One mantra, many gods
The inward process does not belong to any particular group. Whether it was Gautama Buddha, Jesus, Krishna or Rama, whatever they started was to cleanse our life, to make our life rise beyond the limitations of normal living and know the freedom of being divine. It is just that they spoke according to what was suitable for people around them in those times. The way they spoke basically depended on the cultural, religious and language backgrounds in which they lived. But if you really look at the crux of their teaching, it doesn’t matter from which part of the world or from which culture they came from — wherever the Enlightened spoke, you will see it was always about turning people inward.
Now, I am taking Christianity as an example. You must understand that Jesus was initially functioning in a very hostile atmosphere. So to begin with he said many things about going to heaven, what God will do for you, how to reach the kingdom of God and all this stuff. But when people really gathered around him, he turned around and said the kingdom of God is within you. So if the kingdom of God is within you, you know what you should be doing — you should be turning your energies inward and you must be looking inward. You must become meditative naturally, isn’t it?
So if you go to the crux of the teaching, the whole thing is about turning inward. Gautama the Buddha could afford to speak in a direct language about being meditative because the calibre of people and the social structure around him was very different. Jesus was not fortunate enough to have that kind of people. His followers were simple people — fishermen, farmers, and market people. He could not afford to talk to them on those levels, so he spoke in his own language; but he did not speak anything different nor has any other divine being at any time in the world spoken anything different from this — that “the kingdom of God is within you”. It is just that they have expressed it in many different ways, in different languages and different methods, but fundamentally they are trying to tell us that the source of our joy and happiness is not outside, it is inside us. If we turn inward, everything that needs to be known can be known. If we really want to fulfil the desire of becoming unbounded, the only place that one can look is inward. If we look outward, we will always end up frustrated because externally there is a limit as to what we can do and what we cannot do. Internally there is no limit; we can go to unbounded possibilities.
— Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, a yogi, is a visionary, humanitarian 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. He can be contacted at www.ishafoundation.org
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