Inner Realm : Stop being special

For many people, why the spiritual path seems to be a struggle is because their culture and their social situations have always taught them to be special. Their whole effort in life is to become special. To be special means to have something that others don't have. You wanting to possess something that others don't have is not a specialty � it is perversion. People can find pleasure in all kinds of things. Once, two missionaries were caught by very fierce cannibals in Central Africa.

After a meeting of the headmen, they decided to eat them. So they put them in a huge tub of water and set it on fire. They decided to cook them alive. As the fire started burning, the water started getting warmer. One of the older missionaries started laughing, really laughing. The other missionary said, "Are you crazy? Do you know what is going to happen to us now? What are you laughing at?" The older missionary said, "I just urinated in their soup!"

In trying to be special, your life is going away. You think that somebody not having what you have is a pleasure. It is because you have set yourselves on this track that the spiritual process seems to be difficult. Some time ago, our yoga program brochures used to say "From ordinary to extraordinary." People thought that they are going to become special by doing the program. So they came and asked me, "How are we going to become special?" I told them, "You are going to become 'extra' ordinary, more ordinary than other people."

Spirituality is not about becoming special. It is about becoming one with everything. In so many ways, the mind always wants to be special. That is the nature of the mind. Logically, it can only compare. The moment this comparison comes, competition starts. The moment competition starts, all life sense will disappear, because now it is only about being better than others. It is because of this foolish endeavour that today we have this ridiculous situation where we have to teach people about their own nature. We have to remind people about their own original nature, simply because they are just lost, trying to be like somebody else.

So, the more you try to be special, the further you go away from the truth. All the suffering and mental illness has come from this want of being special. So instead of deriving perverse pleasure from the fact that somebody does not have what you have, if one genuinely makes the effort to become one with everything, then this struggle will completely go away. If you recognise your uniqueness and also every other being's uniqueness, you can neither become less nor more than anybody.

(Sadhguru, a yogi, is a visionary, humanitarian and a prominent spiritual leader , www.ishafoundation.org)