Work on the conscience

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Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev [1]

Generally, in most societies, people try to take human beings to a certain height through moral and ethical standards. Or, in other words, from the day a child is born, we tell him and her to be good. What does this mean? Essentially somewhere we believe that the Creator has made a mistake and we are going to correct it. Somewhere we believe that all human beings are born bad and that we have to fix them; it is not so. It is simply because we have created societies without any focus on the inward nature of a human being that we need to take corrective action.
We have created societies based essentially on our survival mechanisms. When survival is the only issue, we are as good as any animal; we are always fighting and it is survival of the fittest. But there is an innate human nature which is capable of certain inclusiveness. There is a certain possibility in a human being that he can include everything and everybody as a part of himself. So, unless this inclusiveness is brought to one’s experience, our attempts to fix humanity with morality, ethics and values will not work. The highest sense of morals, ethics and values has gone into almost every human being, but you know it has not worked. The world is living proof that it has not worked. It is just that it seems to be an easier substitute because raising human consciousness seems to be a far cry. It is not a far cry.
It is a far cry right now only because we have not invested any time, resources or energies in that direction. Look at any society on the planet today — individuals, societies, nations and humanity as a whole have not made any investment towards human consciousness. They have not made any investment in the essential sense of well-being in a human being. It is only by chance that a few individuals go that way out of their own intelligence, out of their own longing, but nations and societies have not made any investment. We have made investment for economic well-being, for physical well-being, for political and other things but have we made any investment for human consciousness to rise? No. And that’s why it’s a far cry. Suppose there was no investment at all towards regular education in a particular country, education would look like a far cry, isn’t it? If there is no investment towards health, health would look like a far cry. Human consciousness is also just like that; it has not developed because there has been no investment in it.

— 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]