Sadhguru: Wherever you sit, stand, whatever you touch, there is memory and transaction happening all the time. It must be a conscious process; if it’s a compulsive process, then you will pay the price for it. It is not that this is sin, that is sin.
The question is, what is your priority in your life? Moderator: Sadhguru, how can a person stay committed to someone in a relationship? Is it natural to love someone, and yet be sexually attracted to others?
What should be the proper course of action that should follow, or how does one handle this? Sadhguru: See, there is a psychological integrity, there is emotional integrity, but there is a biological integrity also. Integrity does not mean morality.
Integrity means you create a situation where it works best for you. So when we say integrity, suppose I say there is a certain integrity to my body; this means it’s strong and resistant to a whole lot of things, isn't it? It doesn’t mean I am morally stuck in something.
So, I'm talking about… – I want you to understand the word ‘integrity’ in that context – we are talking about integrity in terms of strength of this life. So if that is the thing, is it true… do you remember how your great-great-great-great-great grandmother 10 generations ago looked like? Do you remember?
No! But her nose is sitting on your face. [Laughter] Yes, or no?
Body remembers, isn't it? Body remembers your forefathers a million years ago. Yes, or no?
So, what you're calling as ‘my body’ is a heap of memory, isn't it so? Hmm? Moderator: Yes.
Sadhguru: Memory, or no? See, now from Nepal you came to Shillong, you eat a lot of this. .
. Meghalaya food; your features won’t change, because your body remembers what is your genetics, no matter what. Or you start eating, let’s say, cow’s food or dog’s food; your body will not get confused and become a dog or a cow, because there is evolutionary memory in this.
Do what you want, it never gets confused, isn't it? You start thinking “I am a dog” and start barking like one, still, the body won’t change. Yes, or no?
Mentally you can, but body has such a deep rooted memory. So, this entire body, what you have, is essentially a certain integrity of memory. If that loses that memory integrity, then you will see, it will become vulnerable to so many things.
Now, the nature of the body is such, that anything that you touch with a certain level of involvement, will naturally absorb that memory; not mentally, physically it will absorb that memory. Traditionally in this culture we call this runanubandha. You’ve heard of such a word?
Hmm? Runanubandha. What this means is, physical memory that you gather.
Why people… you know, you will see this with people. Let’s say in their home, they will go and sit in one place. Usually the older people you will see, they want to go and sit in the same place.
They won’t sit in another place, have you noticed this? Even your dog, he comes if he wants to sit here, he’ll smell this, he’ll smell that, he’ll smell that, he’ll smell that, and after much searching, he will settle down in that particular place. Next time you chase him somewhere, he comes, he goes and sits in the same place because there is memory.
Today there is forensic equipment where you are sitting here right now, you went away, after 2, 3, 8 hours if they come – not with a dog, a dog can easily do it – but with forensic equipment we come here and just check this chair, and we know it was you who was sitting here, not somebody else. So, there is memory – wherever you sit, stand, whatever you touch, there is memory and transaction happening all the time. Well, you come from Nepal, in India also it’s very much there, in the south it’s very strongly there, north maybe it’s become weakened; we… people never give salt to another person.
Do you know this? Here also? If somebody gives you salt, you say “Please keep it there” because there are certain materials which transmit memory much better than others.
Salt, sesame seeds, lemons, like this, if you give, traditional people they’ll say “Keep it there, I will take it. ” Because they don’t want to develop runanubandha with you. Now, in India if you see older generation of people, if you try to shake their hands, they’ll do like this [Gestures namaskaram] because they don’t want to get runanubandha with you.
Because the idea is to keep the integrity of your body’s memory in such a way that it doesn’t become vulnerable to other things, that you become a very integrated life. If you want to nurture yourself to be a certain possibility, then you have to maintain the memory integrity. This is what runanubandha means: you keep your physical memory to the minimal.
A sexual interaction is something where a huge amount of memory is taken from one to the other. So, always – not in this society, everywhere else – forever people saw the advantage of keeping that memory to the minimum. If you make that memory very complex, you will see, to be at ease will become very difficult after sometime.
There will be pleasure, but there will be no joy in your life. You can observe people, don’t go by what I'm saying. You can observe people – they will have pleasure, they will giggle all the time, but you look at them, there is no joy in them, there is no ease, because the ease will go away with excessive memory.
This is not only with sexuality, there are many other things that you do like this. Right now you see this very much in the western societies. Wherever I go, especially in America, people will come, “Sadhguru, where is my hug?
” I say, “It must be with you. [Laughter] Why is it with me, hmm? ” [Laughs] It is not like at a certain moment when you feel close to somebody you hug them.
It’s like all the time you have to touch people. Because today’s psychiatrists are analyzing these things and saying, that is because they’ve not been sufficiently touched by their mothers and parents at an early age. When they grow up, they're desperately longing to touch somebody all the time.
All these things have a serious impact on one’s life. How much physical contact when the child is born, this will determine how much physical contact they will long for later on. And the memory of what an infant picks up from the mother at that time, because till a child becomes 4-and-a-half years of age, in many ways, energy-wise it’s not a separate life, it’s still attached to the mother’s body.
Actually, if by nature if people go, till then they must be drinking the mother’s milk and connected, up to 4-and-a-half years, that’s how naturally it was. So, the energy doesn’t mature; at that time, more and more memory that you get from the mother, is better and better to strengthen this. But once the child begins to move out and becomes an individual, life is organizing itself.
People come to me and say, “Sadhguru, can you bless my daughter, can you bless my son? ” First thing I ask is, “How old? ” If they say 15, 16, 18, all right.
If they are over 21, I say, “No. ” Because me blessing you, blessing will not go to your child. You may still think emotionally “that’s my child” but as far as life is concerned, it’s become fully separate.
Generally, the course of life is considered to be approximately 84 years, or 1008 cycles of the moon. The cycles of the moon and our body is very directly connected. Only because our mothers’ bodies were in sync with the cycles of the moon we are born, otherwise we wouldn’t be born, isn't it?
Hello? So, a full life is considered 1008 cycles of the moon, which will approximately be considered as 83 to 84 years. So, if one crosses 84, it's considered a full life.
In this, the first quarter is the only time when it is connected to parentage; after that, the child must move, because energy-wise you cannot connect those two lives anymore. So that is when the longing, if you’ve not created enough integrity within yourself, the longing for another body multiplies. Even though the hormonal phase may be higher between 15 to 20, the longing to bind and bond with somebody increases after 21 years of age, because unknowingly you are like a satellite who fell off the main mother.
You come off the motherboard. Now you want to attach to something, unless you find some integrity. This is why between 12 and 18 one must do a lot of sadhana to strengthen the body, so that you don’t desperately bind yourself to something or somebody.
You must consciously – if you wish to take a partner, it must be a conscious process. If it’s a compulsive process, then you will pay the price for it. This is not a question of morality; it is not that this is sin, that is sin.
The question is, what is your priority in your life? If your priority is to make this life rise to a higher possibility, then you must be conscious; if you want to somehow live and go, it’s okay. [Applause] Moderator: Thank you, Sadhguru.
Sadhguru: I'm sorry if I discouraged uhm. . .
[Laughter] Moderator: You just answered my question, Sadhguru. Thank you so much for that.
