Sadhguru Answers Questions About Focus, Worship, And The True Essence Of Leadership

Question: I am struggling with bringing in focus with the kriyas. It has improved, but can you tell me how to maintain a powerful focus and how to experience deeper states of samadhi?

Sadhguru: Do not try to bring focus. Try to get involved in something. If you are deeply involved in something, focus naturally comes. Where there is no involvement, if you try to bring focus, it will be torture; focus will not come.

For example, most children experience their textbooks as torture. This is not because what is written there is not interesting. Many phenomenal things are packed into a small textbook, but it may be written in an uninteresting way. It is simply because of the way it is presented. If you get children involved in something, you do not have to worry about their focus. They will be absolutely focused all the time. The same goes for you.

Without being engaged and involved, if you try to keep your mental focus, it will only lead to torture. It will not lead to wellbeing. Whatever you are trying to bring focus on, instead of trying to bring focus, your life has to become a love affair. I have said this many times, but maybe you were not focused!

Suppose you fell in love with a neighborhood girl. Do I have to tell you to stay focused on this girl? No. She will rule your mind. So you just have to fall in love with something. Initially, when your hormones fire, your love affair may only happen in these kinds of things. But if you fire up by your intelligence, you will see you can fall in love with anything that you wish. Then being focused naturally happens.

Question: Is it okay to chant or perform some worship to create a suitable environment for myself?

Sadhguru: Everybody has to create a suitable atmosphere for themselves. If you are capable of being prayerful in your toilet, it is wonderful, but for most people, it may not be so. They need a special space and time – at least for a few moments – to feel that. This is why temples were created – to create the necessary atmosphere for you. This is also why traditionally, you build a pooja room in your house, chant and do so many other things. It is very essential to do that, but do not get entangled with it. As long as you are aware that it is a device and you make use of it, it is very wonderful. If you know that it is the first stage and that you will be moving on, there is no problem. But if you think, “This is it,” then you and somebody else will quarrel because their God may have four hands and your God may have two hands. Isn’t this happening in the world today?

These wonderful devices were created with much awareness. But the moment the awareness goes away, they become a process of bondage. So, if you are doing it with the necessary awareness, yes, please create the necessary atmosphere. It is very important to create the necessary time and space for yourself.

Question: I was wondering if there is any difference between leading and managing people?

Sadhguru: Whatever the nature of activity that we have chosen for our life, if we wish to be leaders in those situations, the first thing is we must be able to lead not by words, trickery or cunning, but by example. Fundamentally, your ability to lead people means your ability to take people in a particular direction that you wish, to a particular goal. If this has to happen, you must be able to inspire them to go on by themselves in that direction. If you have to constantly keep them in line to get a job done, it is going to be hugely difficult to be a leader. And as the team grows or the kind of team that you manage goes beyond physical contact, leading people is going to be very difficult if you cannot lead them by inspiration. You cannot lead people when you have to constantly supervise and manage them. You can lead people only when they are inspired to do what you want them to do – so inspired that they are going to do more than you thought of doing. Only then, leadership becomes an effortless process. If you have to inspire people to do whatever is required of them, the very way you exist must be that kind of an example that people naturally stand up and want to do things that are necessary to be done; otherwise there is no leadership.

(In his Ask Sadhguru column, the spiritual leader talks about intelligence being important to live life sensibly)

(Sadhguru is a Yogi, mystic, visionary and a New York Times bestselling author. He is also the founder of Conscious Planet – Save Soil)