Namaskaram. Good evening to everyone. Good evening everyone. Thank you for being here this evening. And this is my first interview. I must say it's easier giving an interview than interviewing. It's challenging. Sathgu, thank you so much for giving me this opportunity and thanks to all the volunteers who've worked so hard. So my first question to you is that when I first heard about you many years ago, when I first heard about you many years ago, I rolled my eyes and I muttered something about Guru types. And until a few months ago when my sister gave me your book, Inner Engineering, which happens to be New York Times bestseller, it changed my perspective. And when I was working on this interaction, I came across a few interviews of yours, one of them being with a senior writer from my field. And he was vehemently attacking you. He was trying to frame you for being fake and he himself is accused of plagiarism. So my question is that why does a person connected to spirituality on its part? Is everyone feels entitled to judge them? And honestly, if it wasn't New York Times bestseller book, I would have not read it. What is it about the best stamp that we can't do without it? I mean, there are so many books and unless Americans don't approve of it, it just doesn't make sense. Why is that? This is multiple questions about people's resistance to someone like me. When I say someone like me, someone who is not messed with himself, okay? He didn't cut his hair, he didn't do anything, he's simply the way nature intended him to be. That's all the problem they have with me. They think you have to belong somewhere. You have to be this religion or that religion or this party or that party. You've got to be something. Today, if you look at the world, now that you mentioned America and it's also beginning to happen in our country in a big way, in imitation of United States, I would say. See, in United States you ask, talk to anybody, they'll say, I'm a Democrat or I'm a Republican. What this essentially means is you have no clue what is democracy. If you say I am this and my father also was this and my grandfather also was a Republican, so this, this, this, I am. What this means is you have become a tribe. A tribe, you know? Once you become a tribe, a tribal war is inevitable. It's going to happen somewhere. Democracy means every time you must see these five years or four years, whatever the term, how they have functioned and individually you make a choice, home to vote for. You've already committed to vote to a particular party, no matter what. This means you've become a tribe. You've gone back to feudalistic way of living, but you're talking democratic language. So this has happened in a huge way in United States. So these jokes keep going around. Someone trying to convert a Republican into a Democrat.  You'll see what kind of president you got. So he said, no, I am a Democrat. I'm a Republican. My father was a Republican and my grandfather was a Republican. So I am a Republican. That's it.  Is it of course a Democrat? We are taking things from there all the time. And in India also slowly we are moving in that direction unfortunately. About New York Times, New York Times, a lot of things you could say about New York Times, but I think that their president is speaking as to what is New York Times. I don't have to say a thing. We still have not got out of the Furang syndrome. You know what's Furang? Of course. So we've still not gotten out of that Furang syndrome. It has to come from there. Today, why do you think so many people are talking about yoga? The yoga they're talking about in India is largely a rebound from the American coast. They're not talking about the yoga that is here. This is the source of yoga. And if you... People's understanding of yoga is... That brings to me a question about our roots ingrained in yoga and spirituality. But where has it got us? As a nation, as a country, as a continent, what has it given us? I know what you say about karma bondage and I will quote you. If somebody he says about karma, breaking karma bondage, that if somebody breaks your leg, don't go after that person's leg. Fix your leg and go your way. Understand, that sounds fantastic.  What do you do? I don't think people are so much interested in your leg. Taking it. But tell me, don't we have a history of thousand years of invasion after invasion and didn't we grew up hearing this from our mothers that, oh, if somebody rubs you wrong way, the only thing that they say is, oh, Bhagawan Dekhra hain. I mean, we as a land, I don't know much about history, but this much I know that we as a land, we have not, and thanks to our spiritual education that we have never gone to invade a continent or gone for a conquest like that. But where has it got us? Where has it landed us? So why not imitate West? You must give me a few minutes. You raised a whole lot of things about history. So what has the spiritual process given us as a land, as a nation, as a culture? You must understand this. This is a... let's understand this very clearly. Here we always focused on individual development because without creating great human beings, there is no great nation, there is no great culture, there is no great world. World, nation, society, these are just words. It's just you and me. What kind of people we are, that's a kind of society, that's a kind of nation, that's a kind of world we will live in. So we always focused on individual development. In this we produced still our human beings, absolutely fantastic human beings for thousands of years, who created a fantastic culture. And let me remind you, our safety was our geographical features. The Himalayan region, the Himalayan ranges, and the Indian Ocean which was called as Indusagrad at one time. So this he and Hindu, together we made it Hindu. So you must understand, it is a geographical entity. We revered the mountains and the ocean because we knew our safety, our well-being, and our cultural flourish, and our economic prosperity of the time, everything depended on these two barriers which stopped people from invading and doing things. But then people found ways to cross the mountains and come across and come through the oceans, everything happened. So our problem was just this, we focused on human genius all the time, but we lacked organization. The West always focused on organization, but they did not focus on individual genius. For both there is a price. So now we have come to a place where we cannot ignore individual genius. We have to focus on that. But at the same time, we need to learn to organize. That's what we are struggling at right now, that we want to organize. Can I ask? So, Sadhguru, talking about spirituality, and like I questioned that, how practical is it in today's world where as like the whole philosophy of spirituality or what… Spirituality is not a philosophy. I know it's a technique, it's a practice, which I also do, it's yoga. The ultimate union. So I know yoga is the ultimate union and everything that we do as yoga is supposed to make us inclusive. Inclusive of everything. Let me finish, okay? So it is supposed to make us inclusive of our environment and then further expanding that our country, our countrymen and then the planet and then the cosmos and then it goes on. But my question is, and I want to present an example. I was in London and, you know, what happens to when you are in a beautiful city with great infrastructure, you're with a couple of friends and your Indian friends, they're always cursing India.  You know, and on all that. I felt so overwhelmed. I couldn't wait to get to my room and when I got there, I was crying.  And then I realized that identifying like that with your country, today I'm crying, tomorrow I might just punch somebody and everybody will behave in their own way. So this kind of identification with your environment, with your country, with your religion, with your family is the root cause of all atrocities. So isn't that kind of, isn't it dangerous? Now don't tell me, be inclusive, but still not be inclusive. Don't play the answer. No. I am not buying that answer. How can you be inclusive and yet not be inclusive? If you're inclusive, you're inclusive or you don't be inclusive. Well, the city that you're appreciating of its infrastructure and its wealth and well-being, for two centuries was largely built on stolen money from this country.   That's a problem with us. One thing is, see in this country, what has happened in those 200 years, don't go back 1000 years, there have been atrocities. That's a different matter. Even if you go back this 200 years, because we're talking about London, what's happened in this country is not a small thing. Six million Jews died. They write and write and write about it. They make movies about it. Nobody is supposed to forget about it in the world. Everybody is reminded every day how this atrocity happened to them. But we, you know, the Bengal famine killed over three and a half million people in a matter of three months because they took away all the food for the World War II effort. And this is not one. The governor in 1960 writes, the fields of India are bleached by the bones of the hand weavers because they destroyed the hand loom industry. Yesterday was hand loom day or something. Yes? From 1800 to 1860, in 60 years time, the industry which has lasted for 10,000 years, they destroyed and left millions of people to die. It's recorded in British history, you know, in what they have written, not what we have written, because we write nothing. If we get our breakfast tomorrow, we're just happy. There's a big problem in India because we don't have a sense of history. A history or revenge? No, no, revenge is not needed because revenge will again waste your energy and your future is wasted if you're going to revenge. This is what I don't get. Let me finish this. About what is the spiritual process given to us, okay? The question is, why can't we be like them and be successful? Why we are like this is because we have realized in a very profound way most Indian people may not know this consciously but they know this by life. They may not be articulating this in their mind. Somewhere they know that their well-being is essentially coming from within. Outside arrangements we can make as we want but me being joyful, peaceful, loving, blissful is most important. Well, that's why I said individually we did great. Organization also we had great stuff till outside people came who had no concern about anything that you think and feel and experience. Everything was brutally uprooted, all right? I'll just tell you an example. For example, you've come to the yoga center. That region, there's one police station with about 12 to 14 policemen. About four or a night duty, that means about eight or nine. Two, three will be always on leave. I'm saying literally there's no law. It's a quarter million people. There's literally no law at all but still there's no crime. It's a spiritual process, I'm telling you. You take away police in New York City. You take away the law enforcement in New York City or London that you're talking about. Just see what will happen in three hours' time. Okay, so Satguru, this... You're like, we need organization right now. To succeed as a nation we need organization. Yeah, but the way society has also been handling things is not great. It's not really the best thing. We can't rely on a system like that. You mean like we are largely being organized by society but that's not the most appropriate way. I mean, authority isn't either but there is at least a set of rules there. With society they're really... I mean, more money you've got. You can literally get away with anything. So that's not the best way to go forward. What would you have to say about that? Sure. You're saying in India? In India, yes. See, we need to understand this. When the British left this country the average life expectancy in this country was twenty-eight years. Okay? The illiteracy was ninety-three percent. There was literally no industry, no infrastructure of any kind.  