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Too focused on the negative

By Sadhguru

October 2011

It is an unfortunate reality in the world today that most people are too focused on the negativity of life. Whatever you focus on, you breed that and make that grow; whatever you pay attention to, that grows and enlarges itself. Even in the press, certain things need to be exposed, but at the same time focusing just on the negative things that are happening in society will only multiply them. It will enter people’s minds in such a way,and people will begin to think that this is all that is happening. People lose hope and trust because most human beings on the planet need to be inspired to act in a certain way. So it is very important that in a society, there are lots of positive situations which inspire people to act. Right now as a society and as individuals, we are constantly focusing on the negative which is an immense disservice to humanity.

One day a sanyasi went into the forest to do his sadhana. He was there for some time, and he happened to come across a fox whose forelegs were both severed, probably caught in a hunter’s trap. It looked like the wound had completely healed a long time ago, but the fox had survived, and he was reasonably well-fed. When the sanyasi saw this he couldn’t believe it—because nature is not forgiving about cripples, and if you become incapable of getting your own food, you are dead in nature. But this fox could not move anywhere, he just sat under a tree, but he looked reasonably well-fed.

To his amazement, that evening he found a lion come with the carcass of an animal that he hunted and ate. It came and put whatever the leftover meat there was in front of the fox, and the fox ate. The man couldn’t believe his eyes. Every two, three days, the lion came and put some meat in front of the fox and it went on. So the sanyasi thought, ‘This is a message from God, this is a Divine sign. This can’t be anything less than this.’ A lion feeding a fox which is crippled is a miracle. So he thought, ‘This is a message for me. When a crippled fox can get its food to itself wherever it is sitting, why can’t I, a sanyasi on the path of the Divine, get my food? Why should I go to the town to beg for alms? Instead of sitting and meditating, I [have been] going to the town for food.’

So he chose a remote part of the forest behind a rock. He went and meditated for three days, but from the fourth day onwards he could not meditate. He only clutched his belly and he sat, because hunger overtook him.Eighteen days passed by. By then, he was weak and had become very feeble, but still he sat waiting for a Divine act to happen. ‘This is surely God’s message; what is happening, why nobody is coming and feeding me?’

A yogi happened to be passing this way. He heard the rasping breath of this man, he came looking, and asked, ‘What happened to you? Why are you here like this in this condition?’ The sanyasi narrated the fox and lion story and said, ‘You tell me, you are a wise one, is this not a sign from the Divine? Is this not God’s message to me?’ The yogi looked at him and said, ‘Deﬁnitely, this is God’s message. This is deﬁnitely a Divine sign. But why are you imitating the crippled fox? Why didn’t you choose to imitate a lion that is generous?’

Named one of India’s 50 most inﬂuential people, Sadhguru speaks before millions annually around the globe, including to prominent leadership forums such as the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, TED, and the World Peace Congress. From ground-breaking yoga programs to projects for rural communities and the environment, Sadhguru’s Isha Foundation (www.IshaFoundation.org), serves as a thriving model for human empowerment, which is reﬂected in the Foundation’s special consultative status with the UN. Designed to enrich every aspect of one’s life, Sadhguru’s introductory program, Inner Engineering Online (www.InnerEngineering.com) now makes this distilled essence of yogic science available to millions worldwide.

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