How Do I Handle Confusion on the Spiritual Path

“Life is a limitless possibility. That’s what is beautiful about life.” —Sadhguru

Q: I am going through a lot of confusion in terms of my spiritual process. How do I deal with this confusion, or how do I get to a place where there is no confusion?

Sadhguru: It is very important on the spiritual path that you never try to get to some particular “place”, because the moment you want to get to something in particular, your mind will start creating a “place”. You will create your own private heaven. 

The spiritual process is not about giving up one level of hallucination and moving into another level. This is about giving up hallucination altogether and being able to live with reality just the way it is, because the effort is about truth.
 

Truth means existential, not what you make up in your mind. I may see a god or a demon in my mind – both do not matter. What you see is a question of culture and what you are exposed to; it is a question of whether you are an optimist or pessimist – when you see people, whether you see god or devil in them. It has nothing to do with reality. The reality is, you are here right now and you don’t know what the hell you are here for, where the hell you came from and where you will go. That is the reality of life. 

Becoming Hopeless

Certain religions have always peddled hope. Hope is the worst thing that can happen to a human being because hope means you will make up things about the future. “It is bad right now, but it doesn’t matter. I am a good man but I am poor. But when I go to heaven, I will sit on God’s lap.” That’s the hope.

The moment somebody gives you hope, you will start making things up. Hope is a way of creating lies. If you can be joyfully hopeless, that’s it. You come to a place where you don’t need any hope. You are all right whichever way it comes because you found something within yourself. 

Learning to live with reality is the most important thing. You don’t have to do anything else. If you stop distorting things in your mind and just see everything the way it is, mukti is just one step away. You don’t have to do anything. Just time will do it. Time will mature you into another place. 

You just have to hold yourself such that you don’t make up anything, positive or negative. You don’t create a god or devil, heaven or hell, good or bad. There is no such thing as “I like this person, I don’t like that person”. You learn to look at everything just the way it is, that’s all. At certain times, for the purpose of activity, we may have to recognize these things. But the rest of the time, you can just look at things as they are. 

Next Stop: Reality!

If you see things as they are, you will see life is not just in this form or that form. It is exploding across the universe. The cosmos is a living cosmos. This is what you will see if you stop identifying, “This is life, this is not life, this is animate, this is inanimate, this is man, this is woman.” Simply look at everything the way it is. 

Once you are in a cosmic living mass, life is different. Is it beautiful? No. Is it ugly? No. How is it? Like life, as it should be! It is just as it should be, not this way or that way. Everything is as it should be. It is only your mind that keeps distorting everything. As you stop your distortions and simply look at everything the way it is, you will see there is an explosion of life. If you live here for ten million years, it will still keep you intensely busy just grasping it. 

Even modern physicists say this is an ever-expanding universe. Essentially, they are saying there is nothing conclusive about anything. That is a strange thing to say for those studying physical science. But they realize now that there is something wrong in the way they are looking at the entire picture. 

So there is no “this is it.” It is a never-ending process of absorption. Suppose there is a “this is it.” What will you do after that? You must understand, if you arrive at a station called reality, there is no such thing as “this is it.” Conclusions happen only in your mind, never in the existence. Conclusion is the nature of the mind. It wants to close one chapter and say, “I got it.” But life is a limitless possibility. That’s what is beautiful about life.

Editor's Note: “Mystic’s Musings” includes more of Sadhguru’s insights on a seeker's predicament. Read the free sample [pdf] or purchase the ebook.