'The Black Dragon' With Sadhguru

​@Vusi Thembekwayo, global speaker, venture capitalist, bestselling author & renowned South African entrepreneur, seeks Sadhguru's guidance on various aspects, during a profound exploration of life.

#Sadhguru
Yogi, mystic and visionary, Sadhguru is a spiritual master with a difference. An arresting blend of profundity and pragmatism, his life and work serves as a reminder that yoga is a contemporary science, vitally relevant to our times.

Transcript

Namaskaram.

Oh,

The black dragon,

Look at him.

Hahahaha.

Usi Temba Kwayo.

Am I getting your second name right?

Dr.

Uttam Kumar You got it perfectly right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sadhguru Wonderful seeing you.

I'm so humbled to finally meet you and to connect with you.

I've been a huge fan,

A follower of your work,

Reader of the book for a very,

Very long time.

So this is a big moment for me.

Thank you.

Thank you for this.

Sadhguru Well,

See,

It's wonderful to see that you're making a difference in the economic condition of Africa more than your business ventures,

The inspiration you are giving to the youth to take to entrepreneurship.

I think it's most vital because the African tribes right from thousands of years,

They are not tribes of systemic excellence but more of their own enterprise.

Well,

Maybe the past enterprise cannot be compared to today's form of enterprise,

But tribes were very mercurially enterprising in their own way.

Today's enterprise has shifted to a different mode of operation.

It's more… it's not tribal or inter-tribal,

It is more international.

It's a difference but fundamentally the instinct and the wisdom of enterprise remains the same.

Scale has changed,

The geographical reach has changed but fundamentally it's the same.

So it's wonderful that you're doing this for your country and for the continent.

Africa is very dear to me.

It's interesting that you… I mean,

I love the comment and the way that you discern kind of over time how things have changed,

Right?

And I hope… what I hope really is that we as Africans ourselves are able to understand that and are able to bring a different way of doing things into the environment we're operating in today without necessarily losing ourselves because I suppose the hard part about discovery of the new is which part of the old feels authentic and which part of the old do you keep?

And as you… as you just… as you discover the new,

What do you let go and what do you unlearn?

And I suppose there… there are no correct answers to that,

Only the question.

Sadhguru You should never hold on to the past.

You should only stand upon the wisdom of the past.

You should not hold on to it because activities of yesterday,

What was wisdom yesterday could be foolish today.

So,

We should… we should never hold on to it.

I know this has become a fad.

Wherever I go,

People say,

Sadhguru will bring ancient wisdom.

I say,

This is contemporary wisdom because wisdom should work.

Ancient wisdom means it must be chronicle,

It must be archived,

Not practiced.

Well,

The ancients also might have seen something relevant to their times.

Some things of the past could be relevant to us because fundamentally we are still human,

We have not evolved into something else,

All right?

So we are still human.

Situations have changed.

So wisdom is a combination of our own realizations and situational practical action put together.

Realization may be idealistic,

Absolute truth,

But wisdom is a kind of integration between present-day realities and the ultimate truth.

If these two things don't integrate,

You can only sit in a cave,

Be blissful and bless people.

If you want to be active in the world,

You need to integrate absolute truth with today's reality,

Otherwise you cannot function in the world.

Hmm?

Questioner 1 – Sadhguru,

Can the truth ever be absolute?

Sadhguru – Truth is always absolute,

Reality keeps changing.

Questioner 1 – What's the difference?

Sadhguru – The difference is you can paint your house whichever color you want today,

But the foundation remains the same.

Okay,

Okay,

Okay,

And I mean,

One of the questions I… just considering this conversation is one of the questions I was really thinking about,

And it's interesting you mentioned this idea of absolute truth,

Is I wonder if the world today is ready for the truth,

Whatever that truth might be.

I'm not sure that the world is,

And the reason I asked that question is because I'm not sure how well each human being is versed in their own truth and how ready they are to receive that truth.

There's an old expression that says,

The only thing people hate more than the truth is the person who dares to speak it.

Sadhguru laughs… You're telling the wrong guy,

I've faced all of it.

That's why I was going with this,

That's why I was going with this.

I mean,

One of the… you're… yeah,

Just at a personal level,

One of the things I… just watching you from a distance,

One of the things I love about how you traverse the space is you have this incredible ability,

It appears to float over the ephemeral,

You know,

The stuff that's trendy and top-y and next,

You just like you float over it,

But it's seamless.

And then when you,

You know,

Release a book,

The book lands and it captures the zeitgeist for a moment,

It's like… and it immediately goes to number one bestseller.

And one of the things I was wondering,

And I wanted to ask you this question as a person who battles with their own truth,

By the way,

And that's where this question is coming from,

It's me musing to myself because there are truths to myself,

About myself,

About which I'm not sure I'm necessarily willing to confront.

Sadhguru Let me correct that question first,

You see.

The thing is,

You said the world's… is the world ready for truth?

There is… world will never be ready for truth because the word world is not true.

Because only the individual experience is true.

Only you exist.

The world is just a word.

That is because you don't have… See,

Do you call your children the world?

No,

You call them by name because you have the time and attention for those individual lives.

So,

You call them by name.

They are people,

All right?

They're individual people.

When we use the world,

We don't have the necessary span of attention nor intention to pay attention to that.

So they are just one world,

All right?

So world is a psychological manifestation in our minds.

Only there are only people.

People are people because of individual experiences.

Are individual experiences truth?

No.

Individual experiences is psychological realities in which they live,

Social realities in which they live.

So,

That is not the truth.

An individual is capable of experiencing truth,

But individual… individual as a person is not truth.