They built railways because they want to move their troops and their goods out of the country. So railways were there but what were they transporting on the railways? So there was literally no economic infrastructure. Administrative infrastructure in the form of civil services was there. That was to keep control. You just see what they were called. What were the local administrators called? They were called collectors. Even today unfortunately we're retaining the same appellation. Collector means what? They were just tax collectors. In many provinces, the digital produce was hundred percent. Can you beat that? One hundred percent tax and everything that you grow. So this was a totally absolutely demoralizing occupation that happened for over two hundred years. And we're recovering from that. It's not a small thing. We've been just beaten down. No education, no nourishment, no economic infrastructure, all industry destroyed. The resources for their industry when this was done systematically we've been exploited. Only problem with us was we didn't have an organization to fight them. We had small, small kingdoms which they played very well and they managed. This is a historical blunder on our side. There's no point cursing them. They did what was best for them. We could not do what was best for us. It's time for us to do what is best for us now. We have such a diversity in our country whether they are different languages, traditions, religions and food and all sort of diversity. Definitely food. Which is beautiful. What you say about difference and discrimination. Differences are beautiful. A man is different than a woman and flowers are different and so on and so forth. There is difference which is beautiful. But don't you think there should be one spirit? There should be something that could bind us together. I don't see anything because the only common factor between us is definitely the motherland because you're from south and I'm from north and if we didn't have the history of slavery to connect us we would never know what we are talking about. We are very balanced because we are from the sea level. His nickname for me is mental. He calls me cuckoo. So don't you think we should have something that can bind us together? Don't you think it's so easy to play us as people as a nation and that spirit of I can think of only one thing that can bind us together is probably nationalism which is the most infamous word in today's time. What is it? What can bind us together? See, this diversity that you're talking about as all of us know there is no other nation which has this complexity of diversity. We have 1300 spoken languages in this country and a thousand different ways to cook and a thousand different ways to dress and every fifty kilometers you drive people look different, dress different, speak different, eat different, everything different. So this is what also helped us to survive. You must understand this. See, just look at this. Wherever the English went for example or before that the Islamic invasions, wherever they went they made sure the entire population was religiously at least compromised. Just look at North America, South America Africa, Australia wherever they went they were absolutely nearly hundred percent successful. This is one country they couldn't figure out because they don't know where the head is because we are like a we're an organism with you know million heads nobody knows which head to cut. So this is don't complain about this because this has also been our survival.  So where's the head? No, that is the whole thing. You tell me, this whole thing now is leading to something else. Right now there's a huge cosmos.  Yes? Now the foolish way of looking at life is that there is a head for this cosmos. There is one god sitting up there in this cosmos. This is a childish way of looking at life but that's not the way we looked at it here. We saw every organism every life every atom has its own head and it's running by itself. It is complete by itself it runs by itself this is why in this culture self-realization became most important because if you realize the nature of this in a way you have realized the nature of the entire cosmos because this idea that there is some central point in the cosmos and there is one head sitting up there is a stupid idea. Modern science is proving that to you beyond any doubt but we have said this for thousands of years because we saw this is a headless cosmos. Headless is not a negative thing I know the western saying headless chicken is supposed to be bad yes a chicken should have a head it should also have two legs it's important but this is a headless cosmos that is why it's so beautiful so we are just an imitation of the cosmic nature of existence we are also always headless but this is why individual genius becomes of paramount importance because each human being functioning at their peak is important to create a society which is as colorful and as diverse as possible together see because you must understand this there was a time when there were over 200 political entities in the form of kingdoms and empires and whatever many times people try to unite them into one occupation but later on it again broke up many times over 200 political establishments in spite of that in this nation people felt this is one nation we call this Bharat from outside they also thought this is one nation though there were 200 kings ruling the place what is it? what do you think made them think this is one nation even today if you go to Syria Lebanon you will see thousands of women especially named as Hind they are named as India their understanding is Hind means India and they have taken the name Hind even today thousands of women have this name that they are Hind so because forever we have been known as one nation for more than 10, 15,000 years this is because everywhere they went they saw a nation means was always built on the sameness of language sameness of religion sameness of ethnicity but they found this land there is no sameness anywhere if you look from your neighbor to you you are a different person absolutely they cook differently you speak one language they speak another language but they call this one nation because this was the only nation which was a land of seekers not a land of believers this is why we always identified as seekers we are seekers of truth and liberation our highest value is not God God means head our highest value has never been God our highest value has always been moksha because this means liberation and freedom freedom has been our highest value now the so called liberals are talking about freedom fresh as if they are talking about it for the first time we have always held as the most sacred thing in our life is ultimate liberation of the human being not going to heaven not the pleasures of heaven have never been illogized in this culture so our togetherness came because we were seekers the important thing about seeking is this when you are believers you will always get together because without getting together see if you just believe something all by yourself you look stupid you need thousand people around you who believe the same thing otherwise you will feel foolish but when you become a seeker you always want to be alone because seeking is internal and individual so because we were always individuals we were an organized group we never had a situation where somebody could give us one riprap speech and get us all moving there has never been like that still we are like that I am glad we are like that but we need some organization to function in the modern world for sure that's a contradiction it is not I personally feel that this whole dichotomy of what's happening in today's society and today's world that we are individuals and we need to be organized as well but what we face on everyday on daily basis is something completely different which I mean I will tell you where for me like it's very conflicting because I am working on a martyrs biopic where there is a scene that the protagonist Lakshmi Bhai she goes and she saves a calf so my crew had a huge discussion we halted the shoot and we were like she can't save a calf it has to be a lamb because we don't want to look like cow savers so my point is that when such a prejudice strikes as a person you feel very protective of you are and what your values are and you want to save all the animals why just cow but you definitely want to save the cow for sure because the prejudice is really agonizing but a lynching for cow takes place and you look like an idiot and then you jump to the other side which has been always criticizing and never wanting to be protecting cows and you are like these people look sensible and these are so called liberals and now liberals by definition because I have learnt English now just recently so I have to access to dictionary for everything so the literal meaning dictionary meaning of liberal is people who have acceptance for people opinions thoughts that's what I am saying let me finish this question so these liberals they will not take you in their group unless you hate the same people as they do so one thing it's fine if this is for the betterment of the country you don't mind hating on BJP you don't mind believing that everything that is being done by you know like literally Amitra is practically doing that's fine but what is no but what I don't get is what I don't get is this I get what I don't get is what is their agenda and plan of action for bringing this country out of the pit what is that they are doing so when a war breaks liberals are the first one to say for my industry people say why should we be bothered with war we are artists to demotivating an army man who is protecting us for you a rape takes place in Kashmir and they say Hindustan raped our daughter to be pointing fingers at each other when the country is so vulnerable and trying to break a civil war is that what liberals do and you are like wait a minute the most sensible things seems like to be a skeptic but a skeptic is nothing but a space cadet doesn't know where he is going so right now we need a definite direction to go into we cannot be stuck in the unfortunate loop of to be or not to be to be or not to be so what to do from that city that you were talking about they always thought asking this question to be or not to be is the most intelligent thing to do there because they rarely came to existential questions existential questions is a daily affair for us in this country but they rarely came to it so that is how rudimentary ways they are addressed it they thought it's a most intelligent question to ask to be or not to be I think it's the dumbest question to ask because you have not tasted life when you are really blissed out an ecstatic do you ask to be or not to be in some way you frustrated some way you burdened so you're asking to be or not to be leave that aside that's the thing first of all today in the world people who claim to be liberals are actually fanatics if you do not agree with them they will finish you in some way so about Jansi running saving the cow well she is a woman who stands out in our history and you just fortunate that you but she did save a cow I'm like listen guys rather than fighting why don't you access the facts she did save a cow but we should not we don't know who wrote the story she didn't save one cow cows would have always been saved because in this country which is a pastoral country cow under cattle was the wealth of this nation if you look back at Mahabharat they are not talking about land as wealth they are always talking about cattle as wealth because land was there plenty cattle how many thousand head of cattle did you own decided how rich you are so if somebody stole a cow they cut you and beat you up alright that's how it is in back home as well like I come from