So, from gender we are moving on to other kinds of diversity issues basically but diversity what we mean is there are differences and India is one of the most diverse countries in the world in terms of language and religion and region ethnicity and so on. But difference can also mean inequality between people who are different intolerance of those who are different from us. So as I mentioned in the beginning diversity is seen as a strength. The more diverse a workplace is the more backgrounds people come from and the more ideas can emerge which contributes to efficiency, innovation and all of those kind of things. And these days because many of us specially people with higher education work in globalized workplaces you are interacting with people from many different countries also. So many countries I have a very long list which I have not shown here of companies in India and abroad actually give you some of these kind of training when you join as an organization. So it is very important that these are included in fact in placement interviews also some of these companies actually test you to find out whether you are tolerant to this diversity or you are intolerant. And like in the case of gender there are certain kinds of words that have come into usage which we thought is okay to use but these days they are considered to be insensitive. For example even dictionaries now give you a list of these terms which once upon a time were regarded as acceptable. So this is just an example of how CEOs of some large companies are talking about how diversity is very good and therefore communication should recognize this diversity and not use terms which can be insulting or hurtful unconsciously. How can it happen? We will look at that. More than gender in the case of race or ethnicity, skin color, national origin and so on, the acceptable words keep changing over a period of time. So that makes our job much more difficult. So a term like black to refer to people of African American origin was used some time back. It is now considered to be more appropriate to use African American or Afro American. A term like negro is actually a criminal criminalize now. If you use the word negro in US you can be jailed. They are considered to be highly insulting. So you have it is our responsibility to find out acceptable terms and use them so that we unconsciously do not make mistakes and offend others workplace both in written and oral communication as well as in the use of pictures. Most of you will see in those Benetton advertisement which show people from different parts of the world. That is the kind of goal we aim for to show people from different backgrounds. So just few examples where certain kinds of terms used to be used quite a lot but now we avoid them. Generally adding the word people after a term indicates respect for them. If you just make a word into a plural by adding the s that is considered to be disrespectful. Whereas if you say original people, indigenous people, tribal people that is considered as giving respect to people of a certain cultural background. Like in the case of gender, we should not draw attention to their background unless it is necessary. These are some examples. So Bengals are intellectual, Rastafas are not. Likewise entrepreneurs can come from any community. These are examples of people who are minorities who have historically been marginalized. So if you are referring to a particular person as brilliant, it is again a backhanded kind of compliment that rest of the people are still backward, this person is brilliant. So avoid mentioning their plural background unless you are specifically interested otherwise do not bring it in. In India, this is the term that is currently used by the people themselves. Gandhi used the term Hygiene, then there was this term untouchable. So there are certain terms that people prefer themselves like Dalit, so constitutional term, a legal term like schedule caste and schedule tribe. So again search, just speaking, we are supposed to avoid reducing anybody to an abbreviation. So in written communication you can say put it like this in brackets and then you can use SCST. In spoken, we are not supposed to say SCST though we do that all the time because reducing anybody to an acronym abbreviation is considered to be disrespectful, you have to use the full form. So this particular term came into usage in the 70s in San Uttar Pradesh and in Hindi Bhima also means to be sick. So in IITs, the number one state which sends students is from Bihar. If you look at IIS, very significant number comes from Bihar. So these are which have to be avoided because they are being a particular state or a set of states and you can see it is actually used in certain kinds of academic research as well. In fact the government itself has come up with a new term for these four states which is called as EAG, Empower Action Group states because there are special provisions to get rid of economic problems in these states. So these things or a term like pariah refer to untouchables in India. This article has nothing to do with caste, it is about finance but using such terms may cause insult to some people who are from those backgrounds. So better to avoid those terms and use more technical bringing in these words. Again world development is a very top journal where this kind of thing appears. Another thing is from avoiding insensitive words, we should also avoid generalization and vagueness. So there are hundreds and hundreds of articles in economics on this Asian crisis which happened in 1990s. A lot of Indian economists and politicians and bureaucrats feel very offended by it because that Asian crisis did not affect India because we followed some correct economic