Super Brain, Epigenetics & More With Sadhguru

Explore the fascinating intersection of science and spirituality, in a discussion featuring cosmologist Professor Bernard Carr, neuroscientist Christof Koch, geneticist Dr. Rudy Tanzi, author and speaker Deepak Chopra and Sadhguru as they explore the super brain, epigenetics, consciousness, and more, in an event hosted by the Sadhguru Center for a Conscious Planet at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

The discussion was facilitated by Dr. Balachundhar Subramaniam of Harvard Medical School.

Transcript

Right now,

Depression and mental illness is actually the number one pandemic.

You're misunderstanding the psychological content and drama of your mind as a reality.

You know,

We have to make measurable what's not measurable.

If it can't be measured,

We don't study it as scientists.

Can you change the complexion of the person that you are today,

Hundred percent?

You are more than your brain,

You're more than your genes.

Rudy you have written the books,

Superbrain and Supergenes.

What is interesting to me is,

When you say super genes,

Are there people,

For example,

I want to experience this consciousness,

I want to experience this reality.

Is there a predisposition to that?

Am I born with those super genes to experience this?

When Deepak and I wrote Superbrain,

Supergenes and the third book in the trilogy was the healing self,

The idea was that to tell people you are more than your brain,

You're more than your genes.

That with regard to genes,

It's kind of like clay.

Your parents are giving you the clay,

But you get to sculpt it.

But basically,

Your lifestyle is not only changing the wiring of your brain every day through neuroplasticity,

But through repetition and new habits.

And where that wiring becomes more solidified,

You're also changing gene expression.

So if you're eating junk food every day,

Your genes are responding to the inflammation that causes and you feel sick.

Whereas if you spend at least two months reshaping your diet,

Changing your neuroplasticity,

Changing your gene expression,

As we wrote in the book,

You can go on autopilot.

Now your gene expression has changed in patterns that help you to now live a more,

Live a healthier life.

Dr.

Chopra,

You were a co-author of this book.

Any comments on that?

Yeah,

I think both neuroplasticity and epigenetics actually show the primacy of consciousness in modulating our biological activity.

And this is very relevant right now,

Given what's happening in the world.

As I see,

One of the topics here is social impact.

So now,

As we look at the world and look at the trauma that's happening,

It's kind of reminiscent of what happened in the Second World War.

There's evidence that people in the Holocaust,

For example,

Who suffered starvation in the Netherlands,

Their descendants now have diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

So the sequence seems to be separate mind,

Fear,

Anger,

Which is the memory of trauma,

And fear creates trauma,

All kinds of trauma,

Fear,

Anger,

Memory of trauma,

Hostility,

Which is desire for vengeance.

If you have a conscience,

Then some guilt and shame that goes with it.

And the totality of that,

Which is called depression.

And right now,

Depression and mental illness is actually the number one pandemic,

No matter what anyone says.

And it's epigenetically recycling the trauma,

Which will go on for generations.

So Sadhguru,

The question to you is,

How do we… how much time it will take for us to distance ourselves or change this epigenetics or the gene expressions and consciously make our own?

Is it possible?

How long does it take?

How quickly can it happen?

And what should we do?

Sadhguru Namaskaram.

Good morning to everyone.

Well,

I must warn you that first and foremost,

I do not ascribe to any particular philosophy,

Ideology or belief system.

Basically I am without identities within myself and I am also very carefully kept myself uneducated and pretty much uncivilized.

Why I'm saying this is,

Hugely qualified people are here with enormous experience and science behind them.

So what I may say may look completely off at sometimes,

But as you know,

Science is going step by step towards a certain reality.

Now I see it is pointing in the right direction.

But the question is,

If I point you towards something,

Do you have the eyes to see it?

That's a question.

When I say,

Do you have the eyes to see,

Right now I'm taking this literally,

These two eyes are qualified to see only those things which stop light.

You can see my hand because it stops light.

My hand is not so vital for your existence.

But the air that you breathe is very vital,

But you cannot see it.

This is the nature of our sense perception.

It is not that everything that's vital to us we are seeing,

We are only seeing whatever is objects which stops light and reflects light,

That's all we can see.

That goes for all sense organs.

Because they're contextual,

Because essentially they're survival instruments,

Which we are trying to use as instruments to know.

Sense organs,

The more you sharpen them,

They'll help you to survive better.

