Earth Sense: Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, CEO Terry Tamminen With Sadhguru

Yogi, mystic and visionary, Sadhguru is a spiritual master with a difference. In this full-length conversation, Sadhguru and Terry Tamminen, CEO of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, engage in highly insightful discussion on how the massive ecological disaster we are heading toward, could still be averted.

Transcript

Jnanam Sukhadam Maranam Karunam Milanam Madhuram Smaranam Karunam Kalavashadiha Sakalam Karunam Samayadhipate Akhilam Karunam Good evening,

Good evening everyone.

How can I top that?

And know that's not Leo in makeup.

Someone very consequential.

It's such a great honor to meet you and to be here with you.

To talk about,

I think anything,

I love that concept of you unplugged,

Of just opening ourselves and this great group here to any conversation wherever it might take us.

But I have to tell you one thing I was struck by that I would just like to get a quick reaction from you on.

When I saw the film and I noticed that the focus of Isha Foundation,

Conservation,

Education and health.

And I find it so interesting that conservation,

Nature and health are on either side of education.

Because I think that the biggest problem we have today is with a lack of education on these key issues.

Which if we understood them we would realize that we're not trying to save the planet.

We're trying to save our lives on this planet.

As you know more than 98% of all the plant and animal life ever to exist on Earth.

Appeared and disappeared before the advent of industrial humans.

So the Earth doesn't care if we're here.

But we do.

And so it's fantastic to meet people who are inspiring,

Especially a younger generation.

To,

Let's be honest,

Clean up the mess that our generation created.

So with that let me ask you to maybe just say a few words about the foundation.

About how you chose those three core values to work on.

Because they are absolutely what binds us all together.

Namaskaram to everyone.

Well,

Right now just about anywhere you go in the world,

There was a time when they had nothing to do,

They would discuss weather.

These days from your grandmothers to your grandchildren,

They're only talking about the economy.

Wherever you go,

Everybody's talking about the economy.

Nobody discusses the weather anymore.

Weather had something to do with ecology.

Economy has become the main theme in everybody's conversations,

In everybody's life.

So when we say economy,

We're generally talking about a more complicated version of our survival process.

A complex arrangement of survival or messing up our survival process with too many complexities.

Simple survival just to eat,

Sleep,

Reproduce and die one day,

This is survival.

This has been super complicated and there are all kinds of experts on this now.

I'm not against it.

But this idea that economy is today's concern,

Ecology is tomorrow's problem.

This has to change,

Ecology is today's problem.

Ecology is today's concern.

Our life can be wonderful or is wonderful,

Not because of the fluctuations of the stock market or the percentage of growth points that are happening in a particular society or a nation.

Our life is wonderful because we are eating nutritious food,

Drinking clean water,

Breathing pure air.

This is why our life is wonderful.

This is completely forgotten.

People think life is wonderful because the stock market is soaring.

So my intention was to bring this into people's lives not as a calamity,

Not as a doomsday sayer,

But to bring this into people's life as ecology being today's concern.

What we eat,

What we breathe,

What we drink,

What kind of soil we walk upon is our moment to moment daily concern.

It is not something that we look forward to,

One disaster is going to happen,

How are we going to fix this disaster?

That's not it.

We are the disaster,

We don't need any other disaster.

Yes,

There is no other disaster.

People keep talking about natural disasters,

They keep reminding and they've become hugely unpopular for this reason.

When,

You know,

When certain calamities happened,

Human calamities happened,

A flood happened,

A volcano happened somewhere,

A tsunami happened,

I said,

See,

This is not… don't stop describing it as a natural disaster.

It's not a natural disaster.

This is a natural process.

Mother Earth has to make her adjustments,

Some plates move,

It's called an earthquake.

She vents her,

You know,

She freaks once in a way,

That's called a volcano.

So whatever she does,

We are too many,

We are everywhere and we are a human calamity.

Thousand years ago,

The same thing happened,

They were just natural processes.

Today,

It's a natural disaster.

It is not a natural disaster.

There are no disasters in nature.

We are the only disaster on this planet.

If we fix that one thing,

Everything is going to be okay.

Very well said.

Let me tell you a short story,

If I may,

That I think exemplifies the challenge and one of the reasons I'm so pleased we're at an educational institution tonight to have this conversation.

Some of you may have heard of Donald Trump.

He was visiting a grade school,

True story,

You can look this up,

And he was bragging about the American space program and he said,

NASA is great.

We're going to have a colony on Mars and we're even going to land on the sun.

And one of the kids said,

Mr.

President,

You can't land on the sun,

You will die.

And without missing a beat,

Trump said,

No,

We'll land there at night.

So I tell you this because it exemplifies this problem that we have that too many people don't understand the world we live in today,

As you just described.

They think of things in terms that perhaps ultimately are not relevant,

Whether it's economic,

Whether it's someone else's fault,

Whether it's my little bit won't matter if I drive a little less,

If I turn off a light switch,

If I eat less meat or no meat,

If I make differences in my own life.

And by the way,

I just have to acknowledge Ed Begley who's sitting here.

Just raise your hand or stand up.

Because Ed has taught us and I'm sure when he was talking with you in one of these conversations,

He probably discussed this,

So I'm just going to steal his lines.

The incremental environmentalist,

I mean he talks about the fact that starting from a very young age,

He did one thing,

Changed a light bulb,

Discovered the changes that that made in his electric bill,

Then discovered how he could plant a garden and then weeks later,

Months later discovered compost.

One thing after another,

He didn't become the great sustainable environmentalist that he is overnight.

He did it by learning and then applying what he learned.

And to me that's the biggest challenge.

How do we just get more people to wake up,

Learn how the world really works,

Get them to take those steps,

See that every little step matters and what every one of us does matters,

And then to take each one of those steps.

What have you found in your teaching that would help us move this country in that direction?

Well in a nation like this,

Everybody taking one small step is very important,

No question about that.

But at the same time,

A nation which wields so much power in the world,

It's important certain fundamental policy changes happen.

Otherwise,

We will be just driving on self-satisfaction,

But no real solution.

If you're seeking solution,

Across the world this is necessary,

Policy changes are needed.

When our economic engine is driving in one direction,

You and me make some small changes,

This is personal satisfaction for me and for you.

But this will not be a solution.

This will only postpone the disaster.

If we postpone a disaster,

If we have forgotten we are mortal human beings,

If we postpone a disaster,

We are handing over a disaster to the next generation.

So it's very important that nations come up with policies which are ecologically sensitive and sensible to do.

Individual people of course,

They must do because we are democracies,

If we don't express our concern in our… the way we live.

The nation or the government is not going to change,

The administrations are not going to change by themselves.

It is the people's will which is expressed in the form of administrations because after all most nations are democratic,

And it's the people who elect the people who get there,

All right?

So when somebody said they want to land in the sun and maybe they were expecting the opposition to get there first.

So they thought they'd find oil.

The media to get there first.

So I think right now,

Individual action is important for awareness because it's this individual action which will ultimately transform or culminate in the form of a sensitive administration.

Without individual concern,

A sensitive administration will not come.

But we've reached a point on the planet where strong policies are needed.

Ecologically sensitive policies are needed.

You and me switching off the light is great.

I don't even turn on the light,

So I don't switch off either.

If I'm… most of the time I'm alone at home,

I never turn on the light.

I can walk through,

You know,

Darkness very effortlessly unless I want to read.

I just don't turn on a single light in the house,

I'm just fine.

The dogs are happy,

I'm happy.

That's about it.

Every other creature is happy,

Lights are not on.

So,

Yes,

All of us can do that.

It's very important because if we are not ecologically sensitive,

We will not bring an ecologically sensitive administration or policy makers to the place.

But a time has come,

Strong policies are needed.

Without that,

There'll be no solutions.

Because the turnaround time,

As I said,

I'm not a doomsayer.

But if we want to turn around this planet in terms of water,

In terms of soil condition,

This is something most people ignore in terms of ecology,

The soil,

The damage we have caused to the soil on the planet is the biggest.

