With Sadhguru In Challenging Times - 17th May

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!

Namaskaram to all of you wherever you are.

Well,

Fifty days into lockdown.

Tamil Nadu or the government of Tamil Nadu has extended the lockdown till the end of the month.

Though,

With a little bit of relaxation that certain number of things are working in the cities.

Coimbatore city has been declared as COVID-free city.

Fortunately,

More than eighty percent of all the infections or the COVID infections in the country is restricted only to thirty districts in the country,

Which is a wonderful thing that in some way we've managed to contain it.

And the fatality rate in India is below half of what the rest of the world is.

Generally it's around six percent,

It is well below three percent here.

Manufacturers involve that.

.

.

That is making it look promising that by the end of the month at least there could be much more relaxation.

But relaxation does not mean we can give up on social distancing.

In all the cues that they stand in India,

They must have an umbrella.

My umbrella diameter,

Your umbrella diameter together is a little more than a meter.

Nice ways.

It's better to carry an umbrella anytime by the end of this month,

There will be monsoons.

Good to have the practice of carrying an umbrella in the summer.

And it's also social distancing,

Otherwise it'll poke you if you come too close.

Well,

I think the death toll in the world has crossed 300,

000,

Still continuing.

Many nations have managed to control it.

United States still not looking good.

That's where we are.

So there are many,

Many aspects to this,

How we need to adjust our life to this.

A whole lot of.

.

.

Suffering in advance is happening with people,

As usual I'm saying.

They start suffering things which are yet to happen.

When it happens,

It will have something upon us,

Can't help it.

But people start suffering in advance.

Because a lot of people think it's their right to suffer.

Of course,

It's your right to suffer,

It's right to die.

All these rights are there.

It's just that if you're a sensible human being,

You will not exercise those rights.

If you value life,

You will not exercise those rights.

There are other kinds of rights that you must exercise.

Right now,

You saw the mess of opening the alcohol vent in the country.

People went crazy.

Now they're all getting home delivery.

So a certain segment of the country's population is in coma.

No,

I said it right,

Not coma,

Coma.

Domestic violence has come down.

But when they wake up,

And there is no next drink,

Then again domestic violence will go up.

If you look at the world,

The way we have allowed it to go,

Or if you want to claim responsibility for it,

The way we have structured it,

The value of the entire food production or agricultural production in the world is $3.

7 trillion.

But just the alcohol is $1.

6 trillion.

Drugs and tobacco put together is another $1.

2 trillion.

So together you have $2.

8 trillion worth of alcohol,

Tobacco and drugs.

I'm not talking about pharmaceuticals,

I'm talking about drugs.

You understand,

Right?

Because some of them are thinking it's Coda Peren or something.

So this is the way we have allowed the world to go,

Or this is the way we have structured it.

There are many other more horrible statistics.

I don't want to spoil the evening for you.

So we'll spare that but this is good enough.

$2.

8 trillion worth of alcohol,

Tobacco and hallucinogenic drugs and $3.

7 trillion worth of food.

So we're eating,

I think in a little while,

This will overtake the food.

It looks like that.

So now people are worried,

Post COVID what do I do,

Post lockdown what do I do?

Will I have a job,

Will I have a business,

Will I do this,

Will I do that?

Yes,

It is an economic concern.

But being human beings,

We will find a way.

Will it be easy?

No.

Will it be very difficult?

No.

Oh,

Sadhguru you're talking in contradictory stuff,

Yes and no for the same thing.

It will be very difficult.

If you are set in concrete,

Your mind is set in concrete,

Your emotions are set in concrete,

Your physical comforts are set in concrete.

If you have to do something little different,

It will hurt immensely.

If you're flexible,

It's going to be very different,

But need not necessarily be very difficult.

In yoga,

I think it's Krishna who said this,

Said,

Sadhguru,

First establish yourself in yoga and then act.

If this one thing if you had done,

Action,

How will we do,

As the situation demands.

But my way of being is not determined by what I do.

So what does it matter?

What is needed is what I will do.

Well,

We are concerned about those people who may move into starvation mode.

Right now,

The government of India,

Like almost every other national government in the world,

Has come up with an economic package which is trying to reach maximum number of people,

A massive package.

But still,

Of course,

There will be people who will be clueless how to benefit from this.

So that is where society comes in,

That is where all of us come in that we can step up and do something.

Well,

Our wonderful volunteers are doing a fantastic job out there in the rural Tamil Nadu.

They are not only providing food,

They have also ensured,

Along with the authorities and government establishment to ensure that this region doesn't have a single case yet.

Now that people are moving,

Traveling,

Beginning to.

