Creating Mental Health & Wellbeing – Mental Health Experts with Sadhguru

Prof Bamrah: I'm so pleased we're talking to you about mental health, which is often the poor cousin of anything that is physical.  Sadhguru, you've talked about this so much. Sadhguru: Human experience is essentially  caused from within – all human experience. Pain and pleasure, joy and misery, anxiety and ecstasy, all caused from within. So, are you in charge to cause what you want? Are you in a place where you can cause what you want? External things can be stimuli, but it is the way we respond which causes the experience. Dr. James: And I think a lot of people would like to start out on that journey of finding that inner peace and joy, what would be your advice as to how to start out on that journey? Sadhguru: The most important thing is we gave you a super, super, super computer, but most people don't bother to read the user's manual. Suppose you eat a piece of bread, within four-five hours’ time, it is become human  body. Bread is a simple composition. That simple thing becomes such a sophisticated thing here (Gestures). But that dimension of intelligence exists within us and that is not thought process. Dr. Ananta : What insights can you offer us about how young people can regain  a sense of connection to life and hope and aspiration? Sadhguru: From Homer, you come to one hundred and forty characters of literature. Prof Swaran: So, Sadhguru, what in your view is the fundamental cause of mental disorders? Sadhguru: See, one thing is the way we eat; it's a very big part of mental illness.  You called that biryani and you ate it; now the damage is big because these two things will not go together. See in another ten years, you will find medical evidence for this. You  will find because we know this is how it works. Prof Bamrah: So, Okay, so, it's lovely to see you again, Sadhguru. So, hopefully we will have the pleasure of meeting you in person one day, and a very warm welcome to all our guests, and viewers, at a time when many of us are experiencing  physical and mental strain from COVID-19. So firstly, a self-introduction if I may. I know we've met before, but I'll give a self-brief, self-introduction. I'm Prof JS Bamrah.  I'm Senior UK psychiatrist, chair of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin.  I'm a researcher, writer and lecturer. I am born in Tanzania. I did my Medicine at Patiala Medical College in India, and now Manchester has been my home for nearly forty years. Now, Sadhguru I am going to make the analogy today of a ship. So, I'm the captain of the ship. It's called the HMS Sadhguru. On board, we have some... Sadhguru: Hey, don't...  don't crash it, hmm! (Laughs) Prof Bamrah: No, this is not the time.  This is HMS Sadhguru, which is going sailing. That's why we're all on board with you. So, on  board of course, we have yourself, Sadhguru, we have the crew Isha Foundation, and in our deluxe cabins, we have Dr. Adrian James, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Prof Swaran Preet Singh, he's an academic psychiatrist and Dr. Ananta Dave who is child and adolescent psychiatrist.  Sadhguru: Namaskaram. Dr. Dave: Namaskaram, Sadhguru. Prof Bamrah: I will give you a proper  introduction to them afterwards. But Sadhguru, as I was saying, you'll be pleased to know that no turbulence or storms are expected. expected. It's going to be plain sailing,  the weather's going to be absolutely fine. So, let me put a context to our discourse today, and I'm so pleased we're talking to you about mental health, which is often the poor cousin of anything that is physical. Many of us won't be aware from the conversation… conversations you have had about COVID-19. and its impact on physical health, the brain and the mind. And everyone will appreciate that the most powerful organ in our body is not the heart, the liver, or the brain. In fact, in today's virtual world, it is our thought because our thoughts can make us sink, it can make us fly, it can make any organ in the body malfunction.  Why does one patient with cancer do better than another patient with the same cancer,  why does one patient with a heart attack fare better than another patient with a heart attack? And I wanted to give you a personal illustration of an experience I had Sadhguru and high esteem panellists. So, when I was an intern at Patiala Medical College, I remember a twenty-one-year-old woman presenting to the surgical department with breathlessness. After investigating her, the surgeons found nothing wrong with her. She  was referred to the Department of Medicine, where she saw a very renowned physician, Prof Jolly, with whom I was interning at that time, and he decided that the cause of  breathlessness was psychiatric. Well, I was a young intern, I was a bit offended. I said, "Well, what this poor girl has presented with severe distress, she's  breathless, and you're going to label her as mad," because even I was ignorant as an intern. And she did see the... She saw another renowned person, Prof Gurmeet Singh,  who was a renowned International psychiatrist, and he determined that the cause of breathlessness was indeed psychiatric. She was... she had suffered long term sexual abuse at the hand of a close relative. And so, this physical illness was a manifestation of a hidden mental anguish.  And so, the mind is a corridor of thoughts, behaviors and actions that you can imagine.  