Matthew Hayden In Conversation With Sadhguru

Australian cricket star, Matthew Hayden, sits down with Sadhguru in Brisbane, Australia, to discuss boundaries of a different sort, and how we can go beyond them. Yogi, mystic and visionary, Sadhguru is a spiritual master with a difference. An arresting blend of profundity and pragmatism, his life and work serve as a reminder that yoga is a contemporary science, vitally relevant to our times.

Transcript

Good evening to everyone. Hey, I said good evening. I think a lot of them have been misled by the title, Beyond Boundaries. They think you're going to hit a sixer or something. Well, Aren't we? Well today we're not talking about the ball going beyond boundaries, We're talking about you and me going beyond boundaries. Please. It's a beautiful occasion as always when you get a lot of people in a room. Is there a specific reason why we gathered here in your opinion? What's the force that's dragging us all together? Essentially, The nature of being human is such, No matter where you are, What kind of achievements you have behind you, You're still longing to be something more. There's something more, Somebody may think more money, Somebody may think more wealth, Somebody may think more pleasure, More love, More knowledge, But everything that you accumulate in your life only makes the arrangements better, But doesn't really enhance your life. So whether it is consciously articulated within a human being or not, But every human being is longing in some way to enhance their lives. Somebody thinks it'll happen by going to the temple, Somebody thinks it'll happen by going to the bar, Somebody thinks it will happen with prayer, Somebody thinks it'll happen with dope, All of them are aiming for the same thing, Whether it works or not is a different matter. But the longing is in some way to enhance their life. So in this effort, In this longing, There is something within every human being which can never be curbed, No matter what you do, What you give them, Human beings will long for something more. So there is something within every human being longing to be beyond boundaries. Whatever the present boundaries, We want to go beyond it. Or in. . . To put it in other words, There is something within you which does not like boundaries. Just try to smash them. There is something within a human being which doesn't like boundaries. See, Suppose let's say I imprison you in a five-by-five cubicle, You'll feel terrible, Imprisoned. Tomorrow we will announce your liberation and liberate you into ten-by-ten cubicle. You'll feel wonderful for a day. And again you'll feel horribly imprisoned. The next day we will release you into a hundred-by-hundred cubicle. You will feel really great. But within three days, Again, That is also imprisonment. It doesn't matter where I set the boundary. The moment you can feel the boundary, You want to break it. There is something within you which does not like boundaries. So this longing finds various sorts of expressions. People try through music, Art, Sport, Business. All these efforts are fine. Every effort is fine. The longing is fantastic. Through intoxication, Through stimulation, Every way people try somehow to break their boundaries. But the important thing is, Can you stay beyond boundaries? Or do you breach it just for a moment and again come back to the same format? So when this question comes up, There's a very. . . You know, The Patanjali Yoga Sutras were written like this. It's one of the greatest documents on life, Written in a very cryptic way so that scholars wouldn't get interested. That's the idea. Because once they get interested, They will write ten different versions of the same thing. So Patanjali starts this significant document with half a sentence. The sentence is like this, And now yoga. That means you tried money, You tried wealth, You tried relationships, You tried love, You tried pleasure, You tried intoxication, You tried all kinds of things. Everything did something to you, But you know it is not settling you. And now yoga. Happy. So yoga does not mean twisting and turning. Yoga means union. That is, Consciously you obliterated the boundaries of your individual nature. Because your individual nature is just your imagination. As you sit here, Your boundaries of your body and your mind are just your making. Right now, Constantly you're breathing. It is happening in many different levels, But in a most fundamental way you're breathing. If you close your mouth and hold your nose, You understand you cannot live within your boundary. You have to breach the boundary every moment, Otherwise you cannot exist. This is not just in the level of your respiration, Every cell in the body, Every atom in the body, Isn't some kind of transaction. If you stop it, You cease to exist. So your very existence is not within the boundaries. But within your psychological framework, You have this sense of this is me. This is because. . . See, This solar system, The very solar system in which we are, Is a tiny speck in this cosmos. In that tiny speck, Planet earth is a micro speck. In that micro speck, Brisbane is a super micro speck. In that, You're a big man. It's not a small problem. And in the middle of nowhere, We don't know where this cosmos begins, Where it ends. Here we are sitting on this little mud ball and talking all this stuff. Yes, And we think we're doing it. That's the most incredible thing. See, This. . . All this mistake and this confusion has happened because creation gave us an individual experience, Though we are like a speck of dust in the universe, Though we are a tiny speck, A micro speck in the universe, It gave us an individual experience. We are taking this individual experience rather too seriously and thinking it's real. No, It's just psychological. It's fantastic, It's the magnanimity of creation that it's given us an individual experience. This does not mean you're actually an individual, You're not. You cannot exist for one moment without everything else around you. All these arrangements you did not make, We've messed it up, But we did not make the. . . You know, Arrangements of atmosphere, We did not make the arrangements of the planet functioning in a certain way. We did not make the arrangements of whatever comes out of this planet, Nourishes us, Keeps us well. This is not our making. So, This sense of individuality has been taken too seriously. Because of that, No matter where you are, In which dimension of life you are, You feel somewhere deep inside trapped. So, If you think somewhere, A little instinct tells you there may be a solution, There you will be. Well, Let's focus for a second on collaboration, Because as an individual can take it that the Isha Foundation is something which is now a global movement. So, Talk to me about the spirit of collaboration. I mean, How you've developed, Built these organisms like a human body that you might describe yourself as maybe a platelet within the human body, But you know, There's this huge now juggernaut that's walking and talking around the world. Tell me about the foundations of that thought, Where it originated from and then the spirit of the collaboration. I don't collaborate with anybody. Whoever either they're in front of me or they're not here with me, I make them a part of myself. And this is not my doing, This is the way creation is made. See, You may not be… you may not be able to stand the person who is sitting next to you. But what they say, You're inhaling without any problem, Isn't it? I'm saying essentially your existence is inclusive, Only your mind is exclusive. I made my mind just the way my life is, So it's inclusive. So, I don't think in terms of collaborating or confronting anybody, I'm just inclusive. Whether they like it or not, I make them a part of my life, That's all. I don't seek other people's permission to make them a part of my life. I just make them a part of my life, Because I don't need their permission for this. Hello? So, Out of this, Things happen in many different ways, The various activities. Essentially, The fundamental activity is to raise human consciousness in the sense… See, Right now, Our sense of who I am is only because too much identity with physical self. Your physical body is an accumulation, Isn't it so? Hello? Hello? Slowly, You came like this, Just this much, Now you became this much, Just by eating, Isn't it? Hello? What you have eaten is just a piece of this planet. If you get it from now… If you get it from me now, It'll be good, Otherwise one day you will get it from the maggots anyway. It is good then also, Because for most people that's the only eco-friendly thing they do. But if you get it now, You could transform your life. If you understand the soil that you walk upon, The air that you breathe, The water that you drink, Everything around you is actually you, Happening. Yes or no? Yesterday what was you is not you today. What is not you today could be you tomorrow, Isn't it? What was soil yesterday, Today became food, Tomorrow becomes your body, Isn't it? So what you call as my body is just an accumulation. Whatever we accumulate, We can claim it is ours, But you cannot say it's me. See, Right now I can say this is my vessel. If I say this is me, You know I've lost it. Hello? But this what you're doing every day, Food appears on your plate, You say this is my food, You eat it and you say this is me. So, Consciousness means just this. If your physical body is dominant, You think, Feel, Act in a certain way because physical body is always about boundaries. I'm sorry, My physical body is right now leaking a little bit. I need to blow my nose. Translator, Saguru, He had a game of golf. He didn't wear enough clothes and he got cold and now he's got a cold. See, He is human. I thought I was playing in Chennai. I once played in Chennai and I lost badly because I didn't have a glove on and of course it's 40 degrees, Well 38 degrees and the humidity is so thick. It's just like walking through water. I don't know why there's a water crisis in Chennai because it is all around your face. Because it's all in the air. They could just catch, They could put a tray underneath you as you moved around and catch that water and that would be enough water to sustain you for another day. But I played this round of golf and every time I'd try and hit the ball, The club would go further than the ball. So I thought forget golf in Chennai. Sorry you were saying. So, If your body is dominant, You think, Feel and act in a certain way because you think through your body or your intelligence works for the boundaries of your body. So naturally survival instinct will be the strongest dimension of who you are. When survival instinct is strongest, You always want to build a wall around yourself. When survival instinct is strong, You want to build a wall of self-preservation. The walls of self-preservation are also walls of self-imprisonment. What looks like protection today is imprisonment tomorrow. Has it happened to you or no? In many different ways. Hello? You build a wall thinking this is protection. After two days you realize this is a prison, You built. Of course built by you so you cannot easily demolish it, It takes time because so much investment has gone into it. If you identify with your psychological process, Once again the boundaries may be little larger than your body but still it is a boundary because all your psychological process only happens with the identities that you have taken in. Maybe your race, Your religion, Your nationality, Your ethnicity, Something. You have taken on an identity. Your psychological framework works within that. See when it comes to body, This is my body, That's your body. Clearly. We won't get this till we are buried that it's all the same soil. But this is my body, That's your body right now, Clearly. This is my mind, That's your mind. Here and there we may overlap but this is my mind, That's your mind. But when it comes to life, There is no such thing as my life and your life. Right