Other things may be visible,

Ice is melting somewhere,

It's visible.

But the damage to the soil we have caused across the planet is incredible and most dangerous.

Because this is where life evolves.

You and me are just a little bit of soil.

What was soil became food,

What was food became flesh and blood.

If we don't get it right now,

One day we will get it when we are buried.

Yes?

Most people get it a bit too late,

But everybody gets the point at some point.

So,

These things cannot be turned around with individual action.

This needs a worldwide policy.

I think if we want to turn the soil around,

If we take concrete action in the next five to ten years,

In the next twenty-five to thirty years we could turn it around quite reasonably.

But if let us say we don't take any action now and we take action after twenty-five or fifty years,

Let's say,

After fifty years we want to act,

To turn around the same soil it will take hundred to hundred-and-fifty years.

And that means four to five generations will go through tremendous… terrible states of life because soil is in a bad condition.

If we fix the soil,

Water is fixed,

Air is fixed,

Everything is fixed.

Soil must be rich and on because this is the same sod.

Well,

That's very well said and I can give a little context for that.

Actually,

In the next couple of weeks the DiCaprio Foundation is going to be releasing a study that we've been working on,

A plan,

Not just a study with MIT,

With Berkeley,

But a number of other institutions around the world called One Earth,

Which identifies a path to no more than 1.

5 degrees centigrade warming,

Which as most of you probably know there was an agreement reached in Paris three years ago,

A climate agreement with 174 nations,

And the goal was to stop warming at 2 degrees with a hopeful goal of no more than 1.

5,

But the target was set and the level of ambition was set for 2 degrees.

We know that a lot of further disasters will occur if we let it get to 2 degrees.

So how would you get to 1.

5 was the challenge we gave these great academics and we took a look at what it would take to do it.

And we came up with three things,

That by 2050 we need to move most of the world's energy to clean renewable energy.

And when we even started talking about this even two or three years ago,

It seemed like,

Could you possibly do that,

Are the economics and the technology there?

And since then,

Look at how many companies have committed to go to 100 percent renewables,

How many cities,

How many states,

The state of California's seventh largest economy on the planet passed a law,

Signed into law a couple of weeks ago,

To be 100 percent renewable energy powered by 2045.

And we have the pathway to do it.

So we know that first leg of that stool is difficult,

It's challenging,

But it's not impossible.

The second leg is indeed to get by 2050 most of our agriculture back to what we call regenerative agriculture,

Which is regenerating the soil,

It's what our parents and grandparents did.

And interestingly,

Now that Cuba is opening up again,

They didn't have access to a lot of petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides and herbicides,

So they've continued to do this throughout the last 50 years,

I mean,

And obviously longer,

Where basically you don't dig up and destroy the soil and expose it and let all the microbes and the organisms and the organic material decompose into methane,

Which is a very potent greenhouse gas,

And then supplement it with petroleum-based fertilizers.

In essence,

You're sterilizing the soil,

You're killing it,

As said Guru says,

And then you're throwing something on it to try to make it work.

And instead,

We just need to go back to the basic concept of using organic material that's there,

Harvest our crop,

Put the organic waste back into the soil with light tilling,

With light crop practices,

And in fact,

You'll get better yields for far less money and be able to restore water and various other ecosystems.

And the third leg of the stool is we have to save half the planet for nature.

And we're obviously not going to say,

Oh,

Well,

Let's save the southern half and we'll schmutz the northern half,

I mean,

Too late for that,

But what we can do is take a look at all the marine protected areas we've already created,

The national parks,

The ecosystem reserves that exist in every single country,

The natural places,

Even parks in cities,

And stitch them together in ways that actually becomes a safety net for the planet,

Where effectively half the planet is preserved for nature and the ecosystem services that nature provides us.

So,

For example,

Many of you may have seen that Sao Paulo a year ago was facing evacuation of a third of the city because they ran out of water,

And that was because they had denuded rainforests many,

Many miles away from Sao Paulo,

But that's what had sequestered the rain,

Sequestered the moisture,

Nourished the soils,

Which then allowed aquifers to fill and rivers to flow and so forth that kept a city of 22 million people alive.

When they destroyed those forests,

All of that disappeared with the first drought.

So now they're learning that that has to be restored,

That it's not just for the sake of creatures or plants and animals that we'll never see,

It's actually for the human ecosystem services as well,

And that if you do that,

If you actually preserve roughly half the planet for nature,

There's creative ways you can do it.

At the DiCaprio Foundation,

We funded a program to create wildlife corridors over two of our busiest freeways so that mountain lions and other species can cross the freeways and stitch back together fractured habitat.

And here in Los Angeles,

It's too late to go buy 10,

000 more acres and say,

Okay,

Great,

That's going to be mountain lion habitat.

So therefore,

How do you stitch it back together to get the genetic diversity to keep those species alive,

To keep those resources alive?

So there's many creative ways to do it.

But it does take modern mapping and scientific research methods to figure out what do we need to save because not all ecosystems are created equal.

So I'll get off my soapbox here,

But my point being there's three things that will give us a livable planet and give us a sustainable planet for 10 billion people by 2050.

And it is this 100% renewables,

100% regenerative agriculture and saving half for nature.

And so your point about soils is really at the centerpiece of all that.

Well,

We have so much science and technology,

But I think we don't have enough sense in the sense.

Well,

I know United Nations has made a prediction by 2050,

We are going to be 9.

6 billion people.

At the beginning of 20th century,

We were just 1.

6 billion people.

Now at the beginning of 21st century,

We are 7.

6 billion people.

They are saying in another 32 years,

We will be nearly 10 billion people.

Well,

I think this is irresponsible reproduction.

We just… we are nice,

But we are just too many.

If we don't get this one thing,

Whatever we do will fail simply because the human footprint is too much.

I was in a conference,

You know,

About ecology and stuff.

I said,

Without reducing the human footprint,

Nothing is going to work.

They asked me,

How do you reduce the human footprint?

I said,

You have to reduce the number of human feet.

The number of feet go down.

See,

The average life expectancy of a human being in the last century has gone up tremendously.

In India,

In 1947 when we got independence from the English,

The average life expectancy of an Indian was 28 years.

Twenty-eight years.

Today it's touched 66,

67.

They are saying it's around 67 now,

Which is fantastic in 70 years' time.

So what this essentially means is,

We have postponed our death.

Wonderful.

If we postpone our death,

Should we not postpone our birth?

I'm not talking any philosophy,

Simple arithmetic.

Hello?

Simple arithmetic,

If we postpone our death,

We should also postpone our birth.

On an average,

If in any given… if at any given time,

Three generations of people are living here,

It's great.

Your parents are here,

Your children are here,

You're here.

Wonderful.

But right now we've come to a place where five generations are living for a whole lot of people.

Well,

They're very happy,

They think they got a big family,

But five generations is not sustainable.

No way.

It's not going to work.

We can do as much technology as we want,

As much whatever we want.

The planet is designed for a certain amount of life,

Particularly a virulent life like us.

We… we're not like other creatures who… who don't take anything more than they contribute.

They're… they're taking and as much they're contributing.

Our intake and what we contribute is… what we contribute is minuscule,

What we take is big.

From… let's say our grandparents' generation,

Let us say 1940s or 50s,

Leaving the terrible war of the time,

How much they were consuming on this planet,

Purpose per capita,

Today how much we are consuming is at least seven to eight times more.

Seven hundred to eight hundred percent increase.

So with sophistication of technology,

We could scale it down a little bit.

You know,

Simple things like from our regular light bulb to LED,

We brought down the power consumption and like this many things we're doing.

All this is wonderful,

But all this is not a solution.

It's just a postponement of disaster.

So let me ask you this,

As a spiritual leader,

As somebody who knows how to get into people's heads… Not just the heads.

As you said,

I mean,

Old guys like us are living longer,

But younger people like many in this audience are the ones that might be thinking about having kids.

So it's not an equal matter of just saying,

Hey,

We as a species,

As long as we're going to live longer,

There should be a postponement of the births.

That's one of the many inequities that exists in this discussion.