And as I already warned you,

What you call as my brain is full of information coming from sense perception.

What you see,

What you hear,

What you smell,

What you taste,

What you touch,

To what extent means if you walk from there to here,

There could be let's say twenty-five different kinds of smells.

You don't notice it consciously,

But all of it is recorded.

Only if something becomes very acute,

You notice it.

But if you bring a dog here,

He smells all the twenty-five and more.

So though our neurological system is far more evolved than that of a dog,

Somehow he can smell more because we are clouded by our own cerebral activity,

Too much thinking going on non-stop.

You know,

In the Indian jungles,

I've been for weeks on end by myself.

If you meet the tribal guy,

I'm also like this,

If he just walk in,

I'll tell you which animal is in which direction,

Even if it's a kilometer away,

Just the smell.

Most of the city folk,

This is some… I'm not exaggerating,

You take them inside,

That guide will say,

See the elephant,

Elephant,

Where,

Where,

Where?

You can't see an elephant because it takes a certain amount of training to be able to spot an elephant in a jungle.

If you go to Africa,

They are standing there in the open field,

It's very easy.

In southern Indian jungles,

Elephant will be right there,

You cannot see because his color and his… the way he is,

He so merges with everything.

Having said that,

Now we are pointing in the right direction,

How do we get eyes to see something that we are not seeing right now?

That's a very important question that I feel the scientific community should address.

Right now,

We are trying to look at everything from what is measurable.

If something is measurable,

Obviously it's a quantity.

Whether you weigh it or you scale it or you do whatever,

Whichever way,

If you measure it,

It's a quantity.

Now we are talking about transforming ourselves from the way we are born to the way we want to be.

In essence,

When you say epigenetics,

We are talking about,

We are born one way,

But we want to become something else altogether.

Whatever that something else is,

What is the range of modifications we can do and how quickly,

Is that the question?

Well,

The range of modification is limitless.

Time depends on various aspects.

One thing is the type of information you have in your system.

How hardwired are you,

How easy is it to unwire you,

How identified are you with things that you know?

See,

This is very important.

Whatever you see as truth in your life,

It's very difficult to dissociate from that.

To be able to see something that is as absolutely true and still be dissociated with that takes an enormous amount of work within yourself,

That you keep a distance from things that you see as hundred percent true.

What you see as true,

You cannot throw it away.

Am I correct?

Hello?

What I see as true,

It's very easy to throw it away.

What you see as true,

Hard to dissociate with that.

Having said that,

I don't want to use scientific words because I am nowhere there,

All right?

But can you change the complexion of the person that you are today,

Hundred percent today?

It's possible.

The question is,

Are you willing to subject yourself to such a overhaul?

Because are you willing to lose everything that you think you are and become something else?

No,

Most human beings are not.

They will come in installments.

Their willingness… I have been working with people who are over forty years,

Their willingness comes in installments.

They will come to me and say,

Sadhguru,

I will want to go all the way,

Sadhguru.

I say,

Really,

All the way?

Okay,

You stay here for a week,

Let's see what we can do.

No,

Sadhguru,

On Wednesday morning,

My uncle's daughter's birthday,

I have to go.

I said,

Okay,

Your uncle's daughter's birthday,

At least these three days,

You do this,

This and this.

No,

Sadhguru,

I don't like this.

So I tell them,

Give them a small piece of paper and say,

Write down all the things that you like,

We'll do only that.

They will think like this and write three or four things.

I say,

What in this whole damn universe,

You like four things?

With this you want to transform?

No,

This is what I'm saying,

Willingness comes in installments,

Because what you know and experience as true,

You can't dissociate.

This can only happen if you have a mad sense of courage or you have enormous trust.

Without these two things,

You cannot determine the time.

But can you do it?

One hundred percent,

Absolutely.

Will you do it?

Participant 1 – Krishna,

You know,

You are one of the co-theorists,

Should I say,

About integrated information theory,

Which is more popular now on consciousness.

Can you put it in simple words that most of us can understand?

Krishna – In English,

They're saying.

Participant 2 – And I have the remaining 90 minutes?

So,

Integrated information theory takes a different approach.

It says,

What is the only thing that you know,

The only thing that's given to you,

The only form of existence is consciousness.

When I'm not conscious,

When I'm deeply asleep or unconscious,

I don't exist for myself.

