Most Replayed Moment: Sadhguru on Why You Don’t Need a Life Purpose!

Sadhguru is an Indian yogi, author, and founder of the Isha Foundation. He blends ancient yogic wisdom with modern insights, and speaks globally on well-being, consciousness, and sustainability. In today’s moment, Sadhguru explains why chasing a single “life purpose” is misguided, and why joy must come from within, rather than external achievements. He introduces a 21-minute daily practice designed to turn inward, strengthen inner stability, and help us navigate an overstimulating world. Listen to the full episode here: Spotify:⁠ https://g2ul0.app.link/XKDtuBLH8Wb⁠ Apple: ⁠https://g2ul0.app.link/9IzPlxQH8Wb⁠ Watch the Episodes On YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/%20TheDiaryOfACEO/videos

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Steven Bartlett?

  That sense of purpose you have, the most popular question that young people ask me is about passion and purpose. They've been indoctrinated by society to think that they have this one purpose, and their big issue is they can't seem to find it. So like an Easter egg, they're going in hunt of what's my purpose? How do I know once I've reached my purpose? For people that are working now in jobs, listening to this on their way on the tube to work, what is this subject of purpose and passion? What do I commit my life to? How do we go about answering that?

• 0:34Speaker 01

  See, if you get absolutely committed to your purpose, you will be called a fanatic. If you are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that, you will be called a terrorist. So there is no purpose to life if you are not a vested interest. And you can be not a vested interest only when you're joyful by your own nature. That how you are is determined by you. So this is the fundamental you have to set, that your experience of life is determined by you. When I say experience of life, people are always thinking experiences happen because of external stimuli.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  No, if you dream of a tiger, you can experience fear, isn't it? You can dream of somebody beautiful and experience love. Yes or no? So I'm saying all experiences come from within you. Human experience happens from within you, never from outside of you. There may be a stimuli. Now, this stimuli means just like this. You know, you're too young to know these things. There used to be wax all cars in this country. They always used to bucket in a slope like this because morning, you need two people to push that car in the morning, in 50s and 60s, I'm saying.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Later on, they had crank start. You need one person to do that. Otherwise, you can't get your car started. Today, all cars are self-start. I'm asking you. Your peace, your joy, your love, your blissfulness, would you want to keep it on self-start or push-start?

• 2:19Steven Bartlett?

  Self-start. I wouldn't want it to rely on anywhere else.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  This is the question you're asking repeatedly. You want push-start. Don't be on push-start. Inner experiences are always on self-start. Outside world will never happen hundred percent our way. Little bit your way, little bit my way, little bit somebody else's way. And that's how it should be. Because if everything happened your way, where the hell do I go? It doesn't happen your way or my way. It's fine. It is only fine if you're joyful by your own nature. But if your happiness depends on what happens on the outside, then you being happy is a remote possibility.

• 3:00Steven Bartlett?

  I want to be happy on my own nature. I hear what you've said. However, I'm gonna walk out of this room and I don't know, something's gonna annoy me. Maybe my words are even wrong, but then I'll immediately snap back into the sort of unconscious, I don't know, dismay or despair. How does one go about like the first step in becoming happy by our own nature?

• 3:27Speaker 01

  Do you think your life is worthwhile? Your life is worth investing about thirty-two hours of focused time upon it? Your life?

• 3:36Steven Bartlett?

