Why Are We So Troubled?

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

Sadhguru: Today, ninety per cent of the people are in different states of mental sickness. It is just that the level of sickness is sometimes manageable, sometimes unmanageable. Let’s say you have asthma. Sometimes your asthma is manageable, so you do not consider yourself sick. You take some syrup or some tablet and you manage. On a particular day, you become really sick and you either totally collapse or are hospitalised. Only then you consider yourself as sick. That does not mean that on the other days you were not sick. You were sick, but it was manageable.

Similarly, with mental states, almost everybody is sick. It is just that they are in some manageable level of sickness. 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. 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 a certain day, three psychiatrists were travelling together on a train from Germany to France, to attend the annual all-psychiatrists’ seminar. Sitting there, they started confiding their greatest secrets to each other. The first one said, "My greatest weakness is compulsive gambling. Every weekend, I take off from the clinic and let myself go full blast. Of course, I put all the money that I earn from my gambling spree into some charity box, and mind you, I don’t start stealing from another charity box until I go drinking. Then I get sodden drunk and finish the night in the gutter." The second psychiatrist nodded his head in understanding and said, "Well, my greatest secret is that I am so dependent on anti-depressants all the time. I have to gulp down an extra double dosage before I sit in consultation with my patients."

The third one sat there very smugly and quietly. So, the other two prodded her, "What about you? We have told you our deepest secrets. Now you have to tell us yours." The third psychiatrist said, "Well, I am a diagnosed gossiper, and I can’t wait to get off this train!"

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.

The process of spirituality is not about moving into manageable madness. It is about going so mad that you become sane. You cross the limits of madness, then you become perfectly sane. You are born with the madness. The very bondages that you have created for yourself, the limitations that you have created for yourself, are they not madness? If there is a mad man who thinks he is tied to this column – there is no rope, there is no chain – but he thinks he is tied to the column, whatever you tell him, he will not listen because he feels he is tied to the column. Isn’t this the way everybody is living, tied to some column? So, it is the same madness. Being manageably mad or unmanageably mad really makes no difference. At least, if you become unmanageably mad, you can enjoy yourself in the asylum. You don’t have to be ashamed of being mad anymore! You can just freak out the way you want to. You don’t have to bother about controlling it. It is such a big strain to control that madness.

A person growing on the spiritual path looks totally crazy because he is pushing himself to the point beyond madness, where it cannot touch him anymore. It is about blasting yourself into bits until there is no peace and no disturbance within you. Only that can be called peace. If you get disturbed and then make yourself peaceful, that is not peace, it is just a lull. This peace is like the eye of the hurricane where everything is calm. The hurricane is blowing like mad and in between, suddenly there is total calm. Do not be fooled by this calm, it is just a small respite. The next gust will come again and it will be even worse than before. Because of the centrifugal and centripetal forces and the forward motion, the front end of the hurricane is always less forceful than the rear end. So, what you see first is nothing compared to what is going to come. That will be much bigger. The same goes with your mind.

Everything in existence is like that. Whatever blows with force is like that. It will blow, then give a little space and then again blow. The mind is also like that. It goes through a phase of disturbance then it comes back to peace. Don’t ever think it is peace. It is just a break in the madness. Even mad people are perfectly sane in some moments in their life. Don’t think they are mad 24 hours. Sometimes they are very sane and perfectly okay, and sometimes they just go off. They are more spontaneous than you.

The way of treating madness on the spiritual path is very different. Generally, if somebody goes really mad, especially with psychological problems, they 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, people there too would attend to him, guard him and do many things. If they take him to a Buddhist monastery for example, he will be ignored completely and just left alone. He might shout, rave, throw stones-and nobody will react. 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 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, the man will settle down and then 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 was conferred the Padma Vibhushan-the highest annual civilian award accorded for exceptional and distinguished service-by the Government of India in 2017.