Inner Nature

Mystic’s Musings By Sadhguru – Founder, Isha Foundation

Nature is a physical quantity. The word nature means that aspect of life which is limited to the perception of the sense organs. Only what you can see, hear, feel, sense, taste, smell — that is nature. All the things that we call as nature are physical. It may be in the three different forms of solids, liquids and gases. Air is around you. Water is flowing. Earth is there. Body is there. Blood is there. All this is physical.

Now the material sciences are busy with the physical nature. They go on searching for more and more endlessly. But it is not endless. Anything you pursue on the physical level, somewhere there is an end. Maybe the end is far away. Maybe we cannot see the end right now but there is an end to it. Whether it is medical science or physics or chemistry, whatever you take, you go to a certain point and you stop.

For example, physics has reached a certain point where it has stopped. Physics is not a growing science anymore. Because we have reached that end point where the physical quantity ends and something else begins. That something else cannot fit into the logical faculty of our perception. That something else cannot be perceived through the five sense organs. It cannot be deduced into this or that.

If we are limited to only those things which we perceive through five sense organs, our whole involvement with life will only be physical. A physical quantity can never be unlimited. Spirituality is about transcending the limited and going into the unlimited nature; not settling for the limited.

Now, I am using another term called ‘Inner Nature.’ That does not come in the orbit of nature; it is not a part of the physical nature, we want to go beyond that. We don’t want to settle for nature. Spirituality is about going beyond nature, it is about going beyond the limitation of the five sense organs. If you want to become spiritual, you have to transcend nature.

In the process of yoga, in any spiritual process, so many practices and other processes have been created to slowly transcend our nature. Gradually, one by one, one by one, you defeat nature. That is one way.

There is another way of simply slipping out of nature; there is no question of defeating. You are just above it. You are above your own physical nature. You may have heard of yogis and others. They sit in one place — all needs of the body are forgotten totally. You may have heard of many such people sitting for months or years in a place. That person has transcended his physical nature.

Whatever the limitations of the body, it is no more a limitation for him. He has gone beyond that. Going beyond nature is the ultimate deliverance. All yogic processes are only methods to go beyond the limited dimension of nature.

[Sadhguru, a yogi, is a visionary, humanitarian and a prominent spiritual leader. An author, poet and internationally-renowned speaker, Sadhguru’s wit and piercing logic provoke and widen our perception of life. www.ishafoundation.org]