Reducing Human Footprint For Climate Change

Sadhguru addresses delegates and representatives from across the globe at the prestigious UNCCD COP 14. Answering a question about spirituality, Sadhguru emphasizes the human capability of becoming conscious and the urgent need to reduce the human footprint on the planet.

Transcript

Namaskaram,

Good morning to everyone.

I said good morning.

Hello.

Well,

We can bring a certain amount of change in people's behavior,

Which could have a minor impact of how we consume this planet in different ways.

But essentially what we need to understand is there is something called as human aspiration.

If you look into this deeply enough,

You will see no matter where a human being is,

He or she wants to be little more than who they are right now.

If that little more happens,

They of course want little more.

If that happens,

They want little more.

So if you look at this,

What essentially is human aspiration,

You will see that human beings want to expand limitlessly.

But in the physical world,

As we are realizing a bit late,

That there is no such thing as limitless resources to expand.

There is no limitless space to expand.

So physical expansion can only be limited,

But human aspiration is limitless.

If we understand that this has happened essentially because of how deeply and wrongly we are identified with our own physical self,

In the sense all of us,

Largely the world has forgotten who we are physically as physical bodies is something that we gathered slowly over a period of time.

What we call as my body right now is just a food that we have eaten or it's just a piece of the planet.

Most people don't get it till you bury them.

They don't understand they are a piece of this planet just because they are able to prance around right now.

So it is this fundamental identification with the body which we have gathered over a period of time,

Which makes us this longing to expand,

This aspiration to expand is finding a physical expansion.

If it finds very basic physical expression,

We call this sexuality.

If it finds an emotional expression,

We call this love.

If it finds an intellectual expansion,

We call this ambition,

Conquest.

If we.

.

.

If it just generally happens,

We call it shopping.

It is the shopping and conquest which is causing what it's causing.

But now with morals and ethics,

We are trying to control human aspiration.

Well,

We must understand this much.

With all the morality and ethics,

In all these years of human experience,

We have not succeeded in making it happen.

How come we believe it's going to happen tomorrow?

People will give morality to somebody else,

But they will do what they have to do.

So one most important thing that needs to happen is to bring this consciousness in a human being that your experience of life is not limited to your body or your experience of life is not just a physiological and psychological process,

Something beyond that needs to happen.

We have not invested in this in human beings,

So their aspirations are finding physical expressions.

Or to put it in a different context,

Human beings are in pursuit of their happiness.

Their happiness right now is an expansion,

Being more and more and more,

Limitlessly more.

So one fundamental thing we should have addressed is,

This whole effort of morality and ethic has always been about producing good human beings.

Please,

I want you to listen to this with the right context.

This has been the greatest mistake we have done,

That we've been trying to produce good human beings.

People who think they are good,

They have caused the maximum damage to this planet.

It's a good Indian who fights a good Pakistani.

It is a good Hindu who fights a good Muslim.

It's a good American who fights just about anybody.

So the more good you are,

The more you are oriented towards confrontation.

It's important to understand,

I'm asking all of you,

On a certain day or a certain moment when you are very joyful,

Are you a problem to anybody?

And do you see that what you want becomes very small when you're very happy by your own nature?

So we should have produced more joyful and sensible human beings.

Instead of that,

We've always been focusing on producing good human beings.

The more good they think they are,

What they think is theirs,

They keep pushing it.

We are talking about competition.

Well,

Competition is not between… just between corporations or businesses.

Competition is not just between nations.

Even the religions of the world are in serious competition to expand,

To bring more and more people under their fold,

Which means more and more land under their fold.

So competition you have not been able to stop in any sphere of life.

We can talk as much as we want,

But the important thing is there is something called as fundamental human aspiration,

Which is longing to be something more.

If you do not address this beyond one's physical identities,

If you do not address this,

We can do what we want,

But it will go on.

But a more immediate way of handling this would be,

Especially all the religious leaders who have a certain influence over their people.

The most important thing is this,

The beginning of twentieth century,

We were just 1.

6 billion people.

Now,

2019,

We are 7.

6 billion people.

Now,

They are saying by 2050,

We will be 9.

6 billion people.

Why are we making these predictions?

Why don't we have a plan?

Why don't we say in the next fifty years,

We will be 4.

5 billion people?

Are we willing to address this?

This is what needs to be addressed.

It may look like there are many problems,

But actually there is only one problem.

We are nice,

But we are just too many.

This we need to understand.

There is no space for any other creature to live on this planet,

Simply because we are so many and our footprint is so big.

So we are trying to reduce the size of our footprint,

I understand that.

But believe me,

It is much easier to control human population than human aspirations.

You cannot control human aspirations.