  Yes.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  If you think so, you should do that. This is what the process that I've called it as inner engineering. Thirty-two hours of focused time. Book is just a large brochure, you know? Because there is a practice involved. When I say a practice, a simple practice, which only twenty-one minutes of practice. To teach this twenty-one minute practice, we take thirty-two hours of orientation. Because without that, it won't happen. You need to understand how the mechanism of your own thoughts, why are they hitting? See, if your hand is punching you in the face, why is it doing that? You need to understand. Otherwise, just holding it down is not the answer. This is the most sophisticated machine on the planet.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Have you read the user's manual? The user's manual for my body? For yourself, as a life. No, I didn't know there was one. So, when do you want to do it? Towards the end of the life is when people think they should do it. It's like you got yourself your iPad. Should you read the user's manual in the first three days? Or after three years when you're getting rid of the machine? When I first get it? Yes. But nobody gives me the user's manual for myself. No, no, the thing is, it's inbuilt, you have to just pay attention. How do I do that? See, we'll do one thing, right now, shall we do a simple experiment with you? Yes. You'll have to do this with your eyes closed. Okay. But right now, look at me. Okay. Afterwards, you can do. You, you place your palms like this, facing down, upon your thigh, gently placed.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  So, you will start breathing slightly deeper, ten, fifteen percent deeper than normal. Don't do it yet, hello. And as you're doing it, I will say, "Switch." Then you turn your hands around gently, upon your thigh, like this. And again, when I say, "Switch," get back this way. Okay. In these two conditions, something about your breath will change. I will also give you a clue what could be changing. Where the air is filling up in your lungs, how it fills up, something about it will change. Or let me put it this way, the maximum expansion and contraction, in which part of the chest is it happening? This way, which way, this way, which way, just notice that. Just hold your palms facing down, close your eyes. Okay, and when you say, "Switch," turn my hands over, right?

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Yes. Breathe slightly deeper, not very forcefully, just ten, fifteen percent more. Notice where the maximum expansion and contraction is happening. Switch. Switch again.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Please, open your eyes. There's some difference?

• 6:22Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  What is it?

• 6:26Steven Bartlett?

  In what part, I feel, how I feel?

• 6:29Speaker 01

  No.

• 6:29Steven Bartlett?

  Or my breathing?

• 6:29Speaker 01

  Where is the maximum expansion and contraction when you're holding two different postures?

• 6:35Steven Bartlett?

  I felt like my, my chest and my belly were expanding more when I switch, when I was switching. I felt like I was just getting more air into my body.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Let me tell you what's happening. You can experiment by yourself and see. When you have your hands facing together, facing down with all fingers together, maximum expansion contraction is happening in the lower lobe of the lung.

• 6:57Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  If you turn it around, it shifts to the middle lobe of the lung.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  A middle lobe being much larger, you feel more, but actually it's the shift. So I'm saying, just by turning your hands around like this, the very way you breathe is altering itself. It's not just the breath. The very way your life energies function is altering itself. How many times in a day unconsciously are you?

• 7:26Speaker 01

  Now you're setting your energies into turmoil and hoping to be peaceful. It will not work and I'm happy it doesn't work because if it works for you by doing wild things and still everything is peaceful and wonderful within you, then what is the use of my life? Spending a whole lifetime paying attention to every little thing that's happening here? I'm saying, if you can drive blind on the London streets and not hit anything, a good driver will feel insulted, isn't it?

• 7:58Speaker 01

  That's all I'm saying.

• 8:00Steven Bartlett?

  But how do we learn the user manual for ourselves though? So, you know, is it, it's not something we go and read in a book.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  The problem is this, all your sense organs are outward bound.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Because they are survival instruments. Your sense organs, your ability to see, hear, smell, taste and touch are essentially your survival instruments. Life cannot be enhanced by them. You can only survive better. If you see better than me, you can survive better than me. If you hear better than me, you can survive better than me. But this life will not feel enhanced by perceiving more through the five sense organs. And they are all outward bound. You can see me. Can you roll your eyeballs inward and scan yourself? No. You can hear that? So much happening in the body, can you hear that? No.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  So, all your sense organs are only to perceive what's happening around you, not to perceive what's within you. So, to perceive within you, you need to turn inward. That needs a little... Because it's not survival. Something has to be done. You know how to write English language? Yeah. Yes. To learn the damned 26 alphabets, it took some effort, isn't it? Hello? Yeah, it did. It took some effort. And it took some guidance. Because anything that's beyond survival needs striving. That striving is missing in the society. There was a time, there was a time where in the civilization that we refer to as Hindustan

• 9:39Speaker 01

  or Bharat or today being the political countries being called as India, in this culture, 70% of the people were invested in inward well-being. Because of that, they became super enhanced. Because of that enhancement, they became so wealthy in everything. Rich in mathematics, rich in astronomy, rich in business, rich in trade, rich in industry. It was the richest nation on the planet, just 300 years ago. See, everybody from here, whether it's English or French or Portuguese, everybody went to India. You think in search of poverty? In search of wealth, isn't it?

