Lessons learned from 30 min. with Sadhguru

I caught myself in the sauna with a close friend recently. The universe was waiting on this moment. I almost didn’t go to the gym that day and she lingered longer than normal which put us in that steaming hot room at the same time. During the conversation that ensued, we talked about feeling restless and the constant desire to find work that’s more purposeful, work that helps better humanity. We hashed out some future career goals and plans. More on that in later blog posts. I’m still hashing.

When I got home, I received several texts from her. We both felt energized by the conversation. It’s so interesting when you give yourself a minute to rest and breathe, the universe often swoops in to inspire you. One of my friend’s texts was a link to Sahara Rose’s podcast, The Highest Self. In this particular episode, Sahara interviews Sadhguru, an Indian yoga guru and author.

Admittedly, I’d never heard of Sadhguru but after listening to this podcast episode, I want more of him. On an evening dog walk with my Aussie, Ringo, I put my earbuds in and pressed play on Sahara’s podcast, having no idea what I was about to listen to. Below are several lessons learned.

Spirituality is not of the other world; it’s of this world: There is no need to wait around until we get to an elusive heaven when we can make our own heaven where on earth. We have one chance to be the most elevated version of ourselves.

There are not good and bad people; only joyful and miserable people: I love this philosophy. There’s really no need to explain what he means. I think the words speak on their own. He went on to say joyful people do not do bad things, only miserable people do bad things.

Community is disintegrating: Sadhguru mention life two generations ago when many, many family members lived in one home, so many that the children didn’t even know which ones were their parents but they felt loved, nurtured, mentored and taken care of. Fast forward two generations and now we’re very individualized, extremely self-driven and self-centered. We need to take back a sense of community, the village mentality.

Our bodies and minds are the platforms for good, but we’re too busy to use them for such: Our bodies and minds are our greatest gifts, but we’re too busy running the rat race to use either fully. Instead of using our minds to reach a higher level of spirituality or consciousness, we ruminate on mundane common man stressors or everyday woes that really don’t matter in the grand scheme. Similarly, instead of considering our bodies as our temples, we beat them down at every turn, with lack of exercise, stress, alcohol, drugs, and unhealthy eating habits.

There are two purposes in this world – profoundness of experience and impactful activity: This one also doesn’t need much explaining except to say that most people need a better balance between the two. We give entirely too much time and energy toward achieving impactful activity than seeking profound experience. The ironic thing is that impactful activity can be a profound experience if go about our day and work with more mindfulness.

If technology takes over, it would give us time to focus on consciousness: Every day technology takes over more tasks and jobs once performed by human hands. Sadhguru says this could be very good or very bad. With less work to do, people should spend the time achieving a higher conscious level but unfortunately, bored people and idle hands often seek negative behaviors such as using drugs or alcohol.

My encounter in the sauna with my friend happened for a reason. I’m still processing some of our conversation, but it aligned heavily with thoughts I’d already been having. I have this one and only precious life. I want to spend it doing purposeful work but also embracing profound experiences.

If you are feeling restless, slow down, alleviate the noise, give yourself some time to hear the whispers of the universe. Believe me. You’ll be so happy you did.

Featured photo by Bandeep Singh