Sadhguru Quotes

“Our body and brain work at their best only when the stomach is empty. So be conscious of eating in such a way that within two and a half hours, your food moves out of the stomach, and within twelve to eighteen hours completely out of the system. With this simple awareness you will experience much more energy, agility, and alertness. These are the ingredients of a successful life, irrespective of what you choose to do with it.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 125)

“Logically, somebody who never put effort into anything should be the master of effortlessness. But it is not so. If you want to know effortlessness, you need to know effort. When you reach the peak of effort, you become effortless. Only a person who knows what it is to work understands rest. Paradoxically, those who are always resting know no rest; they only sink into dullness and lethargy. This is the way of life.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 105)

Sadhguru Quote on Love and How It Has Nothing To Do With Someone Else

“Love has nothing to do with someone else. It is all about you. It is a way of being. It essentially means you have brought sweetness into your emotion. If a loved one travels to another country, would you still be able to love them? You would. If a loved one passed away, would you still be able to love them? You would. Even if a loved one is not physically with you anymore, you are still capable of being loving. So, what is love then? It is just your own quality. You are only using the other person as a key to open up what is already within you.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 65)

Beyond the Quote (290/365)

Why is it that our love gets locked behind a door that needs opening? Why is it that we aren’t able to open up to what is already within us on our own, intuitively, and without prompting? Why is love seen only (or perhaps primarily) as being a product of something that happens in a relationship between two people? For, as Sadhguru points out above, love has nothing to do with anyone else—it has only to do with you. And if that’s true and if love is a way of being, then where might we have lost our way? Why might we have stored our love away behind a locked door? Shouldn’t “sweetness into our emotion” be the default and most enjoyable state that beats any of the alternatives?

“When it comes to external realities, each human being is differently capable. What one does, the other may not be able to do. But when it comes to inner realities, all of us are equally capable. There is no guarantee that you will be able to sing, dance, climb a mountain, or make money, merely because you want to. But making your inner life blissful is something that everyone is capable of. It cannot be denied to you, if you are willing.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 79)

“Responsibility is not burdensome. Boundaries are burdensome. If you draw yourself a boundary, whether of ideology, caste, creed, race, or religion, you cannot move beyond it and you end up stuck for no reason at all. These boundaries only end up breeding fear, hatred, and anger. The bigger your boundary, the more burdensome it becomes. But if your responsibility is limitless, where’s the boundary? No boundary, no burden. This is the turnaround in human consciousness that needs to take place. Once this happens, it is not that the cosmos begins to happen your way. Instead, what you are becomes cosmic. This is not transcendence; this is homecoming.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 69)

“The whole effort of the spiritual process is to break the boundaries you have drawn for yourself and experience the immensity that you are. The aim is to unshackle yourself from the limited identity you have forged, as a result of your own ignorance, and live the way the Creator made you—utterly blissful and infinitely responsible.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 67)

“My ability to respond is limitless, but my ability to act is limited. I am one hundred percent responsible for everything I am and everything I am not, for my capacities and my incapacities, for my joys and my miseries. I am the one who determines the nature of my experience in this life and beyond. I am the maker of my life.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 66)

“To be loving is simply this: a willingness to respond freely and openly. Right now, it may be limited to one or two people in your lives. But it is possible to extend this ability to embrace the entire world. Does it mean going out into the streets and hugging everyone? No. That would be crazy—not to mention, irresponsible. As we have said, responsibility is not about action, but a way of being. Love is not something you do; it is just the way you are.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 65)

“One of the biggest problems in the world today is loneliness. It is quite incredible. The planet is teeming with seven billion people, but people are lonely! If someone enjoys being alone, there is no problem at all. But most people are suffering because of it! They are going through serious psychological problems as a consequence. If you are lonely, it is because you have chosen to become an island unto yourself. It doesn’t have to be this way. ‘I am not responsible’ makes you unwilling to get along with anyone—until you can’t even get along with yourself. It often comes to a point when you believe you are not even responsible for what is happening within yourself!
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 63)

