The more you try to be special, the more you get hurt. Just be, just melt and become part of the wind around you, the earth around you, become a part… - Sadhguru

Seeker: So what is social ego, Sadhguru? Sadhguru: Society has its own ego, isn’t it? For every small thing, the whole society gets upset. It need not be wrong. Suppose it’s summer in the United States. Everybody is hardly wearing anything or maybe they are in miniskirts. Let’s say you’re fully clothed. People will get upset: “What is she doing? Why is she all covered up?” Here in India, if you dress like that, they’ll all get upset. So this is one kind of ego; that is another kind of ego. It’s the social ego which is getting upset, and your karma is becoming part of the collective karma. I want you to really understand this with a certain depth. Your idea of good and bad has been taught to you. You have imbibed it from the social atmosphere in which you have lived. See, for example, a bandit tribe, like the Pindaris, who from a young age were trained to rob and kill, they even had gods who taught them skills and brought them success in their banditry. When the British army was let loose on them, they were shot and killed indiscriminately. They were completely bewildered, as in their perception they had not done anything wrong. The Pindari ego was just to be a good bandit. The same happened for the Native Americans also. Among some Native American tribes, unless you had killed a man in your life, you were not much of a man. They collected the scalp of the man and wore it around their neck. So what is right and wrong, what is good and bad, is all about how the social ego functions.

If you are not using your mind for self-torture, why would you think of peace?

It is not about what you are doing. It is just that you are doing it in an unwavering way. You are just unwavering, you have become one pointed. It does not matter what it is – if you want to be a butcher, be a butcher in an unwavering way, it will open up. Just not wavering for a moment. What you have decided in a moment of clarity and joy, just sticking onto it, without wavering a little bit. Nobody can deny it to you. Every day you are off and on, off and on, it does not happen.

Every day when your thoughts and emotions fly this way and that way, you keep changing your mind. Changing your mind, changing your mind, you will go in circles – endlessly in circles. One who changes direction too often is obviously not interested in going anywhere, isn’t it? You know the world is round, so whichever direction you go, it does not matter; as long as you go without changing direction you will make the journey, isn’t it? You will complete the journey. If you change your direction, it will put you into an endless state of being lost.