now the problem with most human beings is their physiological and psychological process is too dominant for them to realize that the life that they are is of a different nature than the body and the psychological structures that they have built. This is like, Let's say you and me blew a soap bubbles. We should have brought it actually. So you got this big bubble, I got that big bubble. Now I claim that is my bubble, The big one is my bubble. It went poop. Then I don't say this is my air, That's your air. Life is just like this. This is a living cosmos. You captured some, I captured some. Now, The whole science of yoga is about breaching the boundaries of your psychological and physiological structure so that you imbibe more and more life. So after some time, The life that you are becomes more dominant than the body that you are, Than the thought and emotion that you are. When your life becomes very significantly more than the psychological and physiological processes, If you sit here, You are a significant life, Not necessarily because of what you do and do not do. You are just a significant life, Simply by existence you are significant. Once it happens like this, Effortlessly you can function. Every human being is doing this knowingly or unknowingly, Most of the time unconsciously. Some are depleting, Some are gaining. But as there is a science for external well-being, There is a whole science and technology for inner well-being where you consciously obliterate the boundaries of your physiological and psychological boundaries so that the life that you are is so highly enhanced that you are a significant life. It's not necessarily because of what you do, Simply your presence and your existence becomes significant. This is something every human being must do because in body you are not a match for other creatures. Hello? You cannot run like a cheetah, You are not as strong as an elephant, You cannot even hop like a kangaroo. You are no good actually, Physiologically. Hello? See… Speaker 1 Speak for yourself. No, I am saying if you compare yourself with any other creature, What does the body do? It eats, It sleeps, It dies… reproduces and it dies one day. In all these departments, You are no good compared to other species. They eat better than you. There are insects which eat, You know, Fifty times their body weight in twenty-four hours. They sleep better than you, Many of them sleep for three months, Six months at a stretch. They reproduce better than you, They're producing hundreds, Thousands, Some of them in millions. For you, Just to bear one child, How much fuss? They also die better than you without fuss. So physiologically, You are not a great champion, All right? Among humans you may be… Matthew Hayden may be good, All right? Among humans, Not comparable to a rhinoceros or a elephant, Nothing, Not even to a gorilla, He'll just smash him up. Among the human beings, He's smashing the ball all the time. That's a different matter. I'm saying physiologically, We are not a great presence. Our significance is our intelligence and our ability to be conscious and inclusive. Every other creature, Always trying to set boundaries because their whole life is about survival. Once you become a human, Survival is not the goal of your life. See, For all other creatures, Stomach full, Life settled. For human beings, Stomach empty, Only one problem, Food. Stomach full, One hundred problems. Because what is human unfolds only after survival is taken care of. When survival is questioned, We are also just like any other creature fighting for survival. Only when survival is taken care of, Other dimensions of being human come into play. So human life is not about survival, Physical survival is not the end goal of who we are. We are longing to be something more. How much more do you think would settle you? Hello? How much more would settle you? If I make you the king of this planet or queen of this planet, Would you settle? No. What do you want? Okay, The solar system. No. If I give you one galaxy, You will want the next galaxy. This is the nature of being human. Doesn't matter where the boundary is. The moment I see the boundary, I want to break it. So there is something within you longing to become boundless. If you do not find expression to this, Do not matter what you have, You'll remain somehow unfulfilled. So this is what yoga means, That you breach the boundaries of your physiological and psychological nature, That if you sit here, You're a complete human being within yourself. Tell me this then, If our strength is only in our intelligence, Why are we making such dismal decisions as a humanity? Why can we honestly say that history does repeat itself? And we're talking about all sorts of global atrocities. If we're so intelligent, If that is our strength, Which I agree a hundred percent with you on, The fact is that we've got boundaries in terms of our physicality, Acknowledge that for sure. See, You know Charles Darwin, You have a city called Darwin, I think you've read, Named after him. He said, A goat could have become a giraffe in so many million years. A pig could have become an elephant in many more million years. But a monkey became a man rather too quickly. Yes. So quickly that anthropologists believe that there is a missing link somewhere. Today, Modern genetic scientists are saying the difference between a chimpanzee and you is, In terms of DNA, The DNA difference between you and a chimpanzee is 1. 23 percent. 1. 23 percent is not much of a difference, Isn't it? So physiologically, That's how close you are to a chimpanzee. But in terms of your intelligence and consciousness, There's a… your world's apart from a chimpanzee. So right now the problem is just this, You have an intelligence for which you don't have a stable enough base. Because of this, People are using their intelligence to poke themselves all the time. They don't need any outside help. If you just leave them alone, They will suffer. So they may call it stress, They will call it tension, They will call it misery, They will call it madness, They will call it so many things. Essentially, It's about your intelligence turning against yourself. So, Nature has endowed you with an intelligence, With a phenomenal capability. Anything which is a great possibility, If you don't take charge of it, It will become a huge problem. Right now, Human intelligence has become a massive problem because most people have not taken charge of it for their well-being and everybody's well-being. They're using it to hurt themselves. Once you use it to hurt yourself, Knowingly or unknowingly, You will also hurt everything around you. If you are suffering, You must understand this. It is not because of any situation around you. You're simply suffering because you do not know how to handle your own intelligence. That is the problem that you're seeing on the planet. Expectation, We were talking about it before we came on stage in a cricket context. T20 cricket is something that people love. They love the sixes, They love the fours. But using that metaphorically, Converting that into conversation around humanity, Is there a false expectation? That's what also setting up humanity for both the positive aspects, But also those pitfalls within that expectation. Or is it as simple as just keeping it to the moment? Because as an athlete, I lived and died by the moment. If I was out of the moment, Then I was like you holding that cobra up. I was one second away from being out of play. Oh, You went only to the pavilion. If you don't handle the cobra right, You go all the way. To where? Where do you go? See, See, Now you're getting somewhere, Huh? What you saw, That's a king cobra. Well, He has enough venom to kill an elephant. If he bites you in the limbs, You may have anywhere between forty to ninety minutes. If he bites you in the body, You have six to eight minutes. But he won't bite me. See, I'm not holding him by his head, Just holding him like this. He can… at his will, He can turn back and bite, But he won't bite because his venom is precious to him. It's very precious to him. Venom is among the highest or the most intense forms of protein on the planet. To manufacture that, He has to work hard. He's not going to just waste it on me. Unless I look like a threat to him. If I have to look like a threat to him, He's not judging by his vision. He's reading my chemistry. If he sees a little bit of agitation in my chemistry, He will go for me for sure. Otherwise, He will not go for me. So if we want to know you're really peaceful or not, All the cricketers must be put, All the batsmen, Whether they're really peaceful or not, We can put them through a cobra test. Okay, Trust me, At times I did feel like holding up Rahul Draba by the belly and just shaking him a little like that as well. So, This is the nature of existence. See, I'm sorry you had a terrible accident in the surfing, But otherwise, Some will ride the wave, Some will get crushed by the wave. Somebody who does not know how to surf, He can't believe that somebody can actually float. Hello? They can't believe that you can actually ride. Today there's something called as wake surfing. Have you seen that? Behind the boat they're just surfing with just the wake of the boat. So, Riding the wave and getting crushed by the wave is just a question of competence, Taking charge of something, Isn't it? This is the same with every dimension of life. Are you riding it or are you being crushed by it? Those who are crushed by it, They think waves are a big problem, They would like a still ocean. You are looking for big waves, You're going to India for monsoon time because you need big waves. So, One who knows how to ride the wave is looking for a big wave, It's a huge possibility. One who does not know how to ride the wave thinks a big wave is a huge problem. This is the nature of life. I have a little Aussie test for you here, I hope you don't mind. I got a few sayings, Colloquialisms. Because Australia, Correct me if I'm wrong, Is full of things that make no sense whatsoever. So, We've mentioned number of times our guru tonight, Inclusivity. You're not a googly bowler, You can't do that to me. No, No, No, There's no googly's, Trust me. So, Aussie sayings with just a simple test. I want you to… I'd like you to have a go at trying to think about what they are for a start and maybe tell us what you think. When I say to you, What's an ankle biter, What does that mean? What is? An ankle biter. I've just been here for two days, Please spare me. You can have your own back by the way, You can have your own back. Okay, If I say, You should be able to get this one, Even if you've been here for two days, My expectations, Dangerous as they are, Are high. I know what's a footy, Is that good enough to be an Aussie? Good, That's a tick. Fair dinkum, What's fair dinkum mean? I love it. Okay, We'll go back to nature. What's a galah? When I say to you, You're nothing but a galah, What does that mean? Must be a wombot or something. It's a bird, It's a bird, Type of bird. Yeah, I got somewhere close. Yeah, Very close. We'll give you a tick. When you say hard yakka as an Australian term, We often refer to something, I'll say, Yeah, We'll get it over the line but she's hard, Real hard yakka mate, What does that mean? A galah. No, That's more like gnarly. That's an exerting expression, Gnarly. I just… just for fairness, I'll just go one more. See, You're also reading from the book, You're also not an Aussie then. That's true. I just wanted to get it right, That's all. This is something that we're doing right now. There's a tip. If I say to you, So Guru, We're just up here on the stage, We're just going to chew the fat for a while, What does that mean? Chew the fat? Chew the fat for a while. That means maybe like other people say, The meat and the bone like that means we're talking, Means we're talking. The reason why I brought that up was that when I'm commentating over in India, Sometimes I'll just get this… my fellow commentators will give me this