a village and sometimes this whole lynching debate that's going on in the country these people who are talking about it they have not seen India they have not seen India at all they are just living in cities and television studios and endlessly talking about these things let me say this clearly I have always been connected with rural life I have in my life I have witnessed three lynchings okay I have witnessed in two they were killed in the other one nearly killed for what because they believed this man could be stealing their children people lynch you know even recently it happened if you steal their children if you steal their cows if you cut a tree and take it from his farm these are three things for lynchings will happen I have seen all three varieties I try to get into it and stop this they said you don't get into it and push me aside I knew the local sub inspector who was a senior in my college so I went to him and said you need to do something these guys just killed the guy and buried him right there in the village the entire village knows and nothing he said you don't get into this I said why? he said see this is how it is they have their own law I am a police officer I enforce a certain aspect of the law rest of the law is handled by them in their own terms so actually this is a crowd there is no actual total law enforcement in the country slowly it is coming but it has not been there for a long time people manage their own things there are a lot of other atrocities there are but let me finish this because this is a big issue in the country today so I am not trying to prove this is the way to do it all I am saying is when mob tries to enforce justice their idea of justice this is how it gets enforced unfortunately that is where we are we need to understand that is where we are if we want to change this there are many things we need to do not going on pointing about somebody saved a cow well when people thought their child lifters and they killed them why did you start a debate about that because you know if you start a debate about don't save your children then you will get it back cow is the easy thing right now to go out because this is not about whatever is precious to them if they believe somebody is taking it they can't call the police because if they call the police they will come after 24 hours and if they come there are so many issues it doesn't directly get settled so people have their own way of settling unfortunately it is going into a place where people are being killed on the street it should not go there means law enforcement needs to come on all levels of life law enforcement has not reached the entire geography of this nation let's get to that we need to do that I am Rajput myself and when the whole Padmavad episode took place and cutting one of my contemporaries nose I was embarrassed and also when the rape took place in Kashmir to be pointing out things like like you know this wouldn't disturb anybody if it was Hollywood because a lot of them have cut their noses off and replaced other criminals are not religions criminals cannot be associated with religion that is just simply trying to instigate I don't think that was about religion at all anyway that whole movement was not against religion there are many political aspects to it when this was happening in full flair the Padmavad issue and Prasoon is here so when they were burning buses then I called somebody a very responsible person in the country and said what is this how are we allowing this to happen if you don't like a movie don't go I don't go to the movies so if you don't like it you don't go why do you have to burn a bus that people have to use tomorrow morning they said they have all dressed up on hundred women like brides and they are sitting ready ready to burn by themselves volunteers to burn today if we handle them rough on the street tomorrow if these hundred women even if ten of them burn themselves it will become an international issue so let the buses burn for one or two days then we will deal with it I thought this is a strange kind of wisdom but it is wisdom so we need to understand this instead of giving commentaries basically because somebody went to western universities and came back with that kind of commentary in this country without understanding the realities no there are unfortunate realities of various kinds of divisions that people are trying to play up when they don't get any voice to say something they will gather one caste together they will gather their own community together or gather one group of language people together or religion together and do something on the street to get attention the way unfortunate way that this become a culture to get attention is burn the bus people tomorrow morning they will have to work to their place of work but burn the bus and get attention in every other country if they want to protest they burn old tires I think how people don't know how to take the tires out so they are burning the entire bus it's a mechanical lapse Indians are doing so well whether it's the CEOs of Google, Microsoft, Mastercard Nokia, you know the list goes on all the chief executive I have whole list of those yeah so Indians are doing so well all over the world but India is not doing well why is that everybody in the world thinks India is doing very well but here there is a commentary that India is not doing well when I look at you I say you are doing well when I look at these people I say you are doing well but yes it is a fact 40% of our population is still malnourished unfortunately this is because our focus in these last 70 years has largely been to industrialize build cities and stuff we have not focused sufficiently on our agriculture enhancing rural life right now we are pitching very hard to do this and I think in many ways particularly the central government is very focused on seeing this happen well it's not as easy as said there are many many challenges but a clear plan at least is being evolved how to make agriculture lucrative how to make rural living in a village worthwhile that even if you want to see a cinema you don't have to go to the city living in a village should be worthwhile so these things are being planned in some states it's going very fast in some states it's going slow but right now the focus is how to make it worthwhile living in a village if you want to have a good life you have to go to the city this is how it's been in the last 50-60 years this the government is trying to change all of us should support this moment towards developing villages if we need to forego a few things in the cities for some time we should and allow the villages to develop otherwise you will have all of them and coming to the city that's the biggest problem in Mumbai people are just coming in without any infrastructure they don't know where to be in most inhuman ways unfortunately they are existing because they just come in without any basis and the life that they go through the exploitation that they go through what happens to them is an untold story But Sadhguru, don't you think population explosion like the China was also facing a similar problem few years ago they have tackled it so well and with us... Don't say well, they have handled it because you should know in China they were burying live children second child born live children were just being buried in the hospitals when that video was taken and it went viral around the world they changed that to giving iodine injections to the brains of healthy children second child so you don't have the stomach nor the heart to do anything like that to China but do we have to control our population? Absolutely So at least there should be tax on the third child hmm? At least there should be tax on the third child because they are using roads and river water which you are trying to save and the oxygen from the trees which I am planting with many other people so at least two children should be okay but third one should have tax I don't say that because I am the fourth among the siblings tax sitting on my head definitely some incentives have to be done right now when I spoke about this a year ago a lot of controversy in the south we've been trying to bring this in the villages a year... a voluntary year of no conception all we need to do is see because our life expectancy has improved it's not because an explosion of reproduction has happened no that's not true it is our life expectancy is improving that means we took our death into our hands but we are not taking the birth into our hands we have see just about 50 years ago an average time when the first child happened to a young woman in this country was somewhere around 16 or 17 years of age it's moved to about 24 right now but we need to push this to 35 Sir these days the common discussion which is going on is again about the refugees and we being celebrities we get these questions asked and this is the most conflicting question ever because as a nation being a part of this country and knowing that so many of us don't even have access to food, education electricity absorbing more people into our population clearly isn't a good idea but denying those people seems even worse so what should be... again where does spirituality comes here and what happens to inclusiveness when such a thing happens You are picking on my yoga definitely No No, like I clearly know that this is the worst thing to do right now because they are coming in millions and millions and millions where our own are starving so it's like saying that I let my own child die but I saved the neighbour's one so I mean what sort of negotiation is that If that was the intent I would bow down to such people I will let my own child but I will save your child I will bow down to such people if they exist but that's not the thing we are trying to project our inefficiency as compassion, I don't like that we don't know how to man our borders but we are talking about compassion that's not the truth we just projecting our inefficiency as some kind of a great value there's no value to that so talking about influx of people from outside when somebody comes to the nation's door because they are violently persecuted somewhere we should treat it differently after all they are human beings but for economic well being people are daily porous borders people are going across here and there we need to do something about it if we don't do anything about it we will be stupid because you cannot run a nation without knowing how many people are who is in this country we cannot run a country like that first of all we must understand I am not for nationhood if you ask me it would be fantastic if we live as one world but we are no where near that possibility ok? we are no where near that possibility right now the best way to address humanity and the largest segment of humanity that you can address right now is a nation so nationhood is right now very important and a practical solution for humanity as a whole in the making of a nation one of the most basic ingredients is the sovereignty or the physical geographical peace that we call a nation in this there may be culture there may be language, there may be religion there may be everything else economics everything is secondary first and foremost thing is there is a piece of geography which we call as a nation now if you are talking about in I mean you are talking about India, Bangladesh well you know we became two nations or three nations we became two nations in 1947 we became three nations in 71 so some people think we can make ourselves into another four or five or six no I think we must stop this nonsense now because people who are talking this do not know the suffering that happened in 1947-48 there are still I am sure in this hall there are many people who parents walked across the border and came at one time what they have gone through, what they have left behind the sufferings and the pain and the nearly 600,000 people who