So,

It's really,

Sort of,

You start with what really exists,

Which is my consciousness,

And then from there you seek to explain the world,

And you seek to explain what is it about the world that gives that sort of,

What is the substrate of this conscious experience.

So,

It combines elements of what's called idealism with elements of physicalism.

It says there's a substrate,

In our case it's a brain,

It's not the heart,

As most people thought,

It's the brain.

And so it says,

Well,

What is it about the brain that gives rise to consciousness?

So,

It looks for particular,

Very complex,

Irreducible aspects of reality.

Ultimately,

It says,

Anything in the world,

Anything,

Not just this substrate,

But any other substrate,

Including other animals,

Including possible trees or bacteria,

Or maybe even elementary matter,

As long as it has some measure of complexity,

As long as it is irreducible.

So,

It starts with irreducibility,

It has some aspect of mind.

So,

It shares some aspects with what's called panpsychism,

Right,

With the belief that consciousness is probably much more,

There are many more things that are ensouled in the universe than just this,

Or maybe dogs and cats and great apes.

And then it tries to make some prediction,

Because it's a scientific theory,

So it tries to make prediction.

Where does consciousness happen?

In the human brain,

Or in the brains of other creatures?

Can you build a conscious meter?

So,

Stephen Loris this morning talked about a way to test for the presence of consciousness in patients that are unable to communicate,

Where you don't,

Where you simply don't know whether they're conscious or not,

So you,

You know,

Trying to build a conscious meter.

And it also makes,

It also infers consciousness where it is and where it's not,

Where it's not present.

So,

Most famously,

Integrated information theory says that machines,

Particularly large language models like CHAT-GPT or GPT-4,

3.

5 or 4.

0,

They can,

They can do almost everything that we can do.

And in,

In very few years,

They will be able to do everything we can do,

But just much better,

Faster,

Better,

With perfect recall,

Perfect memory.

But they can never be what we are,

Because they,

They,

They don't have,

If you look at actually where the rubber hits the road,

If you look at the physical substrate,

It's,

It's very simple digital gates doing their thing,

And,

And consciousness is not a computation.

The technical term,

It's non-algorithmic,

It's non-Turing,

It's non-Turing computable.

And so that would say,

Yes,

The,

The machines that we are surrounded with,

And we live now in the age of intelligent machines,

And they'll become more and more intelligent,

With,

With unknown consequences for,

For our future,

But,

But,

But they're not sentient,

And they're not conscious.

So those are some of the implications of integrated information theory.

Thank you.

So,

You met Sadhguru last night for the first time,

And if you,

If I give you one question that you could ask,

About this consciousness,

Nothing else.

So Galileo,

So science,

And so I wanted to ask you a question about science and,

And,

And spirituality.

So science is enormously successful,

It gave us rise to all of this,

And,

You know,

Chad GPT and nuclear weapons,

And mRNA COVID vaccines,

And all of that good stuff,

And knowledge about the universe,

But it started with Galileo saying,

You know,

We have to make measurable what's not measurable,

If it can't be measured,

We don't study it as scientists,

And B,

With Rene Descartes,

You know,

Dividing everything into,

You know,

Into this,

These dual domains of the physical and the mental,

And by and large,

Scientists don't worry about the mental because it can't really be measured.

And so,

And given that this,

And given that this is the case,

What do you expect that science can give,

And can give all of us,

We,

We obviously suffer in the modern world from enormously mental health crisis,

Like we're living through this time of deep,

Depolarization and crisis.

So what,

What is it,

Given that these are these characters of science,

What is it,

If anything,

That we can do to help people overcome their suffering?

Sadhguru,

Well,

The question is not about consciousness.

Yeah,

I was going to say that.

The question is about suffering.

See,

You are any,

Any human being,

If you know some suffering,

You know only two kinds of suffering – physical suffering,

Mental suffering.

You do not know any other kind of suffering,

Am I,

Am I correct?

Hello?

Yes.

These are only two things.

Physical aspect of who we are,

And the mental structure,

Both these things you built from within over a period of time.

You are not born this way,

You were born like this.

Some input was there,

Rest you built over a period of time.

By the food that we eat,

And the impressions that we gather,

And how we gather,

And how we eat,

Of course,

With this we built different kinds of bodies and different kinds of minds.

