Rising Above the Winter Slump
By Sadhguru
Sadhguru: This whole planet is solar powered. The main source of energy for this planet is the sun, and your body is just a piece of the planet. Your ability to ingest the sun’s energy determines how much energy you have. So, the movement of the planet in relation to the sun is not only a guideline for us to measure time, but also determines how much energy we carry within us.
During winter, life hits a point of inertia and does not happen at the normal pace. Winter is due to the relative positions of the earth and the sun, but in the norther hemisphere, the forces of gravity work in such a way that there is a kind of stagnation and nothing grows well at this time.
In agriculturally rich country, people often observe that at this time of the year, seeds either do not sprout or sprout very slowly. The very life process slows down, and inertia sets in. Inertia means death; dynamism means life. In a way, a kind of temporary death occurs in all our systems. Mentally, you may become depressed, and physiologically you slow down in many ways. To make use of this state of inertia as a period of incubation rather than allowing it to affect us mentally and physiologically, we evolved various systems.
During the entire month of Kartik in the Hindu lunar calendar, people light up lamps to keep up the aliveness in their houses. Unlike today when there are electric lamps, people were using oil lamps normally due to economic conditions. They lit one or two lamps for practical purposes. But when this particular month came, they would light as many lamps as possible, at the entrance of the home and inside it, because this is the time when the human mind can become naturally depressive.
A human being cannot escape anything that happens to the planet because what you call as “myself” is just a piece of this planet – a more sensitive and receptive part of the planet than what is there as earth. Whatever happens to the planet will happen a thousand-fold more within the human system. It is just that it takes some sensitivity and receptivity to experience it and make use of it.