The world is not capable of experiencing truth,

But it is the truth.

Did I say something so funny?

I was… That… that… that answer did not end the way I expected it.

So… so… so,

Let me then ask this question quite simply.

What is the truth?

If I am myself trying to confront the truth about myself,

What is the truth then?

See,

When I said something is absolute,

That means you cannot define it,

Obviously.

If you give a definition,

It becomes a small piece of something,

Right?

You can define something which has physical boundaries.

You cannot define something which has no physicality to it,

No boundaries to it.

So,

Truth is not something that you try to define and philosophize.

Truth is something that you experience.

How do you experience truth?

The important thing is,

If an individual human being,

Instead of busy making conclusions about everything in the world,

If they just sit here looking at what is it that is making you make the conclusions,

What is it that causes joy in you,

What is it that causes misery in you,

What is it that you like,

What is it that you dislike,

If you look at these things carefully,

You will understand in how many ways you have set up prisms of confusion in your mind.

You set up a prism.

Suppose I hold a prism in my hand and look at you,

You will look very funny,

You know?

You will look somehow distorted.

So I hold a prism and I think,

Who sees a funny looking guy?

Well,

This is my problem,

Not yours,

Isn't it?

So like this,

We have set up multiple prisms,

Multiple prisms in the vision of our mind,

Where everything is confusing.

And now we are thinking how to find the truth,

How to find the truth.

No,

You need to clean up your faculties,

How you see,

How you hear,

How you smell,

How you taste,

How you perceive needs to be cleaned up.

Truth is not something that you try to see.

You just clear your vision,

Then you will see.

I.

.

.

I'm not sure how much you know about my country,

South Africa,

But you know,

We've had a phenomenal time since Nelson Mandela was released from prison 27 years ago,

Both highs and lows.

I mean,

Really high highs.

We've had people coming together,

The spirit of what we as African people call Ubuntu,

Which is the idea that I am because you are.

So whereas,

You know,

In some European cultures,

They say,

I think,

Therefore I am.

In the African culture,

We say,

I am because you are.

So my definition of self is an expression of your existence.

But even in this incredible time,

One of the things I've noticed happen over time is because we are a young country,

A young demographic,

A young population,

We're constantly trying to find our identity.

And in the quest to find our identity is the battle for whose identity is more true than whose.

So what is the archetypal man?

What is the archetypal African man?

What is the archetypal African Zulu man?

What is the archetypal woman?

And in the midst of all of this,

What we have done is we've created very unrealistic archetypes and people are trying to live up to an idea that doesn't exist.

And if you this is the question I wanted to ask you.

If you dare step outside the ideas that have been created and have become socially acceptable,

You become a pariah.

And I'm talking to the choir here,

But you know that once society has created an idea,

If you step outside of it,

Society is going to punish you for it.

And of course,

There are kind of two responses.

The first is disappear.

But the second is to step into yourself and understand who you are and stand in your truth as I wanted is the point I was coming to.

So the question I have for you is once you have defined what the truth is,

Once you're clear on what the world is to you,

Where do you find the courage to stand in the silence of your own presence?

Because you're the only one that's there really.

The minute you step into it,

Step outside of society,

It's a very lonely place.

Should I answer the question or should I clear up the question?

Both.

So let me start with the question before I answer.

You talked about the European idea of I think so I am.

A simple question,

Is it because you are you can think or because you can think you are,

Which is true?

You know the answer.

What do you mean?

Because no,

No,

Because only because you can exist,

You exist,

You can think,

Right?

Not because you think you can exist.

So I'm saying if you are so lost in your own psychological realities,

That you fancifully start believing that your psychological reality is real.

Your psychological reality is just your drama.

There's nothing concerned with reality there,

Okay?

It is your psychological drama and you start thinking right now human suffering is all invested in this,

That people think their psychological creations are bigger than the creator's creation.

That is the problem essentially.

That's all their suffering.

That's the only thing human beings are suffering.

Their psychological creations are larger and more significant than the cosmos.

That's all their problem is.

One knock on their head their psychological reality will evaporate,

All right?

I'm saying that this is not truth.

This is just your drama.

You have gotten so engrossed and invested in your own drama,

You've just forgotten that there is a reality called existence.

Now about what you said about the African people,

You are so I am.

Well this is a very social reality.

This is a way of acknowledging another human being,

How we… we as human beings are not designed in such a way that our individuality is absolute.

We have to interact,

We have to be together.

This is a more peacemaking in the society.

This is a more I would say social wisdom,

Nothing to do with truth per se.

It's a social wisdom.

You recognize,

Acknowledge that everybody around you is important.

Without them you really are nothing.

And it is also a way of engaging and involving yourself with other lives because this is not only to human beings.

You may say this to a lion or a giraffe or a tree saying,

Because you are I am.

It's a wonderful way of recognizing the contribution of every other life to our lives.

But that's a social reality.

So having said that about African man trying to create his own image of himself,

But see Africa is a word,

It is a geographical piece called a continent today.

But in reality,

As historical reality if you look at it,

Africa must have been 10,

000 tribes or more,

I don't know the number,

But I'm just saying because I discovered in America there were… there still are 500 nations within United States of America,

Native American nations.

So in Africa it must be at least 10,

000,

I'm just imagining.

I do not know the exact number.

It could be anywhere 5,

000,

10,

000 tribes.

So they all lived in their own realities,

Their own practices,

Probably their own languages,

Their own rituals,

Their own identity essentially.

So today this… because certain forces from outside came and whatever the boundaries of tribal identities who are just wiped out,

It did not happen with war between two tribes.

