Questioner: In today’s world, you see so much terrorism and violence. How do you explain this?

Sadhguru: See we need to understand this. Who is a terrorist and who is a patriot? The people whom we worship as patriots,someone else thinks are terrorists. Mangal Pandey is a great patriot for us, we are making movies about him, we celebrate him – but as far as the British were concerned, he was a terrorist. Yes? He was put to death because he was a terrorist. BhagatSingh is a great patriot for us, but he was a terrorist as far as the British government was concerned. The question is what you are identified with, isn’t it? The moment you identify yourself with something limited, you are in a natural conflict with the rest the existence, you cannot help it. When it will become violent is just a question situations. Right now, if I identify myself with something limited, if I identify myself with my community, or my religion, or my nation, or my ideology, whatever – when I will actually become a terrorist and kill somebody is just a question of situations, where I am pushed to in the world, isn’t it? The moment there is a limited identification, there is a conflict. When it actually spills on the street is just a question time and situations It is a limited identification which is making you violent and all of you, every one of you, if you look at your life, you have limited identifications. So whatever you are identified with, whether it is your family or your business or your nation, or whatever, when it is threatened, you will become violent, isn’t it so? So someone has become a terrorist and is willing to blow himself up simply because his identification is limited, either with a nation, or a religion, or a particular sect, whatever it is. If only this limited identity was not there, if he identified himself as just a human being, or as just a life form, then with whom would he be violent? Naturally, this passion would be a beautiful expressions, isn’t it? The passion itself we do not want to kill; it is wonderful because that is what makes a human being worthwhile, isn’t it? Otherwise we will be just worthwhile wimps, no good for anything, isn’t it? I want you to understand, people who are exploding bombs are not evil people. They are wonderful people. All these terrorists, people who are willing to die for what they believe in, are wonderful people, it is just that they have been misguided to do things in a certain way. It’s really wonderful, but how unfortunate that such wonderful people are being used like this in a life-negative way. If only this passion found a gentler expression, this would be a fantastic quality among people, isn’t it? So what we need to look at is just the expression, the way they are expressing their passion.