You can easily control human population if everybody is focused on that.

The nations,

The religions of the world,

Various community leaders,

Everybody,

If they are focused on seeing how to bring down the population of this planet,

Human population,

So that other populations can live.

Because we need to understand this,

This planet will perish if all the insects die today,

Within four to six years' time.

If all the worms die,

Within one-and-a-half to two years,

All life on this planet will perish.

If all the microbes die,

Probably within hours this planet will perish.

But if you and me disappear,

This planet will flourish.

So we need to understand this idea,

This idea that all other creatures were created to serve humanity.

This idea should first go out of our heads.

This has been the most destructive idea.

If at all… if any moral value has to come,

Our ethical system has to come,

The one thing that needs to happen is every human being from their childhood must understand that other creatures are not here to serve us.

Other creatures are here to live their own life.

As we are living our lives,

They have to live their own lives.

They are not here to serve us.

This one idea has been the most destructive thing.

So in this,

Whole cultures have evolved around the world.

Now with simple morals or ethics saying that,

Don't do this,

Don't do that,

Let's change this.

Okay,

Everybody says,

I will have bath with one bucket of water.

Please,

This is not going to… this may give you some satisfaction.

This is not a solution.

If you want a solution,

Human footprint has to come down.

I was in one of the conferences when I said human footprint has to come down.

They asked,

How?

I said,

We just have to have less feet.

There are too many feet on the ground.

Each one of us have two,

That's the problem.

So if we do not bring down the populations,

If we do not aspire or plan to bring down human populations,

Do what you want.

You are trying to handle a cancer with band-aid.

With minor interventions,

We are feeling satisfied we have done something.

We have not done anything significant till we have a clear-cut plan that in this many years,

We will bring the population to this place.

When we have the sense to go to Africa or to even in India that elephant population is too much,

So we must cull it because it's too much for the habitat.

When we have that much sense,

How come we don't have sense?

I'm not talking about culling human beings,

I'm saying we can control the birth.

It is very simple.

You don't have to do anything,

Population gets controlled.

So this is the most important value we need to bring in.

One thing is to understand human aspiration is to expand limitlessly,

You cannot control that.

Only thing is you can change the identity of the human being from being a physical body to be something more than that because it's very obvious we gathered this body over a period of time it can be ours,

It can't be us.

So to bring this awareness within the human being,

Another thing is to focus on developing joyful,

Sensible human beings,

Not people who think we are good.

Because I think I am good only because somewhere in my mind I think you are not okay.

So this goodness in comparison to somebody else must go.

Taking a moral high ground is not the solution.

But when you are a joyful human being you are flexible,

You are willing to do with less.

When you are really happy,

You are not out to squeeze happiness out of the planet.

Right now the damage that you are seeing on the planet is just this.

Everything that's happened is in pursuit of human happiness and still they are nowhere near happiness.

Obviously they must understand human experience comes from within,

Not from outside.

You cannot squeeze it out of the planet.

If you are joyful,

You will do what is needed.

If you are unhappy,

You will try to squeeze happiness out of this planet.

If we understand happiness,

Peace,

Joy,

Love can come from within us,

Not from the planet.

Planet is here to support us.

This is a platform upon which we live and this platform has to be ideal for life.

When I say life,

All life you cannot make it in such a way that it just works only for human beings,

Not others.

Every creature has to live.

They are far more important for maintaining the balance in this planet than human beings.

Without human beings the planet will do very well.

So all life here has a life of its own,

They are not here to serve us.

These are the things that need to get across to the humanity.

Thank you very much.

Reviews

I hope this can happen. Thanks for sharing.

We are seeing this happen right now. The quarantine is allowing the earth to clear from human pollution a little at a time.

Very helpful speech.
Excellent!
Thank you very much!

Beautifully put. This argument is often met with contention and anger by ppl who have children (esp. more than 1). Thank you for speaking so truthfully about this issue.

The planet supports us, we also must support the planet.
Thank you for speaking on this. Awareness is the key and then action.

So true! The world would flourish without human beings. Human activity has made life unsustainable. Nature will eventually address this by reducing human population through disease, starvation & calamity. Incredibly tragic situation.

Spot on. I’m forwarding this. Thank you!

We have become the invasive species on the planet. Love the idea of fewer feet to reduce our footprint. Thank you for your message.

Wow. Very powerful ...and so true. Thank you 🙏🏻

Being joyful! Being peace thank you🙏🌹

Makes so much sense, great message!

This is fantastic, tough but true....something to really think very serious. Thank you

very insightful. thank you for sharing.

I love this...I agree. This needs to go viral.🌍❤️🙏

A must listen!!❤❤

Wow, so very true.