Somebody else came and wiped out and it all got mixed up.

Maybe even Azulu doesn't look like Azulu anymore or you know in the Maasai Mara,

The tall people,

Lot of them are short and fat these days,

All this happening.

No,

That is because I'm saying genetic mixture has happened,

Which was not happening earlier.

Social mixture has happened and all kinds of mixtures and porosity has come.

What was guarded as a very sacred identity has gotten mixed up over period of time in the last two hundred years.

So much has happened.

Some of it is absolutely painful and disastrous.

But this is the way unfortunately we have shaped the world.

Okay,

Let's come to that reality.

This is the way it's happened.

We cannot change yesterday,

All right?

It is just that today what we do will determine our future,

That we must understand.

Yesterday we cannot change.

It might have been beautiful,

It might have been ugly,

It doesn't matter,

But we cannot change that.

We can only experience today and see and strive how to create a tomorrow.

In this effort,

If you are Azulu,

It's wonderful as a culture you keep that as sacred,

You keep that going because it's important.

Otherwise all of us will become one kind of people.

We will die of boredom,

Okay?

It's so wonderful that cultures evolve like this.

If you come to India,

There are over thirteen hundred languages.

Even today people speaking these kind of languages.

So all this cultural color,

This kaleidoscope of humanity is wonderful.

At the same time,

We have moved towards a world today where we are… there is technology,

There is kind of interconnectivity that you could have never imagined possible even fifty years ago,

Which you cannot deny,

Which you cannot grow without using and becoming a part of it.

So this need not become a struggle.

If you are… you know,

I was invited to speak with the Azulu king and to address the Azulu population,

But unfortunately things turned out the way they did with this pandemic.

So see,

It's wonderful to keep that memory because a human being's life is rich only because of a vivid sense of memory.

If we did not have that memory,

Our lives would not be rich.

So I'm saying keep the culture,

Keeps… I don't think you can keep… let's say if you are… are you Azulu?

I'm Swati.

Okay.

Very closely related to Azulu.

Okay.

Let us say whatever the proud moments of your culture is in your memory,

It remains an inspiration.

But don't try to practice all of it today because those things were practiced at a certain time in a certain atmosphere where it was relevant.

They were doing what was relevant.

If you do the same things now,

You will be doing something that's irrelevant.

So all those practices of life,

We must make it into practices of what to say ceremony.

Ceremonially you must keep them alive.

You should not try to keep them alive in your life,

In your daily practice.

I'm not saying every bit of it,

Many parts of it,

Many large parts of it may not be relevant today.

Such things,

We must make them into ceremonial practices.

Let's say what they were doing every day,

Once a year we come together and do that just to remind us ourselves what roots we come from.

This is important to keep the pride and integrity of people to move forward.

Otherwise if… if somebody looks back and sees there is nothing behind them,

There is a vacancy in our memory,

Then very few people,

That is actually a great liberation if there is absolutely past is wiped out.

But that is not the way most human beings are made.

They will suffer,

They will not know how to use it as a springboard.

So if you convert what was day-to-day practices of your tribe into a ceremonial practice in your life,

It will be like a springboard for you to walk strong into tomorrow.

Dr.

Raghuram G.

Rajanthi,

Ph.

D.

Got you.

So… so if I'm hearing you then what you're saying is that even the idea of identity itself is not fixed.

And identity is a contemporary construct.

No,

It is not… always identities have been there.

But what was a tribal identity,

Today you're trying to make it into a national identity or now Africa means a continental identity or we are pushing towards a global identity.

Global identity does not mean all of us should paint ourselves white or black.

We… we are different colors,

We are different,

This thing is fine.

It's essentially that we make these things the color of our life,

Not the core of our life.

This is the important thing.

The core of our life is we are human.

The core of our life is we are life on this planet,

Which is the most important thing.

The color of our life may be black,

White,

I am brown,

Okay?

Technically we're both brown,

But okay.

That's good.

I wanted to ask you something.

I watched one of your… I thought it was a fascinating episode.

You were cycling… you were… you were… you were on a motorbike through the United States and you stopped at what appeared to be this outback,

Beautiful Native American town and there's a… you were looking at… it must have been like a hill and just talking about… about wisdom.

And it touched me because where I'm from,

We have a very strong connection to our past.

We believe that those who passed before us leave with us a body of wisdom that never ages and in each community some of us are selected to access that wisdom,

Right?

We call it,

You know,

Ancestors and it's a form of spiritual wisdom really.

And what I wanted to understand from you,

Because I found that episode absolutely fascinating,

Because what is… what is that bridge between what the old people knew and what the young people are trying to learn?

It appears to me as if there is a set of lessons we are yet to go through that those who've been before us have been through.

And I mean,

You spoke about it… you spoke about it so well in that… in that… in that recording.

I thought it was such a powerful idea.

What do you… what do you think?

Sadhguru See,

In this effort,

One important thing is that we don't simply flatly glorify everything that is past and simply put down everything that is present,

Keeping that in mind.

See,

For example,

If you say anywhere,

As you said in Africa,

Especially in India if you speak,

We… a whole lot of people always believe a few thousand years ago,

Five thousand,

Ten thousand years ago,

The whole society was so wise and so fantastic and whatever.

No,

The problem is all the idiots who died and all the wise men… and the wise men also who died at that time,

The idiots are forgotten,

The wise men are remembered.

So you start thinking ten thousand years ago,

Everybody was wise.

Everybody was not wise.

Even then a handful were.

Maybe percentages might vary from then to now,

I doubt that anyway.