• 10:21Speaker 01

  It became like that effortlessly, without conquering anybody, without having large armies, because people invested in enhancing themselves. I am telling you, if you try to enhance your activity without enhancing yourself, you’ll only die of stress. This is what is happening to unfortunately, whole lot of CEOs. I am concerned about this, because a CEO means you gave something that is important, that needs to happen in the world, into his hands, his or her hands. And if they are stressed out, what misery will they create for the rest of the world? It’s very important.

• 11:00Steven Bartlett?

  That journey to taking care of ourselves, like I had to learn how to read a book or to learn language.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  No, I am saying anything that’s not survival.

• 11:09Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Will not come naturally, you have to strive. The society has to create that longing. Being peaceful and joyful is more important for a human being’s experience of life than me being better than you. That’s that orientation the society has to create, isn’t it?

• 11:28Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm, I agree. I agree. It just seems... Seems like there’s such a powerful narrative coming from social media, magazines, TV, movies that are...

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, I am not denying that.

• 11:44Steven Bartlett?

  Making us individualistic and...

• 11:46Speaker 01

  It’s not even individualistic. It’s always about me being better than you. It started from the kindergarten school. There itself, they told you, “I am first rank, you are third rank.” From there it started, “I am better than you.” So, the whole life is about being better than somebody means, essentially what it means is, “I enjoy your failures.” Does it sound like joy to you or sickness to you?

• 12:15Steven Bartlett?

  It sounds like a sickness.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  It is a sickness. We’re building into our children right from day one.

• 12:21Steven Bartlett?

  What about trauma? I was thinking about early trauma and how that drives us to be...

• 12:30Steven Bartlett?

  Drives us away from a life of contemptment. It drives us towards, you know, a life where we might end up in prison or we might be dysfunctional in other ways because of something early that happened when we were seven years old. You know, it could be a small thing or a big trauma that has orientated us to be greedy or to be selfish or to be, in the worst case, maybe to hurt others.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Essentially, you're finding an excuse for the way you are, which you yourself don't like. See, if something unpleasant happened to you, you have two choices. Either you can become wise or you can become wounded. Choose. More unpleasant things happen to you than anybody else. You must be the wisest man soonest. No, you choose to be wounded because you carry this wound like a badge and so that you can cause the same wound to others. What's the point? When you know the pain of it, how do you do the same thing to me?

• 13:34Steven Bartlett?

  But it becomes a survival technique to some people.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  No, see, there is no excuse. The thing is just this. Instead of intelligently, consciously responding to life, you are reacting like any other creature. That's all.

• 13:52Steven Bartlett?

  So something bad happens to me when I'm seven years old and these neurons fire in my brain that make me react badly.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  This is all WhatsApp neurology. Whoever told you these things. Right now, we have a research center in Harvard Medical School in Beth Israel Hospital, okay? Right now, in October this month, on 17th to 21st, we have an international conference there. In these five, six years of its existence, they have done a lot of study. One thing they found was, I can't go into all the scientific things, I'm not a scientist, but one important thing is.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  This simple 21-minute practice I am talking about, people who did this for over six to eight weeks, the endocannabinoids in their system is 70% higher than what is considered to be normal. What is normal for a happy person, it's 70% higher than that. You know what's endocannabinoid?

• 14:50Steven Bartlett?

  No.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  You know what's cannabis?

• 14:52Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  Yes. Every human being has cannabis receptors. This doesn't mean that this body was created to smoke cannabis. You're supposed to produce it. When you don't produce it, you try to substitute from outside. That's a different matter. Let me not go into that aspect. But 70% higher, what this means is, it is about 23% higher than what happens in sexual orgasm or extreme exercise. Simplicity in here. So if you felt like that every moment of your life, do I have to tell you, "Don't rob, don't kill, don't do this"?