If you build something,

Let's… to make it simple,

Let's say if you build a machine,

The most important thing is it should take instructions from you.

If you have a car,

That if you move the steering this way,

It'll go this way,

This is a dangerous car.

So,

Now your body and your mind,

Let me ask you a few simple questions,

Will you answer me please?

Yes.

If your body becomes pleasant,

We call this health.

You want it?

Yes.

No,

That's only about fifteen,

Sixteen people,

The remaining,

I'm asking you whether you whether you say yes,

No or silence,

I'll bless you,

All right?

Health,

You want it?

Yes.

Because that big yes has not happened within you,

You must know this.

It's not you saying yes to me.

Every cell in your body must hear,

You are saying yes to it.

Yes?

Yes.

If it becomes very pleasant,

We call it pleasure.

Yes.

Hey,

Come on.

If your mind becomes pleasant,

We call this peace.

Yes.

If it becomes very pleasant,

We call it joy.

Yes.

If your emotions become pleasant,

We call this love.

Yes.

If it becomes very pleasant,

We call it compassion.

Yes.

If these very life energies become pleasant,

We call this blissfulness.

Yes.

If it becomes very pleasant,

We call it ecstasy.

Yes.

If your surroundings become pleasant,

We call this success.

Yes.

Only to create pleasantness in our surroundings,

We need the cooperation of all these people and many other forces.

But to create pleasantness in your body,

In your mind,

In your emotion and in your energy is one-hundred percent your business.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

So,

Your suffering is just that,

You have not taken charge of this machine.

You have not taken charge of your faculties,

I'm asking you.

If your thought and emotion right now happen the way you want,

Would you create blissfulness or misery?

Please tell me.

What's your choice?

For yourself.

What you want for your neighbor may be debatable,

But for yourself,

Highest level of pleasantness,

Isn't it?

Can I tell you a little joke,

Is it okay?

Because these things get so serious,

We start suffering.

Conferences can be suffered,

You know that.

I have suffered many.

On a certain day,

A lady went to sleep.

In her sleep,

She had a dream.

In her dream,

She saw a hunk of a man standing there and staring at her.

Then he started coming closer,

Closer,

Closer and closer,

That she could even feel his breath.

And she trembled,

Not in fear.

And then she asked,

What will you do to me?

He said,

Well lady,

It's your dream.

You can do whatever the hell you want.

So right now,

It's not even about your life is not happening the way you want,

Even your dream is not happening the way you want.

If your dream was happening the way you want,

Would you suffer?

So suffering is simply because you have misunderstood your psychological reality as existential.

Your psychological drama has become bigger than the cosmic,

Cosmic drama that's happening.

So once you have such a misconception,

Such a lack of context in the universe,

Then you must suffer,

Hello?

When you misunderstand that you're bigger than the cosmos,

You should suffer some,

Isn't it?

That's all it is about.

This may sound unempathetic because people are always in this mode,

I scratch your back,

You scratch my back,

Both of us are right.

So this is the deal between the suffering.

But does anybody consciously wants to suffer?

No,

But too many people are committed to suffering.

Too many people are committed to suffering,

Either they're encouraged by their religious beliefs or they believe that's the only way you will mature.

That is the only way you will know.

It's a sad conclusion you have made.

You tell me or any of the scientists who are here can tell me,

This body and this brain works best when it's peaceful and joyful.

This is my experience,

Sir.

Is it correct,

Sir?

I don't know who are the brain scientists.

Is it correct?

Your body and your brain works at its best when it's in a pleasant state of experience.

How do you think by suffering you will realize something?

Somebody is psyching you to believe that because your suffering is their business.

Professor Kaur,

It's your time,

I'm not… because it's your time,

So I'll give it to you so you can ask whatever,

You can talk and you can ask questions.

Why it was essential to expand physics to accommodate mental and spiritual phenomena.

Now I have to… I think I did stress that that isn't a dream that most physicists share.

Most physicists prefer to focus on the material world and I should also say that even people of a mystical tradition don't necessarily welcome the attempt to relate these higher realities to physics.

It is sometimes felt that it's too reductionist.

You can't reduce everything to science and in particular to physics.

But I disagree with that and I suppose that's simply because I am a physicist and I'm passionate about physics.

I've seen how successful it has been describing the material world and I want to expand that success to these other domains.

But in my talk this morning I didn't actually discuss my specific proposal for how to do that.