Even then a handful of people were wise in a generation,

They are remembered,

So looks like that generation was a wise generation.

Today also it's the same reality,

A handful of people may be seeing things the way it is,

Rest of the people,

Their wisdom comes from Google,

It's not bad,

It's informative.

I'm saying they might have forgotten their grandfather because the grandfather might not have exhibited too much wisdom.

You might have loved him,

That's different.

He might have been nice to you,

That's different.

But may not have,

You know,

Exhibited too much wisdom.

So not that every grandfather,

Every forefather was wise and fantastic,

No.

Even as today is,

Even then it was.

So let's not simply glorify the past and try to simply put down the present because this is the trend that I'm seeing.

Where is this generation going?

These bloody idiots,

What are they doing?

No no,

The bloody idiots are empowered with technology and means.

Even then there were bloody idiots.

If there was a bloody idiot in your Zulu tribe,

All he could do was throw his spear at somebody,

Thousand years ago.

But today if he's there,

Oh my god,

He will internationally blabber all over the place on the social media,

Okay?

Dr.

Jayaprakash Narayanan That's right,

That's right,

There are few of those,

There are few of those.

Quite a few,

Believe me.

So I'm saying the impact seems to be more simply because the means is high,

You know.

Everybody is empowered.

So what I want everybody to remember,

I'm right now in the process of nurturing this movement called Conscious Planet.

You see,

You must become a part of this because what I'm seeing is… see,

Many great beings have come up on this planet,

No question.

But when they spoke,

Hardly ten people could hear.

Just look back and see,

Krishna,

It's such a glorious,

Spectacular being.

When he speaks,

After much waiting he speaks what?

To one man.

And that man has hundreds of questions.

Shiva,

You cannot think of another being like that,

Wisdom beyond all human capabilities.

When he speaks to his beloved wife,

She freaks him with thousands of questions.

And like let's say Jesus,

He tries to speak,

All he gets is twelve people and one of them freaks on him anyway,

All right?

So I'm saying this has been the way of humanity in the past.

Great beings have come,

But hardly any impact in their times because means were not there.

This is the first time in the history of humanity we can sit here.

See,

I'm sitting in El Paso,

You're in Johannesburg,

We're talking to each other.

When was this possible?

So today we can sit here and talk to the entire world,

Every human being on the planet you can address them.

Once we have this power,

If we do not transform humanity,

This simply means that we don't care.

So I don't want to go as a generation who does not care.

We want to make sure the necessary transformation happens.

Dr.

K.

R.

How do we do that?

I did… I did your Inner Engineering program.

I have to tell you that there were parts where I really battled.

There were several moments where I couldn't complete the process.

Just… And I'll be honest with you,

Sadhguru.

First,

It's interesting how the universe works because your team started having a conversation with me.

At around the time I was making very,

Very big personal changes,

Very big personal changes.

Sadhguru Anything… See,

I want to tell you,

Anything personal is never too big.

Dr.

K.

But I mean,

It was things that were a part of me.

And I don't know if I'm to be honest,

Sadhguru,

I don't know how I got there.

I don't know how I got to the point.

Sadhguru Just reminding you,

Just reminding you that you're a wonderful man,

But you are a speck in this universe.

Dr.

K.

Yeah.

I mean,

It's hard when… albeit you're a speck in the universe,

You know,

For you,

That's all you see.

But you know,

I'm not sure… I'm not sure when I got to the point where what I had accumulated became who I thought I was.

Anyway,

So I was making very,

Very big changes,

You know,

Moving countries,

Getting in and out of certain business relationships,

Certain businesses that I've had forever,

But I decided I just wasn't passionate about it anymore.

I didn't want to do it anymore.

I didn't see the point anymore.

And going back to myself,

And it was… so I go through your process and I go,

Oh man,

They don't call it Inner Engineering for nothing.

Like it's really,

Really… you've got to go inside,

Right?

You just said something about how when the wise speak,

They generally spoke to the few.

There's a beautiful Jay-Z verse and Jay-Z says,

My homie said,

Oh,

There aren't many of us.

I told him less is more.

There's plenty of us.

And what I found in that process where I was going through this change,

This metamorphosis was even the people I was able to surround myself with,

The conversations I was able to have,

The number of people grew thinner,

But the conversations grew deeper.

And I suppose the question I'm asking is,

Is that just the natural course of who we are as human beings?

Does it follow that for you and I to have a real connection and for you and I to do work of real meaning,

There must be fewer of us,

Fewer disciples but depth of message.

Can we truly transform the world by touching millions of lives and turning ordinary people into disciples of something great?

Sadhguru I would say both have a certain element of reality in it.

Without a few very committed people,

You cannot do anything significant.

At the same time,

The few committed people,

The purpose of few committed people coming together is to impact the larger humanity.

I must tell you the journey of how I built this organization that we call as Isha today.

In the first twenty years of my activity,

As a rule,

I… there was no publicity of any kind.

We did not print a brochure,

We never put up a banner,

We never took an advertisement.

That twenty years almost ran like a secret school.

This is the time I really built the organization that I made sure… This is a very strange thing for people,

Probably especially those of you who are in business.

I made sure that we don't have money.

Even if money came immediately,

We,

You know,

Spent it on some project or donated to something so that we don't have money.

Because I was very clear that if there is a… in the beginning if there is a lot of money,

Then the kind of people who come to you is not the kind of people that I want to be with.

So it was… we kept the foundation very bare minimum.

Bare minimum means extremely bare minimum,

Where even daily food was a real struggle.

