Inner Engineering

Inner Engineering is a guide to creating a life of happiness by exploring your internal landscape of thoughts and feelings and learning to align them with what the universe tells you.

It is a common practice to try to enhance our happiness or life satisfaction by changing our circumstances. Most people consider it so normal that they struggle to understand at first, what could possibly be wrong with this approach.

If you don’t like your job, change it. Tired of being single? Get on Tinder. If you are not happy with the way you look, sign up for a gym class or get yourself a new dress.

This is the kind of advice most of us hear all our lives. As a result, we came to believe that we can attain happiness only after we succeed at work, find the perfect partner or look like the model from a magazine cover.

Sadhguru explains that this approach is plain insanity. He argues that the fixation on the outside world is precisely what prevents us from experiencing fulfillment. Simultaneously, he shows that all perceptions of the external objects and events are actually happening within us. And within is precisely where we should begin our search for happiness.

Yogic wisdom, he says, can help you generate the exact internal states that you are looking for – regardless of what goes on on the outside. But to master that, you need to get acquainted with some important concepts first.

A big chunk of your inner work is connected to assuming personal responsibility for your life experience. But prepare to have your concept of responsibility challenged! Sadhguru’s teachings in this respect may surprise you. His notion that with more responsibility comes more freedom is something most of us are not used to. Usually, when we think of a responsible person, we imagine someone who sacrifices some of their freedom for the sake of their family, professional career or some other commitment. According to Sadhguru, this is a misguided understanding of responsibility. Consider the word itself. Response-ability means being capable of responding to life circumstances in a conscious way instead of reacting based on unconscious impulses. This means that, as you increase your self-awareness, your ability to respond increases as well. You realize that there are always choices available and you are free to pick the best one of them. For example, when a family member triggers anger in you, there are several ways in which you could respond. The unconscious impulse would probably be to yell at them – but as your response-ability grows, you start seeing other options. For example, you could also ignore their annoying behavior, respond with kind words, or change the…