How to Overcome Compulsive Emotional Patterns? | Sadhguru Answers

Sadhguru: Now, I want you to observe, is it happening once in three months? Is it happening once in nine months? It’s so uncanny that even physical situations happen exactly the same way. Depending upon how unaware you are, how destabilized you are, you become available to those cycles. Spiritual process is telling you how you can get away from these cycles. Questioner: The same pattern of things keep happening over a period of time. The same kind of emotion, the situation we go across is same. How to come out of that pattern in life? Sadhguru: So, it’s good at least you notice the same patterns are happening, repeating itself. Most people don’t even see that. (Laughs) They keep repeating the same cycles in different scenery and they think they are okay. Its good of you at least if you are noticing it. The scenery may change; life’s scenery will anyway change. The last time some rubbish happened to you, you were in school. Next time it happened to you, you were in college; so the scenery was different. Next time it happened to you, you were in a job. Next time it happened to you, you were married. But the same things are happening if you closely observe your life. Suppose you are going to Coimbatore from Isha Yoga Center and you saw outside there was Semmedu. You know there’s Semmedu? No, Semmedu. Iruttupallam, that’s a nice name. (Laughter) Iruttupallam means a dark ditch. (Laughter) So you were going to Coimbatore, you came to Iruttupallam and you looked around and you pass. Now there’s no danger, they put a bridge. There was a time when you had to go through, you know, some dangerous waters. And you were driving happily towards Coimbatore, again Irrtupallam came. “Oh, again Iruttupallam? It’s okay, bad luck.” And again you keep driving, after some time again Iruttupallam came. “Tch, ah, something.” You know, coincidence. Again Iruttupallam came. You must know that you are in Iruttu, Iruttu. (Laughter) If four times the same town is coming on the way to Coimbatore, that means you are going in circles. That means you’re not going anywhere, isn’t it? If you’re looking at human life as just body, yes, body is getting somewhere, we know where it’s getting. You know where your body is getting? Where’s your body going? To the grave. Whether it’s full-moon or no-moon, whether it’s night or day, (Gestures snapping fingers) body is going… see, ten seconds closer to grave, twenty seconds now. As I am talking, you’re getting closer to grave physically, that’s all that’s happening. If you exist here as a physical entity, that's all that’s happening. And if you exist here only as physical entity, slowly you will see life will be play, then it becomes pleasure, then it becomes so many things, then every joint hurts and then it gets terrified because it’s coming to an end. Physical life, this is the progression. You don’t have to go through it to know it, you have enough intelligence to sit here and see it. But our fortune is we are not just physical, we have other dimensions to us. In terms of your mental status, either it can continue to grow or it can go in circles. In terms of your emotional status, it can continue to grow or it can go in cycles. Other dimensions you may not be aware yet, but even there you can go in cycles or you can go somewhere. Now when you say, “I notice that my life is going in cycles,” you are essentially talking about the situations around you, more than that you are talking about your own mental and emotional states going through the same cycles. Some of the ladies… With all due respect, I’m saying this. Some of the ladies may observe this better than the men because their mental and emotional cycles are shorter. Every month at a certain time of the month, at least many of them go through a certain level of mental and emotional states which are repetitive. Because every month it’s being repeated, they clearly know it’s happening because of this. Because of a certain physiological situation, it is creating a certain psychological situation is something that they can clearly notice. But unfortunately, you don’t have menstrual cycles. I am saying unfortunately, because if there were such a strong reminder, you wouldn’t miss it. (Laughs) Because your cycles are of a different kind, you can close your eyes to it; you can go through life the same way without noticing it. Women are blessed because they cannot miss it, they can notice it that this is happening to them. Men have to be much more aware, they need to do much more work; because otherwise, you will think you’re going somewhere but every time you’re going to Irrtupallam, Irrtupallam, Irrtupallam, thinking you are going somewhere. (Laughs) Physiologically, there is a strong reminder in the female body. The strong reminder that is there in the female body is not a curse; it is a blessing if you know how to use it, because any volatile situation, any destabilized situation is a possibility. It’s a possibility for change. When there is a set process, you can’t change things so easily. When there is a periodic destabilization of the system, there is a great possibility for changing. But anyway, if you are going through cycles… Everything in this system is cyclical, isn’t it? The earth is going in cycles, the moon is going in cycles; everything is cyclical. If you do not stand up with a certain level of awareness and a certain level of determination and a sense of going somewhere, you will naturally become a part of the cycles. There are various kinds of cycles happening. The longest cycle that’s happening here is 144 years. Once in 144 years, certain things happen in the solar system for which we have… 144 years we have a Kumbha Mela. We were fortunate that in our lifetime we witnessed that. The next cycle is twelve-and-a-quarter years which all of us see. The others are much shorter. There are three-year cycles, there are eighteen-month, sixteen-month cycles, there are other kinds of cycles – all these cycles. Depending upon how unaware you are, how destabilized you are, how unfocused you are, you become available to those cycles. If you are completely scattered, you become available to the smallest cycle. If you are little focused, you become available to longer cycles. But everybody is subject to these cycles. These cycles can mean a bondage or these cycles can also mean transcendence; that from one cycle of life to another you transcend, or you repeat the same cycle. That depends on who you are. When so many people… The difference between astrology and spirituality is just this… This is an unpopular subject that I am taking on. Astrology is trying to tell you how these cycles bind you. Spiritual process is telling you how you can get away from these cycles. We are not denying the cycles. It will be stupid to deny the cycles. The cycles are definitely there. But we are looking at the possibilities as to how you can slip away from these cycles. If you live by the cycles, being conscious of the cy