I intentionally kept it this way so that the people who come are coming for the right reason.

It is not for comfort,

It is not for convenience,

It is not because their life is,

You know,

Their survival will be taken care of.

I did not want such people.

I wanted people who are fiery,

Who are willing to burn themselves up if necessary for what they see as the right thing to do.

So I got a whole… hundreds of people of that kind.

They are the people in many ways who are today the pillars of the foundation at various levels.

Yeah,

I don't even have to look at anything.

If I just disappear for three years and come back,

Everything will be running fine because they are like that and they have no money in their head.

If you show them a mountain of gold,

They will think what projects to do.

They will not think how much to grab,

Okay?

Yes,

That's the kind of people I have,

Which is fantastic,

Which is a… which is the best thing around me,

All right,

These people.

So now we have that.

Now we need people,

We need to reach,

We need money to reach people,

All kinds of things,

Which we are making efforts to do on all levels.

So I'm saying,

Taking stance like this.

See,

Do not… do not try to structure your life on a slogan of any kind.

This is it,

That is it.

There is no such thing.

The way it works is it,

All right?

This is not it,

That is not it.

You must be on the ball every moment.

One day it may work if you… if you're playing football,

What do you… you're what,

A cricket fan or a football fan,

Hmm?

Dr.

Jayaprakash Narayanan I'm a big football fan.

Dr.

Jayaprakash Narayanan Football fan.

So one day when you score against a certain team,

Against a certain type of players,

Against a certain kind of goalkeeper,

Maybe kicking it powerfully,

The ball went in.

If there's another set of very energetic defenders and goalkeeper,

Powerful kick may not go,

A gentle lob may go into the goal.

This is something you decide on the ball.

You don't say,

Powerful kick will go in.

Oh no,

You may hit a wall all the time.

So I'm saying,

Action is not to be determined beforehand.

If you use slogans to structure your life,

You will determine your action beforehand,

Which means it's a prejudiced action.

Action should never be prejudiced.

You are open to the given situation,

According to the situation you act.

Because people have such prejudiced set of actions in their head,

They're unnecessarily suffering during this pandemic,

All right?

If those who have lost lives,

You know,

It's very unfortunate.

I must say,

Many,

Many people have lost lives because many of us who are alive have not been responsible,

All right?

So because we were doing things one way,

We want to do it the same way,

This is my life,

This is my life.

Your life is not in your actions,

You must understand.

Your life is in the way you experience it.

Action is according to the situation.

Action is not even about you.

It is about the world we live in.

Today how the world is,

That's how you must act.

Tomorrow if the world is a different place,

You act differently.

But how you are is determined by how you experience life,

Not by how you act.

See,

Right now I'm a mystic,

Yogi,

Guru from India,

I must be sitting like this somewhere and blessing people,

Doing things.

No,

I'm driving a truck,

People are looking at me and they're wondering,

Wow,

This is Sadhguru driving.

I'm driving a truck across America,

Right now I'm in El Paso,

Living in a truck,

All right?

Last… it's already been what,

Twelve days since I left and still there are many more days,

Nearly a month that I'm living in a truck,

Surviving by myself and driving across America.

So,

Is this the way a guru should live?

No,

This is the way he lives because there is pandemic,

He doesn't want to enter hotels,

He doesn't want to stay in anybody's homes.

So he is staying in a small cab… camper,

Cooking his own food and surviving.

Of course you have to manage the truck and drive.

Every day I'm doing like seven hundred,

Eight hundred miles per day and still doing all the webinars,

All the interviews and the works.

I mean,

I saw… I mean,

I watched,

You know,

The previous season where you were going across the bike and I thought that was crazy.

But… I'm a show you my truck,

You will come away with me.

Absolutely,

Absolutely.

I'll… I would… I would gladly take time to do it.

I wanted to ask you a question.

I mean,

That's really good burning.

This idea of happiness,

This idea of really reaching lasting fulfillment,

That's the word I'm looking for.

First,

What is happiness in your mind?

Is happiness a construct of the self or a construct of the world?

And to the people who I know will see this,

Certainly my audience is people who are constantly fighting,

Who are constantly fighting,

Fighting for the next job,

The next relationship,

The next business,

The next meal,

Just the next.

And we never stop to be happy.

Is there such a thing as happiness?

Can human beings ever reach lasting fulfillment?

You know,

This happened.

One day Shankaran Pillai met an old college friend.

He's been twenty-five years.

And this friend of his has done well for himself.

He's been successful in the world.

Shankaran Pillai has done okay.

Of course,

Old friends met and slowly after having a couple of beers,

You know,

Bragging match starts.

Bragging match started and the friend said,

I started a tech company and I just sold it and I got six million dollars.

And I'm really successful and wonderful.

Well,

Shankaran Pillai had nothing to say to match this brag.

Then he said,

Ah,

Six million dollars,

What good is it?

But I'm really a happy man,

I'm fulfilled because I have… I just… six months ago I just had my sixth child.

So I'm fulfilled.

The friend said,

Come on,

Six children is a lot of trouble and everything.

You know what,

I have a Ferrari.

I have… I'm living in a large home.

I have everything that I need.

And you saying… you having six children is better than that?

So Shankaran Pillai took the repose of a wise sage and said,

See,

You may have six million dollars and of course you're hankering to have more and more.

I have six children.

I have no desire to have any more.

Wow!

Wow!

So different people arrive at their fulfillment in different ways.

So what is… what is fulfillment?

What is happiness?

Is it the construct of your mind or is it in the world outside?

See let us not give names.

The thing is just this,

What is it that a human being wants?