died and about two to three million people who migrated from this side and that side in both sides of the border after 70 years second generation of people still are not settled many of them are still living like refugees when this has happened talking about one more partition is a stupid and the dumbest thing to do we should not talk about that now about the porous borders between India and Bangladesh well we have largely sealed India and Pakistan isn't it why because they are coming across with guns here they are just coming for livelihood so if they come we can always if people come to work we can give them work permits they can work here and go back when they want to they leave from Bengal are coming to south India working for two-three months and going back similarly they can also come and go you can have some kind of a loose structure but if you just allow people and give them ration cards and identity cards simply without any accounting this is going to be a disaster this will lead to all kinds of problems in future you cannot run a nation without knowing who is in this country if somebody wants to come come into this nation they must come through the front door they must ask for immigration and come through the front door we must have a system for that we must have a system for that how to how can people knock on the country's door and come inside not slip in from wherever they want and be wherever they want that's not going to work for nobody it's going to work we have to take steps on that it can work for a few politicians unfortunately unfortunately nations interests are being sacrificed for ambitions that is there in this country what to do but it still is a very conflicting thing because see if you want to be really inclusive we can make the two countries into one we can make Bangladesh into a union territory and make it a part of this country then everybody can go across like you come from Pondicherry or anywhere else like that you can go where you want are you ready for that if you're ready for that I think India is ready for that if you talk about inclusiveness that's the way to include isn't it not slipping into my house from the back door and saying include me it's not going to work now we'll move to your favorite topic what is that I didn't know you figured out all those things now we move to Shiva so so Shiva is what I got from reading about it and doing my practices and spending time with you Shiva is not somebody sitting up there and looking at all of us Shiva is a dimension it is what they say in science a black hole where nothingness seems to be the origin of universe where everything seems to be coming out of nothingness and being swallowed into nothingness that very nothingness is Shiva so anybody who excesses that dimension if you excess that you become Shiva if I tap into that I can become Shiva but ok tell me that so Adiyogi the very first yogi was somebody who who has excess to that dimension so why is it that you are obsessed with adiyogi isn't it like making it about the container and not the contained isn't it like that you only talk about adiyogi it's like adiyogi is the container till now I have not said a word about him you brought him no but you you've made the sculpture of adiyogi and you yeah it's only one and half years old but you're not checking what I was doing this 36 years let's come to that that's fine see about adiyogi is not an obsession or the adiyogi is a plan I should not no reveal it reveal it Mumbai is not the best place to reveal it but now that you asked so judgmental that's her next movie she's promoting it everybody must watch this mental and Manikarnika everything ok I am promoting it so that so you talked about nothing we must understand this is nothing English language has certain limitations on these aspects but we can because we are speaking that language if you want to understand nothing you must put a hyphen between no and thing it's not a thing that doesn't mean it does not exist this would have been a ridiculous statement for the western minds I'm saying western minds because all of us are western educated maybe we're living in India we've born in India grown up in India but we're all western educated for a western mind this would be a ridiculous idea decades or maybe three decades ago it would have been so but now science is talking about no things that means non-physical dimension of existence something that is not a thing but still a powerful force when I say something that's not a thing we are not talking about nuclear energy we are not talking about you know electrical energy or magnetism or anything simply nothingness is tremendously powerful today they are calling it you know black existence or dark existence or dark power or many things are being used so essentially you're talking about a dimension which is a source of something now this is something this is something everything here is something but this has come from all that we call as nothing because it's not a physical form a physical form in essence means a certain defined boundary you call this a physical body because this is a defined boundary if there is no defined boundary this cannot be physical so when we said yoga this union that you're inclusiveness you're poking at me is essentially that you transcended your physical nature so you are not a something anymore once you are not a something there is no defined boundary for you once there is no defined boundary for you union is the only way you can exist there is no other way to exist this is not just a concept this is a living experience this is the reality of the cosmos that if you look up in the sky even a little child looks up in the sky you will count stars maybe there are millions and billions of stars out there but still all the stars put together they do not occupy even one percent of the space out there isn't it but nobody pays attention to that space that is nothing so this 99% or more 99.9% is vast nothingness in this few specks of something but your attention is only there simply because your visual apparatus are made like that you are not able to grasp what is not there you only see whatever stops light in the sense you are able to see this hand simply because it is stopping light and reflecting so your ability to see is always limited to whatever stops light see right now we are sitting here our microphone, our light everything is important but the most important thing is the air that we are breathing for our existence right now but we cannot see it does it mean to say we can do without it so that which you cannot see that which you cannot touch that which you cannot perceive through five sense organs that is called a nothing or a nothing that's called she she means that which is not now if somebody begins to experience that as a living experience we refer to him also as Shiva but somebody who has not experienced it we refer to him also but not the people in this country at one time were named after Shiva that is all the men I am saying ladies were Shiva you know Shivangi, Shiva this, Shiva that or Parvati, Gauri this one that one why this was so is constant reminder that you need to look beyond what is there in front of you this physical form of being a man or a woman or this person I like this person I don't like beyond this when I call him Shiva I say I like him or dislike him when your name is Shiva you claimed already you are Shiva when your name is Shiva when I call you Shiva I cannot call Shiva angrily I cannot do something it's a kind of a control over yourself that you cannot abuse somebody you cannot say hey Shiva you are this and that you can only say Shiva so we created a culture like this where constant reminder wherever you look we even called our dog Shiva yes we never thought it's an insult because he's as much life as you are we called if you see a tree we say Shiva if you see a rock we say Shiva if you see a bird we say Shiva simply because the source of all that exists here as physical stuff essentially comes from that which is not a thing or no thing or Shiva so this is why this talk about third eye and people think their forehead is going to crack and something is going to pop out nothing like that these two eyes can show you only that which stops light the day you start seeing things which do not stop light then we say you have one more eye going you have an inner eye which is able to see something that these two eyes cannot see so third eye does not mean forehead cracking up and you becoming some kind of a freak-out this just that means your clarity has opened up that you are able to see beyond the limitations of senses so all the enlightened people who've been like I've heard about many like you know say Krishna or Muhammad or Ram or Christ Buddha you know all the enlightened people who've been on this planet there is some sort of mention of their birth or death but when it comes to Shiva like you say and I've read that he was self created and I often ask you this question that did he like disappear into thin air and apparently something like that happened he couldn't even have biological children with any of the women he was married to also he you can't blame him for the population I'm coming to something very important there is a theory I thought population was very no no no there is a theory that Shiva is alien till now you've been talking about inclusiveness and suddenly you call somebody an alien no Sadhu there is a theory I must tell you this every time I enter United States at the immigration I end up standing in that line which says resident alien I look around and see I'm the only one who fits the description Sadhu let me finish this question so there is this theory there is this theory that no that everything that humans encounter whether it's an idea it's a thought it's anything anything that they encounter it's been transmitted into them through an outer space an outer being my favorite director Christopher Nolan made this film Interstellar which is one of my favorite films where they are constantly referring to certain beings as they they are communicating they are talking to us they are doing this but they never really clarified who they were like were the aliens were the gods who they were and and and Sadhu like this this I think I felt it in like when when any creative idea comes to me it has absolutely no intellectual grounds where I can go back and track it down it's literally like a mail dropped in my head it seems like it's from outside space I know it's a confession but but but Sadhu is it that we are being operated by an external sort of outside beings is is it that people who have no faith in human intelligence are looking up that intelligence will come from somewhere else what we need to understand is say there are certain things which are very significant things in this country which unfortunately this present generation has completely forgotten or very few people are reminded and the rest of the world some places they recognize rest of the places it's not there what the thing is just this here we consider things like this for example in yoga we call you a spine the center of the universe we call it Meirudhanda that means it's the axis of the universe what is a universe please understand this today scientists are admitting it is an endless universe forever they said if you travel this many million light years you will reach the end of the universe but now they're admitting it's an endless universe forever we've been saying it's an ever expanding universe so we said your spine is the axis of the universe that sounds ridiculous even without putting most people's backs are hurting badly they can't even walk around or do anything if this becomes the axis of the universe what will happen why we're saying this is see you know there is a universe or you think there is a universe only by your experience isn't it so if you did not experience if you did not if you could not see this if you could not