In Equanimity, Conscious Activity
“You must enjoy every association and company that you seek, but you do not have to get stuck to anything.”
—Sadhguru
A young student questions Sadhguru about equanimity after noticing her attachment to certain people over others. Sadhguru explains, though we may be equanimous within ourselves, when we perform different kinds of activity, making choices is inevitable.
Q: Namaskaram Sadhguru. Generally, I like everyone. Even someone I can’t relate to, I always find something nice in them, and I spend a lot of time with everyone, but that is not the problem. After a certain point, there are a handful of people who tend to like you more than others, and over time, I start getting attached to them. When I look back, that’s when I start realizing that I spend so much time with them and not the others. How do you know when to stop a certain relationship?
Sadhguru: Though you may look upon everything with an equal eye, when it comes to activity, we will inevitably engage with certain people more than the other. We may be equanimous within ourselves, but activity is different from person to person. If I want to play volleyball, I will play with one group. If I want to play table tennis, I will import someone from outside. For different types of things that we do, we naturally choose. If you want to read something, maybe you will go with her. If you want to play, you will go with her. You want to do something else, then you will go with that person because of a certain aptitude, not because of a lack of equanimity. Even if we look at everyone with a certain sense, when it comes to engagement in terms of activity, naturally there are choices. Nothing wrong about it. That is the only way life can be.
Avoiding Entanglement
But now you are getting tangled up with that because you are trying to cling. We try to cling because somehow we feel we are not sufficient. See, I planted all these areca nut trees here for you so that every day you can hug one tree. Did you ever do that? The beauty about hugging a tree is that you can get attached to the tree, but the tree will not get attached to you. Such a wonderful thing. That is why I am openly telling people, “You can fall in love with me, no problem. You may get attached, but I will not cling to you, don’t worry.” No danger of the tree coming and catching you as you are going by. If you get attached to somebody, they will come and catch you. A tree and a guru are good for this because they will not come and catch you. The tree is fine without your hug. It is beautiful, doing what it has to do, but we know from experimentation that a tree enjoys a hug or a touch.
You should become like this. You must enjoy every association and company that you seek, but you do not have to get stuck to anything. If you want to visualize what will happen to you over a period of time if you get stuck to people and things; suppose today I coat you with superglue, head to toe. You walk out, you like this, so this got stuck to you. You went and touched something, so it got stuck to you. You hugged the tree, and it got stuck to you. Whatever you touched, everything stuck to you. Within twenty-four hours, you will become a heap of nonsense.
This is why spirituality because it is a solvent for all glues that we generate. Whenever we feel insecure, we have a way of generating a glue that gets us stuck to anything we touch. I have the solvent. You must bring this dimension into you because this is the nature of the body. Body has something called as runanubandha. Have you heard this word? When we were growing up, it was very common that in daily conversation people would say prarabdha, runanubandha, karma, mukthi, moksha. In daily conversation in this country, people uttered these things. Today, everything is, “Shit! Shit! Shit!” We are really elevating ourselves…
Carrying Memory Consciously
Runanubandha means there is a physical memory in your body. Why is it that your nose is like this, but her nose is like that? There is a memory in this. The memory is not just on the genetic level. You will see that if somebody came and sat down here today, tomorrow if you announce one more satsang, unknowingly, they will go and sit down in the same place because there is a certain runanubandha with that place. People do not get attached only to people. They will get attached to just about anything because the body develops a certain memory with anything that it touches.
This memory is helpful if you use it consciously you can recognize something without even thinking about it. If you close your eyes and sit here, and someone that you know walks in, you just know this person has walked in. This is good, but the problem is, because you are processing this memory unconsciously, you get stuck to that person. Now, runanubandha is not a bad thing. Runanubandha must be carried consciously, then you will enjoy the many memories that you have in your life. Otherwise, every memory becomes a tangle; entangling and enslaving. All the memories that you gather in your life should make your life-scape rich, but instead of that, people make it heavy. Do not make it heavy.
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