.

.

Traffic is picking up.

It may come,

But still it's wonderful for this two months without a single case is a fantastic achievement.

So,

This is because in some way it is yogasthaha kuru karmani,

Risking when people are afraid to step out,

When people are discriminating against each other thinking they may be infected.

Well,

Our volunteers are out like many other doctors,

Nurses,

Police,

Unfortunately,

A whole lot of them,

When I say a whole lot of them,

A few hundred police personnel,

Government officials,

Doctors and nurses have died in the world,

Unfortunately in the last two months.

Those who stepped out to do something useful for somebody else,

They should not have died but unfortunately,

Initially we did not have the necessary protective gear.

Nobody figured what is protective gear,

They thought just a mask will do,

Then they said you need glasses,

Then they said you need a whole suit.

So,

Everybody was trying to look where it is,

It was all coming from somewhere else.

Now each nation have started manufacturing their own.

India is manufacturing about two hundred thousand suits per day right now.

Over two hundred new industries have come up and they're doing this,

We are not importing it anymore,

Which is a massive change.

So,

Many things are being done but in a crisis like this,

It always feels it's not enough.

So,

What do we do?

What does everybody else do in this world?

Establish yourself in yoga and then act.

So,

Sadhguru,

Should I be in a yogic posture and then act?

When you are in a yogic posture,

You must just stay there.

You should not act.

We're talking about yoga,

Not yogasana.

Establishing yourself in yoga means you have some sense of unity with the world around you.

When you see other life,

You reverberate in some way.

Maybe you're not absolutely one,

But in some way a little bit.

That means your little taste of yoga is happening,

Union,

Yoga means union.

Little union is happening.

You're not going around like a rock.

Why should I insult a rock?

They're so beautiful.

So,

Your boundaries of what you think as myself have been breached a little bit.

Then,

In your own small little way,

You're a little bit of a yogi.

Now once you're like this,

Then you act.

How will you act?

You will do it the way it's necessary in the given moment.

Right now everybody is asking what to do after post-COVID.

The thing is we do not know when it will be post-COVID.

Yes.

And we do not know how it will be post-COVID.

And we do not even know whether we will be there post-COVID.

Yes.

Yes,

That's a fact.

Because it is no more a respiratory infection,

Blood clots are forming,

Heart attacks are happening,

Strokes are happening,

Liver damage is happening.

Brain damage is happening,

Which we are proof,

Of course.

That was a joke aimed at a few people here.

So,

We do not know how many will survive in terms of escape the fatality,

How many will be damaged severely.

We do not know because it's still not confirmed,

Nobody is giving us a clear thing.

If once you get an infection and you come out of it,

Then you're immune to it,

There is no clear statement on that.

It can come to you again and again and again,

It could damage your system.

So,

When we do not know a situation,

There is no point doing stupid guesswork and try to build confidence,

This confidence could be deadly.

It's best to be conscious,

Cautious and precautious with action.

And let's wait,

How the situation unfolds,

But you're established in yoga.

Whichever way the situation comes,

We'll do our best in the given situation.

Even now that's what we're doing.

This is not a perfect situation,

Everybody was complaining about this two months ago.

Now suddenly they think now is perfect,

Post-COVID it's going to be really bad.

This happened.

Shankaran Pillai met her friend in the evening.

And the friend asked,

You got a new job,

Isn't it?

How is it doing?

He said,

I hate it,

Every bit of it.

How long you've been working?

Three months.

Then why are you sticking on?

Why don't you just get out of it if you don't like it?

I said,

What do you mean?

This is the first time I'm looking forward to go home after twenty years of marriage.

Right now,

There are many people raring to go to work.

Locked down,

They've not stepped out of their homes.

They desperately want to go to work now,

Which they never did all their life.

So,

Many things are changing like this.

We don't know what the situation is.

So best thing is to keep ourselves well.

I said ten percent,

But now lockdown extended in Tamil Nadu,

Maybe many other states also will do it in this country.

Some other nations have already done it till the end of the month.

So another ten percent improvement we must do.

Physically,

Mentally,

Emotionally,

Energy wise,

And our competence,

Another ten percent improvement.

Because the price that you're paying,

Let us say for example,

I'm taking,

We could go on all the four but the price that you're paying for something very simple,

Like you have emotions about everything.

Somebody says something,

You will become like this,

Somebody does something that you don't like,

You'll become like that.

Now,

Once you have this,

You don't know what it's costing you in terms of your life.

It is taking away the very possibility of your existence.

