Unselfishness is a Lie

QUESTIONER: Which is the best way to avoid being selfish?

SADHGURU: How to avoid being selfish? You cannot avoid being selfish. Saying “I don’t want to be selfish, I don’t want to be selfish,” is very selfish. If you sincerely look at yourself, you are not really capable of being unselfish.

Whichever way you look at it, the very perspective in which you understand life is through yourself. So there is no question of anything called unselfishness. It is just a lie. It is a lie, that morality has created in the world, with which so many people are deceived. People think “I am doing something unselfishly,” but they do it because it gets them happiness. That is the only way they can be happy, that is the only way they can be peaceful. So there is no question of being unselfish. I am telling you, be selfish. Be selfish but be totally selfish. The problem is even with your selfishness, you are stingy.

What is your selfishness? “I want to be happy,” that is your basic selfishness. Be totally selfish – “I want the whole universe to be happy. I want every atom in the existence to be happy.” Be completely selfish. Then there is no problem. Even in your selfishness, you are miserly, that is the whole problem. Let us be selfish in an unlimited way. We are not willing to be complete in so many aspects of life. At least let us be completely selfish. Don’t just mislead yourself with morality. It will never happen. Try to be not selfish and see, you will only deceive yourself.

There are only two ways to be. If you want to attain to the highest, either you must become a zero, or you must become infinite. They are not different. The moment you talk about “self,” something has come, an entity has come. Now in trying to be unselfish, you are only scaling yourself down. You cannot dissolve yourself. You are making yourself from ten to five. But it is still a problem. It will not go. Either you become a total zero, no problem. Or you become infinite, no problem.

The path of bhakti is dissolution, you surrender and become nothing. Then there is no problem. Or you include everything as a part of yourself and become everything. Then also there is no problem. Once you have spoken about self, some entity has come, so dissolution is out of question. So you better become unlimited. It is an easier way to go for you.

(Ranked amongst the fifty most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic visionary and a New York Times bestselling author Sadhguru has been conferred the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India in 2017, the highest annual civilian award, accorded for exceptional and distinguished ervice.)