strange look after I've said something… Chew the fat. Let's chew some fat. All that sort of… those sort of comments and they look at me and after we get off air, They go, Hey, Doss, What the hell did that mean? And you forget that we are a language, Especially where you are now, So Guru, In Queensland, We speak a tongue that's English but it's not really. And trust me, I've been kind on you, There's some horrific ones as well. Tell me, You also mentioned that your first visit here, You tripped across Australia and my first impressions of India was that there is a lot of people and there's also in India, Because there are so many people, There is so much energy, Human energy and the chances are that if you're having a bad day, Either where you're at or India as a whole is actually having a bad day because there is so much collectivity of humanity. What was your impressions though when you started to travel across our vast country and just sensing the emptiness of the country as well? I'd love to know what your impressions were around that and what insights you got out of it because out of a lonely existence as well, There is time only for you in that environment as well. Well, Personally I've spent a lot of time by myself in the jungles of southern India, In the Himalayas. Now every year I spend time in Tibet. These days it's very difficult for me to be alone. People are all the time alone. And do you like that? Is that something that you now seek that that time alone or is it… I'm at my best when I'm alone. Why is that? Why do you think that is? Because I don't mess with myself. People sit by themselves and mess with themselves and make a mess out of themselves. If they stay alone, They'll go crazy, A whole lot of people. If one knows… if one enjoys being alone, It means they are definitely better organized psychologically, Emotionally, Far better organized than others. One of the… one of the important processes of spiritual sadhana we give, The tools that we offer is always to go into silence. People go into silence. For from three days to three years, Four years like this, People go on silence, Not saying a word to anybody. Now, In today's world where if they're having breakfast, They must take a picture of the breakfast, I'm having breakfast, If I'm going to the toilet, I'm going to the toilet. When this is the world, To just shut up and sit in one place takes a lot. Initially it looks like a struggle, But once you really taste what it is, You can't be without it. You just can't be without it. See, It's like this. If I shut myself up once in a way from everything around me, Because otherwise I'm seven days of the week, Three-hundred-and-sixty-five days, Twenty, Twenty-two hours a day, I'm on, On, On. So if I shut myself, I don't read anything, I don't watch television, I don't use the phone, I don't even look out of the window. Because there is a phenomena of life within you which is far bigger than all the entertainment you have. Because most people are only living with their psychological drama of their own thought and emotion, They get bored, They want to do something else, They want interaction. But if you engage with the basic phenomena that you are, Are you… are you alive? I'm just asking. Hello? Participants – Yes. No, No, Please look at this. Please look at this in twenty-four hours' time, How many moments are you really life? Most of the time you're just a bundle of thoughts, Emotions, Ideas, Opinions, Ideologies, Prejudices, Something, Something other than life. If you… if I just sit there, For five days I don't have a single thought in my mind, I simply sit. They are the best times, If I do that once, Next few years, Non-stop, No vacation, No holiday, No weekly holiday, No nothing, We just go on and on and on. Because once you touch the source of your life, The way the surface functions is almost people… people around me think I'm superhuman. No, This is not about being superhuman. This is about realizing being human is super. It… It is not for nothing, It is not for nothing that we are the peak of evolution on this planet. Hello? Are we? We are the peak of evolution on this planet. It's to make you the way you are. It took millions of years of work. Nature has worked millions of years to get you to this level. But now all must-be human beings can do is complain. This is a product which is arrived at after phenomenal development over a few million years. But now you're complaining about how it is because you've not explored the full depth and dimension of what a human being is. A human being is not just a bundle of thoughts and emotions. Like you're not just body, There's something more to this. Body you accumulated, What you call as my mind is an accumulation of impressions. This is a heap of food, That is a heap of impressions. Between these two heaps, Where the hell are you? Yes, Where are you? It's time everybody pays some attention because this life is not for good. Since you came and sat here, You're forty-five minutes closer to your grave. Yes, I'm not… I'm not wishing this on you. This is the nature of our life. This is not clock ticking away, It's our life ticking away, Isn't it? Most people think other people die. You know? No, No, You and me will die. If you understand, If you understand that this is a limited amount of time and energy, You would see how to master this in some way. Do whatever you want. You can't stop one minute from rolling, Isn't it? Hello? Whoever you may be, Can you stop it? No, It's rolling away for all of us at the same pace. Well, How quickly, How rapidly or how slowly simply depends on how joyful or how miserable you are. If you're… have you noticed this on a specific day, You were very happy. Twenty-four hours, Poof, Went off like a moment. Another day you were depressed. Twenty-four hours feel like a eon. Yes or no? So only miserable people can have a truly long life. If you're really joyful, If you're very joyful, Before you know what's happening, It gets over. For the possibilities that a human being has come with, If you live to be hundred, It's really nothing. Hundred is not a long life. Hundred is nothing if you're really ecstatic, It'll just pass away like this in no time. If you're miserable, Every day feels like hundred years. So time is a very relative experience, But the only thing that you can master is your energies. Only if you're at a certain level of intensity, What somebody does in ten years, You will do in one year. Because of this, The impact and the profoundness of your experience, In terms of experience, The profoundness of experience, In terms of activity and impact in the world, It may be like thousand years, Though you lived only hundred years, Simply because you have multiplied yourself. But time is limited. Tamil people, You know some Tamil words? Now I'm going to Google you with Tamil words. Like you chewed fat with me. Yeah, You've got me. Come on then, Hit me with something. In Tamil language, This is very well said, When somebody dies, We don't say he died, We say, Kaalamai tangai. That means his time got over. What? It's a perfect description. Time got over, That's all that happened. Time is getting over even now, Isn't it so? How young you are, How healthy you are, How wonderful you are, It doesn't matter. Time is getting over. If you're conscious that you're mortal and it's a limited amount of time, Naturally you would tweak up your energies to such a level that time would be enhanced for you. Otherwise, If you think you're here forever, You think you're an eternal being, Then you have time for all kinds of rubbish that you don't care for. If you knew it is very limited, You wouldn't do one thing that doesn't matter to you, Isn't it? Hello? Would you have… if you really knew… see, Every day nearly quarter million people die on this planet just by natural process. And you think those people are all thinking, Tomorrow morning I will die? Hello? You think so? No. Lot of people were going to their office, Somebody was going home, Somebody had all kinds of dreams, Young people, Old people, All sorts of people die every day in the world. If you knew that it is possible, It's not my wish, I'll bless you with a long life, But it's possible tomorrow morning you and me could be dead, Isn't it? Hello? Possible or no? It's not our wish. Possible or no? If you know it is possible that it is possible tomorrow morning I could be dead, Would you have time to quarrel with somebody? Would you have time to bicker with someone else, Do some nonsense that doesn't matter to you? You would do only what truly, Truly matters to you. If every moment of your life if you're doing what really, Really matters to you, You will live a wonderful life. Beautiful said. So you can assume that with that philosophy you're extremely cause driven and you know the Isha Foundation is obviously a huge vehicle for you to express that. But I want to talk specifically about water and what your vision for the conservation of water and some of the things that you're doing proactively doing within the causes and that relationship as well with in particular your heartlands of Tamil Nadu and also Karnataka. See I grew up in Karnataka around Cauvery River. About four and a half years every day I swam in Cauvery River and I was between somewhere between fourteen… fourteen to eighteen, Nineteen at that time almost every day I swam in Cauvery River. Once I floated down Cauvery for thirteen days on four truck tubes and a few bamboos. I lived off the river. In my experience the river was not some kind of a resource or water source or something. In my experience she was a life much larger than me. People like you and me come and go but this river has flown for a million years. But today we have brought her down to her knees in such a way that the river's survival is in a… is a big question mark. This is not just for one river, This has happened across the country. Just to give some kind of a picture for people here they may not be conscious of this. See we must understand this, In India this is a tropical country. That means river is not the source of water, It is only a destination for water. River, Pond, Lake, Well, These are not sources of water, These are destinations for water. There is only one source called monsoon. Monsoon rain is the only source it gathers in the land in various forms. If it is flowing we call it a river, If it is stagnant we call it a lake, If it goes inside we call it a well. But essentially it is all rainwater. Only four percent of Indian river water is glacial water in the north. In that four percent, Nearly three percent of it flows out of the country very quickly in the form of sotledge and indus. Very little comes to Ganga. For example, Ganga, Ganga is twenty-five percent of India's geography, Thirty-three percent of India's agriculture but has depleted over thirty-seven percent because we have removed ninety-two percent of green cover in the Ganga basin in the last sixty-five years. Ninety-two percent, What is the plan? Narmada has depleted over sixty percent, Godavari has depleted over forty percent, Krishna has depleted over seventy percent, Almost seven months of the year it's almost dry throughout. Cauvery has depleted according to studies, Forty to forty-four percent. But in my personal experience, See they are studying this like this, The entire years' water flow, So many million liters or trillion liters and compared to how it was fifty years ago now it's gone down forty percent. But leave the monsoon time, At that time there is water. Let's say you take September-October, In the month of October if you go and see Cauvery, How it is today, Is only twenty-five to thirty percent of what it was when I was ten years old. This has happened because we have removed eighty-seven percent of the green cover. Simply rampantly one thing is agriculture. I remember this very well, Forty years ago when I was in… living on a farm, At that time it was very common for every farmer to have at least a few trees on his land. This was his insurance. In