Let me ask you simple questions.

I… answer just directly as you… just as you are,

Okay?

Your body,

Do you want it pleasant or unpleasant?

Participant – Pleasant.

Sadhguru – Pleasant.

Your mind,

Do you want it pleasant or unpleasant?

Participant – Pleasant.

Sadhguru – Your emotion,

Do you want it pleasant or unpleasant?

Participant – Pleasant.

Sadhguru – Pleasant.

Your life itself,

Do you want it pleasant or unpleasant?

Participant – Pleasant.

Sadhguru – Your surroundings,

Do you want it pleasant or unpleasant?

Participant – Pleasant.

Sadhguru – Pleasant.

So you made your choices.

You ask any human being in the world when he's sane,

He or she is sane,

Will all of them choose the same thing?

Participant – Yeah.

Sadhguru – This is all we want,

We want pleasantness of body,

Mind,

Emotion,

Energy and world around us,

Situations.

If you become pleasant in your body,

We call this health.

If you become very pleasant in your body,

We call this pleasure.

If your mind becomes pleasant,

We call this peace.

If it becomes very pleasant,

We call it joy.

If your emotion becomes pleasant,

We call this love,

If it becomes very pleasant,

We call it compassion.

If your very life energies become pleasant,

We call this bliss.

If it becomes very pleasant,

We call it ecstasy.

If your surroundings become pleasant,

We call it success.

Don't get things mixed up.

To make your surroundings pleasant,

Right now you're at home,

To make your surroundings pleasant,

You need the cooperation of your wife,

Your children,

People who work for you,

Otherwise life can become unpleasant.

So creating pleasantness in the surroundings is a question of competence,

Is a question of being able to garner the cooperation of all the life and forces around us.

There are various things,

Skills involved.

But to bring pleasantness to your body,

To your mind,

To your emotions and energy is one hundred percent your business.

There is nobody else involved in this,

Isn't it?

Yes.

So,

You call it fulfillment,

You call it happiness,

You call it joy,

You call it bliss,

You call it ecstasy.

Essentially this is all nothing.

Essentially you want a pleasant experience in the body,

Pleasant in the mind,

Pleasant in the emotion,

Pleasant in the energy.

This you can do one hundred percent.

This is what inner engineering is about.

Now if you're feeling very pleasant,

Right now you're feeling wonderful,

You stepped out of this webinar,

When there… let's say children are doing something that you don't like,

Let us say they are hanging from the ceiling,

Risking their life or doing something,

You know,

Kids can do many things,

All right?

But now you will deal with it differently.

You are feeling unpleasant.

They are doing something.

You will go and create more unpleasantness out there,

All right?

More… this is what I see,

Children are squealing and running all over,

Throwing things around.

Parents will come and say,

Shut up!

This is even more unpleasant than what the children are doing.

So I am saying about creating pleasantness in the world around us,

It is a continuous job.

We have to do it continuously.

There will always be people who will be throwing unpleasant things around you,

But you need to constantly work because you want pleasantness around you,

Not for any other reason.

You want to live in a pleasant world,

So you keep doing that.

But pleasantness of body,

Mind,

Emotion and energy is one hundred percent your business.

If you do the necessary en… inner engineering which you gave up halfway,

That can be achieved.

Questioner – Pleasantness of mind,

Body,

I mean that's alignment,

Right?

Is that possible?

Can human beings ever really get aligned?

Mind,

Body,

Spirit,

Everything?

Sadhguru – You think I am a computer model or you think I am real?

Questioner – I think you are real.

I mean I know you are real.

Sadhguru – Then it's possible.

Then it's possible.

Questioner – But I tell you why I am asking this.

I mean it appears,

It seems to me that we have… the world is built so that you have different conquests that strain different parts of being a human being,

Right?

So right now I am busy in an academic endeavor,

Which means my mind is being expanded.

But I start every morning by going to the gym for an hour fifteen minutes just to make sure that my body is at the very least keeping up with this expansion,

This growth.

But then it's… so where do I go to feed my spirit and my soul and once I achieve it,

How do I make sure that my life partner achieves it?

How do I make sure that my partners in business achieve it?

That this constant alignment,

It seems to me,

Sadhguru,

And I would love to get your wisdom on this,

That most conflicts,

Especially in close relationships,

Are just the function of misalignment actually.

That you start off together for whatever reason and then parts of you shift and grow apart and then you lose each other.

It happens very often in business.

And sometimes one of the things I've noticed is that the shift was always there.

You just chose not to pay attention.

They didn't share your values.

You just chose not to see it.

So I suppose what I am asking is,

Is this idea of alignment achievable?

And if it is,

Is it achievable for more than one person in a relationship?

Sadhguru No.

Oh,

See,

This is what I'm trying to separate in your perception.

What is happening within us and what is happening around us are two realities.

One is a social and global reality.

Another is purely physiological and psychological and energetic reality within us.

So how my thoughts happen,

How my emotions happen,

We are misunderstanding that as to how the world is happening.

See,

Right now I can look at you and,

You know,

Create pleasant emotions within myself.

What do I have to do?

I just have to think,

Oh,

What a wonderful man.

Or I can look at you and say,

Oh,

Look at him,

What a rogue,

And create unpleasant emotions within myself.

So you do not misunderstand… my pleasant emotions,

My unpleasant emotions have nothing to do with you.

Maybe you're not a wonderful man,

Maybe you're not a rogue,

Maybe you're none of the things that I'm thinking,

All right?

But this is my psychological reality.

When I misunderstand my psychological reality as your condition,

Then I will be always making these blunders throughout my life.

