Sadhuguru Jaggi Vasudeva:  Joy is not a thing that is found outside; it’s your inherent natureby Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudeva: Why do people consume alcohol? Why are they mad about sex? Why do they go behind drugs? Why do they want to jump off mountains? Somewhere, every human being wants to know life in a deeper way than he knows it right now, seeking a deeper experience somehow.

Everything that you have done so far has been in pursuit of joy—whether you went for a job, sought a career, built businesses, made money or built families. The whole science and wisdom of what we refer to as inner nature or inner engineering or inner sciences, is not seeing joy as something that we achieve in our life but seeing joy as the very basis of life. Joy is not the goal; it is the square one of your life. Other things can happen, only if this one thing happens. Otherwise, you will live constantly with the fear of misery striking at you. Anything can happen to you at any moment; that is the way of life.

Right now, if you look at your life, everything that you are doing is in pursuit of joy. You are a joy industry. If you are a joy industry you need to check if, from when you were a child, your production has improved or depleted. Now that you have grown up, have got your own life, your own bank account, your own stuff going, has your joy multiplied, subtracted or divided?

Let us pose a question. In the last 24 hours, how many moments of joy have you known? From yesterday to today, has it improved or has it fallen? Are your joys in profit or loss? Every person should do this like a checkout at the end of the day.

The reason why joy is not a constant factor in your life is because you are trying to handle it from the wrong end. If you want the very way of your being to be joyful, if you want joy to become your quality, you have to understand how it grows, not the other way round. From the other end, while once in a way, you can buy it in the market, it never lasts.

When you came into this world, you came without any investment. So whatever happened with your life, you were in profit. But now, you have no perception of life or life-sense in you, simply an ego-sense. All the time, your one and only problem and the very basis of your misery is that life is not happening the way you think it should be happening. If everything happens the way you and everybody else wanted it to, can you imagine how it would be? The world would be destroyed in no time! Fortunately it’s not happening our way.

If you depend on the outside to bring joy to you, you need to understand that the outside never happens cent per cent your way. It happens only to an extent.

Those who expect an ideal situation are not in sync with external reality. When this is the case, at least one person, you, must happen the way you want yourself to be. If you did happen the way you want yourself to be, joy is the natural choice. This is not something that you have to desire, that you have to pursue, that you have to attain. If you fall back into your original nature, joyfulness is the only way you will be.

Right now, one of the main reasons why you are miserable is, instead of falling back into your joy, you are trying to pursue joy. Not understanding that the seat of experience is within you, you are trying to put all your energies out towards something, as if joy is hanging out there.

The reason why this need to accumulate is so strong is because there is a certain sense of insufficiency. You want to be something more than what you are right now. But even if we make you the king or queen of this planet, you will not stop, you will look up at the stars. You are greedy because your inner nature wants to find boundless expansion.

There is nothing wrong with your greed; it is actually a spiritual process. It is just that you do not give it proper expression. If you want to get there, you need the right kind of vehicle. Something within you is longing for boundlessness. If this longing has to be fulfilled, it cannot be through physical means.

If you are capable of making yourself joyful for one moment—I say ‘making yourself’ because you are either making yourself miserable or joyful—you are capable of making yourself joyful all the time. Have you ever experienced anything called ‘past’ or ‘future’? You remember the past, you imagine the future, but your experience of life has always been in this moment. Right now you are in this moment, tomorrow you will be in this moment, hundred years later if you exist, you will be in this moment. So, this moment is eternity.

The seat of your experience is within you, not outside of you. This is the fundamental shift in understanding that is needed to be joyful. Do not look for a way out, there is only one way—the ‘way in’. Once you become life, there is no way out, you cannot drop out of life. Even if you commit suicide, one more body will form around you, one more, and one more, and one more. There is only a way in; you find that way in and you are out; this is going out through the in-door. If you try going out through the outdoor, you will be unsuccessful.

The quality of your life changes, not by changing its content, but by changing its context. By changing the content, nothing changes. By changing the clothes you wear, the food you eat, the place you live in, the quality of your life won’t change.

You can go to your office because you really want to contribute to what is happening there. If you function this way, won’t they give you a salary at the end of the month? They definitely will pay you. But for 30 days if you keep chanting ‘salary, salary, salary’, you will be miserable for 29 days, hoping for that one day to come, and when it does you will be even more miserable because it does not matter how much the salary, it is never enough. As your salary increases, your lifestyle is already two steps ahead. The question is not about what you do or what you don’t do—how you do it, changes life.