• 15:31Steven Bartlett?

  No, no.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  That's all you need to... We've not fixed that one thing. See, when you were a child, when you were five years of age, you were just bubbling with joy by your own nature, isn't it?

• 15:44Steven Bartlett?

  Uh huh.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Somebody had to work hard to make you unhappy at that time. But now, somebody has to work hard to make you happy. What happened to the equation? If you had really grown up, five years if you're that happy, by the time you're 31, you should have been ecstatic. Isn't it?

• 16:10Steven Bartlett?

  You said something earlier about, um, humans are the most intelligent species on Earth.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Aren't we? You have a doubt about that?

• 16:16Steven Bartlett?

  For now. Art- artificial intelligence, I wanted to ask you about this.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  No, artificial intelligence, we'll come to that. First, establish this. Artificial intelligence is created by human beings, isn't it?

• 16:30Steven Bartlett?

  Yes.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Then how did it become more intelligent than me?

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Read more books? No.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  See, everything, everything that's man-made here in this world came out of human intelligence. And it's still not a full expression of our intelligence. Still, there are many, many more things we can do. You are thinking, mind means, intelligence means just intellectual process. Because of that, you think the phone is smarter than you, because it has better memory and it has better computing process. So, all those who are on one-dimensional intelligence, which is intellect, which is a European problem, if you ask me. You're exited, but still you're European, you know? In culture. I know you've brexited, but...

• 17:24Speaker 01

  So, it's in Europe that suddenly human thought became very elogized. Why it became like this is, the dogmatic religious beliefs, which did not allow people to think for themselves. If you thought anything other than what's written in the book, you're dead. They made this for few centuries, so suddenly, when they broke away from that and started thinking for themselves, they suddenly thought, "This is liberation," and they elogized human thought. And we crafted the whole education system on the planet based on that. Today, you're just using one dimension of your intelligence, which is intellect.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Thought process is thought to be everything. Where one of them went to the extent of saying, "I think, so I exist." What are the other dimensions of human intellect? We'll come, we'll come. I'm asking you, do you exist because you think, or because you exist, you think? Because I exist, I think. Yeah. You may think if you want, or you may not think. It's up to you. So, because you exist, your existence is important. Your existence, is it because you're seeing me that you exist? Even if you close your eyes, you still exist, isn't it? Yeah. If you don't hear anything, you still exist. So, your existence is fundamental. These are all activities of seeing, hearing, smelling, thinking, emoting. These are all activities of your existence, the life that you are.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  But we got it all upside down, and how do you expect it to work? Because, another aspect is, if I ask you a simple question, would you want your intellect to be sharp or blunt? What's your answer? Sharp. Sharp.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  If I give you a sharp instrument, let's say we give you a very sharp knife. Now, you must be very conscious, how you move your hand. If you are little la-la-la-la kind, la-la-la-la-la, if you do intestines will come out. Yes or no?

• 19:20Steven Bartlett?

  Yes.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  We don't give a knife to a child's hand only because of this, because his hand is not steady. Not because knife is dangerous. Never in the history has it ever happened, a knife jumped up and stabbed somebody. It never happened, believe me. I've been following the news.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  It is only the hand that wails it. It can cut a vegetable and make your meal, or it can do surgery and save somebody's life, or stab somebody and take their life. All these things the hand can do, not the knife. So right now, your intellect is a sharp instrument. Once you have a sharp instrument, you must know how to hold it. This is simply not there. Everybody is cutting themselves up and they think something is wrong with life. You can call this stress, anxiety, misery, whatever you want. Essentially, you have a sharp instrument and you're unconscious, so you're cutting yourself up.

• 20:21Steven Bartlett?

  What you just listened to was a most replayed moment from a previous episode. If you want to listen to that full episode, I've linked it down below. Check the description. Thank you.