policies unlike Thailand and China and all those Southeast Asian countries. So instead of giving credit to us all Asians are being clubbed together by using the term Asian crisis even though Indian economists were aware of what kind of problems can emerge and went about the reform process slowly. So it is an example of vagueness of ambiguity. So precision is something we require in scientific communication and these are examples of imprecise usage of places and regions. Age is an area where we need to be sensitive. So with more medicines, increased standard of living, better access to food and so on, more people are living longer lives now. So people who are older also live very active lives. The people are also sensitive. There will be informal usage where we are also insensitive. But younger people may be mature, older people may be wise. So informal usage, we use some of these insensitive references to older and younger people. We should ensure they do not come into our official communication. So these are words which have to be completely avoided, disrespectful. Like in the case of tribal people, just adding a definite article D before referring to older people gives them respect or putting the word person or people after referring to their age gives them respect. So make sure they do not come, I will give you a couple of examples. You can see here in this example among elderly people that is giving respect. This is about risk of falling. This is about hip fractures in the elderly. This is our atrial fibrillation, major contribution to stroke. This is a medical journal in the elderly. So while referring to older people, so the world is becoming more diverse with now. Sure we are sensitive to age issues. Finally we come to disability. But disability is a big issue, a lot of people with physical disabilities who are there in the world, who are there in our workplaces, how do you refer to people with disability? Fundamental rule here is to emphasize the person rather than the disability. So this is an example. This person is on a wheelchair, but this person is disabled not because of the disability but because of this staircase. There was a ramp here, this person's disability would be less. So disability is not only a function of our physical disability, it is also a function of the external environment. And these days technology is so advanced, they can make a lot of us with disability live more full lives. Just look at somebody like Stephen Hawking, the physicist who does so many things in spite of being. So we should not use words like physically handicapped or physically disabled. So differently able is used but we avoid them because ridicule them because they make fun of it. What is different about you? Why so special? So differently able can be used but again our idea here is to stick to the facts. Be precise, be clear, refer to the actual situation. So we are referring to a person with disability. Different can be different grades of difference, difference in what way and what context. We do not want to go into all that. Person with a disability is simple. PWD is person. That is why now in most government communication they have changed PD to PWD. Physically disabled is not used, person with disability is used now. In IIT forms also you will see that. These are examples from some academic publications. So you can see this one, this is the wrong one because after the disability. Here also people is coming after whereas here people is coming before disability. This is the correct way. These two are the wrong ones. This is from an engineering science and education journal. So robotics and its role in helping disabled people that is the old usage. Not acceptable now. This is not acceptable. This is acceptable. Children. Children. Autism is a mental illness. So you are saying children with autism instead of saying autistic children. So in general like you do, we would like you in your education, oral and written to also have some kind of a checklist and ensure that you meet all these gender and diversity criteria in your communication also. Let us just do a few self-assessments.  A friend tells you what do you do, any of you would do the first one, hopefully nobody. Second one? Absolutely nobody. How many of you do this? Most of us, isn't it? Somebody tells us a racist or sexist joke, some of us may laugh in private but most of us do nothing. C is what most of us do. What we should be doing is D. Which one of these is unacceptable? First one is acceptable? Second one. So these two sentences, why are they unacceptable? Because of A or B, A, not B, both, isn't it? So these are three titles of articles that I have given here, high and low technology approaches in the development of communication systems, machines as the measure of men, mortality and morbidity results from this one. The first one, is it correct or inappropriate? Second one, third one, appropriate. So you can design these kinds of quizzes with your own examples. Just go to Google and you can search for articles and then you can ask the students to explain why it is correct or wrong and then give the correct version. That's the way they learn how to incorporate these gender and diversity issues in their communication. These are the kind of assignments that you can think of. Why is this acceptable? So as we have seen in our own discussions, some of us, we all have different opinions on this. So why do they consider it important in research communication or how can we better address these things in these STEM subjects? So ask people themselves to reflect on these issues. So instead of us telling how to do this, asking people themselves to think about more aware of the importance of these kind of issues.