Sadhguru you've talked about this so much. In relation to the impact of COVID on mental  health, I've certainly seen an increase in my patients with depression, anxiety,  insomnia, alcohol abuse, eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorders, suicidal thoughts as well. There's been quite a major increase in all of these, but this, as you know, is not a local phenomenon. It's a global phenomenon. In one Canadian study that I saw of 46,000 subjects, normal population, twenty-four percent reported that their condition had become poor or fair after COVID. Fifty-two percent said their mental health has declined since physical distancing began because as you know, physical distance unfortunately, has also meant  psychological distancing for many patients, many people. Eighty-eight percent indicated they experienced a symptom of anxiety in the previous two weeks, so a whopping nearly ninety percent had anxiety in the previous two weeks during COVID. Sixty-four percent of young people, Ananta you'd be interested to hear this, of youth aged fifteen to twenty-four, reported a decline in mental health. And you know, the thing about this is that,  there are no blood tests to determine mental health. There is a blood test to determine  the virus, antibodies and all of that, and how immune you are... you are or we are. There is no litmus test for mental health problems. And there is no vaccination that will stop mental illness, which is why seminars like this, and what you all have done and Sadhguru you've done internationally, why they are very important to address some of these issues. So, now folks HMS Sadhguru is fully boarded, back to my analogy, and we're ready for departure, Sadhguru. Ultimate journeys of destinations obviously knowledge. Knowledge, so that people can be empowered to better understand and cope with mental distress, Corona anxiety, severe depression, whatever you call it, and also help their loved ones too. But on route, we will make three stops. But I've made the introduction, Sadhguru, I just want to make a very brief introduction to yourself. I'm going to fail in my attempt I know. But what do I... What  do I have gleaned? What am I gleaned? Well... Sadhguru: First tell them, I'm not your client. Please tell them, clear that. Prof Bamrah: You are definitely not. No! (Both laugh) Certainly not. We are here...  We're here to...to...to actually get your wisdom in all of this. And of course, my esteemed colleagues who got so much experience. So, this is a sharing and caring experience for all of us. And so, you know, so what I gleaned was that, obviously, you're a fountain of wit and wisdom and we are in your durbar on HMS Sadhguru to share that experience with you. Now, you've been variously described as an Indian Mystic, whatever that means. You're a spiritual master, a young... a grand Yoga Master, a philanthropist, and I've seen all of the stuff you've done on... on... on that as well as the environment. So, you're an environmentalist,  you're a very charitable person. And as I said to you, at my last seminar with you on  Inner Engineering, I think you're a scientific spiritualist. And you will remember that I told you that I was a man of science, but of course, you know, what you do is absolutely marvelous. So Sadhguru, I made some introductory remarks. Before I introduce our esteemed passengers, I just wondered if there might be other words you might want to  te... give us before we start on our journey. Sadhguru: See, in this pandemic situation,  because I think we're focusing on this aspect. Well, for a whole lot of people, lives have been lost, livelihoods have been lost. Many things that they were used to are no more for a whole lot of people. But one important thing which could be causing mental distress is not the loss of these things – mainly, because...  because they have more time with themselves, they just don't know how to deal with themselves. Essentially, in many ways, I know this may be a little insulting for people who are suffering at a certain level, but when they come out of it, they can see  this, that all our mental problems on one level, I'm not saying this the entirety, on one level,  it's our inability to handle our own intelligence. If we had half the brain that we have, we would  be fine. Even now, I think there is one extreme step of lobotomy that if you remove some part of the brain, people do become peaceful or something like that. But essentially, our inability to handle our own intelligence is the main problem. So, the time that you have upon your hands is  driving people crazy. Work was driving people crazy. Endless ceaseless action was causing them madness. But now, you have time on your hands. I know these are bad words to use today, you're not supposed to say crazy, you're not supposed to say mad, you're not supposed to say insane. But you  know all the words, I don't have the vocabulary for various descriptions that could be there. But essentially, people do not know how to deal with themselves! They think the problem is coming from elsewhere. No! Human experience is essentially caused from within – all human experience. Pain and pleasure, joy and misery, anxiety and ecstasy, all caused from within. So, are you in charge to cause what you want? Are you in a place where you can cause what you want? Or are you in some state of compulsive reaction to situations that if there is