Why are we so troubled?

Questioner: Today, we are seeing so many people going to psychologists for treatment. Why are we becoming so troubled?

Sadhguru: Today, ninety percent of the people are in different states of mental sickness. It is just that the level of sickness is sometimes manageable, sometimes unmanageable. Once in a while, they flare up for some time and then they settle down again. They are managing, but the madness is very much there. Whatever problem you have – anxiety, fear, psychosis or anything – according to that, they put you into the corresponding category and they have a treatment for that – and what kind of treatment it is! They somehow adjust the whole situation and make you manageably mad, not sane. Nobody can make you sane, please know this. From unmanageable madness, they can bring you down to manageable madness. Everybody has learned the trick to manage the madness.

All the psychologists and psychiatrists have only studied sick people. People like Freud never found a meditator or a Buddha to study. He would have studied only those people who are in different states of mental sickness, either manageably mad or unmanageably mad, whichever way. They only studied mad people, and the one who does the studying is also equally mad – it is not that he has transcended his limitations.

On the spiritual path, the way of treating madness is very different. Generally, if somebody goes really mad, especially with psychological problems, what they do is take him to the master at a monastery or an ashram. If this person had remained in the family, they would have tried to attend to him too much and do everything for him. If they take him to the hospital or the asylum, there also people will attend to him, guard him and do many things. If they take him to a Buddhist monastery for example, there, they will just leave him and ignore him completely. He shouts, raves, throws stones, whatever he does, nobody reacts. Everybody just goes about doing their own work, not reacting to any madness. Within a few days this person will settle down and become peaceful because without attention, his madness cannot go on.

Madness is simply an overflowing of your ego. So they would just ignore the man, put him in a corner and not bother about him. They don’t even call him for food. If the fellow is really hungry he will come and eat. Otherwise, he will just work out his madness and become okay. The atmosphere is right, the energy is high. Slowly, that man will settle down and then he will come and say, “Teach me meditation.” Ignore the madness and it will die by itself.

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.