If we consider what is happening because you have no control over your thought process,

No control over the energetic system and your body,

The physiological,

Psychological,

Emotional compulsions are completely taking away the possibility of being human itself for most human beings.

They're still,

You know,

Taking themselves backward in evolution,

Operating out of instincts and compulsiveness.

I'm saying ten percent improvement if you do,

In your experience it feels like you've gotten enlightened.

Others may not still see that way,

But you will feel suddenly,

Wow!

Yes.

So another ten percent improvement all of you must do because fifteen more days are there.

It's a lot of time.

How do I do it?

How do I do it?

To change the patterns of your thought and emotion,

Just the online program will do,

The Inner Engineering online.

.

.

You're a banner,

Huh?

Is it online or just Inner Engineering?

You must add online,

Write it with a pen,

Okay.

Just an online program,

If you imbibe the essence of what it is,

Which is very simple,

Any fool can get it.

That's the kind of language it's been spoken in and presented.

If you get ten percent of the online program,

Ten percent improvement in your balance and stuff will happen.

It's that simple.

So don't think you're such a complicated problem.

No,

Sadhguru,

I am a hard nut.

I'm glad one part of what you're saying is true.

Hard part is not true,

The other one is true.

I appreciate your effort to be at least fifty percent honest.

This happened.

There was a guru,

I think this incident,

It's some hundred and seventy,

Hundred and eighty years ago,

On the banks of Narmada.

So the guru,

As you know,

This has been a part of this culture,

You always take a dip in a tropical country.

One great pleasure in the morning is to go and dip in the river,

Which you cannot do in cold countries.

So in India,

Going and taking a dip in the river is one great pleasure.

Every day morning,

Most people had their morning bath only by going into the river.

So the guru went there and a disciple went with him because of clothes.

So the guru got into the river,

Had a dip and about to turn back.

Then he saw a scorpion was floating desperately on the water.

It's a reptile,

It's not a swimming creature,

But somehow has fallen into the river and being washed away.

So it doesn't matter what you think about the scorpion,

Scorpion thinks it is a great life.

I think many of you are Scorpios by whatever that.

.

.

What do you call that?

The zodiac signs.

So other people may think you're a venomous nonsense,

But you know you're very nice.

So scorpion obviously thinks he is great.

You see how he walks,

Obviously he thinks he's very handsome and wonderful.

Have you seen a scorpion?

They're venom,

I'll not go into that aspect anyway.

So the guru naturally put his hand and picked up the scorpion.

The Indian tropical scorpion,

The black ones will be this long.

If you stretch the tail it'll be this long.

And they have very potent venom.

So he picked it up.

With both his hands,

The disciple saw this and said,

Just drop the thing it's venomous,

It'll sting you.

The guru carried it on and the scorpion stung him once,

But he carried it on.

By now the disciple was freaking,

I told you it will sting you,

It's poisonous,

What are you doing?

As he walked,

By the time he came to the bank,

It bit him three.

.

.

It stung him three times.

Can be very painful,

Scorpion,

Someday you must experience it.

No,

I'm only trying to share my life with you.

I've been stung by all kinds of things,

I thought you must also experience it.

So,

Then he came to the banks and let it go and it ran away.

Happy,

It found its way out.

Because a scorpion which is floating in the river can't figure which side is the bank,

It doesn't have the means.

So the disciple said,

What is the matter with you?

I told you it will sting,

Three times it stung you,

It'll become.

.

.

You know it's venomous,

It's going to do this,

It's going to do that.

So the guru said,

Just relax now.

The scorpion is doing what it knows best.

I'm doing what I know best.

He's acting according to his quality,

I'm acting according to my quality.

Is it?

You just relax and you are acting according to your quality.

Scorpion in this life has no opportunity to evolve into a parrot,

Or into an eagle,

Or into a human being,

No such opportunity for him.

So he will go and do his stuff.

You,

Possible that in these fifteen days,

Ten percent improvement you can do.

Yes.

So,

You just have to do this,

This is a great opportunity.

Well,

But Sadhguru,

My business,

My employment,

All that will come,

When it comes we'll see.

We don't know whether we'll have employment,

Or we also have to go sit somewhere.

Some other foundation will come and give us food.

Yes.

I'm telling you,

We are offering food to thousands of people,

Not out of magnanimity,

Simply humanity,

That's all.

So tomorrow if we don't have food,

Maybe there is some other foundation will come and give us food,

We will take it and happily eat it.

I will.

Hello?

Oh,

All my life I have mostly eaten in other people's homes,

All right.

Thanks to all of them that I'm well fed.

Yes.

So,

How situation is going to be,

How bad or good it is going to be,

We don't know,

We don't have to paint a picture that we don't know anything about yet.