So maybe I can just spend a few minutes now saying how I think that can be done by extending one's ideas of space and time.

But I should say that everything I'm going to say now is more speculative.

What I said this morning I would say passionately is true,

It just has to be true.

But what I'm now going to talk about might be wrong,

It's just my particular picture.

So first of all I was going to talk about space and I just want to say how within the concepts of physics what we mean by space has changed.

In the old Newtonian physics space was three dimensional,

You had three dimensions of space and you had one dimension of time and that was the idea of reality.

In the Newtonian perspective the reality is three dimensional.

We exist in a three dimensional world,

We all see different parts of the world,

But the fact is that so long as you specify where the brains are and where the objects are you consistently reconcile how everybody experiences the world.

And that view prevailed for several hundred years.

But then Einstein came along and he showed us that actually the world is four dimensional,

Space and time merge together.

And that actually really completely changes your view of the nature of reality.

It's saying the only way to consistently reconcile how we all experience the world,

Including people moving at very fast speeds or in strong gravitational fields,

Is to say reality is four dimensional,

It's not three dimensional.

And all physicists would accept that.

But then in about the 1920s two physicists called Kaluza and Klein,

They realized that they could give a geometrical interpretation of electromagnetism by invoking a fifth dimension.

Einstein had given a geometrical interpretation of gravity in terms of space.

They said,

Well,

You can do the same thing.

I can explain electromagnetism,

Which was then the other known force apart from gravity,

By saying there's a fifth dimension.

But this fifth dimension is wrapped up very,

Very,

Very small.

It's actually wrapped up on the Planck scale.

So you can't see it,

But it's there.

And it beautifully describes,

From a mathematical point of view,

Physical reality.

That was in the 1920s.

But then people more or less forgot about it,

Because they got distracted by quantum theory.

But then in the mid-1980s,

People resurrected the idea.

And they realized that you could introduce extra dimensions and explain all of physics,

Because by the 1980s there were other forces besides gravity and electromagnetism.

But there had to be 10 dimensions.

In fact,

You had the four microscopic dimensions of space and time,

But you had these six extra dimensions,

Which were all wrapped up very small.

But there were lots of different.

This is called superstring theory.

But there were many different versions of superstring theory.

But then in the mid-1990s,

Ed Witten,

Who's a very brilliant physicist,

Also from Princeton.

So many people seem to come from Princeton and Harvard.

But anyway,

Ed Witten realized that,

In fact,

You need eleven dimensions.

And if you have one extra dimensions,

You can actually bring all these different versions of string theory together.

Sadhguru Oh,

Who said that,

Sir?

Because in the yogic… in the yogic sciences,

It's always seen as eleven dimensions.

Oh,

Well,

I didn't… I didn't know that,

Sadhguru.

I'm really… I didn't know it was specifically eleven dimensions.

I don't know whether Ed Witten actually read this text,

I will refer him to it anyway.

He's supposed to be the biggest brain on the planet,

So I mean,

I'll make sure he… within physics.

Sadhguru No,

That's very interesting,

Because truth… the nature of truth is such,

From whichever direction you look at it,

It's still the same.

Dr.

Rana Mataji Right,

Right.

Whether you come from physics or whether you come from a spiritual… Sadhguru Yes.

It doesn't matter where you come from.

It's the same thing.

Dr.

Rana Mataji Well,

Can I just… Sadhguru Yeah.

Dr.

Rana Mataji Just ask a naive question,

Just as an experimentalist.

What evidence,

What empirical evidence do we have for any of these dimensions beyond the usual four?

Sadhguru Krishna,

That is a very good question,

And the answer is actually almost none.

And this is why,

But the point… and that's quite… and that is the criticism of some of these theories,

That they're purely mathematical,

That there isn't actually any evidence for them.

Now some people say,

Because their energies involved are so high,

Some people say,

Well,

This means it's not physics,

It's maths or philosophy even.

On the other hand,

The people who are doing this,

They are physicists,

They're working in physics departments,

They've got billions of dollars of grants.

So that's a really important point.

I always take the view that,

OK,

There isn't evidence now,

But if you wait long enough,

The evidence may come.

We have to be patient.

But you're quite right,

At the moment,

There isn't any evidence for these extra dimensions.

Rana Mataji But they have the same criticism for IIT too.

Sadhguru For what?

