Spirituality is extraordinary greed

Suppose you give up your ambition for money and take on an ambition for God, that means, earlier you desired a piece of creation, now you start desiring the Creator himself! Has your ambition come down? No, it has grown to an extraordinary greed!

The point always is this: as a human being, wherever you are, you want to be a little more than what you are. When that happens, then a little more, and a little more. Fundamentally, what you are seeking is expansion, whatever your currency may be. For one person it may be money, for another person it might be knowledge, or love, or pleasure or whatever. Everyone is constantly seeking expansion through the currency that he knows best. So, if expansion is what you are seeking, how much expansion do you think you will settle for? Generally, it will be boundless expansion. That means your goal is infinite. But you are seeking the infinite through the physical. Can the physical ever become infinite? The physical is finite, always within a finite boundary, it can never be infinite. It is like, you are riding a bullock cart but your destination is the moon and somebody says, “Buy yourself a new whip!” If your destination is the moon, you need an appropriate vehicle. So, through the physical, if you are seeking the infinite, there will only be frustration.

If there is an unfulfilled desire, you will be unhappy, and the very nature of desire you have is such that you will always have one desire unfulfilled: “I want to give up desire” is also a desire, isn’t it? So, you are into a no-win situation.

There was a time when everybody thought a competitor means kill him. Now they are saying let’s collaborate. That means the mindset is changing. What I am saying is that the mindset is not just about the outside, but also the business of life. Life is inter-dependence; it is constant collaboration with everything around you. So, if you collaborate willingly, you will go through the process of life joyfully. If you collaborate unwillingly, you think life is being taken away from you. I don’t intend to change the content of anybody’s life; we just want to change the context of their life.

(Ranked amongst the fifty most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic visionary and a New York Times bestselling author Sadhguru has been conferred the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India in 2017, the highest annual civilian award, accorded for exceptional and distinguished service.)