But the important thing is to be geared in such a way,

Whatever the damn picture,

You will be a good part of that picture.

That much we can do.

Hmm?

We can do that much.

And that's all you can do,

You must know this.

This generation of people have lived in too much comfort,

They don't know what it is.

In a few countries unfortunately they're going through terrible things.

But largely,

Most part of the world has lived in too much comfort.

If you.

.

.

Suppose we take away all your phones,

Cell phones,

And we will put a few black phones,

You know,

Lots of them all around the yoga center.

You just have to stand there,

You have to do ten digit number every time.

Oh,

You will freak because you're used to.

.

.

All right.

But we all lived like that.

Only now we have these phones.

I used to make fifty-hundred calls in a day,

Kottu kottu kottu kottu,

My finger would be hurting.

This is the only finger that goes in,

Little finger is too weak to do that.

These two won't go in.

.

.

Into that black phone.

By the time I make sixty,

Seventy,

Eighty calls,

Even my finger would be hurting.

I'm saying,

As technology and comforts come,

Human beings are becoming to what to say,

Kind of.

.

.

They have a sense of entitlement which is destructive.

So the virus,

It may not have that intention,

But we can treat the virus as our guru.

I told you,

You must see Sadhguru in everything.

Yes.

Because if you don't learn from this,

Then when will you learn?

The virus has no intention of teaching you anything,

It just wants to live.

But unfortunately you die too quickly.

But Indians are not,

They're providing good habitat for them.

So,

Here is the opportunity that every one of us strive.

Just imagine a world,

If every human being on this planet is ten percent better in the next fifteen days.

What a beautiful world.

How many problems are gone?

Ten percent gone means,

Remaining stuff you keep it for some time.

What to do?

So,

This needs to be addressed in a realistic way,

Not in some fanciful way.

Shankaran Pillai decided to join Indian Army.

Indian Army would have preferred that he joins the Pakistani Army.

But being an Indian citizen,

He could only join this army.

So the training was going on and the sergeant training them for battle situations.

So took them into the jungle and walking them through as if it's like a real battle zone.

Then he asked Shankaran Pillai yelling at him,

Now ten enemy soldiers have come here,

What will you do now,

What will you do?

Ah,

What do I do?

No,

What will you do,

Ten enemy soldiers are right here,

What will you do?

Then he said,

Okay,

I will surround them.

So,

You still do not know the nature of the situation we are getting into.

Either you can.

.

.

People think they must talk positively or negatively.

Some people talk,

Paint a dirty picture of a terrible,

You know,

Picture of what will be post virus.

Other people want to paint a rosy picture and say everything will be fine,

This will happen.

The reality is we don't know a damn thing,

We'll just wait.

Hello?

We just have to wait.

Only thing we can do is,

We can make ourselves better soldiers.

We don't know whether ten enemy will come or two will come or none will come,

We don't know yet.

Accordingly we will act at that time.

Right now the only thing is,

Make ourselves into real wonderful soldiers.

Maybe enemy will come,

Maybe they will not even come.

That's how it should be.

This question is from Vishvesh.

Namaskaram Sadhguru.

In these past few months while coronavirus has been hitting the headlines,

There has been a quite disaster of much larger proportions unfolding in India and the world.

This is in terms of water shortages and the deterioration of ecology and landscape.

How do we address the many problems related to this?

Well,

Water shortages are there but fortunately this year,

Almost across the country except a few patches,

There have been some rains.

Because of that,

There is a little bit of relief,

It's not gone into extreme conditions.

Usually in the month of May,

Right now it's mid-May,

Every drop of water that is in the.

.

.

Open in the form of lakes and ponds and everything would have dried up in this season.

But this year,

Fortunately or maybe because pollution levels are so low in the air,

There has been enough rain.

I remember when I was a child,

Through the summer,

They would say,

Today is ugadi,

Ugadi rain will happen.

Always it happened.

It's getting a little hot in the month of March.

They will say ugadi is coming,

It's a festival,

It's a Telugu and Kannada,

New Year's Day.

They'll say,

On ugadi day or the next day it will rain.

Always it rained.

All those patterns which existed have been seriously disturbed.

Probably one of the reasons is the heat in the air.

The number of machines,

Automobiles and factories and everything functioning.

This year probably the pattern is coming back,

Sort of.

Maybe,

I'm just guessing.

Maybe because not so much smoke and heat in the air,

Possible.

So,

Today there is only one problem,

We have forgotten all other problems in the world.

There's only one problem,

Virus problem,

But there are so many other problems.

One of them is ecological degradation,

Serious degradation that's happening in the world.