see like this and feel like this you wouldn't know there is a universe for your experience there is a universe and the center where your experience is being transmitted is through your spine if you cut a few wires in your spine you will have no experience even of the body forget about the universe so because your ability to experience the universe is rooted and centered in your spine we're calling your your spine as the axis of the universe suppose this hall see now we know the boundaries of this hall now we can debate whether this is the center of this hall or that is the center of this hall suppose there are no boundaries to this hall how would you decide which is the center of this hall where you are is the center of the hall isn't it from this basis we developed a whole possibility for a human being how not just to believe these things but to make it in your living experience it is from this word yoga came that the inclusiveness happens not because I tell you oh I love you you love me and all this stuff inclusiveness happens simply because you obliterate the boundaries of your individuality not because I love you you love me I hug you you hug me so because we are inclusive no all that will last for some time tomorrow if they do something that you don't like it will be finished but you obliterate the boundaries of your individual nature including your body that you know how to sit here without being identified with the boundaries of who you are your physical structure your mental structure your emotional structure has a boundary it may be large or small no I am not talking about body being large it may be large or small but it has a boundary but there are dimensions which have no boundary what doesn't have a boundary is non-physical in nature so our focus has always been on that dimension which is non-physical that is why Shiva became the most important thing because Shiva means that which is not that which is non-physical now is he the yogi that we are talking about is he a human being is he did he come from somewhere else there are many things this audience need to be primed for this because it is a long story you are asking I am trying to encapsulate in two minutes that is dangerous because it looks silly let me there is a book Arundhati is here you know we spoke together and she kind of put it together and there is a book on Adiyogi which is going into these aspects but let me put it across see there are things as you said parentage when you talk about Shiva there is no parentage there is no place of birth nobody saw him as a young boy to grow up all the time when we saw him he was about the same age and we don't know where he died such a significant human being even in those times if he died somewhere they must have built a temple they should have built some kind of a monument for him nothing like that happened so there is no birth there is no death there is no parentage there is no siblings there is no anything to prove that he was here does it mean to say we can assume he came from somewhere not necessarily but in many of the if you look at the lore it's very common to refer to Shiva as Aksha Swaroopa this means Akshas means always those those kind of beings which are not human but who supposed to have existed in the natural environment in this planet in the forests and other things whatever we were referring to some kind of beings or creatures or whatever you want to call them who are not human in nature so many many times in the lore you will see any number of songs and other things talking about Shiva as Aksha Swaroopa so there are many things which point but there is no specific proof that he came from elsewhere one thing is the level of intelligence in terms of his mathematics, his music and his geometry what he thought in terms of that when you look at it the times that we are referring to see in the yogic culture let me admit this in front of this crowd because oh my god there are cameras in the yogic lore it is estimated Shiva or Adiyogi existed and he walked this land somewhere between sixty to seventy-five thousand years ago when I first spoke this all the more sensible people around me who are not as naive as me their wiser people younger people they said if you say seventy-five thousand they will blast you the only archaeological proof that is there that Adiyogi or Shiva existed is about twelve thousand six hundred years you should say twelve thousand six hundred thirteen thousand or fourteen thousand I said okay fifteen thousand but actually in the yogic lore there is a clear aspect of they are talking about celestial arrangements these celestial arrangements if you go by the modern astronomy they existed only somewhere between sixty to eighty thousand years in that span there is no two ways about it the things that he is talking about and now of the Cambay what is it called what is the Indian name for that I am sorry Cumbert is it of the Gulf of Cumbert now they have done explorations they actually went there to clean up the plastic but then they found a city which is five square miles and now international archaeologists from Germany and France they have dated this according to carbon dating process that it is a minimum of thirty two thousand years thirty two thousand years ago nowhere on this planet did a city exist not just a city did not exist the idea of a city did not exist but they had a city which is five square miles in size properly orderly way of doing things it was it has gone under water for about nine thousand years and similarly of course everybody has heard about Dwarka there are there are excavations which unfortunately now is the line of control between India and Pakistan you can't touch it if you dig something else will happen you will hit the mines so there is enough proof today archaeological proof to say over thirty thousand years ago there was a civilized society here maybe not across the country but in pockets it existed so this dating goes back like this so I am just saying over fifteen thousand years so that when I travel west also I look sensible ok fifteen thousand alright seventy five thousand they resist because their idea of the world is only three thousand years old they said everything happened in six days and it is only three thousand years old anything beyond three thousand years like this has been the approach unfortunately now slowly they correcting themselves without looking stupid but it is utterly stupid for all the centuries you insisted it is only three thousand years now you are slowly extending it because science comes and says something else you will watch it in the next fifty years science will come and say modern science will come and say many things which we have been talking for thousands of years Sir the rule Einstein said time doesn't exist but we seem to somehow we are stuck in it and you say that space took a cyclic turn and that's how the we are stuck in time is it only our bodies or our mind I mean how is it exactly like See right now everybody is sitting here let's say we will make them sit here for next ten days just like this will this it no let's say we make them sit here for next three hours well the body will keep time if you forget also suppose they are very interested in what we are saying and they forgot time mentally the bladder will keep time it will tell you when it's three hours for sure isn't it your stomach will keep time it will tell you when you are hungry and when it's time so once you are as a physical being time is an essential factor of your life and you know in your experience time is a relative experience but in your body it is not so it is keeping time all the time because body is just a product of this planet and it keeps time right now what is your idea of time planet spins like this it's one day moon goes around that's one month sun that's one year all our ideas of time is only because of the cyclical movement of physical nature this is the nature of physicality physicality is always happening in cyclical moments whether it's an atom or the cosmos everything is in cyclical moments without this cyclical moment there is no physical existence this is what we refer to in the yogic culture as samsara samsara means that is going in cyclical moment that means it is traversing the same path again and again but makes you believe it is new all the time so if you have a very short memory you will see every time it comes you experience it as new and you are excited about it but if you have a very long vision of things then you see the same thing is happening the moment you see the same thing is happening you will want to change it isn't it it is from this context that everything that is going on whether it is physicality or liberation comes up because you see that you are stuck in the cycles of samsara the same thing is going round why is this happening because of our identity with physical nature because we are so identified with the physical self that we are now everything that we do also goes in cycles cycles means we are going round and round you know in English the term if I say you are going round and round so the word samsara has been misinterpreted and gone into use in variety of ways for example in Tamil if you say samsara it means wife she keeps you going round and round I don't know how that usage came but today in Tamil language if somebody says my samsaram you are supposed to understand it is his wife not his cyclical nature now my question is that do you think like you said in the scheme of thing and like in going round and round in this cosmos somebody like me I sometimes feel that the things that I want to do and the things that I feel for is it pompous of us to think that we can do something for others or maybe you know like the spirit of if you want to do something for others please be pompous as pompous as you want please do something because a lot needs to be done in this country okay okay fine almost second last question that's good isn't it I am telling you to be pompous okay fine I love being pompous anyway so I personally have read a lot of books about spirituality and I have been following Swami Vivekananda from the age of 17 and I never really felt the need of a guru until I was faced with mortality I lost a friend at the age of 25 and since then I just feel that everything that I have done in my life or every situation I have been into and I have walked into I have always held my head very high and I have always been prepared for it as much as I could and I just can't wrap my head around it and when I read your book I didn't instantly feel that I would be seeing this day and I felt okay fine I have read Buddha I have read like you are one of those enlightened people yeah sure no I wasn't impressed let me tell you but then I read but then I read more than a life and there is the mention of this yogi Swami Nirmananda who waited for you all his life and and apparently you were supposed to guide him to Mahasamadhi now Mahasamadhi is something that I have only heard of in stories and in myths and all of that like where you willingly walk out of your body because you think that's the best thing to do at that point of time now that seems too fantastic and I mean looking at our societies that Euthanasia has been being legal now and the kind of resistance like when your wife heard about the process she showed extreme desire to adapt to that and she acquired Mahasamadhi in the middle of thousands of people it's written elaborately in the book and Nirmananda was opposed by the government you know he was not allowed to be able to take Mahasamadhi yeah because apparently they were like you can't take Mahasamadhi and so I mean don't you think like we as people we have stopped to discuss death because shouldn't we be prepared for that day and when I got to know that you I mean I mean since then I realized maybe you can help me if something I'm not saying now but someday but when the time comes don't you think I should be ready