Sadhguru’s Guide to Taking Charge of Your Health

There are several dimensions of health-physical, psychological, and spiritual. We are facing a health crisis that is disproportionate to what we have ever seen since the evolution of the human species. We are facing a chronic disease epidemic that is killing millions more than infectious diseases would kill. Sadhguru sheds light on why taking control of your health is both important and need of the hour.

One in two Americans is a diabetic. We have around 80% of the total population of type-2 diabetes patients in the developing world. We are experiencing a crisis in how we grow our food, a crisis of spiritual and physical health, and environmental crisis.

Sadhguru  asserts that after a century long fight against infectious diseases, we are living in the present world where we don’t require any virus or bacteria to become ill. We just can fall ill easily with what all we do to our bodies. Our cells in the body essentially are wired for health and wellbeing. Each of these cells is fighting for survival and health. Then why would they initiate any chronic illnesses?

What Factors Cause Illness?

According to Sadhguru, there are various dimensions as to why our cells initiate an illness. One pivotal aspect to it is food. The rich people out there are eating too much, while the poor are malnourished or do not have enough to eat. The poor have little choices and hence cannot eat the right way. It is unfortunate that poor have to eat whatever they get easily as they live in poverty. The affluent have to make compulsive choices. When we used to live in poverty, we used to think that we will have choices once we become affluent. That was the whole idea of becoming affluent. The harsh reality is after being affluent, you will still have to make compulsive choices.

Sadhguru feels people are suffering in both the situations. Whether you suffer indigestion or face hunger, both these situations need to be addressed. It is equally important to address the needs of those who live in dire poverty and also those who have access to excessive food. Another dimension to this is that we don’t have proper education about how to keep the human mechanism. Sadhguru explains we don’t even think of how to create health. Our body is structured to be in good health. We just need to think to not create illness or sickness.

Sadhguru explains it with an example. Suppose your hand starts popping around, punching you in the face and poking in your eyes. You would then consider that there is some kind of ailment in your hand, if not necessarily in your whole self.

This is what is happening with the brain. It hops up and pops up, disturbs the other organs, makes them cry. Sadhguru says we have never done anything to rectify this. We have never carefully read the manual for operating our brain. Brain is a very powerful instrument. For every thought, every emotion, and every reverberation that you make in your brain, the chemistry of your body changes accordingly.

How Our Situations Affect the Health?

According to Sadhguru, our bodies are like a chemical soup- either they are a lousy soup or a great soup. This soup can become lousy, if either your ingredients are not of great quality or the cook isn’t cooking it right. Even if you have all the ingredients right, you can still make a soup lousy. Poverty is a condition, where the ingredients are bad and not up-to the mark. The soup will then eventually be lousy. People who live in affluence, have all the good quality ingredients, but the cook is bad. You will again be left with a lousy soup.

It is indeed wonderful to know that our bodies have a natural state of wellness and health. We shift from this original state, by changing our thoughts and altering our food. We can actually use food and our thoughts, to create a place where we can be more aware, awake and connected to the truth. Sadhguru says that truth is not an idea, or a concept or a philosophy you can simply read. You can give all the essential materials to your body, but it was created from within. You cannot get a sculptor to create it. It was sculpted from within; the manufacturer is within. While if the manufacturer is inside and you have a little repair job to be done, who would you most likely go to the manufacturer or the repair mechanic. In case, you have lost the manufacturer’s ID, you will have to visit a local repair mechanic.

There is a certain intelligence within us, it can transform a piece of bread into the complex mechanism of a human body. Sadhguru says if we have access to this intelligence or the source of creation within our bodies, health will be a natural consequence. It is not something you have to run after. It comes when you live in tune with the things within you and those surrounding you. Health must be one of last concerns that humans must have, but unfortunately it is one of the biggest concerns. If you live in tune with your life, health won’t be the topmost concern. Sadhguru asserts a cow does not worry for its health, neither does a bird nor a tree worries. They are just in tune with the nature and therefore healthy.

How Should We Tune Ourselves to Become Healthy?

Sadhguru reminds that we created commerce for our wellbeing. So, commerce must always serve humans and contribute towards our wellbeing. But nowadays, we are sacrificing our health for maintaining the health of our economy. Commercial forces are now deciding what we should eat or drink and how we must live. This is not how things must be working, but unfortunately, we have chosen this model. This is happening all around the world. These commercial forces decide the nature and quality of human existence. Our consciousness must decide the nature and quality of human existence and commercial forces must only serve this purpose. This is the primary place where we have lost our path and have gone astray.

How Can We Take Take Control of Our Health?

Sadhguru reveals three steps that can help us take control over our health. First, we must spread awareness among people of the current situation. People must know that they are actually being used by the commercial forces that were established to serve the people in first place. Second, the people must be educated on how they can fix the things individually. Last, there must be some policy to implement this idea. Sadhguru emphasizes that these things are necessary and must happen in the same order. Everyone must realize what is wrong. If a global transformation is required, everyone must be aware that the way they are eating, drinking, and compelled to do things is wrong. Then comes the education, and finally the policy. Most people look out for health outside, but actually its within people. People have the power to become healthier versions of themselves by changing their choices and actions now.

Whatever be our personal situations, social structures, and world scenarios, we still have choices. All of us share the same society but we have different choices. Most of us are not making right choices. What we eat, how we sit, or stand is completely our choice. It is just that most of us are blindly following the masses.

Changing the individual’s health and changing the global health are two different issues. Not every person is capable enough of making the right food choices. They do what majority of people do. Unless, everybody is determined to make health a mass movement, it is not possible to think about global health.

Sadhguru concludes on a positive note. If as an individual you want to create health for yourself, you can do it easily. You still would have to drink and breathe a little poison which is indeed unavoidable, but you can instantly stop generating poison within you. All of this comes with making right choices and doing right actions