So this is the fundamental thing we need to set,

That inner engineering means this,

That you align yourself.

See,

Do not talk about things which are not in experience.

You said spirit,

Soul,

Whatever,

There were few more words.

Anyway,

Let's leave that.

The only things you know is you have a body.

This for real,

Right?

This for real,

Which is going to the gym every day.

I would suggest something else more better than that.

But this you have a body,

You have thought,

You have emotion.

To make these things function,

You have energy.

These are the only four realities which are in your experience.

Rest is all your imagination,

Including the world,

Including the world.

Because right now,

You think you see me.

No,

No,

You see me not here or there somewhere.

You see me only in the firmament of your mind,

Isn't it?

So how will you see me?

You will see me depending upon the shape of the screen that you have.

Accordingly,

You will see.

If your screen is flat and smooth,

You will see one way.

If your screen has distortions,

You will see it another way,

Whatever it is.

So you do not experience anything here in this world except yourself,

Except the way things happen within yourself.

This is why Inner Engineering is fundamental and vital,

Because you fix that.

You fix how things happen within you.

Once you fix that,

It's not that you sit here… this is not a charm school where you sit here and look at everything and say,

It's fantastic,

Fantastic,

Fantastic.

No,

Not everything in the world is fantastic.

There are a lot of ugly things.

There are a lot of terrible things.

There are a lot of horrendous things happening every moment in this world,

All right?

So seeing everything as it is.

What is horrendous is horrendous.

What is fantastic is fantastic.

What is beautiful is beautiful.

What is ugly is ugly.

Seeing it as it is.

But you are in a state where neither the beautiful nor the ugly changes the way you are.

You experience the beauty.

You experience the ugliness.

But it doesn't change who you are.

Who you are is well established,

Not on the basis of your identity,

But on the basis of your perception.

Dr.

Jayaprakash Narayanan Right,

Right,

Right.

Sadhguru,

I had a question to you about karmic energy.

One of the things… I mean,

For me,

And I know it to be true for several other people,

So I'm going to ask you this question.

One of the things I've noticed is the minute I am crystal clear about something,

The universe will serve me the opposite of it,

Like a temptation.

You know,

It's like the minute I go,

I want to have a body as amazing as Sadhguru's body,

All of a sudden the universe is going to serve me chocolates everywhere,

Just to tempt me.

Sadhguru I'm made of chocolate.

Can't you see the color?

I'm made of chocolate.

And the question I suppose I'm asking is,

Is that real or is that just my own karmic energy?

Am I putting it out there and then… Sadhguru See,

Because first thing is… I want you to understand I'm not saying this with any disrespect to anybody.

The first thing is you have been brought up in a certain moral culture,

Moralistic culture.

The first thing you always think of is,

What I should not do,

Because people have brainwashed people to believe that if you are firm on what you should not do,

Then what you do will become better.

Because it all starts from,

Thou shall not do this,

Thou shall not do that,

All right?

See let me do an experiment with you.

Just close your eyes for five seconds and don't think about monkeys.

No monkeys,

Only monkeys.

So I'm saying whoever is telling you,

Thou shall not,

They know nothing about the nature of human mind.

If you say something,

I do not want this,

If you say that about something,

That's the end of it,

That something will rule your head all the time.

I do not want to think about monkeys like this,

You do,

You know,

Chanting for the next twenty-four hours,

You will see day in and day out only monkeys will be there in your head.

So this is the nature of human mind.

In this mind,

There is no subtraction and division,

There is only addition and multiplication.

Whatever you say,

It will only become one more and one more or if you try hard,

It will multiply.

You can't take away something because you say,

I don't want to do this.

It is just that when you were a child,

Maybe lollipop was your highest ambition.

Hello?

When you are probably a two-year-old child,

The old desire is how can I get that red color lollipop in my mouth?

That's all.

Now when people grow up,

They change the shape and form and color of the lollipop,

But still all they're looking for is a lollipop.

So this has to change.

This will only change when you are no more in pursuit of happiness.

This is why I said being peaceful,

Being joyful,

Being loving,

Being blissful,

When it is all yours,

When you are blissful by your own nature,

You are not in pursuit of happiness.

Once you are not in pursuit of happiness,

There is a clarity beyond the crystal clear that you're talking about.

Anyway,

Crystal is always distorting,

You know?

That's true.

I had a question too about time.

I just turned 36 years old and my father was gunned down when he was 42.

When I was a little boy,

I don't know why,

But I'm not sure how it happened,

But I always had this trigger in my head that 42 was the age.

And so I grew up and became personally very driven and very motivated.

And by God's grace,

Really,

God's grace,

I've been able to achieve a lot of things.

And my growth has been accelerated purely because I was chasing this time.

As I've gotten older and the closer I've gotten to that time,

I realized I'm not sure if that time is even real.

I'm not sure that his experience on earth of 42 years mirrors what my experience on earth of 36 years.

And then I look at,

You spoke earlier when we started our conversation about social media and how instant things are and how we're getting things immediately.

You want to buy something now.

You go on your phone and you can buy an item from the opposite end of the world and it lands at your doorstep 24 hours later.

And so there's been a distortion of this thing called time.

But you know that the only true way to achieve mastery is to dedicate real time to something.

You spoke about 20 years of your life that you committed to building the foundation,

Which makes sense because that's why the Insha'a Foundation is what it is.

It's because you spent 20 years building the foundation.

For those of us like myself who are still chasing time,

How do we step outside of that?

How do we live outside of that?

How do we recognize the wisdom that you must have known when you started the Insha'a Foundation about things existing beyond simply our physical understanding of time?