“The most horrific things in life can be a source of nourishment if you accept, ‘I am responsible for the way I am now.’ It is possible to transform the greatest adversity into a stepping-stone for personal growth. If you take one hundred percent responsibility for the way you are now, a brighter tomorrow is a possibility. But if you take no responsibility for the present—if you blame your parents, your friend, your husband, your girlfriend, your colleagues for the way you are—you have forsaken your future even before it comes.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 58)

“If terrible things have happened to you, you ought to have grown wise. If the worst possible events have befallen you, you should be the wisest of the lot. But instead of growing wise, most people become wounded. In a state of conscious response, it is possible to use every life situation—however ugly—as an opportunity for growth. But if you habitually think, ‘I am the way I am because of someone else,’ you are using life situations merely as an opportunity for self-destruction or stagnation.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 56)

“When I first came to the United States, I heard everybody talking about ‘stress management.’ It puzzled me. Why would anybody want to manage stress? I always thought we managed the things that are precious to us—our money, our business, our family. It took me time to see that people have assumed that stress is an inevitable part of their lives! They do not see that it is entirely self-created and self-inflicted. Once you take charge of your inner life, there is no such thing as stress.“
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 54)

“Only if you realize you are responsible do you have the freedom to create yourself the way you want to be, not as a reaction to the situations in which you exist. Reactivity is enslavement. Responsibility is freedom. When you are able to create yourself the way you want, you can create your life the way you want as well. Your outer life may not be a hundred percent in your control, but your inner life always will.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 53)

“Whenever we have had to do something about our lives, we have taken it into our hands. Whenever it comes to other people’s misfortunes, we have a word to explain it: destiny. And what a convenient word that is. Destiny has become a popular scapegoat, a way to deal with failure, a fatalistic ruse to reconcile ourselves to all kinds of uncomfortable situations. But turning inward is the first step from passivity to agency—from being a victim toward becoming a master of your own destiny.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 40)

“Most people think peace and joy are the goals of the spiritual life. This is a fallacy. Peace and joy are the basic requirements for a life of well-being. If you want to enjoy your dinner tonight, you must be peaceful and happy. If you want to enjoy your family, the work that you do, the world that you live in, you must must be peaceful and happy. Peace and joy are not things you attain at the end of life. They are the basis of your life. If you consider peace to be the ultimate goal, you will only ‘rest in peace’!
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 33)

Sadhguru on How the Whole Of Human Experience Is Self-Created (and How To Take Better Control of Your Experience) [Excerpt]

Excerpt: The following is an excerpt from Inner Engineering by Sadhguru that discusses how the whole of human experience (our experience) is self-created.

“Put simply, our inner ecology is a mess. Somehow we think that fixing outer conditions will make everything okay on the inside. But these past 150 years are proof that technology will only bring comfort and convenience to us, not well-being. We need to understand that unless we do the right things, the right things will not happen to us: this is true not just of the outside world, but also the inside.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 30)

“Why do you need to be pleasant within? The answer is self-evident. When you are in a pleasant inner state, you are naturally pleasant to everyone and everything around you. No scripture or philosophy is needed to instruct you to be good to others. It is a natural outcome when you are feeling good within yourself. Inner pleasantness is a surefire insurance for the making of a peaceful society and a joyful world.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 27)

“Well-being is just a deep sense of pleasantness within. If your body feels pleasant, we call this health. If it becomes very pleasant, we call this pleasure. If your mind becomes pleasant, we call this peace. If it becomes very pleasant, we call this joy. If your emotions become pleasant, we call this love. If they become very pleasant, we call this compassion. If your life energies become pleasant, we call this bliss. If they become very pleasant, we call this ecstasy. This is all that you are seeking: pleasantness within and without. When pleasantness is within, it is termed peace, joy, happiness. When your surroundings become pleasant, it gets branded success. If you’re not interested in any of this and want to go to heaven, what are you seeking? Just otherworldly success! So, essentially all human experience is only a question of pleasantness and unpleasantness in varying degrees.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 26)

“There is something within every human being that dislikes boundaries, that is longing to become boundless. Human nature is such that we always yearn to be something more than what we are right now. No matter how much we achieve, we still want to be something more. If we just looked at this closely, we would realize that this longing is not for more; this longing is for all. We are all seeking to become infinite. The only problem is that we are seeking it in installments.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 23)