How do we convince people to have fewer kids and balance that when it's not all the same?

Well,

The very nature of how today's life is arranging itself,

A whole lot of people won't go for children.

Not because anybody is advising them,

Simply because,

You know,

There was a time before a girl is twenty,

She already had two,

Three children going.

Today,

Almost nobody has a child before twenty.

It's all over twenty-two,

Twenty-four.

Many of them are over thirty.

So that postponement has happened not because of any ideology,

Simply because of the way life is arranged.

Just the education system,

By the time they finish their education,

They're twenty-five,

Twenty-six.

By the time they find some employment and find their footing in the world,

They're thirty… thirty-five.

By then they've become wise.

So,

If you allow enough time,

Wisdom happens.

My son is twenty-seven.

When will it happen?

So,

The very nature of how we're organizing life,

The way we have organized our education systems and our professions and the careers,

This is inevitably going to happen.

It is just that,

If we do our arithmetic a little more consciously,

It would be great.

But there's an explosion of population happening in Africa.

There's an increase of birth rate in Africa.

Because we have kept people poor for a long time,

People are stowed out,

They don't know whether children will survive or not.

You know all the conditions as to why the populations multiply.

It is just that,

If you… this is why ecology and education are important.

If education happens,

Education itself postpones birth.

Isn't it?

And once education happens,

Aspirations explode.

Aspirations keep children off for quite some time.

Beyond that,

If they really want to be some great parents,

They want to produce some wonderful children for the future,

Fantastic.

Fantastic,

Because we need children,

Of course.

We can't do without children on this planet.

But because we are on an average,

Most countries,

Almost the whole population on the planet in the next thirty years,

Average age will be over a… you know,

People will be living over eighty,

Eighty-five years of age.

So when the whole population starts living to be eighty-five,

If they deliver a child at twenty,

By the time they're gone,

They have already four generations going,

Which is not practical.

So this ten billion population is not necessarily because an outburst of reproductive instinct,

It is more because of extension of life and which is fantastic.

People are living to their full life,

Which is wonderful.

So that should not be… you know,

We should not start regretting that people are living so long.

That should never happen.

We should celebrate that people are living full lives.

But that will happen if there's a rush of young brats coming.

We will start wondering why the old people are not going.

That's not a good thing at all for any civilization.

That's not a good… I mean it's inevitably happened.

You must understand this.

You may think,

I'm not like that,

But when pressure builds up,

It will happen,

Those thoughts will come.

We should never give room for that in any given society.

We must always celebrate the age,

The experience of human beings who are here,

Not because of I'm speaking for myself.

I'm saying our grandparents,

We celebrated.

My great-grandmother lived to 113.

Okay.

No,

No,

I'm not threatening you.

She lived to 113,

But people celebrated her because she was such a presence and such a wisdom.

She has seen three generations,

Four generations pass.

But that will only happen when there is not too much pressure from the next generation,

Which is fighting for room to live on this planet.

It's very important that we must,

Instead of projecting,

Making a prediction that we'll have 10 billion by 2050,

Why don't we plan by 2050 we'll have 4 billion or 4.

5 billion.

I'm telling you,

If you're four billion people,

Everybody can live whichever way they want and everything will be fine.

And whoever is landing on Mars,

We should send them quickly.

So,

So good points all,

But it still comes back to education,

Lifting the veil off people's eyes about how the world really works.

To your point about getting governments to change,

It means that among the many individual actions we all need to take,

Raise your hand if you plan to vote in three weeks.

And everyone's hand should have gone up.

Even people that don't necessarily live here vote somewhere.

No,

I have no vote in this country,

So.

Yeah,

Well,

It doesn't matter anymore.

Please come and vote.

I've actually always felt that every citizen of the world should have the right to vote for the American president because he or she will have a disproportionate impact over all their lives and so everyone should get a vote.

But seriously,

You,

As just in the short time I've gotten to know you tonight when we were in the green room when we came here,

Lines of people would come up and want to say hello to you and every one of them had one thing in common.

They said,

You changed my life.

You changed the way I see the world and the way I want to be in the world.

And that's what we have to do if we really want to make this planet sustainable.

So give us some tips about how,

I mean,

All of us can't necessarily do what you've done,

But maybe we can.

I mean,

You were telling me,

For example,

That your rally for rivers was an idea that came to you 59 days before you did it.

And I'll let you tell the story because maybe that's helpful for people here who are activists and want to start a movement and want to make something happen big,

Which then will get governments to change policy.

It's the only thing that ever did.

Political leaders are actually political followers.

When they really feel the pressure from citizens,

That's when they change.

So give us some ideas about how you in your amazing career have inspired people to think differently,

To see things differently and then to take action.

See,

This is in 1998,

Certain United Nations agencies came to southern India and the state where we are in,

Which is called as Tamil Nadu,

The southernmost state.

I thought people were whistling.

That's a good thing.

So they made a prediction,

By 2025,

Sixty percent of Tamil Nadu will become a desert.

I personally don't like any kind of predictions,

Whether they are for individual life or the nation or ecology,

Because predictions are only taking cold facts and making projections.

What's beating in a human heart,

They don't know.

People who make predictions don't know what is beating in individual hearts and what these people are going to do tomorrow.

They have no clue about that.

So it looked absurd to me that by 2025,

Sixty percent of Tamil Nadu will become desert because Tamil Nadu has a history of 12,

000 years of agriculture.

They've been ploughing the same land for 12,

000 years.

This is the longest history of agricultural history on the planet.

And in thirty,

Forty years,

We're going to become a desert.

I didn't believe that.

So I decided to drive myself across Tamil Nadu.

I drove to all the rivers and riverbeds and other things and just… just to have a look.

Then I knew they were wrong because I thought it is going to happen much sooner.

I didn't think it will last till 2025.

So I called a bunch of volunteers and about four or five thousand of them and told them.

What?

One at a time or on Twitter?

I mean… No,

No.

No,

That's not how it happens in India.

I just have to say I'm going to meet them.

They'll all come.

So I just made a barefoot calculation.

This is the number of square kilometers that this state has and we have only 16.

5 percent green cover.

National aspiration is thirty-three percent green cover.

I said we must get it to thirty-three percent means what it takes,

Just a barefoot calculation.

I said in the next eight to ten years,

If you plant about 114 million trees in this state,

In about fifteen to twenty years,

You will have thirty-three percent green cover.

So I said we need to plant 114 million trees.

They rolled their eyeballs.

They said,

Sadhguru,

Do you know what is 114 million?

How many zeros?

I said,

See,

What's your population in the state?

They said sixty-two million.

I said if all of us plant one tree today,

Nurture it for two years and plant one more,

You got the number?

That's all it takes.

You don't need to be a man with great resources to plant one tree and nurture it.

Even a beggar can do it.

Even if a beggar does it,

He will have a growing office space.

So how to do it,

How to water it,

What to do?

I said just go pee there.

If you don't have water,

Every day you're doing something,

Right?

So I'm saying this was just bare bones kind of talk because everybody knows how to come up with variety of problems,

How we cannot do it.

Everybody knows how we cannot do it.

Nobody looks at how we can do it.

So this talk went on.

Then I said,

Okay,

We'll meet after a month or so.

We decided to meet in another town.

So here a much larger crowd gathered.

The meeting I arranged,

This is a place where we were meeting,

Is a place where there are about five to six very large rain trees.

Those.

.

.

I mean it's a kind of tree you don't see here,

But these rain trees,

An individual tree will occupy almost three-fourths of an acre.

It's like huge trees.

So about five,

Six rain trees,

Fabulous shade and cool place.

But I arranged the meeting in Hotsan at eleven o'clock in the morning.

So this is Tamil Nadu sun,

You know,

We are there.

Hot.

So I stood.

.

.

I sat there along with them and everybody,

You know,

When they come for these meetings,

All the ladies get properly dressed up with silk saris and nice makeup and everybody sitting like this,

Full of joy,

Sadhguru is talking to us.

And I went on talking,

Just simply kept it,

Just gossip.