Sadhguru Well,

That's as many things,

But let me not go into all those aspects now.

To put it simply,

You see,

The important thing is this.

The unfortunate incident of you losing your father when he was forty-two,

Well,

Those were times when lot of men below forty-two also shot or killed or whatever else,

All right?

So do not take that as a way of the future,

All right?

But at the same time,

If you strongly create an image of that in your mind,

You may manifest it.

Don't do that.

It's very important you dislodge that image in your mind,

That you take that away.

You must make the necessary effort.

If it's a very strong image in your mind and it keeps coming back,

Your actions,

This is what karma means.

Your actions will be controlled by that image and unknowingly you will be doing actions which are driving you towards the image that you have created.

So it's very,

Very important you break that image.

There are many ways to do that.

I will be always most willing to assist you in that.

You must break that image,

Otherwise you'll drive yourself towards that image.

Please don't do that,

Okay?

Having said that,

About acceleration of time as we know it today,

In terms of our experience,

Not just about shopping,

About everything.

So the impatience is not because of time.

The impatience is because of our mental condition.

You know,

I was flying a direct… this is many… I mean a year,

Two years ago,

I was flying from India to United States in a Air India flight,

Which is direct flight.

I know all the pilots and the crew and everybody,

They want to talk to me,

So they come and sit with me.

So that pilot… they have two sets of pilots because it's sixteen-hour flight.

So he says,

It's a very long flight,

Sadhguru,

It's really hard,

All that.

I said,

It looks like you have very short-term memory.

Most hundred years ago,

If we had to go to United States,

It was a ninety-day trip on a steamship,

Okay?

And they served lousy food,

I'm sure,

And everything else.

Today,

In fifteen hours or sixteen hours,

You're landing in United States,

I'm not going to complain.

Maybe tomorrow there'll be another plane which will take you there in four hours or five hours,

They're claiming it's going to happen sometime soon.

But I'm not going to complain because I have a long memory.

I know how it was hundred years ago,

I know how it was before that,

That you wouldn't even ever think of going.

Now we're getting there in fifteen hours in a plane which is so stable,

You do not know whether it's flying or sitting in a place,

All right?

And though I don't eat all the airline food,

They keep coming and knocking,

Said,

Sadhguru,

Eat something,

Please,

Sadhguru,

That this is very nice,

That is very nice.

Well this is like being in a restaurant.

So I'm not going to complain.

I said don't complain because you do not know the value of being born now in the time that we have.

Every time,

Every… every,

What to say,

Historical time has its own significance.

But has a certain significance where I don't know,

Recently somebody brought one motorcycle to me and said,

Sadhguru,

You must autograph my motorcycle.

I've been autographing motorcycles and the guys are selling it on the Facebook for a premium price.

So I said,

See,

I wrote on this motorcycle,

Which is a very fast one,

I said,

Speed crushes time and space.

Let it not be your bones,

That's all,

You know.

So speed crushes time and space.

And it's important because for what potential a human being carries,

The time that we are all at it,

If it's hundred years of time,

It is too little.

It is too little for a human being who explores the depth and dimension of what a human being is.

For one who does not explore this,

One who makes themselves miserable and insufficient,

Life,

This hundred years of life looks too long.

How many thousands of people or hundreds and thousands of people a year are committing suicide because they find it's too long.

It's too long for the misery that they are in.

So we need to understand this.

Time is a relative experience.

Your impatience is not about time.

Your impatience is a certain psychological condition of insufficiency.

If you feel,

You know,

Absolutely equanimous and stable within yourself,

If you fly a jet which flies across the world in three hours,

We are fine with it.

If we have to walk,

Taking twelve,

Fifteen years to walk across the same distance,

We are fine with it.

Because it's not about time.

It is not about distance.

It is about our mental condition.

Dr.

Virendra Dey,

Ph.

D.

That's good.

It's been an incredible privilege.

I've been… I've been an avid follower of your work and I can't tell you this has been truly for me a dream come true.

And I'm even more humbled that you took the time given your… given me a great trek across the United States and what must be a very arduous program and I… I really,

Really appreciate it.

Sadhguru Thank you,

Usi.

Make the… make… make this happen for yourself.

You are not driving towards forty-two.

Hundred-and-twelve is the number that you drive towards,

Okay?

Dr.

Virendra Dey Done deal,

Done deal,

Done deal.

Sadhguru No,

My regards and blessings to your wife and your wonderful children.

We'll catch up with you sometime.

Hmm?

Dr.

Virendra Dey Absolutely.

I'm going to be in the States in the second half of the year.

So… so I'm sure we'll catch up.

And I… I'm really… I'm really appreciative of your time and I'm looking forward to spending some time at the institute.

Sadhguru Thank you.

Dr.

Virendra Dey I appreciate it.

Reviews

Excellent talk and wisdom shared amongst the interviewer and sadhguru. Thank you 🙏

What an enlightening experience. 🙏 Thank you!

Always enjoy his insight!

Thank you

Wow!!!

Wisdom and bliss…Namaste 🙏

Life serving role models = priceless! www.gratefulness.org, ahimsa

Wow!!! A shift in my perspective and appreciation.
Namasté 🙏🏼

🙏🏽A pleasant conversation that covers interesting points. Imtcurious to know the techniques we can do to erase the negative images or projections for things to happen that we’ve created in our minds (the example was living to only 42 years). Is there a lecture or talk that goes into that? Thank you! 🌼☮️💓🕉

Sadhguru always bring bags light and clarity to the topic at hand! Thank you, thank you!