‘Anxiety is not a reality’: Sadhguru

By Sadhguru, Isha Foundation

What you call as anxiety is just that you are concerned about what is going to be the outcome of something. The outcome of something is not going to be determined because of your desires. It is going to be determined by what you do. The more unprepared you are for what you are doing right now, the more anxious you will be. Isn’t it so?

Let us say you do not know how to ride a motorcycle – you just sat on it and went. Now every moment is anxiety. But if you know how to handle the motorcycle, it is a dream. So the motorcycle is not the anxiety, your inability to handle it is the anxiety. So do not try to handle anxiety. Anxiety is not a reality, it is a consequence of a certain incapability. If we want to go into something, we must work towards competence, not towards result.

Just because you desire success, it does not come to you. It comes to you because you are equipped. The two fundamental ingredients for any kind of successful activity on the planet is to be able to use your physical body and your mind to their fullest potential. If this has to happen, you must be pleasant by your own nature. That means you are not the “issue” in your life. If you are not the issue, you can deal with the outside issues with absolute freedom. If you yourself are the issue, everything is a problem.

This is one reason why after so many thousands of years of experience of living on this planet, humanity is still one big mess because individual people are a big issue by themselves. If they try to handle something, they will only create more issues; they will not solve anything. If they solve one problem, they create a hundred problems attached to it. Don’t you see this happening everywhere – in the international situation, in the local situation, within the family and within yourself? So when you yourself are an issue, whatever you touch will become a bigger issue.

So the first and foremost thing is, “this one” – yourself, must be settled. If this one is settled, then we can do the best we can do with the world. Whichever way it goes, this one is anyway settled. This is one thing that every human being deserves and must do for himself. Whether you are going to become the Prime Minister of the country or you are going to become a great athlete is not the point. If it happens it is fine, but the most important thing is at least you pass through life in a pleasant way. This is something everybody deserves.

Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic and visionary, and a prominent spiritual leader. An author, poet, and internationally-renowned speaker, Sadhguru’s wit and piercing logic provoke and widen our perception of life. isha.sadhguru.org