Karnataka especially this culture was very strong, Where they will name the tree after their daughter or their son. They say this is for the girl, This is for the boy, This is like this. So when the girl's marriage comes they will chop one tree, Wedding is taken care of. Boy wants to go to the university, One tree, That is taken care of. So always trees were there in the farmland. But forty years ago when really this chemical fertilizers came in a big way, Till then we were very organic. When chemical fertilizers came, I know this very well because I have heard people coming and campaigning. These companies came and campaigned in the villages of India saying that if you have trees in the land, Their root systems are aggressive, They will eat up all the fertilizer. You have to take away the trees. So we took away millions and millions of trees across farmlands because they thought chemical fertilizer will be wasted on the trees. So today we've come to a place where groundwater has depleted tremendously, River water is going away, Every water source is just depleting. But in the last hundred years there is no big change in the amount of rain that is being… that is happening in the subcontinent. So the rain that is coming is the same. It is just our ability to hold it in the land is gone because the green cover is gone. Without the necessary organic content you cannot hold the water in the soil. When rain comes, How slowly it moves towards the river will determine how long the river will flow in the year, How many months it will flow. If it moves rapidly, Within three months it will be over, It goes slowly, It will flow for twelve months. This is all the thing is. There is a very wonderful… I can do another googly, Tamil googly for you. In Tamil language there is an ancient saying which says, Nadanda vanda tha Kaveri valam, Odi vanda vallam. This means only if Kaveri comes walking, She brings wealth and prosperity. If she comes running, She'll bring disaster. So how do you make a river walk? If a river has to walk, There has to be substantial vegetation that the water that comes down in the form of rain is held in the land and slowly it moves towards the river. Today this whole understanding of river systems is been lost completely. Because if you say rivers, So many… I see so many people of Indian origin, You ask them what are the rivers, They will name seven, Eight, Ten, Twelve rivers, Major rivers. They will say Ganga, Narmada, Godavari, Krishna, Kaveri. But you need to understand a river doesn't exist by itself. For example, Kaveri has over one-hundred-and-twenty tributaries. And most of these tributaries don't even flow for three to four months in a year. They were all perennial streams. But today most of them are not flowing more than three to four months. Kaveri is not touching the ocean for over six months. She is receding by the year. This is happening mainly because there is no green cover. So this project what we have taken up called Kaveri Calling is an offshoot of Rally for Rivers. Rally for Rivers was done with the intent of changing the policy framework. We are hundred-percent successful in this because the policy that we offered to the central government was accepted in total. They put it through the scientific tests and then the economic tests and they found it as an ideal policy and this was recommended for all the twenty-nine states as official policy. About four states are proactively pursuing this policy. Another three to four states we have memorandum of understanding and we are working with them. But many other states are just not doing anything about it though because a river is a concurrent subject between federal government and the state government. India can only advise it's the state which needs to act. So where they have not acted, There you see serious water issues. So now Kaveri Calling is a different level of project. We have taken another project in Maharashtra. You wouldn't know there's a place called Yavatmal. There's a Vagari River. Are there Marathi people? So this is known in the country unfortunately as the suicide capital of the country, Of India because maximum number of farmer suicides happened. Now in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka this is becoming a, You know, Like a regular yearly score is happening. Today in Tamil Nadu eighty-three percent of the farmers are considered to be under distressed loans. Seventy-seven percent of Karnataka farmers are under distress debt. What a distress debt is, Is that they have no means to pay the money which they have taken. It doesn't matter how much farming they do, They have no means to pay. This means either they have to sell the land or run away somewhere or hang from a tree. This is the options we are giving them. We are driving a whole mass of people in this direction. This has happened for variety of reasons but the fundamental reason is lack of rich soil. What was a very fertile soil, You know, We have found the same land for over 12, 000 years but today in one generation we are turning it into a desert like space mainly because the only way you can enrich the land is by the leaves of the trees and by the animal waste. Trees are gone long time ago, Animals are all traveling to other countries. Now there is no leaves, There is no animal waste, There is no way to recoup this soil. Out of one-hundred-and-sixty million hectares of arable land in India, One-hundred-and-four million hectares have been identified as distressed soil because there is no leaf, There is no animal waste. If we don't put back trees back in the soil, If you don't bring animals back into the farm, We will… our ability to grow food will be completely gone. This is one of the greatest achievements in India. Without any modern science or technological advancements, Just with sheer traditional knowledge our illiterate farmer has grown food for over a billion people for the last seventy years. But today we are driving him to the wall to such a place. So the plan for Cauvery Calling is just this, We want to convert one-third of this 83, 000 square kilometers into agroforestry. We have already converted about 70, 000 Tamil farmers into agroforestry. Their incomes in five to seven years have gone up anywhere between three to eight times, That is I'm talking about three-hundred to eight-hundred percent increase in income, Simply growing trees in one-third of their land. So we want to bring this to the entire region. The challenge is to bring about… See we can go like this, Seventy thousand have happened every year, Thousand, Two thousand people are going into it. If you go at this rate, We will take two to three generations. Now with Cauvery Calling I'm trying to crush time into twelve years, Twelve year project this is. In twelve years we want to see that 2. 42 billion trees are planted by the farmers in the region. If we do this, The water that is sequestered by this, This is proper scientific studies are there, Will be something like nine to twelve trillion liters. To give you some perspective, The entire water flow in Cauvery per year is 21. 2 trillion. So if twelve trillion liters extra go into the land, River will flow once again full on, All the ground water will be replenished, People will live well. See if you don't know what I'm talking about, Many of you who live in cities may not understand what I'm saying. Just go out, You have outback, Walk in hot sun for some time, Whole day you walk, Just come under a tree and sit. It's magic. Life changes just like that. If you have ever really walked long distances, You will understand what I'm talking, You just go under a tree after hot sun and sit there, Life changes. This life changing, You know, Wealth that we always had, The entire region was tropical forest. Unfortunately, In short sightedness we have removed but we can put it back. It's possible to do it. We need everybody's support to do this in Tamil Nadu. We need Matt. Matt Lundgren – Well, Thank you. I've pledged my support. We had a… in the lead up to this little technological discussion and one of those was that I was requested by Sadhguru to invest and that's a pledge that I'll honor. I think it's an incredible cause. I also had a little bit of fun with other heavy influences in India and in Mahindra in particular and he requested a question and in Mahindra for those that don't know is in control of the largest auto and agri business in the world. And as a business they're very conscious on water, Being water neutral, Which is fantastic for such an influential individual. But he asked me not so much on policy and not so much on company. He asked from an individual's perspective what one can be doing because at those discussions, I'm sure everyone living in Australia will understand this, Are very similar discussions as to how it is that we need to take control of our resource and almost in many ways elevated above a political cycle of four years and put it on a national agenda because we are, You know, In… as diastrates as what any other country is. Now, I love to cook and I know one thing about rice. I'm a good cook. Well you can… we can have a cook-off. Not a competition, Just an enrichment, An enrichment experience. Now one of the processes of cooking rice, Unless you want extremely sticky rice, Is to wash the heck out of it to ensure those starches come out. But my question is from Anindra and I'd ask you as well, Shail, What on an individual level can we do about water wastage? See, Because the urban populations always have access to media, Social media, They dominate everything, But they are not the majority of the population. I'm saying this because it's like this. Most people who have seen older generation of people who have seen Indian movies, They will see the village woman are carrying a pot and walking to the river or lake and walking and there the hero goes and romances them, They sing a song, Everything. But for the actor, She's carrying an empty pot. The real woman is carrying fifteen kilograms on her head. Yes? There is no romance there. She cannot open her mouth and sing. What I'm saying is the crisis has been long coming. We thought it's romantic when it happens to somebody else. But now you have to take your pot and go in Chennai city to get water, Now it's looking like a disaster. Hello? This was happening everywhere in the villages. So what can we do? There are many things we can do. Of course everybody is talking about drink only two liters of water, Have bath only with four liters of water, All this. I will not say such things to anybody. I would just say, Just be conscious. Just be conscious, Water is not a commodity, Nor food is a commodity. These are life making material. Hello? Hello? Seventy percent of you is water. This is you. How come when it's here, You don't care? The moment it comes here, It means so much. You just be conscious this is life. This is life making material. If you're conscious of this, I know according to your intelligence, Your life situations, You'll do your best. It's not in me to tell people, Drink only this many liters of water, Don't have shower every day, These advisers are coming all over the place. No, I shower every day. So I'm not going to tell you shower once in three days. Not if you shower once in three days, I don't want you around me either. So leaving that aside, In the cities, See the city situation is different. The urban situation is very different. They are thinking of water about how to minimize the use. Yes, Definitely that needs to happen. Because this is a pressure and the water works, The water arrangements that you have in the urban atmosphere. But that's not the real problem. The real problem is ecological. Ecological problem is not just about saving water, Ecological problem is about having water where you want. When I say having water where you want, In the last million years, Million years ago, How much water existed on this planet. Even today the same amount of water exists on the planet, Except for a few bottles of water that the