As a part of this,

Whether it's economic degradation or virus today or another pandemic after ten years or whatever,

In case whatever happens,

One important thing is we've been talking about this for over twenty years,

I've been talking about it,

That is at least thirty percent of the human diet should come from trees.

If thirty percent of human diet becomes fruit,

Well,

This is a wild guess.

Probably,

Maybe twenty to thirty percent of pharmaceutical consumption will go down,

Load on the healthcare systems will go down.

People will be much more agile,

Smarter,

Better in every way.

But we have not invested in that enough,

Beginning to happen,

But not enough.

In the West,

Like in Europe,

America,

There's lots of fruit,

But with almost nothing in it.

Because it's grown in such a way,

It is engineered in such a way,

That fruit it's better not to eat it.

This is a country,

Being a tropical nation from Kanyakumara to Kashmir,

Every kind of fruit that you can imagine,

Unfortunately,

Most of them have gone out of the market.

Many traditional fruits in this country,

Which are super healthy for people to consume,

Has gone out,

We need to bring it back.

Today fruit means everybody thinks apple,

Banana,

And one more thing and one more thing.

No tropical nation has hundreds of fruits to be eaten in every season.

We need to bring it back.

This is a food security for future.

If you are growing only this,

Right now the pandemic is hitting you.

Let us say some virus or something came to the agriculture.

The crops didn't happen this year.

What will you do?

Or rains didn't happen this year,

No water.

What do you do?

A certain amount of food should be a long term crop,

Not a three month,

Four month crop.

This has to happen for human well-being,

For health and for food security,

And above all for ecological balance.

At least thirty percent of food should come from trees.

This will also prevent migration.

Right now in India,

One word that is going around is,

Migrant labour,

Migrant labour,

Migrant labour,

All the horrific.

.

.

Horrible things that are happening to them and many things being recorded.

Videos of pathetic conditions and you know people traveling in very,

Very difficult situations.

Why is it that so many of them left their villages and came to the city to do some menial job?

Simply because here and there one or two years of drought,

Their whole economy got destroyed.

The only way is to move to the city.

If they had even two acres of land,

Which is the average in this country,

And if at least one-fifty trees were there which were yielding something,

Either timber trees or fruit trees,

Would they leave their village and go away?

They would not do that.

If you want to prevent migration,

Where the numbers of migration before the virus,

We were talking about in the next decade,

That is by 2030,

There would be 1.

6 billion people migrating on this planet,

Leaving the traditional homelands and going somewhere to unknown place to go through all kinds of horrific situations,

Especially for women and children.

This is the most horrible thing,

Unplanned migration.

Most horrible and denigrating things will happen to those families.

So,

In India,

It is estimated over two-hundred million people will migrate in the next ten years.

And you have seen the slums in Mumbai,

Almost every city,

If that multiplies many fold,

There is nothing you can do about them.

Once they come and settle down,

It will be absolutely inhuman to move them or mow their little huts or shacks down.

It's a terrible thing to do.

So,

One simple way to restrict migration is that there must be tree cultivation,

Agroforestry is a significant effort in this direction.

We are doing this work in the Cauvery basin,

But it needs to happen across the world.

For ecological balance,

For watershed management,

For food security,

And to restrict migration,

Long term crops must be there on the land,

Only then this will happen.

And above all,

To maintain biodiversity without which all these things will not happen.

So is it so difficult to do it?

It is not.

It is just that still it is not coming to the policy of most nations to act decisively in this direction.

In India,

The government has taken some steps,

But being a concurrent subject,

Agriculture and water resources being a concurrent subject between the central government and the state governments,

Different states are acting at different levels of intensity.

Though the recommendation policy has already.

.

.

Policy recommendation has already happened at the center,

States are going at their own pace,

Because the central government doesn't have a geography of its own.

It is the states which have land,

They have to do it.

Some states are going well,

Others are going slow.

Now with virus everything is forgotten,

The only news is virus.

Now this migrant labor problem and the atrocities that they are going through in terms of their suffering must be a good lesson for us to understand that we must limit this.

It will be limited,

Not by controlling them by force,

But by making.

.

.

Living in a village must be lucrative for them.

There must be a livelihood,

Then they will not move into the cities.

So,

This is a major issue on the planet.

So this is why.

.

.

This is the reason why we're in the process of launch.

.

.

Launching this Conscious Planet movement.

The basic idea behind this is,

Sixty percent of the franchise,

Fifth.

.

.

I'm sorry,

Fifty.

.

.

Sixty percent of the population which holds franchise,

Which has the power to elect governments,

Which amounts to about three billion people,

Must become conscious of this.