You know,

Absolutely.

You have the same criticism of many things.

But let me carry on,

Because otherwise I'll forget my train of thought,

So.

Now let's ask about mental experience.

We all know we experience this world,

Phenomenal space,

But that's our experience of the physical world.

Now there's a long philosophical debate about the relationship between physical space and phenomenal space,

But that's really relatively straightforward.

However,

I'm interested in the spaces we experience in other states of consciousness,

Other than just in the waking state.

There's been a lot of discussion about dreams and lucid dreams.

Well I have lucid dreams too,

And what's fascinating to me about dreams is that they take place in a space,

Just as vivid as physical space.

Sometimes I have dreams and I'm not even sure if I'm awake or not,

You know,

Because the space seems so similar.

So there is a space.

Sometimes you,

And of course if you have a lucid dream it becomes even more clear.

You can do experiments and say,

Is this like a real space or not?

But then there are other experiences,

Out-of-body experiences.

I'm sure quite a lot of people here have had out-of-body experiences.

In an out-of-body experience,

Your consciousness leaves your physical body and seems to wander around.

It seems to be in the physical world,

But it's distorted.

It's not,

You know,

You go out on the roof and you suddenly notice the chimney pot's in the wrong place.

So somehow you're experiencing a space,

But it's not identical to physical space,

Even though it's related to physical space.

You have the experience of ghosts,

Apparitions.

Now of course most people will say,

There's no doubt people see ghosts,

But most psychologists would say the ghost is just a hallucination.

So for example,

I see Cleopatra walking down the aisle here.

If I only see it,

Then you see it,

Then of course you can just say I'm crazy.

However,

There are cases of ghosts which are collective in the sense that more than one person sees them at the same time.

And it's as though the ghost is in a space of its own,

Because you can see it from a different perspective.

But it's not in a physical space.

It's not in normal physical space.

In that sense,

It's not real.

And then there are experiences like near-death experiences.

And clearly near-death experiences occur in a space,

In the sense that you go through a tunnel or you cross a bridge.

But again,

It's not physical space.

Now then mystical experience,

And I have to say I have had very little mystical experience.

I'm not a mystically evolved being at all,

But I've read other people's experiences.

And some mystical experiences also have a spatial feature.

Not always.

Some elements of mystical experience seem to go beyond space and time,

But some experiences that would be called mystical seem to involve a space,

But not physical space.

So to summarize that,

I would simply say the experience of mental and spiritual experiences very often involve a sort of space.

And if you like,

A collective mind space in which our individual minds,

Individual consciousnesses in the little c are just part of consciousness of the big C.

Our minds with a little m are just part of this mind with a big M.

So,

Sadhguru,

Do you have a comment on what Bernard just said?

See,

In the modern term of the word mind,

We're talking about it like it's one piece.

Well,

How we see it is,

There is a front end of the mind,

Which is the intellect,

Which we call buddhi,

And there is a second stage of mind,

Which we call as ahankara,

Which is essentially identity.

This is one thing that modern societies have failed to address,

That is the identity.

Because it's your identity which allows your intellect to function in a particular way.

If you're identified,

Let's say,

With this nation,

If you see the country's flag,

Tears will come to you,

It's genuine,

You're not faking it,

It's genuine.

So the more identified you are with something,

The more committed your intellect is to that identity,

You cannot do anything about it,

It will work within that.

If you're identified as a scientist,

As a mystic,

As a yogi or whatever,

It will function within that.

So there are whole systems of yoga,

Where we are constantly working to see that the identity is cosmic in nature,

That you don't identify with anything.

Difficult to not identify with anything,

So you identify with something for which you cannot see the boundaries.

Because this fixed identity is the basis of all human intellect functioning in different ways.

If I think I'm this religion,

It functions one way,

If I think I'm atheist,

It functions another way,

If I think this nation,

It functions one way,

Another something else,

It functions another way.

Your intellect is completely committed to your identity.

So how to go beyond one's identity?

Because if you go beyond your identity,

You lose your persona completely.

Your personality itself is gone.

Are you willing to do that?

That's why I said in the very beginning,

Is it possible,

Hundred percent?

But are you willing is a question.

Are you willing to be the only capital that you have,

Are you willing to throw it away,

Which is you?

As you know,

As you know yourself as a person.

The next aspect of the mind is eight dimensions of memory.

