How to Open the Third Eye? | Sadhguru Answers

Sadhguru: The inside has become total vacuum, so the doorway gets sucked in. Another way of opening the third eye is, you contain everything inside. The first way of doing is the best way of doing. The most significant aspect of Shiva is that he opened his third eye. All the other things – he danced, he meditated, married twice, did so many things, that's not the thing. He opened his third eye, it's only for that we remember him even today. For that even today, after thousands of years we still bow down to him because there is no substitute for knowing. There is no substitute for knowing means, and there is no way to know unless your perception goes beyond your present levels of perception. Unless your ability to see is enhanced beyond its present limitations, there is no way to know. To know is to be free. So, Shiva is significant for us not because he's trekked in Himalayas, not because he played with snakes, not because of this or that, because he opened his third eye. He perceived what most human beings failed to perceive. What is unseen for a large segment of humanity became a normal part of his vision. That's what third eye means. So, people say, “When Shiva opened his third eye, it was a fiery process, fire came out of it.” Why they are saying fire is, because within himself he burnt everything that he thought mattered to him. He became like a… like a fire chamber, like a kiln that within himself he burnt everything that can be burnt and then, from every pore of his body, instead of sweat and blood coming, ash came out. Why Shiva is always depicted as ash smeared is, he didn't go about smearing ash, ash came out of his pores. This is to indicate that he has burnt it all. He has burnt every shred of ignorance, everything that one believes as true, he burnt. Because he burned everything and everything became ash, then this opening of the third eye could not be denied to him. When it opened, people saw fire because the inner chamber was burning. There're two ways of opening the eye. One way is, the inside has become total vacuum, so the doorway gets sucked in and naturally has to open. The doorway becomes limp and falls inward because there is nothing. He's simply burnt not only his thought, not only his emotion, not just his relationships and possessions, he's just burnt his very being. The individual being is completely burned out and there is a total vacuum. So, the door fell inward and it's open. So people saw fire because it was burning still. Another way of opening the third eye is, you contain everything inside. Everything is contained, you did not find any expression for your thought, any expression for your emotion, any expression for anything, you could not even utter a word. See, if you remain silent for four days, on the fifth day you feel like singing suddenly. If you don't know how to sing, you want to howl like a wolf, hmm? (Laughter) Because you want to let go, hmm. You didn't let go anything, so much pressure built up and this door got knocked open from inside. It's another way to do it. The first way of doing is the best way of doing because if you open it by building pressure, it opens up today and again tomorrow it may just shut itself. Or before enough pressure builds up and this opens, something else freaks in you and you run away, yes. Because the pressure builds up in such a way, if you have to hold it, you need… Because you don't know what's happening, it looks like torture. It looks like seventh-degree torture. If you are putting yourself through the whole process, then definitely your mind will ask, ‘What is the point in going through this torture?' Because it's lot of torture – not letting a single thought find expression, not letting a single emotion find expression, not uttering a single word, not having… not finding expression to a single opinion that arises in your mind, single idea that arises in your mind. Oh, it will burst you somewhere. If you hold everything intact, this will open, otherwise something else will freak, but you are a little, you know, you are diplomatic. You believe in the middle path (Laughter) that means you don't wish to get anywhere. (Laughs) People who believe in the middle path, they determined not to get anywhere in their life. Middle path means just your comfort zone, neither this nor that. Either you become empty, the sheer power of vacuum will open it or you build a pressure in you it will burst open, two ways of opening. Middle path means you are a professional bull-shitter, really; (Laughs) full-time bull-shitter you are, not professional. Profession means they do it only part-time, right? (Laughter) They do it only certain times of the day. It doesn't matter where you go, you do your own stuff – middle path; middle path is a way of not getting anywhere and after some time thinking this doesn't go anywhere. Right now you're walking on the street, suddenly you found a big rock. There are only two ways to go, either this way or this way. This way a tiger is growling, this way there is fire burning. (Few laugh) You think the best thing is middle path, that is, to go into the rock. Obviously this is not going to go anywhere. This will give you good exercise for some time. If you try to go into the rock, it's a good exercise. Really, it will build lot of good muscle, if you take the middle path, it's just that you don't go anywhere.