for it I should be dressed like this and be like hey come let's go what do you mean come who has to come with you whoever comes at that point of time so why is it pushed under the carpet why don't we talk about death under the carpet it's just that that's why I said all of us we may call ourselves Indian but our minds largely have become western because our education is like that and we you just you do one thing in Mumbai you go and just look at people below their knees you will see at least 45% of the people are wearing only blue denims okay I'm not against it I lived in it at one time for almost seven years eight years I wore nothing else but blue denims it was like a philosophy not just a clothing so today that number has increased in a big way it's American working workman's clothes it's spread around the world and because workmen wore clothes which were because of work it wore out you know our pants would wear out riding motorcycles it would wear out we would put a leather patch and this and that but now people are buying pants which are torn alright paying more for the tear you also so why I'm saying this is because of this this imposition is not small it's taken a huge footprint in everybody's mind in this culture we talked about samadhi it's a very commonly used word but unfortunately people think samadhi means it's a gravestone no samadhi means sama and di sama means equanimous di means buddhi if you're buddhi or your intellect becomes equanimous when we say equanimity we need to understand this the reason why you're using your intellect so extensively is because you've been trained to discriminate between this and this between everything and everything and we create intellect is the thing which creates division between everything for us to function physically in this world I must know here which is me and which is you I must know here what is a chair and what is a floor otherwise I won't know how to operate so for practical purposes life essentially for our survival intellect is a paramount importance no question about that but this discriminatory dimension if I ask you I will leave her alone okay I will ask you suppose there is a choice between having a sharp intellect and a dull or blunt intellect what is your choice you must choose I'm going to bless you right now sharp so essentially intellect is a cutting instrument it's a knife the sharper it is the better it is it cuts everything why is cutting important see what is the nature of science that we learn today if you went to a biology class for sure if you did not cut a frog or a cockroach at least a flower you opened up if you open up this flower you will understand so many things about the structure of the flower how it functions everything but you will not experience the flower because by the time you're done with it it's finished so if I want to know you I think I must dissect you I have come with my scalpel you think by dissecting you I will know you by including you I will know you by embracing you I may know you but by dissecting you I will not know you isn't it so when in when you the only instrument you have is a knife and with that you try to do everything I must tell you this that was a time when I crisscrossed India on my motorcycle it seems very Boman Irani is here they're bringing back Java once again into the country I believe where I rode probably the SD motorcycles like nobody I was doing around fifty-five to sixty thousand kilometers every calendar year just riding across the country without purpose so at that time I was I don't know whether I was in Madhya Pradesh or I was in UP the whole night I've been riding early morning I come to a place and I want to have some tea and rest for some time then you know I always fix my motorcycle on the street by myself but the I thought I saw a garage it was named handwritten Mubarak mechanical works I looked at Mubarak mechanical works and whole night I've been riding I didn't want to dirty my hands now it was a simple thing I had to just tighten the chain just take off one link and tighten the chain that's all I had to do I thought this guy can do it so this young very enthusiastic mechanic came out and I said why don't you just take off one link and tighten my motorcycle chain then he came out then I saw the only two tools that he had in his hand was a chisel and a hammer then I said wait then I walked into his little shack of a mechanic shop and looked inside there was no other tools only one hammer and one chisel with this he does everything with this machine nobody else can work on it anymore I said okay Mubarak you don't touch my motorcycle like this so right now a whole humanity has become like this the only instrument they have is a knife with this knife they cut it's an efficient tool for cutting now you want to stitch your clothes you stitch with a knife this is what has happened to the denim if you do everything with a knife everything will be in tattoos and it's horrible isn't it that's all that's happening to us we are trying to handle everything with one dimension of intelligence that we call as intellect there are other dimensions of intelligence within us which is completely unexplored so samadhi means to get your intellect to a state of equanimity so that it does not interfere in your perception of what really is right now the only thing that's interfering in your life is your thought process isn't it so if I ask you to sit and meditate right now you think somebody next to you is going to poke you no they are fine it's your own mind isn't it people say they're depressed people say they're agitated somebody is manic somebody is angry somebody is miserable no no all this is not happening the only thing that's happening is your intelligence has turned against you you're not getting it you think you're suffering because of something no your intelligence has turned against you and nothing else you have a knife and you don't know how to handle it if you have a knife and you don't know how to handle it you'll cut yourself up do you need any assistant from outside to make yourself miserable you're very efficient aren't you if you're alone and you're miserable obviously you're in bad company I said so this is only because see we don't give a knife to a child's hand not because knife is dangerous simply because a child's hand is not steady he could hurt himself or hurt somebody that's what the whole humanity is doing and they're evolving philosophies after philosophies and talking about life endlessly with one instrument of intelligence called intellect this is the buddhi samadhi means you brought it to an equanimity where it doesn't interfere with your perception of life so we identify eight dimensions of samadhi the first four are called savitharka that means they have qualities of experience there are different dimensions of experience the next four are called nirvitharka there is no experience as such but there is a certain different dimension of awareness in this mahasamadhi is considered the highest because your equanimity got to such a place where there is no distinction between there is absolutely no identification between what is you and what is your body because what you call as my body is a piece of this planet that you gathered, isn't it? either you realize that today or one day when they bury you you will get the point anyway you get it from me or you get it from the maggots it's up to you, mystic or maggots it's your choice but you will get it one day if you get it today if you genuinely understand this whole thing that I think is myself is what I have gathered from this planet and put it here like this what I have in the form of my intellect every little bit of data is something that you gathered from outside, isn't it? what you gathered from outside can be yours cannot be you now there are instances people, ministers and various other politicians if you give them a government accommodation after their term is over they will vacate but there are many of them see we only hear about those who don't vacate but there are many of them when their term is over very gracefully they will vacate they are not news unfortunately actually we must publish news about them but nobody talks about all those people who exit their residences quietly without any fuss we only print news about those idiots who refuse to vacate a government accommodation that's given to them because of the work they were doing once the work is over you must go, isn't it? in a way this is also the house that you live in was built from the earth that you dig up this also is just the same this is your residence you built it up when it's time if you can gracefully exit without anybody pushing you out when I say anybody nobody need to kill you no disease need to come nationalism need to invade your body by yourself you gracefully exited because you understand it's time for you then we say this is mahasamadhi that means absolute equanimity has come to you this is not new in this country in every generation we have seen hundreds of people we've talked about nirmala nanda I must tell you about nirmala nanda like I was probably just around 20 or 21 years of age I'm living wild I largely either I am on the motorcycle or I'm in the jungle sleeping in upon trees and existing myself surviving in the jungle all by myself it's one of those days where about I've been in the biligirurangan which is a very fantastic forest you must see that it's full of wildlife I am staying in the jungle for about four days and it's rainy season I usually don't have any arrangement you know all I have is motorcycle and gas that's it so I survive in the jungle I know how to survive but being rainy season I've become very hungry almost for nearly 32 hours I've not eaten anything and I'm head to toe in mud because it's raining wherever I sit down and get up I've become all mud then I came up the hill on my motorcycle there were no restaurants there were no nothing at that time this one temple and the temple was closed there was no food anywhere then I saw this little ashram four acre ashram then I rode in those are times even in college I never got off the motorcycle even to first floor I went on my motorcycle okay in our house going into the house coming out of the house we always went in the motorcycle and came out of the motorcycle steps and everything so I rode up and there were about six, seven steps to go to his little hermitage that was there I rode up that and I'm explaining this simply to make you understand how wacky the mind is always our motorcycle will never have a stand okay it will not have a stand it will not have a battery it will not have many things which we think is extra weight we've made it minimal so I go and park the motorcycle leaning on his cottage like this and I get down and I'm wearing ankle length boots full of mud from head to toe I take off my helmet and look at him he just looks at me like this and laughs and laughs and tears start coming in his eyes I say what's wrong with the old man he's like in his 70s I'm 21 or so then I said I need to eat I'm extremely hungry I was ready to eat him then he did something that I could never do never in my life I had bowed down to anybody forget about that I have never been to a temple I have not done this even in front of God my mother says hold it like this no I'll stand like this I won't do this I'm confirmed whatever so this man comes and falls at my feet and my muddy boots he holds it in his hands and weeps I just kind of you know it just shook me because this is a 70 year old man then I said no what are you doing I just need to eat I don't need this then he took me inside and he tried to unlace my boots I said don't do that and I put my boots outside and went inside and sat he baked some bread he had nothing else he bakes his own bread he baked bread and he gave me a jar of honey so I ate it up and then we started talking then whenever I went that way because I saw that he had nothing much