one problem, you will make ten problems within yourself? Right now, people are predicting mental  health pandemic, suicide pandemic. So, what you're saying is there is a virus pandemic,  it's bad enough, it's disturbed many things. Now, you will multiply it within yourself and make it into ten different problems and then you think you have some kind of a qualification. No! You need to understand you're just multiplying one problem into many things within yourself. Because human experience is your business. What happens in the world is not entirely ours. What the world throt… throws at us is not entirely determined by us, so many things happen, all right. But what happens within us is entirely our business. As cultures, as individual people, as cultures, as societies, we have not taken charge of this. The way we  eat, the way we sit, the way we breathe, we have not handled this mechanism in such a way - the human mechanism, which is the most sophisticated and complex mechanism on this planet, which is a consequence of a million years of evolution. Now, we don't know how to handle it. So, it's just like if you sit on a bicycle and you don't know how to ride, of course, you crash and you think there's something wrong with the bicycle. If you don't know how to drive the best car  in the world, you still can kill yourself. So, does... does not mean there's something wrong with automobile. Similarly, there is nothing wrong with this; it's just that this is a kind of a chemical soup. Now, are you a great cook or a lousy cook? That's a question. Prof Bamrah:  I'm a bad cook. (Both laugh) Sadhguru: No, that's not good for your profession, you should not be saying. I'm talking about this soup. Prof Bamrah: I know that soup, absolutely, the chemical soup. I can see the analogy. And I can see why self-control is so important. Sadhguru: So, this is not something that today, because there is pandemic, you can take charge of yourself. This has to become the culture from an early age. Right now, you're seeing this everywhere, you know, just anywhere you see, even in advertisements, the commercials that come for few seconds, definitely in the movies, and I'm sure it is so in the television shows – how do you deal with something that you don't like? Well, if you find somebody who is weaker  than you, punch their face into pulp. If you don't find anybody, punch a glass pane. If you're a little more stupid, try a wall. You're very stupid, try a rock, break something, throw something, do something, scream, yell, obscenities. This is the way you deal with something that you don't like. You're setting a culture that, "I will  go mad" is like a kind of qualification. What we need to understand is, the line between sanity and insanity is so thin, so thin. If you push it too often, one day you will cross, you'll be successful to be on the other side. Any number of people, they are going to the other side and coming back. So, people will come... You know, as a expression people are saying, "I was with this  person and he said this. I was really mad for some time and then I came back," all right. So, they're saying they crossed the line, and they came back. Well, if you cross the line too often, one day you wo... won't be able to come back, then they will have to come to you or get you... get admitted to the institutions, all these things. But a whole lot of people in every society are doing this every day. They think it's their right to cross the line and come back. If you cross the line too often, one day it may not let you back – that is, that  is very much a possibility. Because life within you understands, the intelligence within you understands, you want to be on the other side. This may sound like a very unfair judgment  for those who are suffering mental ailments. Well, there are pathological situations, there are genetic situations, I know this. But there is a way to go beyond all that. This is why a human being is capable of being conscious. That's why we call you a being. We do not refer  to any other creature on this planet as a being, because only this creature is supposed to know how to be. If you know how to be, would you be sane or insane, that's a big question. It is  a very obvious answer. If you know how to be, you would be in the highest level of pleasantness,  not in highest level of unpleasantness. So, this has not been taken charge of. We are treating it like some external  things are causing our experience. No. External things can be a stimuli, but it is the way we respond which causes the experience. Prof Bamrah: Really profound. Thank you very much. Thank you, Sadhguru. So, I'm going to introduce some... So, we've  arrived... we've arrived now at Port James and at Port James we have Dr. Adrian James, and  I'm going to give you an introduction to Adrian. Adrian is our president. He's the president for all three of us. He's the president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He's a… Adrian...  Adrian is a... is profound in terms of his influence in psychiatry in the UK and beyond. He is the founding Chair of the School of Psychiatry, at Peninsular Deanery. He was previously the Chair of Westminster Parliamentary Liaison Committee of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, something  that he did for five years, where he was in charge of parliamentary liaison, mobbing ministers and attending party conferences. I'm sure you had lots of fun too, but he says (Sadhguru  laughs) it was actually horrifying. The only pleasure he got was the chance meeting  that he could have with his wife, Sarah Wollaston, who is also a friend of mine, who was an MP at  that time, and she was a... she is a GP too. So, Adrian was Clinical Director for Mental Health, Dementia and Neurology.  