Kalpavriksha – How to Manifest What You Want

“Everything we have created on this planet was essentially first created in the mind.” —Sadhguru

Wishing Tree

Everything we have created on this planet was essentially first created in the mind. All the work done by humans – both the wonderful things and the horrible things – first found expression in the mind, then became manifested in the outside world. In the yogic tradition, a well-established mind is referred to as a Kalpavriksha or a “wishing tree.”

If you organize your mind to a certain level, it in turn organizes your whole system; your body, emotions and energies get organized in that direction. If this happens, you are a Kalpavriksha yourself. Anything that you wish will happen.

Be Careful What You Wish For

There is a beautiful story in the yogic lore. A man went for a walk and accidentally walked into paradise. After the long walk, he felt a little tired and thought, “I wish I could rest somewhere.” He saw a nice beautiful tree beneath which there was wonderful soft grass. So he went and slept on the grass. After a few hours, he woke up well rested. Then he thought, “Oh! I am hungry. I wish I had something to eat.” He thought of all the nice things he wanted to eat, and all of them just appeared in front of him. After he had the sumptuous food, the man thought, “Oh! I am thirsty, I wish I had something to drink.” He thought of all the drinks he wanted to drink and all of them appeared in front of him.

In Yoga, the human mind is referred to as markata or monkey because of its wandering nature. The word monkey has also become synonymous with imitation. If you say you are monkeying someone, it means imitating someone – this is the full-time job of your mind. So an unestablished mind is referred to as a monkey.

When this “monkey” became active in the man who went to paradise, he thought, “What the hell is happening here? I asked for food, food came. I asked for drink, drink came. Maybe there are ghosts around.” He looked and there were ghosts. The moment he saw them, he got terrified. He said, “Oh, there are ghosts around here. Maybe they will torture me.” And the ghosts started torturing him. He started screaming and yelling in pain. He said, “Oh, these ghosts are torturing me, they are going to kill me.” And he died.

The problem was he was sitting under a wishing tree or a Kalpavriksha. Whatever he asked for became a reality. You need to develop the mind to a point where it becomes a Kalpavriksha, not a source of madness. A well-established human mind is referred to as a Kalpavriksha. In this mind, whatever you ask for becomes a reality.

Who Is in the Driver’s Seat?

Suppose you are driving a car and suddenly the steering comes loose; everything else is fine, it is on cruise control, going at the same speed, but the steering came off. Will you sit there peacefully? No, you are going to freak out. Well, this is the condition of most human beings, because the steering wheel is not in their hands. If body, mind, and energies are not in your hands, they are doing their own things out of their own compulsive patterns. When they are acting in their own way, then Kalpavriksha is a faraway thing.

The first and foremost thing is you must be clear what it is that you really want. If you do not know what you want, the question of creating it does not arise. If you look at what you really want, what every human being wants is to live joyfully and peacefully. In terms of relationships, he wants them to be loving and affectionate. Or in other words, all that any human being is seeking for is pleasantness within himself, pleasantness around him.

Pullquote: The first and foremost thing is you must be clear what it is that you really want. If you do not know what you want, the question of creating it does not arise.

If this pleasantness happens in our body, we call this health and pleasure. If it happens in our mind, we call this peace and joy. If it happens in our emotion, we call this love and compassion. If it happens in our energy, we call this blissfulness and ecstasy. This is all that a human being is looking for. Whether he is going to his office to work, he wants to make money, build a career, build a family, he sits in the bar, sits in the temple, he is still looking for the same thing – pleasantness within, pleasantness around.

All that you need to do is commit yourself to creating it. If every morning, you start your day with this simple thought in your mind that, “Today, wherever I go, I will create a peaceful, loving, and joyful world, even if you fall down a hundred times in the day, what does it matter? For a committed man, there is no such thing as failure. If you fall down a hundred times, a hundred lessons to be learnt. If you commit yourself like this to creating what you really care for, your mind gets organized.

Perception Is Not Just Another Gadget

There are tools and technologies as to how to organize this system in such a way that instead of being a psychological mess, you can make yourself into a Kalpavriksha. That which is the source of creation is functioning within you every moment of your life. The question is just, have you kept access to that dimension or not? Organizing the four basic elements of your life will give you that access. The whole science and technology that we refer to as Yoga is just about this – transforming yourself from being just a piece of creation to become a creator.

For example, a hundred years ago, if I picked up something like a mobile phone, and I started speaking to someone who was across the world, you would have thought it is some kind of a miracle. Either I must be a messenger or a son or maybe God himself. But today, this is just another gadget that every one of us carries and uses. If today, without using this instrument, I speak to someone in another part of the world, it is still a miracle for you. This instrument happened because of a human mind wanting it to happen. A hundred years ago, no one thought this was possible. But today, it is a common thing. Similarly, many, many things which are not in our perception yet can be brought into our perception, and our ability to create our lives can be greatly enhanced.

You Are the Creator

Once your mind gets organized – the way you think is the way you feel – your emotion will get organized. Once your thought and emotion are organized, your energies will get organized in the same direction. Once your thought, emotion, and energies are organized, your very body will get organized. Once all these four are organized in one direction, your ability to create and manifest what you want is phenomenal.

I want you to look at the nature of your life right now. If you eat a banana, in four hours’ time, this banana becomes a human being. There is something within you, a life-creating process, which builds this body. The manufacturer of this body is within; you give him a banana – he makes a human being out of that banana. Transforming a banana into a human being is not a small thing. It is a phenomenon; it is just that this phenomenon is happening within you unconsciously. If only you could consciously manifest this making a banana into a human being, you are the Creator. You are nothing less than that.

As the theory of evolution goes, it took millions of years to make a monkey into a human being. Over an afternoon, you can make a banana, a piece of bread, or whatever else you eat into a human being. So the very source of creation is functioning within you. If you organize these four dimensions of mind, emotion, body, and energy in one direction, the source of creation is with you; you are the Creator. What you want to create will happen to you effortlessly. Once you are organized like this, now you are not a mess. You are a Kalpavriksha. You have the power to create what you want.

Editor’s Note: Harness the true power of your mind with this free Chit Shakti Guided Meditation by Sadhguru.

A version of this article was originally published in Isha Forest Flower January 2020. Click here to subscribe to the print version.