Through the mystic eye, eminent personalities from various walks of life in conversation with Sadguru. In this week's episode, Sadguru and Shekhar Kapoor globally recognized film director, media visionary and proponent on the future of new media, walk through the making of a space dedicated entirely to the divine feminine. Explaining the need for the feminine in today's society, Sadguru speaks of the phenomenon of consecrating energy forms and the dynamic forms of goddesses present in this culture. Watch as he takes us through the unique process of designing an appropriate structure suitable for a devi. I'm very fascinated by what you… because there's a lot of construction going on here. It's almost like, you know… The whole humanity is in construction. Okay, all right, I'll buy that. I'll buy that. So, Sadguru, this is a temple that… I know you told me that it will last thousands of years and it's a feminine temple. It's a temple devoted to the female aspect, not only of us but the whole existence, the feminine aspect of existence. So, tell me about this. This is not man-woman, what is it? What is feminine? What is masculine? So, you need to understand this. Human understanding comes from a certain perception, a limited perception. When I say limited perception, right now your whole perception comes through your sense perception. Sense organs perceive something only if there is something to compare with, for example, right now. You know silence only because there is sound and you know sound only because there's silence, isn't it? See, right now if I show you this part of my hand, you can only see this, you cannot see this. If I show you this, you can only see this.  So, the moment you perceive through sense organs, you already divided the existence. So, because of the division, your mind also thinks in divisions. Because without divisions you cannot perceive, without two there is no logic, so you need two. So, these two fundamental principles, because we are human, we are a species, with man, woman, masculine, feminine, we are calling them masculine and feminine. So, in this culture, it may be referred to as Shiva, Shakti or in other cultures, Yin and Yang, whatever. So, Shiva being masculine and Shakti being feminine. Why Shakti? Shakti means power. Why is that feminine? Not power, Shakti means energy. Energy, okay. It's energy. Unfortunately, because of various, you know, civilizational and exploitative situations in the human societies, we are thinking of energy as power and power and dominance. No, energy is just energy. Without energy, nothing happens. So, I could say this temple is a temple for energy. Feminine energy. Feminine. So, let's go and tell me what feminine energy is, as against masculine energy. Is this what you call a leap of faith, right? From intellectualism to consciousness is what they need. This doesn't take any faith, it just needs a leg. Or a broken leg, okay. When we say a temple, this must be understood, the temple is like a body to energize the system. Temple is not a place of worship. Temple is not a place where you go and make appeals to some unknown god up there. This is not that kind. This is not a place where you lead a prayer. That is the uniqueness of this culture. Here, temple is like a body energized in a certain way. Now, if you see the masculine temple that we have, is circular in nature, because that is the quality that it is. The feminine temple is in the form of a triangle. There's a whole lot of things in its geometry, how it is made. See, all the wings are thirty-three feet, properly done in the multiples of eleven. It is made in a certain way to create a feminine energy there. Why thirty-three? If you go into these details, there are enormous amount of science behind that. Like your spinal column is thirty-three aspects and… Which I just risked right now. So, there are so many aspects to this, which I don't wish to go right now. But essentially, it is feminine energy. Where was the need for this in a way? See, one thing is today, the feminine is at huge risk on the planet. So, immediately people may think, oh, that's because of the man. Maybe man instigated it. But when I say masculine and feminine, I'm not talking about male-female. I'm talking about those two aspects, those two dimensions of life, without which our life will not be beautiful. Our life cannot work, actually, even in the most fundamental way. So, because people start thinking in terms of dominance, this is a problem. If you're not looking at life as dominance, if you're looking at life as integration, if you're looking at life as cooperation, if you're looking at life as oneness, then without these two dimensions, there is no existence. But unfortunately, societies have taken on to this, as to who is dominating right now, whether masculine or feminine. If any one of them dominates, it'll turn ugly. It's not that if masculine dominates, it'll turn ugly or feminine dominates, it'll turn ugly. If any one of them dominates, it'll turn ugly. Above all, if you start thinking in terms of dominance, your life will turn ugly.  