We refer to this as elemental memory,

Evolutionary memory,

Genetic memory,

Karmic memory,

Conscious and unconscious levels of memory,

And articulate and inarticulate levels of memory.

You may have memory,

You know,

But there are many things you cannot articulate.

So these eight forms of memory is a big silo sitting there.

And let's use an analogy.

If I ask you a simple question,

Do you want your intellect to be sharp or blunt?

So essentially,

Your intellect is a cutting instrument,

It's the front end.

So with a cutting instrument,

You can dissect,

I want to know you.

So I will bring my intellect and dissect you.

By dissecting you,

I may find your liver,

Kidney and spleen,

But I will not find you.

If I embrace you,

Maybe I will know something of you.

Hello?

If I dissect you,

I will know nothing of you.

But if I embrace you,

When I say embrace,

I'm talking about if I include you in some way,

I know something.

So this instrument of cutting or dissection,

We are trying to use it across the board for everything.

It is like you use a cutting instrument,

Let's say you have a knife,

You go and stitch your clothes with it,

It'll become like the latest fashion.

Everything is torn,

All right?

So you try to handle your life with just your intellect,

It will be in bits and pieces,

You're seeing this.

The more education,

Modern education happens,

People are more confused than ever before.

Does it mean to say it's wrong?

No.

I'm not saying better to be uneducated,

But uneducated,

To remain uneducated,

It's very hard,

I want you to know.

It takes a lot of striving that you are not influenced by any data that comes to you.

You're not influenced by any information that you hold,

Doesn't matter how valuable it is,

How sacred it is,

Where it comes from.

It comes from a scripture,

It comes from a professor,

It comes from a guru,

It doesn't matter.

You are not identified with it.

Like there's a whole lot of information in your phone.

If you don't really identify with it,

It just stays there,

You're not influenced by it.

Similarly,

A whole lot of data in this,

From parentage,

From circumstances in so many different ways,

But uninfluenced.

But what kind of hand holds the knife will decide how the knife functions,

Which will… will this save somebody's life or will this take somebody's life,

Is not dependent on the knife,

It is dependent on the hand which holds it.

And now this hand is connected to the silo of memory.

If this is a limited identity,

It will use all this memory capabilities in a limited way because essentially intellect is a instrument of self-preservation.

To preserve yourself in so many different ways,

Preservation is not just physical.

You need psychological preservation,

Emotional preservation,

Social preservation,

Various levels of preservation to live.

So always your intellect is being used for self-preservation purposes.

Self-preservation means survival.

Survival is very important,

But at the same time,

It doesn't ever fulfill you.

If you had come here as any other creature,

Stomach full,

Your life is settled.

Once you come as a human being,

Stomach full,

Stomach empty,

Only one problem.

Stomach full,

One hundred problems.

This is the nature of a human being,

Because what you call as human begins only after your survival is taken care of,

Till then you're just another biological creature.

Only when survival is settled,

Only when your instinct of survival is kept down,

The possibility of being a conscious human being arises within you.

So keeping the identity down or making the identity as limitless as possible in your imagination is most important to see that the knowledge or the memory or the information that you have from various sources functions in a way which is not in conflict with yourself or with anything else.

Right now,

The very information that you carry tortures you in a thousand different ways,

Because if you have a very sharp knife,

You must have a very steady hand.

If you are little la-la-la kind,

Intestines will come out,

Hello?

So the third portion of the mind is called manas,

Which is a silo of memory.

The fourth portion of the mind,

Which is the most important,

Which has remained largely unexplored by people who approach this in an intellectual way is called chitta.

Chitta means it is an intelligence which is unsullied by memory.

There is no memory,

But it's intelligence.

Can it do something?

It can't do nothing.

Only if you give it a little bit of memory,

It will function according to the intent and direction of that memory,

Otherwise it doesn't function,

But it is the basis of everything.

Well,

Right now this word consciousness is everywhere.

See,

I think the fundamental diffe… distinction we need to make is,

You being conscious right now,

You are conscious obviously.

You being conscious or unconscious,

These are two different states.

Consciousness is not about this,

We are misunderstanding mental awareness as consciousness.

So we look at it this way,

Chitta… let's look at it from the other side,

Prana,

Prajna and chitta.

So prajna is your awareness,

Right now you are in prajna,

You are aware,

You are not asleep.