And we want to make sure every political party,

The top three political parties in the country which could get elected,

We want to make sure in their manifestos,

Election manifestos,

If not number one item,

At least number two item must be ecological concerns.

If we do this,

In another ten,

Fifteen years,

Budgets will get invested,

Serious budgets and government machinery will get invested and it will start moving that way.

Because these things cannot be done overnight.

These things have to be pushed and pushed and pushed,

So that slowly it moves in that direction.

Policy change must happen.

Policies may go unimplemented,

But it doesn't matter.

First policy change should happen.

Only if it's there in the policy can you put pressure on the governments.

If it's not there in the policy,

You have no business to put pressure on the government because it's not a part of their policy.

So first thing is policy.

Policy changes must happen for every latitudinal region in terms of equatorial,

Tropical,

Subtropical and temperate regions.

We have different prescription as to what should happen there.

Five simple things that must happen.

Every citizen must be aware of it.

That's what we're looking at.

But with this virus,

The events that we were planning have to be put off quite indefinitely.

So we are looking at alternate ways of doing this.

And right now the Colombian government,

Global Landscapes Forum is also looking at this and we are seeing how to,

You know,

Nudge all these different platforms in the world to move towards policy change in the world.

Well,

Some countries may not cooperate,

But it's okay.

Even if you move sixty to seventy percent of the nation's in policy in a certain direction,

It's a huge change.

They are saying,

Whatever emissions we have done into the atmosphere through automobiles and factories and whatever,

There is some number of giga tons of carbon that's gone out.

If you plant a trillion trees,

And if they become fifteen-year-old,

Trillion trees,

That entire thing that you let out in the last fifty years will be absorbed by these trees.

That is the calculation the scientists are making.

Planting a trillion trees is not a problem.

When we're planting 2.

4 billion trees in Cauvery basin alone,

Planting a trillion trees,

Engaging the world's population is not big anyway.

Now with the virus a whole lot of us are going to be unemployed,

At least we must plant trees.

See even I'm unemployed.

So,

We definitely have to use this opportunity.

If we cannot keep the economy on full throttle,

At least we must do ecological restructuring.

This is the best time to do it.

Economy is going slow.

We can as well do ecological restructuring to whatever extent we can.

There are many things to be done,

Not just the planting of trees.

But bringing the world's soil under shade is a very,

Very important aspect.

There are many things,

It's not that we're ignorant of that.

But the most important thing is,

If you want to preserve the biodiversity of the soil,

It must come under shade,

It must be wet.

Always it must be moist.

If you go six to nine inches down,

It must be somewhat moist,

Then only there's life.

Otherwise,

All the microorganisms and other things which make this earth rich will go.

When we say soil,

It's not a very big affair.

It is only thirty-nine inches on an average.

Here,

This is why this land is considered a gold mine for people who want to live here,

Because this is one of the few places where our topsoil goes up to twenty feet.

On an average,

The world has only thirty-nine inches of topsoil.

Thirty-nine inches is not very difficult to tend to,

Isn't it?

All you have to do is put enough organic content in it.

Trees,

Leaves and the other green litter that comes from it is most vital.

Of course,

Animals are also important,

But right now,

Of the fifty-one million square kilometers of land,

Which is used for agriculture in this world,

Forty million square kilometers of land is used for raising animals and their food.

That is seventy-seven percent of the agricultural land is being used for raising animals.

Well,

If you give up fifty percent of the meat consumption in the world,

You will free twenty million square kilometers of land to plant trees.

You can plant over a trillion trees right there.

It's not difficult to do if there is a policy.

Next question is from Himani.

Namaskaram Sadhguru.

As someone who makes art,

I want to know if my art can support me in going beyond my tendencies?

Hey,

Who is this competition,

Hmm?

Or does it get reiterated in expression?

What is the right way to approach art making?

Just now,

Today,

They delivered a dozen canvas frames to me because I'm supposed to be painting in the next few days.

So here,

With competition.

So,

Should art be my expression or should it be something else?

See,

I think just recently I spoke about this.

In one of the conversations that we had here three,

Four days ago,

Lot of very tortured human beings have been doing artwork.

Yes.

I'm not saying they should not,

But I'm saying this has been the history of art.

And if you look at some of the art,

I went into somebody's home,

A very,

Very,

Very rich home.

Big one,

Like five feet by five feet kind of artwork.

And there were some paint strokes at the back without any particular purpose,

Like this,

Like that,

Different colours.

And there were over two hundred this big.

I'm telling you it's this big,

Clearly over seven inches long,

Thick nails,

Just hammered randomly.