astronauts took out there and you know, They left it on the moon I believe, Some of them, The American astronauts. They might have left a couple of liters. Apart from that, Everything is here in this atmosphere. It's just not where you want it, That's all. Yes? Water has not gone anywhere, It's in the atmosphere. As you said, You were wading through water in the Chennai Golf Course, But it's not coming where it has to come. So water is not where you want it. So we need to look at this, Why is it? Where do you want it? You want it in the land. You want the aquifers to be full. You want the lakes to be full. You want the rivers to be running. It is not about the water tank on your apartment. That's not the point. That is a city problem. That is an urban problem which needs to be sorted out, Where usage has to be minimized. That is fine, We appreciate those concerns. But the most important thing is to ensure the water that comes down in the form of rain, Considering India right now, The volume of water that comes down in the form of rain, We are not even holding eighteen to twenty percent of it in the land. When the whole thing was tropical forest, We were holding over seventy percent of it in the land. Today we are holding less than twenty percent of it in the land. That's all the real problem is. So right now, Instead of doing many things, Yes in the cities, Save water, Be conscious about it, Recycle whatever you can. Well, You have water harvesting in your apartments and stuff in your buildings, All this is fine, You must do these things. But this is not a real solution, You're just kicking the can for tomorrow. Now kicking the can for tomorrow I don't like because you think the problems that you create, The next generation should suffer. Hello? I don't like this. Better face it now, This is the reality. The only and only thing, I'm telling you, It doesn't matter, This is not some rocket science, The only and only thing the land needs is it needs vegetation and it needs animals. That's all it needs. People will say check dam, Right now everybody is announcing check dams across streams and rivers. See, You need to understand this, All these ideas are coming from Europe and North America, Where the variation between summer and full river seasons are just about twenty to twenty-five percent. That means eighty percent to seventy-five to eighty percent, It's always there. In India, Between monsoon and summer, The variation is ninety percent. If you build check dams, You will transform a river into a string of pools. Near every town and city you build a check dam, In the end what you have is a string of pools. At a temperature which is around over thirty-five degrees, If you stagnate water in thirty days' time, If the water is flowing, It doesn't have so much evaporation. If you stagnate the water in thirty days, The evaporation could be up to fifty-five to sixty percent. So these big dams have been a big disaster. We did these things at one time and we did not know much about this. Now the science of hydrology has evolved in a significant way. Right now everybody knows one-third of the land needs to go under shade. This is very important. So for this, We are talking about just Cauvery Basin. Cauvery Basin has a demo that this can be done. If there is determination in the people, This can be done. Once this happens, Because it's so lucrative to the farmer, It will spread across the country. Nobody can stop it because it's so lucrative. Right now India is importing over 70, 000 crores worth of timber and over 120 crores… I'm sorry, One lakh or 120, 000 crores worth of timber products. But nobody is allowed to grow timber because if you grow a tree in your land and cut it, Somebody will come and arrest you. So nobody wants to grow a tree. Right now we're bringing loss as a part of Rally for Rivers, We're pushing for loss. In the last term of the government, We got eighteen species released. This time we're getting all the high-value trees released because if a farmer cannot use the tree, He's not going to grow it, As simple as that. So we're talking about whatever he grows, He can cut it and use it whichever way he wants, Only then he is going to grow trees in a massive way across the country because it's economically lucrative. It's an economic plan for him but has ecological significance. So right now if everybody focuses on this one thing, We're… I don't know how it converts to Australian dollar. You should know you're visiting Chennai. Dr. John F. Kennedy, MD No. You know why this confuses me, Lax and… Sadhguru laughs Dr. John F. Kennedy, MD It costs just forty-two rupees to raise a sapling and give it to a farmer. We are asking for the governments to give some incentives so that they can switch over. For the first three to four years to give an incentive, This will make a huge difference both for the farmer and the land. Forty-two rupees per sapling, That's what it costs. But I want you to understand, We need to plant 2. 42 billion trees. That is the number of saplings. First four years we want to raise seven-hundred-and-thirty million saplings. For this, Preparations are going on all across the Cauvery basin right now. We have thirty-three nurseries in Tamil Nadu. The Karnataka nurseries are being built up just now. If this one thing we do, For me, How I am looking at it is, At least we must leave Cauvery the way the previous generation gave it to us. This much responsibility we must have. Just to close the loop on that, How can these guys make a difference? Well, You can plant as many trees as you can. Forty-two rupees is all it costs, I don't know what it costs. Can somebody say in Australian dollars? Hmm? Less than a dollar per tree. So you can plant ten, Hundred, Thousand, Million, Whatever you are capable of. Everything matters. Have we got a roving mic? Can we take any questions? It would be lovely to hear… It is a moving microphone. It would be lovely to hear… We have done a lot of talking and we will do a bit more but it would be lovely to hear some specific questions. So maybe… I don't know who is the judge. Maybe you can be the judge. But yeah, Here we go. Thank you very much, Sakul, For coming to Australia. So my question is regarding… because I have been following most of your videos. So you always mention about the need of collaboration of other people to be successful. So you always mention that to be successful, That is the only time that we need the collaboration of other people. For other things like our energy and our emotions, Everything can come from within. My question is that because environment and other people and society and everything can have effects on our emotions as well and our energy, How to manage that and not be affected by the environment? So how to be calm and happy and not be affected by surroundings? So how to separate these things together from each other? Sorry, Thank you very much. This is a… very often people come to me and say, Sadhguru, I can't stand my mother-in-law, She is impossible. My husband, After all her son. My wife, She is terrible, My boss unbearable, Like this. Then I tell them you come, You come to the yoga center, Your mother-in-law, Husband, Wife, Boss, Nobody will come here, Just you. We'll give you a nice place to stay, Good food to eat. You don't have to do anything. Just stay in your room, We supply food for you, You just live there. Only thing is I will make random checks on you. When I check, You must be joyful. If you're miserable, I don't believe in feeding misery, We'll stop feeding you. Just twenty-four hours you keep them in one place, In how many ways they twist themselves out? Unbelievable. So I'm asking you, All these other people, Your neighbors, Your mother-in-law, Your husband, Your wife, Your boss, Your co-workers, Let's banish all of them. All are gone. Whole society is gone, Just you on the island of Australia. Blissed out, Is it so? Hello? No. If you're alone also, You're miserable, You need to understand this. If you're alone and you're miserable, You're obviously in bad company, Isn't it? So this is what you need to do with yourself, That if you sit here, Your experience of life is pleasant. Well, You obviously, From what you said, You have probably heard this in some format. See, Pleasantness means just this. Body is healthy, It's pleasant. It became very pleasant, This is called pleasure. Mind is pleasant, Peaceful, Very pleasant, Joyful. Emotion is pleasant, Love, Very pleasant, Compassion. Your very life energies are pleasant, Bliss, Very pleasant, Ecstasy. These are all one hundred percent your business, Isn't it? Hello? Keeping your body pleasant, Thought pleasant, Emotion pleasant, Energy is pleasant, Is one hundred percent your business. Keeping the surroundings pleasant is a challenge because there are various kinds of people, Various kinds of forces. This needs skill, This needs opportunity, This needs… depends what times we exist in, You know. Not always we can do the same things. So creating pleasantness around us needs a certain amount of skill, Competence, Various things. Things have to fall together otherwise it won't happen. But pleasantness within you is entirely your business. So if you are feeling very pleasant within you and somebody here is being unpleasant to you, What is the problem? Right now they can cause pleasantness within you, That's the problem, Isn't it? Hello? See, If somebody can decide whether you can be happy or unhappy, This means this is the worst form of slavery, Isn't it so? Hello? Somebody can decide what happens within you, What kind of life is this? What happens within you must be entirely yours. What happens around you is never entirely yours, Isn't it? Even if you're just two people in the family, Does it happen hundred percent your way? Why are you nodding like this? What is… you're not married then. Even if there are two people, It doesn't happen your way, Isn't it? Little bit your way, Little bit somebody else's way, Little bit this way. I'm glad it doesn't happen all your way because if everything happened your way, Where do I go? Little bit your way, Little bit my way, Little bit his way, Little bit somebody's way. This is the nature of the world. World should not happen hundred percent your way, But this one life must happen your way, Isn't it? Hello? So, This has not been done. Now, For you to be happy, You want to fix the whole world. No, No, I'm telling you, Both your joy and misery comes from within you, Isn't it? Hello? So if you're miserable, Who should be fixed, I'm asking? No, My mother-in-law. If we fix her also, Something else will come, Somebody else will come. Don't think there's only one mother-in-law in the world. They're all over the place. They're all over the place and so many people will take on that position. So, If you fix this one person… See, We don't know what great things you will do or not. We do not know whether you will score three-hundred-and-eighty runs in a test match or not, Okay? We don't know. We don't know whether you will run faster than Mr. Bolt or not. We don't know whether you will climb Mount Everest or not. We don't know whether you will become richest man in the world or not, Whether you will become the most beautiful woman on the planet or not. We don't know those things. But at least this much you deserve that your experience of life on this planet is pleasant. This much you deserve, This much must happen, Isn't it? Other things are subject to so many realities. That's not always determined by us. There are many things have to fall into place. Dr. Jayaprakash Narayanan Next question we… poor our mother-in-law gets a bit of a bad run, Doesn't she? There's a species of fish in our water called the mother-in-law and apparently it even tastes bad. Where's our microphone? Questioner 1 Namaskaram Sadhguru, My name is Harsha. I'm actually from Melbourne and I'm very, Very lucky to see you here. And hello to Matt yourself. I'm a big fan of yours as well, Like many of us here are. Sadhguru, My question is about boundlessness. Earlier