rigidity
“You have kept your energies suppressed to such an extent, and the mind has become so oppressive, that it suppresses life to the point where nothing moves except what is needed to support the ego.”
—Sadhguru
Q: Will the teachings and practices you have given help me break my rigidity and flower?
Sadhguru: I am glad you understand that it is your rigidity that has prevented your flowering. You can become rigid in many dimensions. During the practice of yoga asanas, you realize how rigid you are physically. It takes a little more awareness for you to know the rigidity in your mind and emotions. Somebody who is very rigid in his thoughts and emotions believes he is perfect because he does not allow room for any other way of looking, thinking, or feeling. When you meet such a man, you think he is pig-headed, but he thinks he is perfect. Similarly, there can be rigidity in your energy. For someone whose energy is very fluid, energy will start moving and transforming the very first day of the simplest kriya. Whereas, for another person, even after practicing for a long time, nothing seems to happen. This simply depends on how malleable the energies are. The rigidity in all these dimensions is not really separate; they are interconnected. The rigidity in one dimension manifests itself into others.
On Patanjali’s path, yoga is a system where it doesn’t matter what kind of a fool you are, what level of unawareness you are in, or what kind of karmic bondages you have, there is still a way for you. If you are willing to at least bend your body, you have already broken one karma. If your forehead touches your knee, you have broken a physical karma. This is not a joke. It is quite an achievement for a person who has never done it before. This simple limitation would have increased with the passage of time. Even the little flexibility that is there in you today will become less as time goes by. A day will come when you are totally rigid, both physically and mentally.
Look at your own life and see how flexible you were at the age of 10 or 11 – both physically and mentally. At the age of 20, your flexibility is considerably less, and by the age of 30, most of it has gone. Not just physically, but mental rigidity has also set in very severely. Life is just a regression for most people. They are not growing; they are going backwards. They don’t grow even the few assets they come with. Every advantage that comes to most people ends up as a curse. Money, influence, comfort and intelligence come as blessings, but become curses for most people. You are not using your intelligence to reach the peak of your consciousness or to become peaceful and loving. You are using your intelligence to drive yourself crazy. Anybody who goes against life, anybody who goes against that which is the source of life, is plain stupid.
Are You For or Against the Creator?
Every moment in your life, if you just watch whether you are for the Creator or against the Creator, everything will be settled. Your mind will be settled if you just do this sadhana. But it needs diligence. Otherwise, it is not going to happen. With every moment and every breath, just see. If you have the diligence to see, this is enough for you. It will clear up your mind totally. Tomorrow you will be ready for samadhi.
It is actually very simple, but it becomes extremely complicated because of a person’s personality. The complexities one encounters on the spiritual path are not complicated because of the path. They are there only because of the mess that is your mind. The path is very simple, but because you are there, it becomes extremely complicated. Nothing moves within you. You become rigid, as if rigor mortis has set in. You need the Master’s Grace to quell the madness of your mind. If you allow this, then the path is too simple, as the path is the destination.
If you simply sit, your whole being will pulsate with the existence. There is no other way to be unless you make an effort to be some other way. How can you be away from the existence in which you live? How is it possible? It envelops you in every way, inside and out. No one can ever be away from it. It is just that you are doing everything to stay away, maybe unconsciously. Just stop doing that and everything will be okay. So, just to get you to stop doing all that nonsense, we have started you on kriyas.
Activating Creation Itself
If you look at it, all of this is not necessary. But unfortunately, it is needed right now. You have kept your energies suppressed to such an extent, and the mind has become so oppressive, that it suppresses life to the point where nothing moves except what is needed to support the ego. Your energies are moving only to the extent that is convenient for your ego – a little more energy and the ego will burst. The moment energy rises within you, everything is dissolved. The ego knows it very well. That is why it has kept it suppressed. If you don’t have any energy, then again the ego will become very weak and it doesn’t like that. So it just allows the amount of energy which supports and feeds it well. If the energy becomes too much, the ego will be shattered. If kundalini begins to rise, everything will be shattered and nothing will be left. You will be just a force merging with everything around you. You won’t have a will of your own anymore.
Since you are not willing to surrender your will, we are prodding you through this sadhana to provoke your energies. That is why the path of asana and kriya. Since you are not able to do it by yourself, just activate creation itself in a certain way. If it begins to move, it settles everything. It is like a flood. So your sadhana is not about getting somewhere. It is just a way, a method to unleash a flood so enormous that it wipes away your petty creations and leaves you as the Creator intended you to be.
Editor’s Note:Excerpted from Mystic’s Musings. Not for the faint-hearted, this book deftly guides us with answers about reality that transcend our fears, angers, hopes, and struggles. Sadhguru keeps us teetering on the edge of logic and captivates us with his answers to questions relating to life, death, rebirth, suffering, karma, and the journey of the Self. Download the sample pdf or purchase the ebook.