Only by inclusion, you will know life. So, this is essentially to create an energy force where people can experience a powerful sense of feminine, a fiery nature of the feminine thing. See, feminine is a very fiery form of energy. But today, because we have made economics the most important aspect of human societies, naturally... See, we need to understand this. Economics is being glorified as if it's some kind of a divine thing. Economics essentially means survival, survival process. Economics has a place in our life for sure, but it is not the be all of life. So, feminine doesn't belong to that dimension. If in these societies, love, art, music, above all, aesthetics of life was dominant in a society. If aesthetics was as important as economics, nobody had to bring up the feminine. Feminine would be naturally exuberantly alive and manifest in the society. Today either we have... We are slowly making all the women like men because they have to survive, they have to earn money, they have to provide, or a small percentage of them in reaction not being able to cope with that, they're becoming like Barbie dolls. Here we are creating a woman who is fiery and powerful in a completely different way. But what you're saying is you just said love, art, aesthetics. Use those three words as part of the feminine energy. Now, I'm a filmmaker, I'd like to assume that I have all three in myself. So that's my feminine energy. Yes, it is. If you do not have the feminine, you won't look and think in terms of what's beautiful, what's not beautiful. You'll only think in terms of what's useful and what's not useful. You will become utilitarian. The masculine is like that. So that's also...  So am I in conflict constantly between my masculine and feminine self? See, that's the whole thing. These two energies are the basis of creation. Why would they be in conflict? They're in absolute collaboration. It is only in human mind that it's in conflict. In life it's not in conflict. In energy it's not in conflict. Only in mind it's in conflict because mind divides. Because to people who are listening to you say, the sheer absolute power of the feminine energy, they don't relate to that. They see feminine energy as something gentle, nurturing, soft. Tell me about the power of feminine energy because a lot of our culture talks about various goddesses that have a sense of huge power and almost violent power. The original goddesses that we created in this culture were all Kali, Bhairavi. Now she's Bhairavi, all fierce, powerful creatures, okay? Somewhere down the line, when the outside influences came upon the culture and people made fun of them, people ridiculed your woman or like this, then they tried to domesticate the feminine. And then they created Saraswati, Lakshmi, very soft, gentle, housewife kind of feminine. Bhairavi, you can't contain her to the limitations of your… not that she's… she cannot stay in your house, you cannot contain her to the boundaries of your house. She's… she's all-encompassing. That's the nature of her. That's the nature of the feminine, that it's all embracing, not all conquering, you must understand. Man wants to be in conquest, a woman wants to embrace. By conquest, you will never have it. By embrace, you will have it, isn't it? See now, now it's come to a point where the work has become almost feminine, okay? You need gentle hands to do what they're doing. But before that, this rock was in the quarry, okay? There you needed some hard tools to cut it, make it a big piece, transport it in the truck, bring it in, hold it there, cut it down to size. All that was very masculine. If that masculine work had not happened, this feminine part would be not possible. This is so in the society also I want you to see. If the man goes about, breaks down nature, builds his home and all this, then the woman comes in and makes it beautiful. If she didn't come in, he would just have a rock house which is of no consequence. Nobody enjoys being there, they'll have a house and they'll live outdoor. It's happening in cultures where feminine has been suppressed. They have great homes, but they always want to be outdoors. It's a good place to talk about what consecration means. What does consecration mean? What do you consecrate? I mean, what is that? What is that process and what is it achieved? See, this is happening everywhere around you all the time. One form of existence or one form of energy is transforming itself into another. What is mud is becoming flower, fruit and food, isn't it? What is filth is actually becoming a flower. What is stink is becoming fragrance. It's happening.  So if you make mud into food, you call it agriculture. If you make food into this, you call it digestion. If you make this into mud, usually we call it cremation or burial or whatever. So if you can make a stone or some other gross substance, a material substance into a divine reverberance into highest, subtlest possible reverberance, that's called consecration. So the whole existence is doing it all the time in different levels. So this is a certain science and a technology through which you transform the grosser elements into finer elements. Unfortunately, this was always mistaken as producing gold. The alchemy of the vast is always talking about producing gold. Gold has no worth except in the market. Okay? It's only greed which makes a man go towards gold. The Indian alchemy never talked about making gold. Indian alchemy always talked about making grosser elements into finer substances, making a stone into the divine. So the whole Indian alchemy is like a consecration process. So right now, there is an agricultural science, right? They will teach you how to study the soil, the qualities of the soil, the seed, the manure, everything. So they only set those conditions. They will set the soil conditions, they'll set the seed condition, everything else that's necessary to grow. But the growth itself, the transforming earth into food, that no scientist does, that is happening by nature. Here also the same thing. We have a whole science, if we set all these conditions, the gross becomes subtle. So when I was building something and this was my first project, I'm building a farm near my