He worked for NHS England Southwest, and he has chaired a number of review groups such as On Care Systems, Cannabis, Prevent and Learning from Deaths. He set up a wo... workforce well-being committee at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and this remains his passion even during his presidentship. So, Adrian would like to have a discourse with you Sadhguru. Dr. Adrian James:  Namaskaram. Sadhguru: Namaskaram. (laughs) Dr. Adrian James: Thank you for giving up your time and for giving us the benefits of your... your wisdom. And I'm... In my experience, as a psychiatrist for  thirty-five years, people often say, well, what's the cause of mental illness? And I guess, I think there are three causes. There are people who have a terrible life experiences, we sometimes refer to them as the social determinants of mental illness.  They have been put in a situation through no fault of their own have developed an illness.  As you said, Sadhguru, there are some people where it's genetically programmed into them that, that they will develop a mental illness. But there are issues around well-being, and I...  As you said that COVID has had a dramatic effect on the whole world, and it had caused terrible suffering and... But it has also given us all an opportunity to stop and think about our lives. And it's a time for renewal. And as you said, many of us, we're not used to stopping and reflecting;  we just carry on living the life we've always lived, chasing things that quite often don't bring us happiness, and not actually standing back and thinking. And I... I would really like to hear from you about what your advice is to the majority of people who don't create that sort of time and space as you do, who are amateurs in this area. How they can use yogic thinking, to renew themselves and think about what their lives are really going to be when COVID is finished?  This is such an opportunity for the whole world. Sadhguru: Adrian, if I say something, which is abrasive, please pardon me (Laughs) because... See, it's like this. I know the part of the world that you come from, human thought is considered to be the paramount thing that a man or woman can do, as human beings can do - thought is the highest possibility. But let's look at thought. Your thought is a consequence of whatever data you have gathered through various experiences of life. Am I correct? It's like data is being constantly  being absorbed by our five... five senses by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching – in these five major ways we are acquiring data all the time. From this data, we are generating thought. Well, somebody may have simplistic thoughts out of it, somebody may produce permutations and combinations of whatever data they have, which looks complex and sophisticated. But essentially, it is only recycling of the existing data that we have. So, in the Yogic culture, we do not  give any significance to what you think or what anybody thinks, because it's just  recycling of something that is already there with you. You will have no new territory  coming under you with thought; it is just newer and newer possibilities of mixtures, newer and newer cocktails, you can make out of it, but it is the same thing. So, thought is not of any  consequence in the yogic way of looking at life. So, one thing that we want to do with... See, there are two kinds of dramas going on within the human beings, which cause enormous suffering to people:  one is physiological drama and another is psychological drama. The two are related of course, but they are happening almost like separate dramas, but actually they are one drama playing out to be two dramas – it's called double acting. (Laughs) They're the same stuff, because the chemistry of the body definitely determines how you think, how you feel, and how you express yourself, everything. So, what happens in the body happens in the mind; what happens in the mind  happens in the body. That all of you know better than me. So, leaving that aside, essentially, it is a drama of physiology and psychology. What you consider as my physiology, and what you consider as my psychological framework, both of them are something that  you acquired over a period of time. You are not born this way; you came just this much (Gestures) and now you have become a full-grown person. This has  happened over a period of time. Ah... (Laughs) Coming from a society where there is such a complexity of food, in India, ah... you have largely lived in England, so I will just assume – this  is just a joke, okay. I will just assume that you're fully made of fish and chips, head to toe. So, all the food that we ate has become this body. The food that we eat is just the soil that we walk upon or in other words we just gathered a piece of planet for ourselves, for our use for a period of time. When the time comes, we have to shed it anyway. So, what we have acquired, what we have accumulated can never be us or me. What I have gathered cannot be me. I cannot say this cup is me. I can say this cup is mine; I cannot