Prana is heart is beating,

You are not beating it,

It's working by itself,

Hello?

It is not your intellect which makes the liver function,

There is an intelligence.

If you eat a piece of bread,

Over the afternoon it becomes this complex human body.

This is not your intellect,

You can't think it out.

You can't put this many chemicals and make a liver or a kidney or something else,

Maybe one day you will build it,

But still there is an intelligence within you,

Which is doing things that you do what you want,

You cannot figure it out,

To that extent it is happening because intellect functions from the limited data that we feed it.

Well this is like,

Suppose there is a trillion piece jigsaw,

You got five pieces,

Then you said,

This is a bear.

But you got eight,

One day,

Then you say,

Oh no,

No,

This is an elephant.

You got twelve,

Then you say,

This is a dinosaur.

This will go on,

Because you're dealing with something,

Which even modern science,

Physicists are openly saying it is boundless.

So that which is boundless,

Trying to define it intellectually,

Will take us on a… will keep barking on the wrong… up the wrong tree for too long.

So that's why I said,

It's fortunate to see that science is pointing at last in the right direction,

Time to get the eyes to see it.

That's a different job altogether.

We do have some audience questions to both Deepak and Sadhguru,

That is,

You mentioned about sthurya,

That state of consciousness,

That is unsullied by memory.

How… I don't know what that is,

If there is no memory,

How do I know that I was in that state?

Sadhguru Right now,

As I said,

Your body,

Deepak,

You want to?

Deepak Chopra Sure.

Sadhguru Your body and mind,

I said is memory.

But in between,

Deepak tried,

I mean,

Kind of tried a process,

That when you said yes immediately,

That's mind,

When you said yes after span of time,

In that time you're you.

But I would say even in that time,

They are still mind,

Unexpressed,

Because you're told not to.

So I'm saying you're misunderstanding the psychological content and drama of your mind as a reality.

Your psychological drama is your psychological drama.

It's like the lady who had a dream,

You could do whatever you want.

Because your psychological drama is running right without your permission,

You think it's a phenomenon by itself.

No,

This is a phenomenon ignited by you.

Well,

A simple thing,

I generally use worse words,

Because this is a university,

I'm trying to use better words.

But if you're just people,

I will use the words.

What people are having is just a mental diarrhea.

Today,

If you have diarrhea physically,

Today's doctors will try to plug it with a tablet or a wine cork,

I don't know how they do it.

In traditional medicine in India,

If you say you have diarrhea,

First thing is they say,

Don't eat anything,

Stop,

Because you've eaten something wrong,

That's a fundamental.

Something has gone into you which doesn't agree with the system.

First thing is just cleanse the system,

Don't eat.

Just drink water.

Just let it go,

Let it go,

Let it cleanse itself,

Whatever needs,

Because body is trying to purge something that it doesn't want.

Just let it go,

Keeping it inside is the wrong thing to do.

So this is a mental diarrhea.

How did this happen?

You've taken something wrong.

What is something wrong?

The moment you identify yourself with something that you are not,

You can't stop the diarrhea.

It will go on and on and on.

If you just sit here,

Without identifying yourself with your university,

With your family,

With your knowledge,

With your wealth,

With whatever else and your body and the content of your mind,

If you simply sit here,

Diarrhea will immediately stop,

Because there's no bad food,

It will stop.

As simple as that.

There are states of consciousness beyond turiya,

There's turiyatatta,

Which is local and non-local awareness at the same time.

There's something called bhagavad chetna,

Where you can see a person locally and in their non-local being.

And then there's something called brahmi chetna,

Where there is nothing other than consciousness as the source of all that exists.

So if I'm in that state,

Do I know that I was there?

If you're in that state,

In the gap,

You exist as pure consciousness,

That's all,

As the field of all possibilities.

But ultimately,

Memory and karma and imagination are all the same thing.

They're consciousness modifying themselves into an experience,

Either cognitive or perceptual.

What we call mind,

Body,

And universe are perceptual and cognitive activities in consciousness,

But we label them as mind,

Body,

And universe.

Reviews

Thought provoking and interesting. My neuroscience MS degree gave me great foundation! www.gratefulness.org, ahimsa

Thank you 🙏🙏, this was extremely interesting and informative. I'm grateful for your wisdom 😊🕊️🙏🙏🙏🕊️🕊️🙏