They're initially like this and slowly.

.

.

They're just looking at me,

I'm also sitting in Hotsan and maybe he's enlightened,

But what's wrong with him?

I waited for that moment after one-and-a-quarter hours when they were really wilting away.

See,

If you're walking around moving,

You won't feel it.

When you just sit in the sun,

It gets you.

So when I saw that they're really going down,

I said,

Okay,

And let's go here and we all went and sat under a tree.

And ah,

Ah,

Sounds of ecstasy,

You know.

Everybody,

Ah,

Ah,

For the first time in their life,

They're noticing the trees,

Ah,

So fantastic.

I sat down and I started a simple process.

This is a certain spiritual aspect to it.

Experientially,

I made them feel with their eyes closed what you exhale,

The trees are inhaling,

What the trees exhale you're inhaling.

One-half of your breathing apparatus is hanging out there.

They sat like this.

Some.

.

.

Many of them tears in their eyes simply sat like this.

And now you can't stop them from planting trees.

They're just on and on and on.

Thirty-three million trees they've planted.

So I keep telling them,

You're a big failure.

We said one-hundred-and-forty million.

We said one-hundred-and-forty million,

You've planted only thirty-three million.

They're going on and on planting more and more.

So with children,

You know,

Children like to have pets because there are no more so many brothers and sisters,

We can't afford that.

So pets are easy because they die sooner than human beings.

Yes.

So every time your dog or cat dies,

Every twelve years you have a heartbreak.

So I came up with this idea,

You have a tree as a pet.

It grows bigger than you,

Lives longer than you,

Always there,

You can always go back to your village to visit this.

As a part of this,

We started what is called as a Green School Movement,

That if a school plants ten-thousand trees,

We will give it a certificate it's a green school.

Today,

Over six-thousand schools are green schools in Tamil Nadu.

And the best thing is this pond,

Over four-hundred,

Over four-hundred activist groups,

Which all came up because of… we call this project Green Hands.

Because of Green Hands,

Over four-hundred groups came up,

They're all in competition planting more and more.

I thought that's great,

That's the best thing to happen because… And simple things,

In Indian weddings,

Indian wedding means you generally have to eat three times your normal diet.

That's an Indian wedding,

Okay.

And as if that's not enough,

They will give you a bag of sweets and fruits and coconuts and everything to take home,

Just in case you didn't spill out.

So we changed this and today,

Hundreds of weddings,

Not enough for my satisfaction,

But hundreds of weddings they're giving saplings and saying,

Instead of taking all that extra food and eating more and more,

You plant this sapling.

If you don't have a space,

Right there they will ask you,

If they don't have a space,

We'll plant it for you and we'll plant it for you in this place,

We're also these days geo-coding them where your tree is.

As a part of the Dalifah Rivers,

Today we are planting in the next three to four years' time or let's say three to five years' time,

We have signed MOUs to plant seven billion trees.

Dr.

Mark Saltzman and Dr.

Mark Saltzman's interview And in that period of time,

If you only plant six billion,

Will that be a failure?

Yeah,

Because I keep telling people that,

You know,

I'm… I've kind of given up on my life,

Anyway I will die a failure because when I was twenty-five years of age,

I suddenly realized one day,

If I simply sit here,

All I have to do is that I don't mess with myself.

If I simply sit here,

I… every cell in my body bursts out in ecstasy.

When I realized this,

I made a plan at that time.

On that day,

The world's population was 5.

6 billion people.

I made a plan,

In the next two-and-a-half years,

I can make the whole world blissful.

Thirty-six years.

Well,

We've touched over five-hundred million people today,

But that's not my idea of success.

So I will die as a failure,

But as a blissful failure,

So it's okay.

I… This is my wish for all of you.

Your vision for what you wish to do should be such,

Anyway it cannot be completed in this life.

I want you to die as a joyful failure.

Success means I'm… I've… I've finished everything I wanted means you're a constipated mind.

Yes,

You set up one constipated goal for yourself,

Finish it and think you're a big success.

No,

It's good to die as a failure,

As long as you're joyful.

The great Italian artist Michelangelo famously asked God to grant that he may always strive to achieve more than he does achieve.

And that's obviously inherent in what you're saying.

I don't know how we're doing on time.

Did we want to take some questions or comments from the audience?

And I'm not sure how you guys want to facilitate that,

But let's make this more of a conversation with four-hundred people.

We actually do have a question here.

This is for Sadguru or perhaps Terry.

We'll see.

Is enlightenment an event or a way of life?

The first question that comes about clean air regulation in the state of California,

I'll take that one.

Well,

It is a process,

But people around may recognize it only when the process reaches a certain level of visibility,

But it's a process.

Right now,

Maybe there is a process building up for rain,

Let's say.

Most people don't see it.

Donkeys know it,

Snakes know it,

Insects and worms know it,

Human beings won't see it.

Till it pours down on them,

They don't see it.

So it is a process.

If you're sensitive,

You can see the process before it bears flowers and fruits.

So most of the world sees only when a bright flower comes out,

But it's an ongoing process.

You can recognize it at a very early stage if you look for certain basic parameters.

So enlightenment is a process.

Well,

When it becomes mature,

It may bear a certain type of flowers that the world recognizes,

But that's not the most important thing.

The process is the most important thing.

This question asks,

They say when people die,

They are in a better place,

Are they?

No.

He's looking at you,

Dude.

It depends who you're talking about.

If it's a better place,

You should go there first.

If you're very sure that you're definitely in a better place after you die,

You should not postpone such a great opportunity,

You see.

No,

You're wishing other people to go.

That's not right.

See,

Largely the nature of human mind is such,

Just about everything it corrupts.

Because we have a cerebral activity,

Which is like an unguided missile,

It just goes all over the place.

Just about every aspect of life,

Whatever people held sacrosanct in the previous generation,

This generation rubbishes and walks all over it.

Like this,

Everything that you can think of,

Human beings have corrupted,

In their minds at least.

Even if they don't do it in behavior,

Even if their behavior is controlled,

In their minds they have corrupted everything.

One thing that is pristine and cannot be corrupted is death.

Because you can claim whatever the hell you want,

But you don't know a damn thing about it.

People who are dead sure that they're going to heaven after this,

I don't think they should postpone it by a day.

If they're so sure they're going to such a fantastic place,

Why should they postpone it?

I don't understand this at all.

Especially if they have an appointment with God,

Not to be postponed,

Isn't it?

It's just that you don't know a damn thing about it.

It's an empty space out there.

So it's best it's kept that way,

For variety of reasons.

Unless your life lights up from within,

It's best death remains as it is,

Because if you manage to corrupt that,

Then you will have nothing to live for.

This may sound very negative,

But I'm telling you,

If you are not mortal,

Just see what would happen to you.

If at all if we want to give you the worst kind of punishment,

Death penalty is not the worst thing.

Suppose we gave you eternal life penalty… punishment,

You cannot die.

Just… just think about it.

Because it's mortal,

We're trying to extend it a little bit more,

Little bit more.

Suppose you just cannot die.

That will be the worst thing to happen.

So don't corrupt that one thing.

You know nothing about it,

It's best that way,

Because if you do not light up the innermost core of your life,

There is no way you will know anything about it.

You can believe whatever stories you want.

Whatever somebody says,

Even if it is true,

As far as you're concerned,

It's just a story,

Isn't it?

Hello?

It's just a story.

If you strongly believe in a story,

You will do idiotic things.

Yes,

Those people who believe hundred percent they are going to heaven and what are the pleasures there,

They are the ones who are blowing themselves up.

Yes,

Because you believe all those things are there.

From last generation to this generation,

The aspiration of going to heaven has come down dramatically.

They're all trying to do it right here.

They're trying to do everything right here.

Because first of all,

The idea of a heaven is a very perverted idea full of pleasures.

Unfulfilled minds will come out with such things.

So,

Death is that dimension of your life,

Which has brought profoundness to who you are,

Because you're mortal.

You're here today,

Everything is fine,

Tomorrow morning poof,

Gone,

Just like that,

No trace.

