Should You Follow Your Passions?

“One should have a certain aptitude, talent, and an appropriate amount of passion. If you have too much passion, but not enough aptitude and talents, this passion will burn you down.”

—Sadhguru

A student wonders, how can I follow my passion if it has nothing to do with my studies? Instead of trying to enhance one’s passion, Sadhguru responds, one must develop aptitude.

Q: Namaskaram Sadhguru. For someone like me who is in a place where his schedule consists of studies, but his passion is nowhere related to studies, how do I go about it?

Sadhguru: One should have a certain aptitude, talent, and an appropriate amount of passion. If you have too much passion, but not enough aptitude and talents, this passion will burn you down. Your aptitude and your talent is what you have to enhance, not your passion. If you are passionate about music, for example, if you sing or play an instrument in such a way that it will make everybody sit up and be enthralled by it, then your teachers will be attending your concert every day rather than teaching you something else. So instead of just burning with passion, work upon your aptitude and your talent. “Oh, they’re not giving me time. They’re asking me to learn physics, chemistry.” You know, if somebody asks a boring question in the satsang, immediately I am playing some music to myself.

Music comes not because of playing or singing. Music comes because of your ability to listen. How keen your ears are, that is how good you are with music. It is not necessary that you must have a great voice or a great something else to become a musician. You must have a great ear so that when you listen to something, you can decipher between the many layers of sound that are happening at any given place. No teacher in this school is capable of listening to the ka, ka (Referring to sound of crows) and make a composition. Ka, ka, ka, ka not sa, ri, ga, ma.

Because the kaka (Referring to crow in Tamil) does not do ka, ka all the time in the same way. It does it in different pitches and it has a whole range. If you pay attention to it, just about everything has a certain geometry. All sounds have a certain geometry. If you listen carefully, there is music. This way, you are going on increasing aptitude. If your aptitude becomes such that no one can ignore you, do not worry about the passion people will carry you up. You do not have to show passion. You only have to show aptitude.

So do not work on your passion. Let the passion sleep. Let the aptitude burn. If aptitude burns, it will enhance you. If passion burns, it will burn you down one day. There is a place for you in this school, there are lots of noises. You can make music out of them. If an engine is roaring, can you not make music out of it? Everything has a pitch. Everything has a rhythm. If you just catch it right, it is there. It is constant application which makes it happen. Not, “Oh, I should have been in a music school. I am in a chemistry class right now, “Tch. That is not going to help. You will neither get this nor that. Do not waste your time enhancing your passion. “I have passion for music, but I have no aptitude.” Other people should show passion wanting to listen to your music.

Editor’s Note: The “Power to Create” meditations for Peace, Love, Health, and Success (also known as “Chit Shakti”) enable each one of us to become our own alchemist, by empowering us to transform long cherished desires into reality. Try them out!