“Your Thoughts AREN’T Reality” - Sadhguru SHATTERS The Illusions Controlling Your Life

The speaker recounts his unusual school experiences, starting with his mother's instruction to pay attention to the teacher. However, at the young age of four and a half, he realized that the teachers were merely making sounds, and he was the one creating meaning in his head. He likens language to a conspiracy where one person makes a sound and the other assigns meaning. This realization led him to stop trying to understand the teachers, instead just listening to their "funny sounds" with full attention, which amused him but not them. Consequently, he often got lost on his way to school or didn't attend unless absolutely necessary. Despite his unconventional attendance, the speaker was invited back to his former school for its 125th anniversary, over 55 years after he last attended. He expressed reservations, feeling he wasn't a good example as he was barely a student. The school, however, insisted, highlighting their prominent alumni like federal ministers, film stars, and cricketing stars, and noting it was a sizable private school with around 1500 students. During his visit, he revisited a classroom and recalled an incident when he was 12. A teacher asked him a question, and while he was giving his full attention, he didn't hear the words. He explains that at that point, he could perceive people's past, present, and future without hearing their speech, and was aware of many other things happening within them. The teacher, frustrated by his lack of verbal response for about 35 minutes, became angry and shook him, declaring he was either "the divine or the devil." This confused the speaker, who had been grappling with fundamental questions about himself. This encounter marked the beginning of his introspective journey. He started closing his eyes for extended periods, which he doesn't call meditation but rather an "intensity of life." He posits that all one truly possesses is life, and everything else is a construct of the mind. He uses the example of a funeral, where the deceased, despite being well-dressed and in a proper posture, has lost all interest in worldly matters like lottery wins or diamond discoveries, or even past romantic interests. This, he argues, is because they have lost only one thing: life. All other interests, he suggests, stem from imagination and a misunderstanding of psychological activity as an existential process. The speaker emphasizes that human beings often mistake their internal "drama"—thoughts and emotions—for life itself. He believes that if people could control their thoughts and emotions to their liking, they would experience bliss. He claims he achieved this by "fixing himself," not the world. While acknowledging that this process is difficult for most, he illustrates its simplicity by suggesting that trying to watch a sunrise in the west would be extremely hard because one is attempting to do something the wrong way. Similarly, applying an external method to an internal, subjective process will be challenging. The video concludes with a promotional message from the podcast hosts, highlighting the growth of their platform and urging viewers to subscribe and turn on notifications to support their continued expansion and production of content.