If you pay little attention to this aspect,

That today I'm here,

Tomorrow I could just vanish and not leave a trace anywhere,

If you just pay enough attention to it,

If your attention is keen enough,

Then your life will light up,

Because that's where the key is.

Everybody thinks depth is the antithesis of life.

No,

It's in your mortality.

All the secrets of your life are hidden.

Very well said.

We have a question from a mother,

A mother from the land of Rumi,

From the land of Persia,

From Iran.

And she's concerned that more and more youth are becoming atheists.

They do not believe,

Not only do they not believe in God,

They don't believe in religion,

They don't even believe in spirituality.

And she asks,

How can I,

As a mother,

Bring awareness of the spiritual to my child?

The… It's a very positive thing that belief systems are collapsing.

And it's an inevitable process,

Because human intellect is firing like never before in the history of humanity.

For a long time,

For an entire village or a community,

Only one person used to think for all of them.

Today everybody is thinking for themselves.

They're thinking right or wrong,

That's a debatable thing,

But they're thinking for themselves.

The fundamental of thought is,

When you start thinking for yourself,

Even if you sound absurd to somebody else,

Within yourself you're logically correct.

Am I right?

When two people argue,

Have you seen?

Always the other guy looks absurd,

What rubbish he is,

No logic.

But within himself,

He is logically correct,

He's thinking,

This one is absurd.

So the very nature of thought is such,

You might have found your own logic,

Which may not be congruent with everybody else's,

But within you,

You're logically correct.

This is the fundamental of thought.

Once you're logically correct,

Belief becomes very difficult,

Because belief does not agree with the system of thought that you may have.

You could be indoctrinated,

But indoctrination works only when you're kept in a flock.

If you're allowed to go out,

If you look here and there and think,

It'll collapse.

It's a very good thing.

In the last twenty-five years,

The number of heavens and hells that have collapsed on the planet is fantastic,

Because this aspiration that I will live well somewhere else is a disastrous aspiration.

That is why we are making a hell of ourselves and making it a hell for everybody else around us,

Because we think somewhere else we're going to live better.

This idea must go.

If you want to live well,

It's here.

If you don't get this,

If you want to live the highest possible life,

It is here that you can do it.

If this does not sink into human minds and hearts,

Well,

All these people who are going to live well somewhere else,

They're going to cross hell to you.

Here,

They're making sure you suffer here,

Because there everything is going to be great.

So this idea must go.

So essentially,

When people say I'm religious,

Naturally they refer to themselves as believers.

When we say belief,

Essentially we're talking about I'm not yet straight in my life.

That is,

I'm not willing to admit what I do not know as I do not know.

Is there any problem that… Is it okay for you as a human being,

What I know,

I know,

What I do not know,

I do not know?

Is it okay?

No,

Whatever I do not know,

I believe.

And this belief we have introduced into human mind because it gives you confidence.

This confidence without clarity is a disaster.

As human beings get more and more empowered with technology and science,

This disaster will become larger and larger.

When we are not clear,

At least we must be hesitant,

Isn't it?

Hello?

When we can't see clearly,

At least we must walk with some hesitation.

No,

We can't see a damn thing,

But we are confident.

This is a disaster.

So we think that confidence is a substitute for clarity.

No,

There is no substitute for clarity.

Either you see things clearly,

Only if you see things clearly you will navigate your life well.

If you can't see things clearly,

You will walk with confidence.

Suppose my vision is not clear,

But I walk with great confidence,

Obviously I'm going to step on all of you and walk around,

Isn't it?

That's what we're doing.

Hello,

As human beings,

That is what we're doing,

Stepping on everything that's precious to us,

Which is the basis of our life in many ways.

And we are stepping on everything because we have no clarity and we have enormous confidence.

These disastrous ideas that first of all,

We thinking this universe or this cosmos is human centric is a disastrous idea.

As he was mentioning,

Terry was mentioning in the beginning,

Before we came life happened on this planet in glorious ways before we came.

We've been here for just a little bit of time.

All right?

Well,

In many ways we are the peak of evolution.

That means in terms of capabilities,

No other creature has been the way we are,

It's fantastic.

But the existence is not human centric.

If you talk to an ant,

An ant will think God is a big ant.

Yes,

I'm sure.

If you talk to an elephant,

Of course,

He knows God is a big elephant and even we think so in India.

So this idea that human being is made in God's own image and every other creature is here to serve you,

This one disastrous idea,

If it was not planted in human mind,

Today we need not sit here and talk about ecological concerns.

This idea every other life is here to serve us.

No!

You just see an ant is going just ask him if he's here to serve you,

He says,

Hell with you man.

Step anywhere near his community and see what he does to you.

You know the ants in pens business,

Right?

Oh,

He'll give you works because he thinks the most important life on the planet is him.

It's all right for him to think like that.

With so much intelligence,

We are supposed to think beyond this.

An ant thinks he's the biggest life on this planet.

Most significant life on the planet is him.

That's why he responds so violently if you go anywhere near his community.

But we are supposed to think beyond that.

We are endowed with an intelligence which is able to think,

But we are refusing to think because we believe.

So belief essentially means whatever we don't know,

We make it up and concretize it.

So when we want to believe,

We always need people around us.

If you are the only person who believes something that nobody here believes,

You look ridiculous.

You always need a thousand people who believe the same thing.

So when… I mean she… whoever the lady,

She used both spiritual,

Religious and atheist,

Everything together.

You must understand,

Theists and atheists are same people acting to be different.

One person believes what he does not know in a positive way,

Another person believes what he does not know in a negative way.

Both of them neither have the courage nor the commitment to seek what is the nature of this existence.

What is the nature of my existence?

What is the nature of the larger existence?

What could be the source of all this?

This wonder and seeking is missing in both of them.

Both of them believe one believes God is,

Another believes he is not.

How do you arrive at these things?

Can I tell you a small story?

This happened in New York City.

An eight-year-old boy came back from home,

Okay,

Came back from school home.

He had a very progressive mother at home.

Obviously she was single.

He came home and asked his mother,

Mama,

Is God man or a woman?

She being a progressive woman,

She thought through all the gender politics that are happening and how we try to settle it in the previous election and you know the result.

And then she said,

Both.

So the boy went into deep thought.

After some time he came back and asked,

Mama,

Is God white or black?

So she thought through all the racial politics in the country,

How in the last election we tried to settle this issue and all those things.

After much thought she said,

Both.

Then the boy went into very profound thought.

Then after quite some time he came back and asked,

Mama,

Is God straight or gay?

She thought through all the politics involved with that aspect of life.

After much thought she said,

Both.

The boy jumped in joy,

I got it,

I got it,

It's Michael Jackson.

I don't know how you arrived at yours.

But the thing is,

Why can't human beings be sincere enough?

What I know,

I know.

What I do not know,

I do not know.

What is the problem?

I do not know is a tremendous possibility.

Only if you see I do not know,

The longing to know,

The seeking to know and the possibility of knowing becomes a living reality.

Otherwise,

You believe something,

I believe something.

Initially we are all okay,

But when really it comes to things,

We're going to kill each other.

The fight on the planet is not between good and evil as they're projecting it to be.

It's just one man's belief versus another man's belief,

Religious or otherwise.

Isn't it so?

One major aspect of conflict on the planet is you believe one thing,

I believe something else.

Why can't we say what we know,

We know.

What we do not know,

We do not know.

What's the problem?

So I have a question for Terry.

Once you say that,

Spiritual process has begun.

Because you… is in the very nature intrinsic to human intelligence,

Once you see I do not know,

The longing to know will get ignited.

You cannot stop.

You will have to look everywhere.

So that's a spiritual process.

Once you say I am spiritual,

You say I am a seeker.

Once you say I am religious,

You say I am a believer.

Isn't it?

Well,

And I might add for that lady for her child,

She was worried about him or her becoming an atheist.

But it's… as you say,

It's a process.

It's not an end,

Especially if it's a child.

I mean,

When our son was very little,

I mean as a baby,

They think we're God.