say this is me. So similarly, you can say, “this is my body; this is my thought.” That's how we speak, but actually, in your experience, you are the body, you are the thought, isn't it? There is no distinction. This is the fundamental problem. If every moment of your life, if you are conscious, that you're able to hold the  body a little away from you, you're able to hold your psychological framework little away from you, then you could use the mind and you could use the body whichever way you  want, but it would not cause any suffering to you. Essentially, there are only two kinds of sufferings, which human beings go through – physical suffering and mental suffering. Physical suffering is still a minuscule in modern society compared to mental suffering because when an injury happens, when a physical ailment happens, somebody poked you, somebody shot at you. These are rare things. It's happening unfortunately, but it doesn't happen to most of the people on the planet. Physical pain is very little. Largely, over ninety-five percent is just mental pain. Mental pain essentially means as I already said... See, if I ask would you want your mind or your intellect sharp or blunt, in one unison entire humanity will say sharp. So, if you have a sharp instrument, and if you don't know how to handle it... When I just came in, I think somebody was talking about nose picking being some kind of a... ah... kind of psychological  ailment or something like that. Suppose you have a knife in your hand and you do nose picking,  you know what will be the condition of your nose. So right now, you have a sharp instrument in the form of an intellect. This is sharpest in human beings compared to every other creature on the planet that is what is allowed... allowed us to dominate this planet over every other creature who may be much stronger than us, but we are dominating simply because our instrument up here is sharp. Now, if you have a sharp instrument, you should know how to hold it. If you do not  know which side is handle, which side is blade, whichever way you hold it you will cause harm to  yourself. Right now, that's all that happened.  The sharpness of your instrument is just poking you all the time; you don't know how to hold it. Compulsive behavior with a sharp... If you have a sharp knife in your hand and if you have compulsive behavior, you will bleed all over the place. So right now, tell me one thing, just tell me one thing that human beings are not suffering. If they are poor, they suffer their poverty; make them rich, they suffer the taxes.  If they're not educated, they suffer that. Put them to school, endless suffering. If they are not married, they suffer that; get them married... I won't say anything. Just about anything and everything human beings are suffering, isn't it? So, the suffering is not in the life. The suffering is in the way you hold your own mind; you do not know how to hold a sharp instrument. This is why I said, if you have the...  if you had the brain of an earthworm, you would be very peaceful; no yoga, no meditation, nothing would be needed for you. Only because your mind has become sharp, how you  hold it becomes very, of paramount importance. If you don't hold it right, either cause  to damage to somebody else or to yourself. How much damage we have caused to every other life on this planet? All this because of the sharpness  of our intellect, isn't it? If we did not have a mind like this, if we had half the stuff that we have, oh, we would be so eco-friendly, believe me, and we would be so meditative. (Laughs) Meditation wouldn't even be necessary for us; we would be just fine. So, essentially what is a tremendous potential, we have turned it into a problem because we don't  know how to use it. Any instrument is like this, any mechanism is like this, if it is of great potency, there is also great danger attached to it, if you do not know how to deal with it. If you are walking, the risk of you breaking your head – limited, but possible. If you run, more possible. If you bicycle... if you are on a cycle, much more possible. If you're on a motorcycle, much more possible. If you get onto an airplane, much more possible. If you get onto your spacecraft, super possible, isn't it? So, the same thing, as evolution happened, as this became sharper and sharper and more competent and more sophisticated, it is a tremendous possibility  and also a tremendous problem if you don't know how to deal with it. The same things, all the things that I mentioned, from legs, running legs, to walking legs to bicycle to motorcycle, what does this mean? Higher possibility, isn't it? Higher and higher possibility!  Higher possibility also means more complex problems if we do not know how to deal with it. We claim we are the most intelligent people or the most intelligent creature on the planet, but in my understanding of life, intelligence should be a solution. Now, intelligence is a problem. "What kind of intelligence is this?" I'm asking. For most human beings, their intelligence is a terrible problem. They are not using it as a tre...  tremendous gift or a possibility. They are using it as creating problems for  themselves and for every creature on this planet. If you cannot even sit quietly in one place joyfully, this means there is a mental ailment in my... If I have to diagnose people, if you cannot sit here by yourself joyfully, this means there is a problem in your mind.  