So I walked into the house and as you enter,

On the right side this thing was there,

I said,

What are these nails and this stuff?

No,

It's an expression.

If this is what is happening in your mind,

You should not express a thing.

Should a human being not find expression to some struggles that they're having within themselves?

They should.

.

.

They should go sit in a forest or a desert and sing their heart out,

All the pain.

But you should not spill it on the society.

They've got enough troubles already.

If you have something positive,

Something wonderful to say,

Yes.

Or if you're depicting maybe some struggles of the society itself.

Okay.

But your nonsense,

At least this is my way of looking at life.

If ever some nonsense comes up in me,

I think it's my business never to spill it on anybody.

So you got little,

Not that virus,

Some other little and you feel like spitting.

Spit on somebody is it?

Hello?

You.

.

.

When you cough,

This is a dry cough,

This virus doesn't give you phlegm.

You have some phlegm.

So because this is your expression right now,

You spit on this guy who is sitting here.

What kind of expression is that?

So whether it is phlegm from your throat or phlegm from your mind,

In my opinion they're the same things.

So should art be an expression of what's happening within you?

If what's happening within you is so beautiful,

Please do it.

Otherwise,

Art is generally a little reflection of creation.

You caught some beautiful part of it.

You can't catch the whole of it.

You want to imitate the Creator a little bit,

In your own little way.

Because you can't catch the whole cosmos,

You talk.

.

.

You caught one bit,

Maybe you just painted a leaf or a flower or a bird or a something.

Not necessarily in its realistic form,

Maybe in a funny form,

Maybe it's a cartoon kind of painting.

It's an abstract kind of painting,

It is something else,

It's okay.

But whatever you do are only images that you've gathered from what's around you,

There is nothing else for you.

So it's important,

Especially if you are a.

.

.

I don't know,

If you are a well-known artist and everybody is going to look at it,

It's very important that it causes the right kind of things in people,

Something that will enhance their life,

Not something that will drive them to some madness.

This nail painting,

I just couldn't figure out,

I spent some time in front of it trying to understand,

Am I missing something if there is something,

Some deeper meaning in it.

So,

Art is just our.

.

.

Because we are feeling little jealous of the Creator,

We also want to do something.

Everything has been created so fantastic,

Actually one lifetime is not enough to pay attention to it.

But we also want to act up a little bit,

It's okay,

Human beings have the right to do that.

But if you are a tortured human being,

Please don't spill your torture on other people.

If you're a tortured human being,

You must withdraw.

This is what I would say.

Oh,

If I withdraw my torture will go up,

It will either go up or you'll get cured,

One of these things will happen for sure.

Because this is important for us to understand,

A social situation,

Whether it is the small unit of the family,

Or larger society or the nation or the world,

Human beings have many problems.

Whether within the family,

Within the society,

Within an institution,

Wherever,

It's important for us to understand that we present our best to everybody.

This is important.

Oh,

Should I pretend?

No,

I'm saying you must fix yourself.

I'm not saying if you're tortured you must be smiling at everybody.

I'm saying bloody fix yourself,

Why do you have to pretend?

If you can't fix your thought,

Your emotion,

Your torture,

If somebody else is torturing you,

You can't fix it,

That guy has to fix you,

The nails.

But if you're torturing yourself,

You can stop.

Oh,

Is it that simple?

It is.

Why do you think I'm wasting my life on you teaching this Inner Engineering all over the place?

Because I thought you will bloody fix yourself.

It has everything to fix yourself.

Because you know,

Should I talk about.

.

.

Should I talk about my torture?

Should I?

Oh,

Many years ago,

Thirty-nine years ago,

Suddenly I realized it doesn't take anything to be ecstatic.

If I don't mess with myself,

With my mind,

I'm ecstatic.

Then I thought within two-and-a-half years I'll turn the entire world ecstatic.

But it took me some time to understand how invested people are in their miseries.

They're carrying their bloody misery like their wealth.

To make them understand that your misery is not wealth,

It's filth.

So don't enshrine that in artwork,

Your filth.

Don't keep throwing it on other people,

Your filth.

Your misery is your filth,

Whether you like it or not.

I know cinema,

Art,

This,

That might have elegized suffering.

Religions have elegized suffering in a big way.

This happened.

Shankaran Pillai and his wife were driving Ford Mustang.

They just bought.

.

.

They were living in Texas.

They bought a Ford Mustang,

Tch,

Six hundred BHP and it's quick.

And it doesn't have the controls of a Ferrari.

Am I saying.

.

.

Making a mistake?

I'm.

.

.