And then he gets to be five,

Six,

Seven years old,

He's talking to his friends,

He's talking back.

How did you do that?

And all of a sudden,

We know nothing and we're the devil.

That's a fully religious process.

Exactly.

And then we gave him… then we gave him a puppy and we're God again.

So,

You know,

It's a constantly evolving process.

Be patient.

Part of the problem that we're aware of in terms of the earth has to do with compulsive human behavior.

And I'm going to ask two versions of this question.

First is for Terry to identify what,

As an environmentalist and as a scientist and as a policy person,

What you consider to be most harmful to the planet and ask what you would recommend in terms of redress.

What can we do to change?

Well,

The first thing might seem trivial,

But it's something that certainly most Americans can do.

In the last 10 years,

The average American has gained 10 pounds because of our diet,

Salt,

Sugar,

Fat,

Meat.

And giving up some of that,

Especially the meat,

Would probably be one of the best things we can do to save the planet.

And one of the consequences and one of the ways to measure this is that the airlines that crisscross this country every year burn 350 million more gallons of jet fuel every year,

Carrying all that excess weight.

So if we were to lose the 10 pounds,

Myself included,

If we were to lose that 10 pounds,

Think how much better off the planet would be in every sense,

How much greenhouse gas we could reduce,

How much other deforestation and other things that we could reduce.

You know,

I think,

As I said before,

To me it's really eco illiteracy is the biggest problem,

Because all of these other problems do have solutions.

As you said,

If we become seekers,

If we start to pay attention to what's real,

If we push back on the climate denial industry,

It's not just a matter of seeking what's real.

It's avoiding the temptation to find the easy answer that's convenient for us.

You know,

Oh,

It's okay if I do this or that.

It won't hurt.

It won't harm the planet.

Or,

Gee,

My economic interest is more important than the planet,

So not only will I do certain things that actually are not good for me or my community,

But I'm going to lie about it to everybody else.

I mean,

That's definitely part of the problem.

But if we educate more people,

You can't lie to people that know better.

You know,

As you said before,

If only one person expresses a belief,

Everybody else goes,

You're crazy,

And they certainly don't follow that person.

So,

Unfortunately,

In this country,

When it comes to climate change,

When it comes to a whole host of environmental issues,

Some of it is pure ignorance.

It's a lack of education.

It's a failure of our formal and informal education system.

But it's also,

Unfortunately,

A great deal of money that is being used to intentionally mislead us.

And we have to learn to look past that,

To trust what we know,

What we've learned,

And what we can always go back to and confirm,

That that should then guide us.

But if there's one single thing that,

Well,

Let's say two.

Number one is voting,

As I mentioned before.

People,

You've got to get them to vote,

And then you've got to educate them,

But that will in turn lead to more enlightened votes.

And that doesn't necessarily always mean the way I would vote or the way somebody else would vote.

I'm a Democrat who worked for a Republican.

I can see both sides of a lot of different arguments.

But I do think that the more educated people become about these issues,

Not only will they then vote in a more enlightened and thoughtful way,

But they'll educate others.

They'll share what they know when they're confident of it.

Enough for Sadguru.

Often in your videos,

You talk about compulsive behaviors and habits,

Mostly related to the body.

Other than relying simply on willpower,

Is there a beginner's technique to start the process of breaking these compulsive habits?

How do I say no to ice cream?

That's another way to put it.

Well,

Compulsiveness is… The only reason why human life has become what it's become is not because of the content of our life,

Simply because we are able to change the context of our life,

Because we can do the same things that every other creature does consciously.

They are born,

We are born,

We… they grow up,

We grow up,

They… they eat,

We eat,

We sleep,

They sleep,

They reproduce,

We reproduce,

They die,

We die.

That's all that's happening.

We may think many things about ourselves,

But if you look at generations of people who have come and gone,

This is all they did.

Yes,

They ate,

They slept,

They reproduced and they died.

And here we are because of their reproduction.

This is how it's happening to every creature.

Only thing is,

The same simple things that another creature can do,

We can conduct it consciously.

That's why we are so different.

See,

We attach the word being only to the human.

We did not call an ant being,

A tiger being,

An elephant being,

Only human being.

That means you're supposed to know how to be.

All others live out of their instinctive compulsiveness.

That is their nature.

But you are a human being means you know how to be.

That means you are beyond your instincts.

You also have survival instincts,

But you are able to be beyond your instincts and where your intelligence has flowered to a place where instincts need not rule you,

You can be beyond your instincts.

So this is the essential quality for which we are distinct,

For which we stand out.

If we do not show that ability to be conscious,

Then we become compulsive.

So compulsiveness is not a quality.

Compulsiveness is just absence of consciousness.

It's like darkness.

Darkness is not a quality by itself,

It's absence of light.

So similarly,

Compulsiveness is just a consequence of lack of consciousness.

So instead of seeing how to make people conscious,

If we try to with willpower,

Try to get rid of our compulsiveness,

We will become weird in so many ways which is happening.

So many weird things are happening in human behaviors simply because they are trying hard to change themselves.

If you become conscious,

You will perform according to your intelligence and your competence,

Isn't it?

And that's how it should happen.

With willpower,

If you die… try to do it,

Then you will go somewhere else.

It looks like you fixed everything around you except the human being.

Yes,

The most important ingredient is mist.

Everything is fixed in the world except the human being,

Isn't it?

So becoming conscious,

What it means is,

You can't try to become conscious.

To be conscious,

You need a certain level of intensity of energy and intelligence to function.

For this to happen,

All it needs is to crank up human energy to a higher level of intensity.

It's like voltage.

See,

If the voltage is low,

Let's say there's only one light which is lighting up this entire hall.

If the voltage is low,

You saw only three people here.

So you thought only there are three people in this hall.

You crank up the voltage a little bit,

You saw ten people,

Suddenly you see ten people exist.

You really cranked it up,

Then you see hundred people out here.

They were always there.

But in your experience,

Only what you're conscious of exists,

Isn't it?

Hello?

Only what you're conscious of exists in your experience.

Rest of it doesn't even exist.

So consciousness means this,

That your life energies,

You kept it at the highest level of intensity so that you're naturally conscious of everything.

When you're conscious of every aspect of life,

You will function according to your intelligence.

Right now,

When you're not conscious,

Your intelligence will not perform,

Your instinct will perform.

That means you will be compulsive in nature.

If you perform or function according to your instinctual nature,

It is a backward step in evolution.

All this cerebral development which took millions of years has gone waste.

Most people are only suffering it.

They call it stress,

They call it anxiety,

They call it madness,

They call it depression.

Well,

You can give it any number of exotic names you want,

But essentially your intelligence is turned against you.

That's all it is.

If you remove half your brain,

I'm sure you would sit here very peacefully.

Yes,

This happened a few months ago.

A television anchor in South India,

A thirty-four-year-old woman,

She jumped off fifth floor and committed suicide.

She left a note,

Nobody is responsible for my death,

My brain is my enemy.

Well,

She articulated it very clearly.

This note went all over on the Indian television,

My brain is my enemy.

Well,

It took millions of years to develop this brain to this level of capability and now it's become your enemy.

Well,

She articulated it,

But almost ninety percent of the humanity is experiencing it,

Isn't it?

You can call it stress,

What is it?

You don't know how to conduct your thought and emotion,

Isn't it?

Hello?

When are you going to learn,

I want to know.

You meet a fifty-year-old,

Sixty-year-old,

They still don't know how to conduct their thought and emotion,

When the hell are you going to learn?

No wonder you're planning to go to heaven,

Because you… you… you've not even completed your kindergarten here in your lifetime.

See,

If you do not know how to conduct your body,

How to conduct your thought and emotion,

This means you've not figured how to use the basic faculties of your life,

Isn't it?

Hello?

Most basic faculties of your life,

Let's say you're fifty and you still don't know how to walk,

You're yet to learn,

What is it?

But we are taking this as normal,

This is the disaster.

This is the real disaster for humanity is,

We thinking it is normal.

