Why do you smoke?
People always come to me and say, “I want to give up smoking. What should I do?”
To these people, my answer is, “Why would you smoke? Your body is not the kind of machine which smokes. Automobiles do, but not your body. If you don’t want to smoke, don’t smoke.” Then they say, “No, I am a smoker. I am trying to give up smoking, but I am not able to.”
The question is not about smoking or not smoking. It happens like this: One day a man who was friends with his neighbour, a lady, drove with her and parked his car. Then suddenly his hands were all over her. She said, “You fool! What are you doing? I thought you were a decent fellow and I came with you. What is this nonsense?” He said, “No, I gave up smoking.”
If you compulsively give up something, this is what will happen to you. The addiction will take another shape. Now what is it that you are trying to do with smoking? You are probably down, so you are trying to stimulate yourself with nicotine; or psychologically you feel incomplete. By holding a cigarette in your hand, you feel a little brave and manly. When someone blows smoke in somebody’s face, they feels like a man. Not anymore, perhaps but it was so 10 years ago.
There was a Sufi saint called Ibrahim. One evening he saw two of his disciples sitting very morose in the garden of the ashram. One said to the other, “I want to smoke but we are on a spiritual path. How to smoke?” The other one said, “Even I want to smoke. I don’t know what to do.”
Then they decided, “Let us go and ask the master whether we can smoke or not,” because in the past, there have been many Sufi saints who smoked. The next evening, one disciple was sitting in the same spot in the garden, totally miserable, when the other disciple came smoking. He said, “Hey! Why are you smoking? Master told me not to smoke.” The other disciple asked, “What did you ask him?” “I asked him if I can smoke when I am meditating,” and he said “No.” “That’s your problem,” said the other. “I asked him whether I can meditate when I am smoking, and he told me to go ahead.”
So don’t try to give up smoking, just bring awareness into your life, to every aspect of your life and you will see everything that is not necessary will simply fall by the wayside. If you try to give it up, you will only struggle.
(May 31 is World No Tobacco Day)
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is a visionary, a humanitarian, author, poet and speaker. He can be contacted at
www.ishafoundation.org
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