Rapid Fire - Conversation

Sadhguru’s refreshingly personal responses to a volley of “rapid fire” questions launched by Karan Johar reveal some lesser-known sides and views of the Mystic. 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

I'm going to take the liberty Sadhguru to do what I normally do on my television show,

Which is a rapid fire round.

The… Normally the end of this round… Sadhguru – When I was young,

I watched a lot of,

You know,

Wild west movies.

When you fire,

I also fire,

All right?

No,

But… No,

I promise you,

This is not that kind of… You're not in my line of fire at all.

I will not take the liberty of being that person.

These are just quick questions which when I ask for one word,

You have to stick to that because sometimes you have a tendency of not exactly answering the question asked.

But you give such a profound and prolific retort back that it makes you very satiated.

But in this case,

My only request is that if it's one word,

Then it's just one word.

And the end of this normally,

You get a hamper.

But in the absence of a hamper here,

You already have something right… A cow?

Yes.

So… and all this beautiful bouquet that is right next to you.

So there's no hamper but you do will get my utmost gratitude.

Thank you.

All right,

Very simply,

What is the one thing that is essential to living a balanced life?

Sense.

What is the one thing we must absolutely do away with in order to lead a balanced life?

Misslessness?

Yes.

All right,

I thought that was coming.

First thing that comes to your mind when I say the following,

The first thing – organized religion.

Madness.

Marriage.

Cohabitation.

Competition.

Stupid.

Funny.

Useful.

Love.

Can I say a sentence?

Yes.

I will allow that.

Most beautiful but unfortunately crippling for most people.

If I can little elaborate that.

See if something unpleasant cripples you,

Something nasty cripples you,

Tch,

It's acceptable.

When something beautiful cripples you,

It's a true disaster.

If you could ask one person,

Alive or dead,

One question,

Who would you ask and what would that be?

I really sorted out all my questions because I did not spend time educating myself or doing anything.

I spent my entire life sorting out every damn question I had.

I kind of run out of questions.

And you certainly have not run out of any answers and you never will.

Best advice you have ever received?

Nothing.

Never?

No.

I never sort,

Nor did I receive.

I made myself in such a way,

I am incapable either of seeking advice or giving advice.

In an imaginary,

Completely hypothetical situation,

If you had a day off with no commitments,

No responsibilities,

What would you spend the day doing?

Oh,

There are lot of things.

This can't be one word.

No,

It's not one word.

No,

I have an indiscriminate sense of passion towards everything.

There were lots and lots of things I did at one time but these days,

Time is not allowing me to do that.

So generally if I have little time,

All I do is play golf because that's safe and within the city and I can get back in time for something else to be done.

But if an entire day is left to me,

Which they have not done for a long time,

They have not left it to me.

If that happens,

I will close my eyes and sit because that is my… the best,

The best… I am at my best when I truly have nothing to do.

What is one thing you'd like people to remember about you at the end of your life?

They must live so wonderfully that they don't even remember me.

If you found a way to travel through time,

Where would you go?

I am kind of done with all those things.

Your universe visited already,

You have visas for every part of this ecosystem.

If we can do some slow fire because that's a question with many ramifications.

This for example,

Traveling in the world,

We jetted around and now we want to travel to the Mars,

We want to travel to another place and now that's not enough,

We want to travel into the past and future.

All this longing is again exploratory in nature.

Whether you go on vacation to Maldives or you want to go to Mars,

It is fundamentally exploratory.

Maybe you are also thinking of relaxation and pleasure and whatever but essentially it's exploratory,

Otherwise why can't you do it here?

It's something that you want to do,

You want to touch another place.

This longing is there in the human being only as long as the life that you are remains in a seed form,

That is it did not sprout and blossom.

This happened when Adiyogi was expounding the science of yoga and talking about the nature of the cosmos,

How it's related to your individual self and what you can do with it.

Even the seven sages who were with him,

They asked,

What is the nature of this cosmos?

How big is it?

Where does it begin?

Where does it end?

So he laughed and said,

Your entire cosmos,

I can pack it into a mustard seed.

Because your ideas of time and space are essentially because you are living within the frame of work of your intellect.

If you cross that dimension,

Then there is no such thing as time and space.

Everything is here and now.

So traveling through time,

Space,

No,

It means nothing to me because it's difficult to express,

Difficult to articulate if I sound little… I have a reputation of being very logical.

But if I sound illogical or silly to you,

You can blame it on my jet lag.

I just come from United States after six weeks.

So you can say maybe he was jet lagged.

That's why Sadhguru is saying something silly.

But I'm fine.

I'm saying this because you can't fit the universe into your silly little logic.

Today's human being is too overly enamored with their own logic that they're missing the entire life.

The gamut of phenomena that's happening in the existence is missed because the only way you can accept anything is,

It has to fit in to the square hole of your logic.

Anything that doesn't fit into your logic,

You will reject.

In this,

You've rejected the entire cosmos.

In this,

You have rejected the magic of life.

You have become a slave of logic and completely missing the magic of life.

So this time,

Space,

All this stuff is because intellectually you're trying to dissect the universe and try to understand this,

This,

This.

Tell me if you sit here,

Suppose you're very joyful,

Do you see you will not know how the day passed off?