People don't know how to handle their thought and emotion at the age of fifty or sixty,

It's quite normal.

Well,

This is normal if you're in a madhouse.

Yes?

Only one who is abnormal is the doctor out there.

Everybody else is perfectly normal.

Right now we're turning this world into a madhouse.

Compulsiveness means a madhouse.

When people function compulsively,

They will do insane things.

Nothing that complements human intelligence will be done.

Yes?

For this you need consciousness.

Are you capable of being conscious?

Obviously.

Isn't it so?

Have you not seen the same thing that you do?

One day you're in a certain way,

Food appeared in front of you,

You ate very consciously.

Another day you ate.

.

.

Possible or no?

Both are possible or no?

So the difference is just that you have toned up your energy so that consciousness is not an effort.

That's the way you're made.

That's the way a human being is manufactured,

All right?

It's a conscious being.

That's why we're calling you a human being.

You know how to be.

If you really knew how to be,

Would you choose to be blissful or miserable?

Obviously blissful.

So this is all the litmus test is in your life.

If you wake up in the morning and if you're not blissful,

This means you have become compulsive.

If your food appeared in front of you and you cannot burst into a little bit of laughter before eating it,

Not because you're practicing laughter,

Simply because you're conscious,

You're conscious that this is your body but appears on your plate.

Hello?

If you're conscious,

This,

You know,

This me appears in green,

Red,

Blue,

All kinds of stuff.

I look at it,

I can't help laughing.

It's not that you have to laugh before you eat,

You'll go mad if you try to do that.

But if you're conscious,

Everything in the universe is absolutely fantastic,

Too fantastic.

There's nothing more brilliant than a blade of grass on this planet.

Hello?

Yes,

Indeed.

Well said.

I want to close with a two-part question.

So the first is you've seen a lot of different farming techniques.

And there's an organic farmer from Southern California that would like your advice,

Practical advice,

On a gardening tip.

And then the other question says,

How can we arrive at conscious connection with Mother Earth every step we take on her?

So I'm not a farmer.

My wife has a vegetable garden which is very prodigious and we eat from it.

I ate kale this afternoon from our garden,

Very gratefully.

And I learned a lot from Ed and Rochelle.

But I would say instead I'd look at a trend.

If the gentleman who asked the question is an organic farmer,

Or it could be a woman.

Oh,

I thought you said him.

Whoever it is,

He or she,

Is an organic farmer.

That,

Think about 10 years ago what the word organic meant.

It was sort of hippie-dippy and it was in little small shops and co-ops and things like that.

And then Whole Foods started to embrace it.

And now every major supermarket chain has to have an organic section.

And Amazon bought Whole Foods because the world is going in this direction.

People are realizing they want organic food.

They want clean,

Healthy food where they know where it came from.

So I would just say,

Bless you.

Keep doing what you're doing because the world is going to need a lot more of what you produce.

And ultimately we can end this concept of killing the soil and covering it with chemicals,

Petrochemicals and creating something that some people call food.

But I see that we have started using these words which have become part of our daily life.

Like for example,

This always bothers me.

The word waste.

See,

Everything that we have,

Everything that we have,

From the food that we eat,

The clothes that we wear,

The furniture we sit on and just everything is essentially a piece of this planet.

Hello?

Participants – Yes.

Everything is including this body and everything is just a piece of this planet.

There is never anything here that you can call waste.

You're allowed to use it and when you put it back,

It must become soil once again.

Well,

Cornelius is here.

He's the shit king.

Well,

I'm… Nothing is wasted.

How much percentage of United States shit do you have in your control?

Participant – Work you got more and more or work you got more and more?

Well,

Some big percentage of the shit from all the cities in United States,

Cornelius owns it.

He's not responsible for it,

But he owns it.

Participant – It's a long story.

It's a long story.

So,

I'm saying there's really nothing that is waste here.

It's just earth.

Now,

We make many things out of it.

Some things like us,

The moment we're buried within a few days becomes earth very easily,

But we are putting ourselves in a box.

I don't know why.

I just cannot understand why are you in a box?

You must be in a rush to become part of the earth.

Putting you in a box,

You're preventing this body from becoming earth unfortunately.

We evolve a system in our center,

Anywhere around us if people die,

We just bury them and plant a tree on them.

So,

For their relatives and friends,

This tree,

Tch,

You make very good manure if you did not know this.

Anything that you put out of your body makes fantastic manure,

Cornelius.

And the body itself is fantastic manure,

You know.

So,

This aspect of what is organic,

What is inorganic,

This really nothing like that.

Everything is planet.

Whatever you made out of it.

We made some things which unfortunately cannot quickly go back into earth.

It takes some things,

Take a thousand years or more,

These days we're talking about.

But most of the other things,

If you put it down to earth,

Within a matter of a decade or two,

It will be earth again.

So,

That's what is fantastic.

Even you,

You may be thinking many things about yourself.

As far as Mother Earth is concerned,

She looks at you and she thinks you as a recycling process.

She throws you out and sucks you back,

She throws you out and sucks you back.

You think I'm a great guy,

I'm a great generation,

But she thinks nothing.

She just throws you out and sucks you back.

Hello?

You're just a pop-up.

So,

This idea that we got from somewhere that we can grow food in some other way,

Other than organic way,

Is kind of unbelievable.

I'm trying to wrap my head around it.

I don't know how anybody came up with this idea.

But when this idea started taking root in India,

I was into farming.

I was living on a farm.

About thirty,

Thirty-five years ago,

Forty years ago,

The fertilizer companies were coming and giving talks in villages about the virtues of fertilizer,

How it can do things.

I was just sitting there and looking at them and I couldn't wrap my head around this,

How the hell?

And they were telling all the farmers,

This act unfortunately worked.

They were telling the farmers,

See an Indian farmer is like this,

Because largely it is rain-fed cultivation,

Okay?

Irrigated lands are a certain percentage,

Rest is all rain-fed.

We had a system of rainfall that we could almost… farmer would know on this day it will rain,

You know?

They would be ready.

They know on this particular day of the calendar,

It's going to rain and it always rains.

So he's got his plough ready,

Everything ready for that day.

That's how it was.

But these guys came and advised,

You must remove all the trees,

Because trees suck away the fertilizer.

It's expensive.

If you have trees,

They will take up all the fertilizer,

It won't go to your crops.

So you must take away the trees.

And trees just vanished in the last forty years on such a scale.

For example,

The Ganga Basin.

Ganga is the largest or one of the biggest rivers in India.

It is the… it is metaphorically it is the river for the Indian people.

Ganga covers twenty-five percent of India's geography and thirty-three percent of India's agriculture is in the Ganga Basin.

In the Ganga Basin in the last forty years' time,

We removed ninety-two percent of the trees in the Ganga Basin,

Okay?

Today,

Every year we're putting back about hundred million trees.

That's just started yet to grow.

Tree doesn't happen overnight,

We can plant,

But it'll take twenty years to see… make it look like a tree.

So this policy,

The commercial companies went about propagating that if you have trees,

You will not succeed in your farming.

And this led to suicides.

Farmers started committing suicide because if his crop fails,

He has nothing to fall back on.

Otherwise,

Every farmer used to have a line of trees,

At least on one side of the… because looking at the winds and the monsoon winds so that the seeds don't spread all over the land,

They always planted their trees on the eastern side because the southwest monsoon was the strongest wind,

So they always planted on the eastern side of their land.

And they want… they want to conduct their daughter's wedding,

One tree they cut.

It's already named,

It was like this in the southern villages.

This tree is named after their daughter.

For her wedding,

This tree is growing.

When she was born,

It was planted,

It is growing.

When for her wedding comes,

They're going to chop down this tree and that's how it gets financed.

Now the son has to go to the university,

There's another tree.

Like this,

They had insurance.

When things went bad,

They went… fell back on the trees.

But they just removed everything because fertilizer companies insisted,

You have to remove trees,

Otherwise fertilizer will not be effectively used.

And in the last ten years,

Over 300,

000 farmers committed suicide in India simply because there is no fallback.