shore. And I'm doing it with a real short, true shoestring. So when I want to end, in the end I want to paint it. And I don't have the thing to get painters to paint this large wall surface. So I want to paint it and it takes too much time to go like this. So what I do, I dip, hold it here and just walk. And smear of paint from this end to that end, that end to this end. The first smear that I did, I dipped and walked like this. Here the smear was thick. As it went, it became lighter, lighter, lighter, lighter and became really subtle. I just looked at this and I burst into tears. That was one great moment of realization for me. This is the whole creation. From a rock to divine, this all the thing is, it's either dense or it's subtle, that's all it is. It's the same existence everywhere. Whether you look at the earth or you look at your body or you look at what you call as divine, it is all the same substance. It is just getting subtle. And whatever we are creating as divine is just that, making a rock into a subtler form of energy. Every substance on the planet is exuding a certain kind of energy, reverberation which is a scientific fact. You can change the way it exudes. What type of energy it exudes, you can change that. Altering that to a very subtle and useful form of energy is consecration process. So temples were energy forms.  Why this became necessary is, see once you step into the world for a ordinary person, a common man, every transaction in the world, whatever it may be, what is your profit is somebody's loss. What is somebody's profit is your loss. Whether it's family transaction between husband and wife, father and son, business partners or every transaction, there's something to give up, something to take everywhere, that's why it's a transaction. So if you are not sufficiently lubricated in your… the way you are, every transaction is a point of friction, a possible friction. There are some people who are making every transaction into a friction. Some people are conducting their transactions gracefully. So every day going sitting in the temple was just this, you are well lubricated. When you step out, you can pass through the world with least amount of friction. So this is a very, very significant instruction, which is still alive in the southern part of this country. Here nobody tells you if you go to the temple, you should pray. They always tell you if you go there, you must sit there, you must sit there for some time and come. But today the instruction has become like this, the way they are following it is, they touch their bottom to the floor and they go.  But they also told, that people on the spiritual path need not go to the temple, because they have self-charging mechanisms. So temple is essentially for a householder, who has no his own way of transforming his energies. Use a public place, a battery-charging place it is. So this is feminine energy, it's triangular, the whole temple is triangular. It's an equilateral triangle, okay? There are many aspects of the geometry, which I don't want to go in, but the significant aspect is, there's another triangle fitting into this, in a smaller capacity. So our downward triangle is… That's this one. This downward triangle always symbolizes the feminine. The upward moving triangle symbolizes the masculine. But here, normally it would be depicted like this, okay? This is also the star of day-way, then whatever else the star is used, and this is the basic yantra for Sri Chakra and everything. This is the masculine and feminine meeting. But here, the masculine is held inside the feminine triangle, because here the masculine is unborn. It's in the womb of the feminine. So it's a smaller triangle held inside. It is not a larger triangle like a male meeting the female. This is like in the womb. The masculine is a child in the feminine's womb, because here the feminine is in a dominant form. So there is a whole geometry of things into… in this where we are trying to build a body of the feminine to energize it in a certain way. So Devi will sit here. This is also a triangle and this is into the earth. Here there are steps going in. Being in the earth is very important for the feminine. So the deity herself is going into the earth and people have to go in to meet her. That's how it is. And there are lots of symbolisms attached and geometry involved in this whole process. In the end today you have walked in, it's like a construction site. After two months you walk into this space. Forget about the ambience. Walk with your eyes closed. You will see it will just hit you in your face, the whole energy of it. That's how it will be.


Four point there. They can turn in the back. He's scrambled. Our guy holds on to the position on his back. Get in there again. He doesn't separate this leg. He keeps this block. His knee is going to come in. Do what you did. Get this hip to his belly button. And that hip will go up. Put it high. See, there's still a window here. See this window right here? That knee will not go to the ground. This hip to his belly button. This hip to his belly button. There. Now you seal off that window. Now that knee. That's more important than trying to jump up on the head and rush to the position. Sealing that window. The second one I want to just talk about is what if he doesn't take that foot high? Go ahead and get in there. His leg's out. All you're going to do is simply change the whole two-double. Hop over to the other side. You should have brought that. That should have been our first finishing. He doesn't give us the right thing. We're going to take the easy take-out every time. All right, let's get back out there.