at all I would take him a bunch of bananas or some apples or whatever fruits that were there and he always gave me a can of honey to carry back so this became a quiet because he was not speaking he was for 14 years on silence so he will only write so I will speak and he will write it became a relationship over a number of years then this is 96 it was a big controversy where that's what I'm saying it was everywhere on the TV where he was all his life he worked towards wanting to get mahasamadhi and when he found you and you told him the techniques and when he was about to get there apparently the government got involved and like you cannot do that in 1996 in 1996 he announced I am 74 years of age right now I don't want to die as a rogui I want to die as a yogi so when the Uttarayana comes that is after this winter solstice happens I will leave my body he announced in the month of April or May and media got to know no media later media came then at that time I was there and he told me this and we discussed a few things and my wife Viji and my daughter were sitting there and we went to do all kinds of details which we never speak about so when this was over he was all very emotional about it and then we were driving back then I saw my wife was weeping I said why she said I also want to live like that I was joking with her okay when are you going to leave but then she said no I am very serious I want to I want to go like him what he was saying was fantastic and what you were explaining to him that's how I want to live I said why do you want to leave because twelve years of marriage we've been travelling travelling travelling people have been absolutely wonderful to us everywhere but there is no home as such we are always on the move so just then we were building a small place to live I said just now we are getting a home after twelve years and the girl was only seven years of age I said why now she said right now everything within me is wonderful everything around me is just the way I want it this is the time I want to leave I don't want to leave when things are wrong I don't want to leave when I am not well or something is not well I just thought because she was she was not she was she was intense either she is at the peak of joy or at the dumps she doesn't know in between she would hit the peak or she would go down but she never knew the in between and she is not a great practitioner of yoga something she was keeping her normal practice but nothing much only thing is she was intense person there was no moment of dullness with her she was always intense so she took up the sadhana so intensely from the month of August it started and she started announcing to everybody in the month of February I will leave I said why are you talking about this rubbish people will make a joke out of you she said no I am living in February and she started telling the girl I said please don't disturb the girl what would she think, seven year old girl but she brought the girl to that level of understanding the girl's birthday is in March this is in January then we went to see Nirmala another for the last time he wrote a letter to me saying that this is the last letter he was writing everyday hundred letters to people all over the world that's his only communication so he wrote one letter to me saying this is my last letter and so we went to see him he left on January 8th or 10th I don't remember but there was a lot of resistance for that when he said he will leave on this date the so called rationalists got the mood the quote imagine the very day which you are preparing for so many years the rationalists moved the quote and posted police in the ashram this man I want to tell you how he lived he has a small ganapati temple if he wants to do puja he will wait for the flowers to fall down from the tree he will not pluck he doesn't want to hurt the tree only if the flowers fall down he will take that and worship otherwise he will not do that worship if he leaves he will take an offer to the god that he believes in this is the kind of man they put police there so when I went there end of December with a group of our people you know about 100-200 people we went there to see him because we knew it's the last part of his life he was still fit and well he just cried he said see they put police two constables were sitting there he said they put police to watch me I said you don't worry what's your problem they are just two people sitting there you don't look at their uniform they put them alone you just focus on what you have to do but he was deeply disturbed he said how can they put police watching me am I a thief why are they putting police on me I mean the very thing he should be respected for and these kind of say in this culture such a man would be worshipped but unfortunately in today's India police but the very fact that he was healthy why one has to drag to death death is what I don't understand like euthanasia these people they will like the ones who are fighting for it to not be passed they will even snatch your you know food but they definitely have no love for somebody's life but they are scared of death that is for sure the culture has become in such a way that we are in a denial of death but you must understand this the only reason why somebody turns spiritually is when they realize they are mortal if you are immortal spiritual process would be meaningless by thinking about God you will not become spiritual you will become fanciful you will become unrealistic you think there are shortcuts to life by believing in God but the moment you see that you are mortal then you naturally want to know what is beyond this body what is the nature of my existence these questions are very natural when you understand that you are mortal so in this culture we have never hidden mortality always death happened in open you know when somebody is dying in your house they will keep him outside so that everybody can see how he dies so this is the thing that people will watch whether he dies gracefully whether he vacates his residence gracefully or he needs to be pushed out this was very very important unfortunately we have lost that we need to understand this whatever we may be doing doesn't matter what you are doing you are making movies I do something else somebody runs a state it doesn't matter what we are doing we are mortal this is the fundamental reality of our existence if we forget this one thing only by forgetting this one thing we start doing idiotic things on this planet we have done all these idiotic things simply because today we have to talk about saving rivers saving mountains nonsense this is all utter nonsense to me saving a river saving the forest this is simply because we think we are immortal we may not be actually thinking so but we are not conscious of our mortality if we understood that our stay here is just a brief amount of time we have just beaten carriers from previous generation to the next generation we are temporary occupants of this planet if this awareness was there within us every day of our life we would live completely differently it's very very important to be conscious of one's mortality so one good thing is that Nirmal Nanda finally acquired Mahasamadhi and so did your wife which is the saving grace of the whole episode ok so my last question is about our youth apparently the statistics say that every one hour actually less than an hour a young person below twenty five is committing suicide why is that I mean there's a time to die and you can utilize Mahasamadhi for that but why die before twenty five suicide is not a pleasant thing not at all a pleasant thing because for a human being to make see when somebody dies commit suicide we are just thinking ok he committed suicide it's not like that you must look at what psychologically that person goes through to come to that decision it's the most horrible part of one's life where somewhere they feel so trapped either by physical situations financial situations or emotional situations so absolutely trapped when there is no other way this is when they take that kind of violent exit which we call a suicide and if we if someone tries to kill somebody that somebody has some defense they can fight they can run they can protect themselves some resistance is possible but when you start hurting this one this is the most helpless life and it is the worst kind of torture that you can do is to torture this one because this is an absolutely helpless life with yourself isn't it? somebody else has some defenses so suicide need not be seen in terms of statistics one hour they are dying even if one person commits suicide it's a human concern it must be a concern for the whole humanity why is this happening you must understand in this country in 2017 7600 children below fifteen years of age have committed suicide below fifteen years of age when they must be bursting with life and wanting to live below fifteen years of age if they want to commit suicide what is it we are somewhere driving ourselves to a certain desperation one big cause for all this is education system unfortunately it's a schooling system which is killing people because if you get 98 you are no good you know people will ask you so apart from this there are various other things economic things are there emotional things are there various kinds of things for a human being essentially simply because there is no clarity about life in some way see youth means it's life in making youth the most significant aspect of youth is they are full of energy it's a huge amount of energy when I say energy after all our life is a combination of a certain amount of energy and a certain amount of time isn't it time is sticking away for all of us at the same pace it's going away if you sit here it goes away if you stand it goes away if you run it goes away if you don't do anything it goes away if you sleep also it goes away time is rolling for all of us it's only energy we can manage if you organize our energies in a certain way what somebody does in a hundred years you could do in ten years it is just organization of one's energies so youth means an exuberant energy but most of the time the problem with the youth is they don't have the necessary clarity nor balance if only if you could bring ten percent more clarity and ten percent more balance in their life than the way they are right now this energy would translate into something fantastic because if you if individual genius has to unfold the most important thing is there is balance and clarity so as a part of this we are just about on the threshold of this we are launching a campaign called Youth and Truth in the month of September we are doing events across the country in various universities more than that the idea is to communicate to the youth of this nation and the world that there is a way to bring clarity to your life you have energy if you bring clarity and balance you could be a wonderful life worldly on fantastic you can be but if you have energy and you don't have the necessary balance and clarity you could become a disaster right here both for yourself and the world as such so we will be a part of doing this and we expect you and all your friends in the in the industry and in the media please be a part of it because this is one thing we need to do because as a nation we are talking about our demographic dividend where 50% of our population is below 30 years of age which is a unique situation and it's a fantastic situation only if we give the necessary clarity and balance and competence to our youth otherwise we can be a major disaster such a large youthful population without necessary clarity without competence, without balance they could be the biggest disaster on the planet but if we organize this well we could be the greatest miracle in the world so we are making this effort and I am putting one full month of my time travelling across the country speaking in various universities and causing a