today you mentioned that there is something within us that is seeking to be… to express in different ways and it comes as different forms. Every morning when I get up, There are always two voices at least and while I know that… I'm sorry. One of the things that you said is ultimately you'll have to come to yoga because you've tried everything. Every morning when I get up, I find that there's these two voices. It says you have time and sometimes it says you don't have time. You're married? Yes. I understand what's the other voice. So, Sadhguru, I think my question to you after… after knowing you for a bit and also we were talking about life sort of continuing in depth and so on and so forth. The question I suppose is, Well, How much time do we really have? I mean, And of course, Why does it… why doesn't it… why it's not there in my experience because every morning when I still get up, I'm like, Yeah, I've got time. I can get to yoga one day or the other and still be able to make it. But the reality seems to me that, You know, There is not much time. Sadhguru laughs. See, First and foremost thing that you need to understand is you're an individual. An individual means you're not further divisible. This is it. This is one unit. In this body, There's one person or two people. Hello? Don't look at your wife and say that, You tell me it's okay. One or two? Only one. If you're feeling two, This means you're either schizophrenic or you're possessed. You need either a psychiatrist or an exorcist. Don't do that to yourself. Don't do this two voice business because initially it looks like good entertainment. After some time, If it takes on, It's very painful. Mental illnesses are not fun. Everybody plays with it. See when you get angry with somebody and what you want happened, What do you tell your friend, You know I got mad with him and he did what I wanted. Well, You got mad temporarily and you came back. Because you couldn't come back. It'll happen one day if you keep crossing the line too often because the line between sanity and insanity is very thin. If you cross it, One day if you're not able to come back. See between health and ill health, Is it very thin the line any moment? Things can happen to us. Either from outside or inside, Something can happen. Similarly, The line between sanity and insanity is very thin, Most people don't realize this, How thin it is. Don't walk on that line, Keep away from that line. Stay on the sanity side, It's very important that you don't get mad temporarily at somebody because you crossed and if you can't come back, What do you do? Then you're gone, Isn't it? So two voices are not good. There's only one person here, Only one right? Only one inside, This is an individual. You cannot further divide this. The moment you divide this, You're asking for ill health of some kind. Don't do that. Now how much time do I have? Well one voice is saying you got time. So eliminate the other one, You don't have time. So this is not about fun, But I want you to understand this. It's like this, If you… Can I tell you a story? Okay? Because you think this is a serious question. I want you to just understand this one thing. Why a whole lot of human beings have become a mess is they've taken themselves too seriously. They don't understand, Before they came here, Countless number of people lived on this planet and no sign of them, They're all topsoil now. And this one also will be topsoil. You're just a small pop-up. Hello? You're just a small pop-up and you'll pop out. But you are taking yourself too seriously. Believe me, If the whole solar system evaporates tomorrow morning, It is not even missed in the universe. That's how big it is and that's how small we are. So don't take yourself too seriously. Yes, This life is important for us. Why? Because every life is seeing how to find its full potential. For that it's important. Not thinking something big of you is there in this world, Nothing like that. See if there were dinosaurs in Australia, They would treat you just like ants, Isn't it? Suppose you're walking on the street, Colony of ants are going, You just step on it and go, One guy is dead, One guy is half dead, One guy is cut into half. You don't care because they're just ants. So if they were bigger animals than you, They would treat you the same way. They wouldn't even eat the whole of you. They wouldn't even treat you with any dignity. They would just eat one part and throw the other part and go on like how you waste food. They would also do it. So much population. Now if the dinosaur comes, He has a feast, Isn't it? So do not take yourself so seriously. This is the biggest problem that you've taken yourself too seriously. You're just a small pop-up. The important thing is just this, It is the generosity of creation that it's given you an individual experience. Do not misunderstand that. Do not misunderstand this is to make you significant. This is just to understand life is significant, That's all. You're just a bubble. You're just a bubble, It'll pop anytime. Well it may last hundred years. Hundred years is nothing in the world. Hello? You may think hundred years I lived long and I did so many things, Nothing. Many idiots on this planet thought like you and me. They thought they are very important too. Alexander the Great's have come. Where are they? So they were telling me about, You know, I was in Greece and they were saying, Alexander went to India. I said, Don't worry. He came to India all right, But an Indian mosquito, That too a female. Gone the emperor. He died of malaria. So do not underestimate a small mosquito, It can kill you. See we've found something worse than Mother-in-law then, Haven't we? No there is a thing about… Why are we going against Mother-in-law? Well, I don't know. We need to move on. Yeah. Between in-laws and out-laws, Out-laws are wanted. We need a mic somewhere, I can point but… See mother means how much attachment and emotion is there. See mother-in-law means so much problem. Just… We need to look at this. Why are we like this? Please, Sir. May I ask the question here, Right here please? Right here. Yeah, It's a little… Sadhguruji, Thank you very much for your enlightening, You know, Speech this evening. Thanks, Thank you. I got a little bit technical question in terms of, I know the boundary, When you say boundaries, Actually the memory is one of the biggest boundary and you mentioned Patanjali earlier. Patanjali in a funny way he says, Anubhuta visaya asamba moshaha smutaya as a thing that is a part of a chitta and again at the same time he says, Shraddha virya smuti samati prakhna purvaka ithare shaam. So he wants for you to have the memory, At the same time it is the boundary we have to come out of. Can you please explain? Oh, You like the question. It would want to be a good answer. The expectations clearly are high. Let's choose some fat on this one. Yeah, There you go. In the middle of wub wub. See, You are who you are only because of memory. There is conscious memory, There is unconscious memory, Articulate and inarticulate levels of memory, There is genetic memory, There is evolutionary memory, There is elemental memory, Atomic memory, Everything is built into this. Muscle memory, Muscle memory. That is what I said, Inarticulate memory, It is there. Your entire head to toe is just memory. You don't remember consciously how your great-great-great-grandfather or grandmother looked ten generations ago, But his or her nose is sitting on your face right now. It's not forgotten for a moment. Hello? It even remembers the skin tone, How your forefathers were a million years ago, Still remembers everything, Isn't it? So your structure is like this, Because of memory. Your body is memory. Every cell in your body has more memory than your brains has, A million times more actually. So this… what you call as me is just memory. If you lose your memory, You don't know who you are, Isn't it? And the only thing that most people are suffering is their memory. See, It's only the human beings who have such a vivid sense of conscious memory. Even a grasshopper has memory, But conscious memory is very little in him. But you have a vivid sense of conscious memory because of this life and life's experience is rich. Of course today all the memory is on your phone. But even those machines that we created of computers and phones and whatever is only to enhance our memory, Isn't it? Because we saw the value of memory. So memory is the maker of who you are. You are who you are only because of your memory. There's no memory. Right now if your memory goes away, You don't know who is your mother, Who is your father, Who is your husband, Who is your wife, Who is your children, Where you belong, Your nation, Your race, Religion, Nothing. Everything is in your memory, Isn't it so? Including your god and devil, All in your memory, Yes or no? If you lose memory, You don't know anything. So memory is a tremendous possibility. At the same time it is a boundary. This is a knowledge that you've accumulated, Information that you've accumulated. So in yoga we have a very powerful tool. This will be a little hard for you to chew. Hmm? See your knowledge, You are well educated. Let us say you studied all the libraries on the planet. Still your knowledge is a miniscule compared to this cosmos, Isn't it so? If you identify with that miniscule of knowledge, You will become a miniscule because what you identify with, You become that in some way, Isn't it? Hmm? Whatever you identify with strongly, You become that. If you identify with your miniscule knowledge, You become a miniscule existence. But our ignorance is boundless. If you identify with your ignorance, You will become boundless because there are no borders for your ignorance. Your knowledge has a boundary. Your ignorance has no boundary, Isn't it? But it takes a certain amount of dispassion and involvement in the life that you are to come to this space where you identify with your ignorance. If you identify with your ignorance, Your intelligence cannot sleep. It will be always on. See, Right now if I ask any one of you to walk from here to there, You will effortlessly walk because you can see. Suppose we turn off the lights and it's pitch dark. Now if I ask you to walk, Now you're super alert, Isn't it? Hello? You're super alert. That was telling me when he is batting, It's like meditation because it's not a ball, It's a mizel. It's… on the television it's a ball. On the pitch, It's a mizel, Somebody is trying to knock your head off. Yes, It's a hard ball. It's coming anywhere between hundred-and-twenty-five to hundred-and-fifty, Sixty kilometers per hour and it doesn't come straight. It pitches and takes its own shape whichever way it wants or whichever way the other monster intends. It's a hard game. People are watching on the television and thinking cricket is some nice game. It's a very hard game and it's a mizel. You just have a split second. If you're not super alert, You're gone. Either you go to the pavilion or go to the hospital. These days there is a helmet, You don't go to the morgue. One time they went to the morgue, Now they go to the hospital with a broken bone or something. So this is the same. The moment you are… you do not know what's going to happen right now, You're super alert, Isn't it? Hello? It's pitch dark, You don't know where your foot is going. Super alert or no? This is what ignorance means. This is the power or this is the intelligence of ignorance that if you identify with your ignorance, Your intelligence cannot sleep. Even if your body sleeps, It cannot sleep. It's always on. But if you identify with your knowledge, It sleeps because con… knowledge is a kind of conclusion you have drawn. Once you draw a conclusion, You will sleep. Sleep is… is a shorter version of death, Isn't it, In a way? Hello? You are dead to the world. Well, You come back tomorrow morning, But at that point you don't exist, The world doesn't exist when you're fast asleep. So in a way you're dying. How long you die in a day