And if you're depressed,

Do you see the day won't pass?

So time is a consequence of the miserable nature of human existence.

If you are truly blissed out and ecstatic,

You wouldn't know what is a day,

What is a year,

What is a lifetime,

You wouldn't know.

There have been times I sat down,

I didn't realize,

I thought it five minutes but people gathered around and started molesting my feet.

Because they… in their understanding,

I sat there for many days or whatever.

This idea of time and space is a very convoluted idea simply because people are stuck in the framework of their logic.

My work,

My fundamental work is to take people beyond the framework of logic into the true magic of existence,

Our own existence.

But it takes a lot of time.

Still my reputation is of being very logically correct because I'm still trying to woo them.

Still wooing them,

You know.

For the real thing to happen,

They will take a long time unfortunately because they have become such slaves of their logic.

Interviewer – What is the first thing you notice when you meet a person?

Just everything.

Interviewer – Everything?

Everything.

Past,

Present and future.

Is it more important to do what you love or love what you're doing?

One word or more?

The choice is entirely yours.

See,

If you're an intelligent person,

You will try to do what you love most.

But if you're a genius,

You will do just what is needed.

If you could be invisible for a day,

What would you do?

You wouldn't know?

With due respect,

What is your biggest weakness?

Biggest… See,

What normally people treat as weakness in their lives… Okay,

Let me give a normal answer.

Why am I going into all this?

Already you said I'm what?

What's the word?

I'm not sure.

My biggest weakness is I love danger.

Without danger I cannot live.

I need to do something which… which keeps me on the edge of being mortal,

Being alive and dead.

I walk that line all the time.

Every day I'm stepping on it one way or the other.

Is it a weakness?

I don't think so but people think,

Sadhguru,

You shouldn't risk your life like this.

But if there's no risk,

I'm feel… I feel I'm not being… Because most of the time in my life for whatever I'm doing,

I don't feel tested.

It's only in moments of danger that I feel little tested.

So my weakness is I like to be stretched,

You know.

For all the time when I was riding across India and later on I started driving,

My only wish was that to find a machine which will test my skills.

Always found the damn things broke down if I took it to my limits.

These days recently I'm beginning to get to do a few machines which are testing me,

Whether I can push it all the way or not.

Maybe that's because of my age.

If I had met them much younger,

I think I would have… You would have managed to work around them.

One thing the world doesn't know about you.

They don't know a thing about me.

That's a fact.

Interviewer – And the one thing you wish you could change about yourself?

Sadhguru – Oh,

I never looked at that.

I could speak Hindi.

No,

I'm sorry Marathi.

Interviewer – The one thing you wish you could change about the world?

Sadhguru – Oh,

A lot of things.

Interviewer – One?

Sadhguru – Human beings.

Interviewer – Desperately,

You know.

So what would you consider to be your greatest achievement?

I don't think there's any because I always fall awfully short of my own expectation of what I could do.

So I never feel anything is an achievement.

Is there a song you love and can listen to all the time?

Sadhguru – Oh,

I somehow… Probably because this came to me at a certain time when I was in my early teens maybe.

So this one song kind of comes back to me more often than anything else.

It's not that I even seek it but somehow one way or the other this song keeps coming back to me is how many times… I know you haven't seen any of my films but do you have a favorite film?

Oh,

I've seen many good movies.

At one time I saw a lot of them.

I've not seen much of Indian cinema but I saw a lot of you know,

English cinema but one movie that I thoroughly,

Thoroughly enjoyed at that time because on that day the way things happened many life situations fell together and everything was Roman holiday.

Oh,

Well I have to say that that's the first film I've ever seen in my life.

My mother took me to this cinema.

It is true.

Roman holiday is the first film I ever saw.

It was my introduction to the big screen.

I'm glad I have something in common with you.

That image of Audrey and Gregory Peck is somehow just stayed with me.

It was probably my age.

What do you enjoy doing and wish you had more time for?

I wish I had more time because I made myself like this that there is nothing that I enjoy or do not enjoy.

I make sure I enjoy everything that I do including simply sitting quietly or talking to somebody or doing whatever because my activity is not limited to one area,

So many things.

If you did not enjoy everything that you do and do not do,

You will go insane trying to manage so many things.

But I will not go insane because I enjoy being alive,

Activities,

Anything is okay.

Everything I do I enjoy,

Small things,

Big things,

Every kind of thing,

Most profound things and silly things I enjoy thoroughly.

I should ask all.

Lastly in a biopic made on you,

Who would play you?

But who would make a biopic first of all?

No,

There would be lots of interested people.

Maybe you should animate.

No,

I don't think you would want that.

Well,

That is the end of the rapid fire and you totally deserve the hamper that doesn't exist on this platform.

But it's a virtual hamper that I've given to you with my love,

Gratitude and deepest amount of respect.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Reviews

Wisdom married with humility.

Awesome as always!

I just loved your intelligent answers. Precious.. But I prefer your talks. You're just great.

Very refreshing! Thank you 🙏

I so love how Sadhguru answers the questions! Can’t wait to see the animated film about his life😁😁
Thank you🙏🏼

Delightful and Insightful.
Namaste 🙏🏻🦋