Whether it will cross certain limits for my medical diagnosis or not is the next question  –  that needs little prompting from everybody around you then you will get there very quickly.  If people around you provoke you and prompt you, you will get there. But the important thing is how many people today can sit quietly by themselves themselves without reading a book, without talking to anybody, without watching the phone, without fiddling with the phone or television? How many people can simply sit joyfully, just being alive? Being alive is the greatest happening that's happening to us right now, isn't it? The greatest thing in our life is we are alive. This is the most important thing. How many people can sit here just enjoying the aliveness of who they are? No, very, very minuscule number of people are left. I was talking to a group of people in United States, a large group of people in New York City. I asked them how many people in New York City can sit one evening without even a glass of wine peacefully; I did not even raise it to joy – peacefully.  Ahh, they think about it like this, like that,  and say maybe about three to four percent. So, ninety-six percent cannot sit in one place.  I am using glass of wine as minimum dose; others have graduated into many other things. That's a different matter. With little bit of outside support, most people  right now – to be healthful you need chemicals, to be joyful you need chemicals, to be peaceful you need chemicals, for everything you need chemicals. Though you have the most complex chemical  factory right here, you need things from outside. This means we have not even explored the full depth and dimension of what is the possibility of being human. With minimal things, we are trying to go and do things in the world, Because everybody is trying to be ahead of somebody else.  Like an apple tree want to produce coconuts, what will happen? That's all that's happening to human beings, and for which they are suffering endlessly all the time. You give them anything...  See, most people are suffering their jobs. For example, certain surveys in the United States  says seventy percent of the US population hate their jobs – not dislike, hate their jobs, seventy percent. That's why, "Thank God, it's Friday." And the next two days, they're overdosed. Now, you don't have a job, at least you must be walking joyfully, isn't it? A whole lot of you don't have a job, you should be very joyful, isn't it? No, no, no! Now, they will suffer that there is no job. If there is a job, they will suffer that; if there is no job, they'll suffer that. Tell me one thing; everything they suffer. This is not because of the quality of life.  As quality of life goes, we as a generation of people have the best deal ever in the history of humanity. Isn't it so? Huh? In terms of comforts and conveniences, did any generation in the last ten thousand or a million years had what we have right now? Oh, but, you know, Wi-Fi is not fast enough, so we will suffer.  I'm saying there's no end to this. This is simply because we are not being taught. Our education systems have taught us about how to manage this, how to manage that, how to go to moon, everything – have taught us nothing about how to manage this one (Referring to oneself). This is why I said mental health is not  going to just happen like that. Mental health must become a culture in a society; you have to breed them like that. Today, there are a lot of studies showing how  a pregnant woman, one who is becoming a mother, how she eats, what kind of people she is with,  what she's exposed to has a huge impact on the next generation of people. Today, they are saying that. We have always been conscious about this. In India, there's a whole process from the moment of conception to delivery and later on whatever happens. As long as the mother is still feeding the child, all this duration, what she should do, what she should not do, it's a military regimentation. What she should consume, what she should not  consume, what kind of people she should meet, what she should not meet, where should go...  where she should go, where she should not go. Now, they're everywhere! Fully pregnant women are in the trains, they're in the buses, they're in the bars, they're drinking, they're smoking. Won't this have an impact? They said, "No, no, nothing happens. We studied the blood parameters, nothing happened." Now, after fifty years of that culture, now you're saying that it is actually having an impact for many generations of people. So, I'm saying, mental health or even physical health is not a one-day affair. We have to invest in culture of health; otherwise, it will not happen. Individual people may manage, but if you want  a whole crop of... or a generation of healthy people, we need to create a culture of health;  otherwise, it's not going to just come like that. Dr. James:  So, those are really fantastic observations and I would... would agree. And if... if a mind is the most complex instrument, when you get a new instrument, you often get sort of a long guide the instructions, but you often get a quick start guide as well. And I think a lot of people would like to start out on that journey of finding that inner peace and joy, what would be your advice as to how to start out on that journey? Sadhguru: Well, you came to the point. The most important thing is we gave you a super, super, super computer, because every super computer you produce is just a drop out of this, all right? But most people don't bother to read the user's manual; they think they can just blunder through it somehow. And that is what you're seeing as all kinds of ailments, all kinds of struggles and sufferings that are happening in the world. So where is the user's manual? I'm... I'm trying to simplify the question. Ah... the simply the thing is, here the machine and the user's manual are written within itself. Everything is self-made because this machine created itself from inside.  