I have to.

.

.

It has about the same kind of power but doesn't have the same kind of control.

So Shankaran Pillai being.

.

.

Tch,

Wanting to impress his wife,

Made it roar.

Before they went into the top gear,

They reached heaven.

So in heaven,

They welcomed them and they looked around,

Everything was beautiful.

So they enquired,

Is there golf in heaven?

They said yes.

And can we see?

Yes,

Fabulous place,

Fantastic gardens and great looking golf course,

Everything.

So they were.

.

.

The angels were driving the couple through this beautiful terrain.

Then they saw there was one pit full of fire and a few people were burning and screaming.

They said,

What is this?

They said,

No,

They're religious,

You know.

They like it that way.

So heaven provides what you like.

Without suffering,

These things don't work.

So whole lot of eulogizing of suffering has happened.

Religion is the first culprit.

Next comes art,

Next comes music,

All these things have done these things that suffering is a good thing.

Literature,

European literature,

Oof.

Intellectually it's wonderful.

I've gone through all that,

Dostoevsky,

Tolstoy and Camus and Kafka,

Oof.

What suffering,

Unbelievable suffering.

Somehow eulogizing suffering,

That suffering is the only way you can be profound.

See,

This is the truth with most human beings,

Pain is the most profound thing in their life.

Joy is not so profound,

Love is not so profound.

They've never tasted profoundness of ecstasy.

Pain is the most profound thing.

If you don't understand what I'm saying,

Take a pin and just poke yourself.

You know,

It's very deep,

Just a pinprick.

Your most,

Let's say,

Your dearest friend simply poked you with a pin.

Friendship just went boof.

One pinprick.

It will take a lot of rebuilding,

Otherwise it's gone,

One pinprick.

That is how profound pain is.

To make your blissfulness more profound in the pain,

It will take a little bit of work on you.

That's why we gave you the tools of Inner Engineering.

If every day.

.

.

I know you're.

.

.

On the Darshan day maybe you're doing some practice and coming and sitting in front of me.

If every day all dimensions of what Inner Engineering is,

If it's in practice,

Every moment of your life,

Then you will know profoundness of ecstasy which is way beyond pain,

Way beyond.

That is why the man will allow the scorpion to sting.

Not that there's no pain,

Scorpion gives you oof.

Your whole nervous system will go crazy if a scorpion venom enters you.

But when your ecstasy is deeper than that,

It's just one more thing.

So that needs some work.

Till that happens,

I would say,

Let your art not be an expression,

Let it be an appreciation of some aspect of nature,

People,

Whatever.

You may not like it,

Many artists may not like it.

Just my opinion,

But I'm also an artist,

I can have an opinion.

New,

New artist,

But an artist.

At least I've sold one painting.

You will see many more.

Are we done?

I'm sorry,

It's time.

What's that?

One question,

We'll finish.

This question is from Himanshu.

Namaskaram Sadhguru,

You often say,

Yoga ratova,

Bhogaratova,

I want to know what the bhogi can.

.

.

How the bhogi can attain.

And what is the scope for Him?

No way out for Him.

We said yoga and bhogar.

We did not say yogi and bhogi.

Yogi means one who is established in yoga.

Bhogi means one who is established in bhogar.

Is there a way out for him?

No way out for him.

This happened.

At one time Shankaran Pillai was a Isha meditator.

So he was diligently meditating.

Then he got married.

He's been meditating for over fifteen years.

Now he got married.

The wife had a policy.

Anything that was related to her husband before she came must be banished one after another.

So all his friends,

One by one,

They were dumped.

Some old college crush dumped.

Of course the mother-in-law dumped.

But one thing is nagging her,

Almost after five,

Six years of marriage,

One thing was enduring and Shankaran Pillai was not willing to give it up.

That was his meditation mat.

You know,

The Isha logo and.

.

.

What is the slogan on it?

Just a symbol and Isha logo.

He is not willing to give up his meditation mat.

One day in the morning he woke up and wants to do his morning sadhana.

He's looked and looked for his meditation mat.

Not to be found.

Then he asked his wife,

What happened to my meditation mat?

She said it attained nirvana.

Well,

He was supposed to attain but.

.

.

So a bhogi,

An established bhogi,

No way out.

Yoga ratova,

Bhogaratova is different.

Yogi bhogi are two different identities.

So you're identified with that which entangles you,

And then you say how will I get liberated?

Well the mat.

May I do it?

Shh.

Reviews

I’m so grateful for this opportunity to listen to Sadhguru and enjoy his lessons full of wisdom and humor. Thank you🌺🙏🏼

always DIVINE !!!