This happened in a Sunday school in Alabama. An enthusiastic teacher asked the children, “What do you have to do to go to heaven?” Someone said, “Every Sunday, if I clean the church steps, I can go to heaven.” Someone else said, “If I help my friend in his examination, I will go to heaven.” Each person said something. Then, one little boy was simply sitting nonchalantly on the last bench. So the teacher asked, “Hey, Tommy. What do you think you have to do to go to heaven?” He said, “You got to die first.”
There aren’t many points. Don’t go by readymade points because we don’t know what the ground reality is. If you are talking about a business rebirth, to drop something that has failed is easy and inevitable. It will anyway happen. But to drop something that is successful and recreate something else out of that needs vision, courage and a certain level of madness in you. It is a completely different level of looking at life. You must be able to see something that others don’t see. Only then will you be able to do this. So, you should sharpen your ability to see. Leadership is a kind of perch. Once you get onto a perch, you are supposed to see better than other people. If you don’t see any better, you will become an object of ridicule.
Are You Willing to Die?
What you need to look at is whether you are capable of dropping what you are right now – either as an individual or as an organisation. And whether you want to die entirely and recreate something or do you want to die partially and recreate it is a judgment one has to make on the spot, knowing the realities of the situation.
Think Before You Jump
Once we have chosen to be reborn – to dissolve something and create something fresh – many possibilities will be open. Many possibilities always means trouble. To be able to identify which one of these possibilities you should go with is a certain exercise. The problem is people jump into something and then exercise their mind – no. Before you jump into something, it needs to be looked at with enough attention because once you jump into something, there should be no looking back. If you are constantly looking at the rearview mirror, you are not going to go forward.
Don’t Worry About Doing the Best Thing
And you must understand, the path you jump into is not the best thing. You can never do the best thing in the world. Whatever you jump into, if you really put your life into it, it can become a great thing. Don’t ever try to do the best thing because if you try to do the best thing, you will waste your life trying to be better than someone else. That’s not a good way to go because for all you know the person you compare yourself with may be lame, and you think you are a champion because you run a little faster than him. Whether you are better or worse than someone should not even be a thought in your mind. The only thing to look at is that full utilisation of who you are should happen. Whatever you have, are you able to harness it fully? This is what yoga means. Your physicality, psychological realities and the inner energies – are you able to harness these the way you want?
Read the User’s Manual
The problem with most people is their own thoughts and emotions are a huge issue. When you yourself are an issue, how will you deal with other issues? Your psychological drama is taking such a big toll. People are capable of suffering what happened ten years ago. They are capable of suffering what is going to happen day after tomorrow, already. They think they are suffering their past and future, but they are only suffering two faculties that are exclusive to human beings on this planet – memory and imagination.
Most people do not know how to handle their memory and imagination. Does what happened yesterday or ten years ago exist right now? No. Does what may happen day after tomorrow exist right now? No. So, in other words, you are suffering that which does not exist. That’s called insanity. People say, “This is human nature.” This is not human nature. This is the nature of people who have not taken charge of human nature.
The human mechanism is the most complex piece of machinery on the planet. This is a “super-supercomputer.” But have you read the user’s manual? Right now, you are somehow using it. If you do things “somehow”, life will happen accidentally.
Look at Everything Fresh
You said “rebirth”. If you are born fresh, that means you have no conclusions about anything. You are willing to look at everything like you are just born. If you do this, you will walk through life untouched. Even a little child starts thinking he knows within a few days. Once you think you know, you start fumbling and bumbling. If, every moment of your life, you look at everything like you were just born, you will see everything crystal clear. When you see things clear, you walk through situations comfortably.
Leadership essentially means that every thought or emotion you generate, every action you perform, impacts millions of people. When you have such a privilege, it is important that you keep yourself in really good shape – not just physically but in every other way. If you are in business or are handling the lives, wellbeing and future of many people, it is very important that you work upon yourself. If you understand that the work you are doing is important, who you are needs to be worked at continuously – not just increasing your knowledge or studying at a university, but enhancing this piece of life that you refer to as “myself” to the highest possible level.
Sadhguru. Named one of 50 most influential people, Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, a bestselling author & poet. Sadhguru has been conferred the “Padma Vibhushan” by the Government of India in 2017, the highest civilian award of the year, accorded for exceptional and distinguished service.