is up to you. If you're dying eight hours a day, That means one-third of your life you've been dead. So if your intelligence becomes super alert, You will see one… first thing that will happen to you is your sleep quota will come down dramatically because you become more and more conscious because you are identified with your ignorance. If you understand, I do not know. If you really… it sinks into you that I do not know, Now this 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 reality, Isn't it? Everything I do not know I just believe. It doesn't matter who said it, Patanjali said it, Anybody said it, You don't know. Hello? Isn't it? You don't know. When you do not know, If you really allow this to sink into you, Actually you do not know a damn thing about anything in this universe. That's a fact, Isn't it? For practical purposes we know, But existentially we don't know a damn thing. Now you are naturally identified with your ignorance means, Naturally you're a seeker, You can't help. Always your intelligence is probing everything that it sees because you know that you do not know. But reading high school textbook if you think you know entire world, Then there's a problem. Lot of people have gotten into this state in the name of science. They read high school textbook and they think they're scientists. This happened. This happened in UK. It's a social situation. Oh, Why? We'll shift it to Australia. The scene. It came a long way. A social situation where a lot of people, Socialites were there, But a scientist also was there. He was not dressed like them. Not much care to his outward appearance. So they sat at the dinner table. A very high fashion socialite lady sat next to him and, May I ask you, What do you do? She said, I study science. Oh, I was done with that in my high school. So as scientist understands, He's still studying science. Only others think he's a scientist. He knows he's studying science because the more you explore, The more you realize how ignorant you are. It's not that more knowledgeable you will become. More you realize how profound is your ignorance, How boundless is your ignorance. So this entire dimension of moving into an intelligence which is beyond memory, The first and foremost step is this, That you're not identified with what little you know. You're identified with that which you do not know. Now your intelligence is on. Only it will become free from memory because memory means repetitiveness, Isn't it? Hello? Memory means repetitiveness. The same thing's happening again and again. If memory determines the nature of your experience, Which usually does, For ninety percent or more of the people, Their memory decides the nature of their experience. For this we say traditionally in India, Karma case. You're sitting here, Stomach is full or empty, Whichever way, Nothing wrong, Nobody's shooting bullets at you, You're fine, But you're little. Why? You're chewing your own fat. Am I getting it? Yeah. Maybe that's where it came from. So you're chewing your own memory and making yourself happy or unhappy, Whichever way, Both ways, Your karma. Karma means action. Action means the residual action which remains within you is memory. Memory is not just conscious, It is at all levels. This residual memory is right now deciding the trajectory of your life. To become free from that is a whole effort, Which in complicated language he said and you all liked it. The important thing is you break free from this residual impact. If you live out of your memory, No new possibilities are there. You'll do the same things in permutations and combinations, But the same thing. If something absolutely new has to happen to you, You must be beyond your karmic memory. Everything that's stored in you, Your genetic memory, Your evolutionary memory, You rose beyond that. Now you have a completely new vision of life. This is something that is possible for every human being. Only thing is they've never paid attention to that. Just not paid attention to those aspects, That's all. Otherwise it is not the exclusive right of any special… specially made human beings. It's equally possible. I want you to understand this. When it comes to external situations, Maybe all of you cannot take a cricket bat and do what Matt does. Maybe you cannot take a motorcycle and do what I do. Or maybe you can't run like somebody else or you can't do something else like someone else. When it comes to external realities, We are all differently capable, Isn't it? Hello? Is it a wrong word to use on you? Every one of us is differently capable when it comes to the outside world. But when it comes to the inner dimensions, All of us are equally capable. It is just that most people have never paid attention. They still believe that by fixing what's around them, Life will be fine. But I want you to understand this much. Compared to how people lived in this world a few generations ago, Let's say a thousand years ago or even a hundred years ago, Today in terms of comfort and convenience, Are you not way, Way, Way ahead, Nobody even dreamt these things were possible? Yes or no? Participants – Yes. Sadhguru – But still we are complaining. So much arrangement, So much arrangement, So much arrangement that we are ripping the planet apart. But still, Can you claim are you more joyful or more blissful than how people were hundred years ago? Can you? You are more comfortable for sure. You know conveniences that nobody knew. What even royalty could not afford. All of you are having… most of you are driving chariots with four hundred, Six hundred horses. Yes or no? Yes. But life has not changed. You must understand it doesn't matter how much arrangements you make. And also you must remember, In the end there is no container service. This is just for your information. There is no container service because most homes have turned into warehouses. Just reminding you. Where is our mic, Roving mic gone? Right here. Well, I hope I don't sound silly asking this question. How do you think positively in circumstances or you know external factors that are very negative? If I term it like that. I will give you a specific… No, No, Don't don't. I understand those situations. I will don't don't. No, I… This is relevant to my question. I'm giving you a specific, You know, Situation here. For example, You find out that your mother or a close relative have been diagnosed with a you know serious life-threatening disease. How do you cope? How do you think positive? How do you stay stable there? Thank you. I know when somebody dear to us, Their life is threatened or something comes to them, Injury, Accident, Disease, Well, It will cause distress to yourself. But I want you to understand this. See, This is the nature of life. This is what I've been trying to remind you from the beginning in this last whatever hour and a half that we need to understand this is a fragile happening, This life. Right now it's on. The design of this life is such, See inhalation, Exhalation, Inhalation, Exhalation, Next inhalation did not happen, This is gone. Back to the pavilion. You did nothing wrong, You just stood there but back to the pavilion many times, Isn't it? No way at all. Nothing, Simply. It just nicked by itself and went off. So this is the case, This is the nature of our existence. It is just that when somebody is dear to us, We get so emotionally wrapped by this. This is simply because you have only one or two or three or four people who are dear to you. I live a life where so many, I don't know the number, So many people are very intimately, Very profoundly involved with me on a daily basis. So in my life, How many people that are dear to me, I have buried, Don't ask me. It's happening all the time. All right? So right now, The reason why you go through life the way you go through life is because your involvement is very selective, Very discriminatory. Only this one person you'll involve because I identify her as my mother. Only that person because I identify him as my brother. But if you knew larger involvement with life, You would understand almost every day you lose somebody who is very dear to you. Yes, This is the case with me. Does it mean to say you have no emotion? Does it mean to say there is no sense of loss? No, All this is there. All of it is there. It is just that if you are in terms with the realities of your existence, You live one way. This is what I was trying to tell you in the beginning itself. You think your psychological world is bigger than the existential creation. What this means is your creation has become more significant than the creator's creation. Once this happens, Inevitably you will suffer. If somebody is ill around us, What do we do? We do our best to turn them around if it's possible. If you cannot turn them around, You'll let them go gracefully. This is all you can do. Whether you cry, Laugh, Turn your… turn yourself on your, You know, Upside down, Do whatever the hell you want, This is all that will happen, Isn't it so? The question is just this, Whatever comes our way in our life, Life will come, Birth will come, Death will come, Disease will come, Defeat will come, Victory will come, All kinds of things will come if you're living an active life. Will you handle it gracefully or will you make a mess out of it? That's all the choice you have, Isn't it? Do you have any other choice, I'm asking you? Whatever life throws at you is not your choice. What you make out of it is one hundred percent your choice, Isn't it? This choice you must exercise. This choice you must exercise. What life throws at you is not your choice. Who knows what kind of ball is the next ball? You don't know. What life throws at you is not your choice. What you make out of it is your choice. This is the power of being human, That you can make what you want out of it. If I'm saying… I know this is very hurtful what I'm saying, But you must decide whether you want solace or you want a solution to your life. I'm not somebody who will say pretty words and give solace. I do that only to children. With children, If they say something, Okay, We'll hug them, Hold them, Do this. Well, If somebody is in grief, Even if they're adults, Because when they're in grief, They become like children. So we treat them like children. But you must decide in your life whether you want solace or solution to your life. If you want solution, There is one way to approach. If you just want solace, We can give pretty words, But what will they do? With all the pretty words, I will die, You will die, Isn't it? Solution is just this, We come to terms. This is why I'm saying, From being a physiological and psychological drama, You have to become a phenomena of life. That's what you really are. What is the most important thing in your life right now? That you're alive right now, Isn't it so? Hello? Is it the most important thing? Life is the most important thing. Not what you wear, Not what you parked outside, Not the home that you're living in, Not anything else, Not your thought and emotion. What is most important is the life that you are. But how much attention has gone into that dimension of life? If your attention was for that, You would see your involvement with life would be indiscriminate. Once your involvement is indiscriminate, You will learn to handle everything gracefully. Right now when you're in distress, When somebody dear to you is ill, This sounds cruel, I know that. But I'm still taking the risk of saying you this, Saying this to you, Because I want you to ponder upon this, Because this is all the choice we have. We don't have a choice to decide what life throws at us. We have a choice to decide what we make out of it. He won't reject this choice whether you accept it or not. Bye. . . Namaskaram Sadhguru. Actually, I was to be over there for a few seconds. There has a thing I want. I'll be over there for a few seconds. Oh, No, No, You can ask the question from there. Can I be over there for a few seconds? Oh, Then why did you take the microphone? Microphone is to speak long