buzz about this among the youth speaking a very youthful language you will see a very different situation because I will dress differently speak differently do everything differently with them because I am very youthful so my message to all the youth who are going to participate in this you can ask Sadhguru all kind of questions about monthly cycles about sex, drugs all the scandalous questions which... they know all those things no they don't they are being a victim of drug overdose there are so many, you know drugs has become a big epidemic especially in schools and colleges so guys I look forward to those conversations and ask exciting questions this is being pitched as youth and truth unplugged with Sadhguru ask whatever you want ask whatever you want nothing is a taboo yeah so how much time do we have for questions? please Namaskaram Sadhguru I would like to bow down with all my knowledge and all my ignorance if you can hold the microphone it's quite safe you can hold it close to you isn't it okay? yeah so first of all I would like to bow down with all my knowledge and all my ignorance like I can't tell you how much you mean to me so my question is very simple wherever I go to more watch a movie I'm given a place and I can see the screen in front of me hear the voice coming from somewhere and I can understand where I am but when it comes to my life I don't know where I see things where I hear things every night when I go off to sleep I don't know where I vanish where I come back from something within me seeing me pass by all that experiences that I have I have in my life I have been seeing it but I can't figure out where I am it's I can't understand what's happening I can see everything I can feel everything whenever my hands get burnt I understand this feeling but I don't understand where it happens whenever I do my practices I see I can't figure out where I am Matrix you're in Matrix like all of us he said you're making bad movies he said that not me because he said when I sit in the movie I know it's just a movie no no you must get lost in the movie you must think it's life for some time that's when a movie he's making comments on you not me so about you not knowing where you are well if you're thinking of where in terms of geography nobody knows where they are in this cosmos that is the beauty of this a tiny little blob of a planet in this limitless cosmos is floating around and here we sit and talk all this stuff isn't it fantastic isn't it a miracle you and me sit here and talk all these things and we don't know where we are if you don't know where you are it's not a problem it's a geographical issue and there's no issue about it it's perfectly fine but you should know what is the nature of your existence this is very important if you do not know what is the nature of your existence you can never ever conduct yourself properly you may be socially well conducted in a given society but as a life you will never conduct yourself properly if you do not know the nature of your existence this is what this entire culture invested in called realization or self-realization that you must first know the nature of this life otherwise how will you conduct it if you do not know the nature of what you're handling how will you handle it well how can you handle it well so where you are I don't want to give you a GPS location that works only on this planet there's no GPS cosmic positioning system doesn't exist yet okay so let's focus on knowing what is the nature of my existence that will sort out a whole lot of things you've taken the whole time it's 9 o'clock really? there was long conversation hello my question is that we often tend to attract patterns in our life the pattern can be good or bad it can be abusive relationships it can be successes it can be failures so how to break away from a negative pattern and attract a positive one and my second question is let's handle one at a time she's asking you no she's definitely not asking me I have the same question in my life okay this is the last question we answer yes so when we say we have patterns this is what we said in a certain way there is a cyclical moment to everything our psychological and emotional processes also have become cyclical largely because of a very, a very strong attachment and involvement with the physical process and physical process has to be cyclical only then we exist without cyclical moment there will be no physical existence if you do just on the side if you want some entertainment you want to know what is the yogic dooms day what is the yogic? yogic dooms day dooms day yeah in yoga they calculated some 3200 years ago, 3200 years ago they made a calculation and said every, every year this is a fact every year the moon is moving away from the planet approximately about 32 millimeters this is nearly one and a half inch the, the orbit of the moon is going away from the planet so they made a calculation and said in 28,000 years the moon will go so far that its impact on the planet will become minimal when that happens the human women will lose their menstrual cycles once that happens human race will just peter out you don't need a bomb, you don't need a flood you don't need something our ability to reproduce will go away and slowly we quietly peter out having said that our physical existence here is only because of the cycles various levels of cycles going on within us, isn't it? so if you attach your psychological process too much with your physicality your psychological process also becomes cyclical and in this your karmic process also becomes cyclical so your life starts running in cycles you cannot avoid the cycles absolutely the longest cycle that can run in your life is twelve and a quarter years because that is the cycle of the sun the sun cycles happen in twelve and a quarter years moon cycle happen in twenty-eight days our physical existence is based in the moon cycles because unless our mother's bodies were in sync with the cycles of the moon we wouldn't be born so our physical existence is a short cycle but other dimensions of our existence is a longer cycle let us say your life became a six-year cycle then you will be still fine, you will be productive but once in a way you will freak on somebody do this and that but you will be still doing things successfully let us say your cycle became three years then you will see you will be still doing reasonably well but volatile one dimension of your life will be doing well whatever you are competent with the rest will be a mess it will be going like this if it becomes let's say eighteen month cycle then you will see everyday waking up in the morning is a problem so many things will happen nobody need to bother you everybody leaves you alone still you will torture yourself in many many different ways let's say your cycle becomes nine months once you come below nine months cycle then you are serious trouble if it becomes three months you are out you must be in asylum you shouldn't be out I'm sorry, the next movie if you get less than three months then your physical existence itself is coming to an end it will not go beyond that how to watch these cycles if you want to watch patterns don't watch patterns in terms of what happens around you you must learn to observe the system there are clear cut cycles happening it's very important that you do the necessary sadhana to bring this cycle to the longest possible cycle within the human body is twelve and a quarter year cycle if you keep your cycle at that level you will see you will be very well balanced you will be successful with your life you will handle your life effortlessly and no matter what happens around you everything works for you simply because you are in sync because you must understand your existence is not independent of the sources which create you here every moment of your life everything that you do the plant life, animal life and your life is all solar powered only if you are in sync with that fundamental energy you will run with certain ease once as you start getting away from that cycle you will see life becomes more and more of a struggle if it drops below three years I would say you will not live a fruitful life you will live a very fitful life it's like in spurts you may do well here and there but generally life becomes struggle instead of trying to settle all these external situations which nobody can settle okay you live long enough to know you cannot settle all the situations in our lives but if you settle this one thing bring it to the right kind of cyclical process you will see everything falls into place for you whatever may be happening whatever the people's intention may be about you still that will also work out for your well-being simply because you are in sync with the fundamental nature of your existence here and that's very important thank you very much Thank you Thank you, Sadhguru Thank you, Kangana I think it was a session that was as engaging as we all thought it would be and on behalf of Visha we'd like to offer a small token of gratitude to Kangana Thank you very much for being here


My wife and I are both graduate students and we have a one-year-old son and so juggling that with all of our other commitments and including that tech's priority has been very difficult and keeping our sanity throughout graduate school and with all that graduate school entails has been difficult at times and particularly in our first semester as we are getting used to the demands of being a graduate student all the time commitments etc and for us it's really meant taking the time setting time aside to make sure we spend time with our son. I think the most important thing for students with families to know is that it's so important to develop a network of other student parents that understand what you're going through and that way you can also learn about all the resources that Ann Arbor has to offer. I don't think that there is any one person who can get a handle on the number of resources there are in this area and so what that network allows you to do is to train information back and forth. As with a lot of things the University of Michigan has a lot of great resources and one of those is the work life resource center and they have extensive child care resources they have a database of licensed centers within Ann Arbor and that's how we found ours we we were really lucky we wanted to have a kind of intimate family sort of oriented place so we found a really wonderful at-home daycare that's run by a three-generation family and we really lucked out and we love our daycare. The University has a child care subsidy that they offer to student parents to help with child care cost the health insurance for students is awesome. I had my second child who is now 17 months old I had her for $10 based on the student health insurance and so if you have if you've had any children before you know that that is extraordinarily cheap. I'd say if you don't have a hobby get a hobby I I've spent a lot of time relaxing by cooking and then also developing my photography skills and that's been a lot of fun with a kid of course having a child it gives you a lot of opportunities to have that hobby and so just really develop a hobby if you don't have one. As a parent it's so important to develop relationships with other student parents and as well as other parents in the community because that allows you that allows you to gain the support and understanding that you need to make it through as a student parent because not everybody understands that situation. When you have those networks of parents what that allows you to do is to rely on each other and so I still use the same networks of women that I met when I first came here and we watch each other's children sometimes I take all the children and while somebody else gets a break so it really is helpful in helping you make it through even if you don't have family or biological family here while you're doing your program.