When crop fails,

There is simply no fallback for him,

He's just lost.

The money that he's borrowed from the banks or money lenders,

He can't pay back.

Unable to bear that,

He just come… he takes this extreme step.

So why I'm saying this is,

Is there some other way to grow food other than organic?

There isn't.

There simply isn't.

There is no such thing as organic farming and some other synthetic farming.

There is no such thing.

You're just pumping up the organic plants with something just to make it look like food.

It is only looking like food.

In the last twenty-five years,

The nutrient drop in Indian vegetables is forty percent.

You can eat the same amount of vegetables,

You're getting forty percent less nutrients.

And everybody is sick.

Now in America,

You're talking about how to give up meat.

In India,

Every doctor is advising,

If you don't eat meat,

You will not get nourishment.

The same fertilizer story.

At that time,

The fertilizer companies did that.

Now the doctors are telling everybody,

If you do not eat meat,

You will not get nourishment.

In a way,

They're not totally off because vegetarian diet has no nourishment.

Simply because of the way it's grown,

It's only looking like food.

It's not food,

It's trash that they're selling to you.

So is there some kind of farming other than organic farming?

There is simply isn't.

Participants applaud.

Can you leave us with some inspiration?

Oh.

Participants laugh.

Did I depress you?

I thought that's what he was doing all night.

My heart is full but… Well,

As already Terry pointed this out at one point,

So people are going about saying,

Planet is in peril.

Planet is not in peril.

The idiotic humanity is in peril.

Planet is not in peril.

It will adjust itself.

Planet knows how to come back.

It's just that it's not that we're also not going to be extinguished,

But we will bring huge suffering upon ourselves.

Talking about 1.

5 degree centigrade of rise,

Which is a kind of a compromise decision,

We will heat it 1.

5 degrees on.

Well,

When this happens,

The worst hit part of the planet will be Asia because it is believed out of 200 odd islands in Indonesia,

It is believed over sixty percent of them will sink.

If the water rises anywhere to two meters,

About six to seven feet if it raises,

Over sixty percent of the islands will go down.

Where will these populations go?

If an island sinks,

What's our problem?

The problem is there are too many people on the island,

Isn't it?

If we do not do this consciously,

Nature will do it to us in a very cruel way,

Correction.

If we do not do the corrections consciously,

Nature will enforce it in a cruel way,

Not because it wants to make you suffer,

That's our choice.

It is just that it's a correction.

And when corrections happen,

Some things will be cut out.

When some things are cut out,

It could be you and me who are cut out.

That is a painful process.

So we have to do this consciously.

This is the time.

This is the time I'm saying because this is for the first time in the history of humanity that we can sit here and communicate to the whole world.

At this point of time,

If we cannot do the right things,

What the hell are we doing,

Huh?

It's all right.

A thousand years ago,

Even if we thought right,

Even if we figured out the right things,

We could not tell everybody,

We could not communicate to the world,

Everybody did their own thing.

But for the first time we are able to communicate to the entire population on this planet.

Every human being on the planet can be reached in the next half an hour or one hour,

If you wish.

When this kind of possibility is there,

This is the time to do right things and we have to do the right things,

Both in terms of human consciousness,

Which is the most important thing.

Because without human beings becoming a conscious entity,

When they're in compulsive modes,

You cannot stop them.

See,

People are trying to curtail human aspiration.

It's not going to work.

People drive Tesla to their office,

But they got a beast parked in their garage.

All right?

Yes.

So you cannot curtail human aspiration,

But you can definitely control human population.

Now this looks like a single pitch from my side and everybody's saying,

No,

But we must understand this,

Without lowering the human footprint,

Believe me,

On this planet,

You thinking in the next fifty years you will make everybody sensible and control their aspirations,

What they seek,

No,

Not practical.

Because the world has not developed in a… in an equal way.

What is California?

What is India?

What is Bangladesh?

What is African countries?

These are different worlds by themselves.

Only now these people are coming to their… fulfilling their aspirations.

You go and talk to them about these things,

They will look through you and they will do what they have to do.

Because they're just now fulfilling their small aspirations,

You're not going to control their aspirations.

It's not going to be controlled like that.

But population can be brought down.

And for this you need the cooperation of the existing populations,

The religious leaders particularly,

Because,

You know,

We… I think we need to come up with something.

Maybe the heaven is overpopulated if you say this.

No… There won't be room.

No space out there,

So slow down here.

Is it… So… but we want something inspirational.

Yes.

The thing is just this,

Humanity has the intelligence and for the first time the competence to fix things on this planet like never before.

We are the first generation who have the necessary competence,

Intelligence,

Technology and communication capabilities.

The first ever generation who has this competence,

We have to exercise this competence.

And there is no one mantra.

One mantra if you want,

We must raise human consciousness.

Consciousness means just this.

Physicality means this is my body,

That's your body.

No way do things… these things can be same till you bury them,

All right?

This is you,

This is me.

This is my body,

That's your body.

This is my mind,

That's your mind.

This is how it's always going to be and it's wonderful.

But there is no such thing as my life and your life.

This is just a living cosmos.

You captured a little,

That's all.

If you want this to become a life of some consequence,

The important thing is how big or how much life do you capture within this body,

Within this mind,

Simply depends on how open everything is left in you.

This is what consciousness means.

Consciousness means a limitless existence.

Physicality means a limited existence.

Mentality means a little bigger existence,

But bigger than physicality,

But still limited because our mind and the structure of our mind is determined by what memories we carry and whatever memories we carry of knowledge and experience are still a minuscule compared to the nature of the cosmos.

But consciousness means that if you touch that dimension which we are referring to as consciousness,

You've touched an intelligence which is beyond memory.

That means you've touched an intelligence which is not bound by anything.

Every human being has to come in contact with this dimension of intelligence within us.

Only then we will function in a way that our well-being is not detrimental to something else,

Not just another human being,

To everything else.

This is not an ecology class.

This is the nature of existence.

If your experience is limited to something,

Everything else unknowingly you will damage.

If your experience includes everything,

Then everything that you do,

Every action that you do,

Every breath that you take will be in contribution to everything else.

So bringing this consciousness,

Not ecological consciousness,

Just human consciousness,

Because you're touching that dimension of intelligence which is not bound by memory,

Not bound by limited experience of life,

Whatever we think we know,

All of us have limited experiences of life,

Isn't it?

Whatever… However you… even if you've read the libraries of this planet,

Still our experience and knowledge is very limited.

The only way we can go beyond this is our identities rise beyond race,

Religion,

Nationality,

Physicality,

Mentality.

Beyond this,

If we touch something within ourselves,

Only then our identities are beyond that.

Once our identity is not limited to something narrow,

Then the way we function is very,

Very different.

This human being is a tremendous possibility.

In my perception,

I think we're just geared,

We have everything in place to become the greatest generation of humanity ever on this planet,

Because no generation was ever empowered like we are.

Are we going to just sit on the threshold and watch,

Or are we going to make it happen is in our hands.

Let's make it happen.

Participants clap Remember,

We're the only university in the hemisphere that offers a Master of Arts in Yoga Studies,

And it's all about consciousness.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate and express gratitude to the Doshi family and the university.

As Mr.

Chappell said,

So only university are offering yoga studies.

We must understand yoga does not mean twisting and turning.

Yoga means consciously obliterating the boundaries of one's individuality.

It means union.

That's what yoga means.

When you obliterate the boundaries of your individuality,

That's where the solution for everything is.

And we are extremely privileged to have Ed here among us.

Thank you.

Reviews

So many wisdom bits to absorb and learn from

Simple wisdom forever humble lovingly empowering

Very inspirational!

Michael Jackson is God. 🤗

Uplifting, soul soothing, namaste 🙏🏻

Loved this discussion, I’m very into yoga, composting, recycling, doing what I can to be earth friendly. We are also farmers, taking great pride in our work, replenishing the soil, helping to feed the world. My husband works very long days, often from 6am -10pm or longer, farming is in his blood. Thank you all for raising consciousness to our beautiful earth! ❤️❤️❤️