distance. See, You don't go next to somebody and take phone and talk to each other. Please, Somebody who has a question. This lady. Hi Sadhguru, Welcome to Australia and I have a question. Sometimes we get in a situation when we're surrounded by people who have a very high expectation to, In terms of us, And when we cannot fulfill the expectation, You start to feel a very terrible feeling of guilt. And it's okay when it's your mother-in-law, You can kind of cope with that, But sometimes it's your parents, For example. I have no problem. I have nothing against her, I'm just joking. And sometimes it's the people who's very close to you, Like your parents, And you cannot really fulfill the expectation because you would like to do in your life what you want to do and obviously it's not what they want. And how to cope with that feeling of guilt and also what do you think, What kind of relationship should be between the parents and the children? Thank you. That reminds me of something. See, One thing is, It's not just between parents and children, Just about every relationship, Everywhere. People have all kinds of weird expectations. It's like this, A lady went to the butcher shop and all this chicken, Which were hanging upside down, Dressed chicken. Poor chicken, Feathers are their dress, You rip it off and say they're dressed. So she went to this chicken and lifted one leg, Smelled, Wrinkled her nose, Lifted a wing, Wrinkled her nose. Like this she was going from chicken to chicken. It was having an effect on the rest of the customers. So the butcher saw it's having an effect, So he went and tapped on her shoulder. She turned around. So he asked, Ma'am, Can you pass a test like that? So a whole lot of people are always busy putting everybody to test that they themselves cannot pass. Especially parents, Parents think all the things that they could not do, They must achieve through their children. So they should have bred racehorses. I want you to understand this, Children are not your property. It's a privilege another life came through you. You must enjoy it. Do your best to nourish it. What it becomes is not your business. Your business is to support it, Create a wonderful atmosphere around it, Create an ambience where it grows well. I'm using the word it consciously. Like a tree, Like a plant, You just create the nourishment that it needs, It grows. Well, Is it going to bear apples, Pears, Mangoes or just flowers or just nothing? We don't know. Only thing is, Your wish is they must grow to their full potential. They are not an extension of your ambitions. They're not and they need not be. So this is because people think they own their children. No, They're not your property. I think these days they're telling you, Older generation hesitated to say this. This generation by the time they're ten, They're telling you, You've got no business to tell me what to do. So does it mean to say you don't say anything to them? No, It's your business to see because if you don't guide them, Somebody else will on the street or somebody will do it long distance on the internet, All kinds of creatures are out there. All right. So yes, To protect them, To nourish them, To allow them to explore their possibilities, It is your business to do that as a parent. But parents' concern may be what will happen, What will happen, What will happen. I. . . My dear father, He's ninety-five. He's a physician. In his mind, That generation of Indians will understand that unless you become a physician, You're no good. So I was no good. But that was good for me because when you're no good, Nobody pays enough attention. That's all I wanted. Does it leave me alone? So I'm just saying, You know, He's always worried what will happen to this boy. His concern is this, This boy has no fear in his heart, What will happen? So one day when I was eleven years of age, He said this. . . You know, I came home with a twelve-foot cobra. He was my friend. And he said, This boy has no fear in his heart, What will happen? Then I asked him, When did fear become a virtue? When did this happen? He said, See, I told you he has no fear in his heart. I said, That's fine, But when did fear become a virtue? Why is it like this? Why fear, Anger, All these things have become virtues, Is it? Tell me, When you go through fear, Is it fantastic? Hello? It's one of the most terrible emotions you can go through. Why are we thinking that we should be fearful of our future, Not only of your future, Of anything that you do and you're even God-fearing, All right? Fearful about everything, What is the point? There is no such thing. There is no such thing that this generation should be an extension of the previous generation. This generation should do something that previous generation could not imagine. That is when there is a purpose to this generation, Isn't it? Otherwise, What's the point if you're going to do the same things? Well, If you want to do something that you really want to do, If you think you're going to do it with everybody's approval, I'm sorry life doesn't happen that way. It is just that whatever the hell you want to do, Just do it well. Once there is success, Your parents and your uncles and your aunts, Everybody says, Wonderful. All right? They want success, They're only afraid. They have every right to be concerned about you. They have every right because they brought you up. They're concerned whether you will do well or not. They have every right to be concerned. But that concern should not become control. Participant – What event, Decision, Experience or period has had the most profound impact on your life? Sadhguru – You're asking Matt, Right? Participant – No, I'm not asking you. I would like to know, Please. Sadhguru – Oh, This has been spoken of many, Many, Many times, Isn't it? Experience, Influence, See this is the only thing I did with my life. I was in United States and this lady comes up to me and says, I was doing… I've been doing yoga for over thirty-five years, Nothing happened to me. You just went and sat on that rock. All this happened to you. Where is the damn rock? And now the rock is becoming famous. Like you know, For Gautama the Buddha, The Bodhi tree became more famous than the Buddha. I must tell you this experience. I was in Coimbatore many years ago, About almost twenty-five, Thirty years ago. And I go to somebody's house for lunch. And this lady says, Sadhguru, I have a Bodhi tree in my backyard. I sit and meditate under that. Can you come and bless my tree? I say, Please water the tree, I will bless you. She said, No, No, No, You must come and bless the tree. I thought, Let me go into the backyard. I am always an outdoor man. So I walked out. Then I looked around, I did not see any Bodhi tree. There were three coconut trees. But I did not see any Bodhi tree. Then I asked her, Where is the Bodhi tree? Then she takes me to one place. There is one stick which is about six, Seven feet tall with about five leaves. Under that she has put one stone plate and on which she sits and meditates under the Bodhi tree. I looked at this Bodhi tree and said, See, This Bodhi tree does not have much possibility. If you at least sit under the coconut tree, Something could happen. Under coconut tree things happen. Because when you are in this state, What you need is a knock on your head. So, What is the most significant influence? This is all I did in my life. From early childhood, I did not allow either family, My genetics, My social situations, The religious situation around me, Political situations around me, Whatever around me, I did not allow myself to be influenced by any of those things. This is why I keep repeating, I am an uneducated guru because I refuse to be educated. To remain uneducated is not easy. Yes, Sir. Because from the moment you are born, Everybody wants to teach you something that's not worked in their life. It's a compulsive need in adults the moment they see. You know, Like I was… when my daughter was three-and-a-half months old, I would drive alone with her all across India, With my one hand on her, My right leg heavy. This is the time when I'm building Isha Foundation, I'm driving across the country. Every day I'm with a new family. Then I noticed everybody is desperate to teach something to her. I said, Please, Nobody teaches her anything. No ABC, No 123, No Mary Had a Little Lamb, I don't want any of these things. Then people said, Sadhguru, You're not letting anybody teach anything. What will happen to this girl? This girl won't know even how to count her fingers. I said, I don't care if she cannot count her fingers. As long as she knows how to use her fingers, What do I care? She thinks this is a million, What's my problem? As long as she knows how to use her fingers. So… and I don't care whether Mary had a lamb or not. So, I said, Nobody teach her anything. Because nobody is teaching her anything. See, It is by constantly looking down on the child, You know what is this, You know what is that? The child feels smaller and smaller and smaller. Because nobody spoke to her in those terms, She thought everybody is her friends. She is two-and-a-half, Three years. She thinks all the adults are her friends, She talks to them like they're her friends. By the time she is eighteen months, She is fluently speaking three languages, Very fluently. Because nobody is teaching her anything, She is all ears listening to everything around her. Well, I wouldn't have sent her to school but you know, My schedules and my travels didn't allow that. So, I sent her to a school where there is least amount of schooling. One day she came back from school, She was around thirteen years of age and she was little upset about what happened in the school. Then she comes and tells me, You're teaching everybody so many things, You're not teaching me anything. I said, See, I'm not known to do anything unsolicited. Now that you have come, You sit down, We'll see. I said, See, This is all you need to know. You never look up to anybody. She looked at me like this, What about you kind of look? I said, Especially me, Because if you look up to me, You will miss it completely. What will you do? Maybe take my picture and nail it on your wall. That's all you will do. You got to see me the way I am. If you see me the way I am, Every moment of my life, It'll be of great significance to you. If you look up to me, You will exaggerate. Never look up to anybody, Never look down on anybody. This is all. Is that all? That is all. See, If you look up to something, You will make up things in your mind. If you look down on somebody, You will make up nonsense in your head. If you don't do these two things, You will see everything just the way it is. If you see everything just the way it is, You will effortlessly navigate through life. This is all you have to do. Don't worry about what is significant. This is the most significant aspect of my life. I never looked up to anything, Nor looked down on anything in my life. I looked at everything just the way it is. This is all you need to do. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, Probably Matt is more loud in India than in Australia. It's wonderful to have you here, Matt. Fantastic. Thank you sir. Thank you. It will be very easy to listen to Sadhguruji all evening, But unfortunately we are out of time. So on behalf of us all, Thank you for gracing our shores. You are a very special human being. Tell me what should I tell the Tamil boys? You can tell them from me that I will be back in business with them very shortly. That's what you can tell them. Surfing, Cooking… About the water. Yeah, What they should do, The Tamil boys and girls. Easy as this. Spend a little bit of their own money to invest into some trees and we're all in business, Aren't we? Thank you. Good evening everyone. Thank you. If you don't know this, If you don't know this, Don't tell anybody. I make the best masala dosa in the world. Well, You can be sure of this, I'll take you up on that. Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you.