Why do we react?

[1]

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev [1]

What is the basis of reaction?

For most of you, most of your reactions are just helpless reactions. Many times you tell yourself, “Next time I should not react like this”. But the next time your reaction gets even more violent. This is happening, isn’t it? Especially when you go about telling yourself, “I don’t want to react, I don’t want to react”, you become a total reaction.
First of all, why are you reacting? What is the basis of reaction? This reaction is coming in you fundamentally because you’re still a collection of people. Please see that you’re not an individual; you’re a collection of people operating up there in your mind. When you’re not an individual, you’re naturally a reaction, because everything that you have within you is something that you have received from outside. Please look sincerely at everything that you know as “myself” — your beliefs, your opinions, your likes, your dislikes; everything has been gathered from outside. Even your idea of what’s beautiful and what’s good has been received from outside.
So the first thing to do is to remove yourself with everything that you are not; to see that you are not this or that. One day just sit by yourself and strip yo­urself of ev­erything yo­u’re identified with, piece by piece — your education, id­eology, home, family, body. Something so tremendous will happen if you do this successfully, and, of course, you will no longer be a reaction.
This may not be possible for everybody. Some need to be supported physically, emotionally and energy-wise also. So there’s a whole integrated practice; something to do with your energy, body, emotion and mind. This combination works much better, but if you have a razor sharp mind, you can just sit down and say, “This is not me. Take it away”.
This is one of the most ancient spiritual processes and there are many step-by-step methods to get there. In India we call this “nethi, nethi, nethi” —“this is not it”, “this is not it”, “this is not it”. Piece by piece, you take yourself apart. If you have a sharp, discriminative mind, you can do it this way, but it’s better to use all the dimensions which are you.

— 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 [2]