He did not... was not formed from outside. From outside we just gave material. Just look at this. Suppose you eat a piece of bread. Within four-five hours’ time, it has become human body. Bread is a simple composition. That simple thing becomes such a sophisticated thing here. (Gestures) Human cell and what is in the bread are two different dimensions of existence, isn't it? But that simple aspect of the bread you're making it into a human cell in just four to five hours. This is a super, super miracle, isn't it? Making bread into a human being is not a simple thing. But that dimension of intelligence exists within us and that is not thought process. Thought is just a superficial veneer that we carry. Right now, the entire modern societies are completely invested in that veneer. When I say they're invested in this veneer,  I've been, you know, looking for some things, and I was talking to a very prominent automobile maker who also now wants your JLR, you know? (Laughs) I was talking to him. He is a very big auto enthusiast and both of us discussing automobiles and this, and then I said, "These advertisements that you're putting out... I'm looking when a new model comes..." I'm... I will never buy those cars, but I have an interest. "...I want to know what's the engine, what's  the transmission, what is this, what is that? But, wherever you look in any advertisement,  it talks about the stereo system, the leather, the stitch, and the glove compartment."  Nowhere is there a mention of engine, they don't care. People don't care whether there's an engine or not in the automobile anymore. They want to know what is the paintwork! You just  start any YouTube video about any automobile, the guy is talking about the paintwork, the mirror, the reflector, this one, that one (Laughs), stereo system. This is what it is talking about.  Unfortunately, that's what we have become. Our thought is just the surface; it's a paintwork!  We can look good if we have certain sophistication of thought; it doesn't take us anywhere. Dr. James:  Thank you, Sadhguru. I'm going to pass back to JS and say thank you for your... your wisdom and... and your thinking. Prof Bamrah: Thank you, Adrian. Yeah,  we're still... we're still... still on course, which is wonderful, Sadhguru. And I'm...  I'm still thinking about this thought thing. It's in my thought process, don't worry. (Sadhguru  laughs) So, our next... our next destination is Port Ananta and we've just arrived there  and I can give you a little introduction to my eminent colleague. So Dr. Ananta Dave is medical director at NHS...  Sadhguru: Namaskaram Prof Bamrah: ...NHS trust. She's a child  and adolescent psychiatrist, and she's a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. She was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2019, when she traveled to the US to learn more about doctors' suicides. And that interest is taken to become... her to become the trustee of a very good charity called Doctors In Distress, which tries to improve the mental health and well-being in doctors because as you can imagine doctors are not immune from this at all. She has a number of accolades. She's an avid undergraduate and postgraduate teacher, and she holds a Master's degree in Medical Ethics and Law. She is the first female president of British Indian Psychiatric Association. And she has co-authored and chaired  a... a report on the impact of COVID-19 on VME people for the Royal College of Psychiatrists.  So Ananta, I'm going to ask you to have your discourse please with Sadhguru. Sadhguru: Namaskaram. Dr. Ananta: Thank you JS, for that very generous introduction and Namaskaram Sadhguru garu, it is a real... Sadhguru: (in Telugu) Are you Telugu?  Dr. Ananta: (in Telugu) Yes. Sadhguru: (in Telugu) Okay. (Both laugh) Dr. Ananta: Sir, it is a real privilege and honor to be able to have this conversation with you today and along with my colleagues. And I'm really... I've been fascinated by what's happened so far, and I'm really looking forward to the rest of the session. I mean, a couple of thoughts just on what's been discussed so far, and while you have put it in a very articulate way about how we've not really used the main instrument that we've been given, the engine of our lives, in a very useful way. One of the things that I find about the pandemic,  and, you know, I've worked in both India before, you know, and in the UK as well, and just having observed how... how things are, one of the perhaps the positive fallouts of what has been a very devastating pandemic, is that people perhaps are more willing or  less afraid to express their vulnerability. They are at least able to say, "Look, I'm not quite sure what I'm doing, and maybe I need to restart and reset." And I think that's a positive thing. I think that being able to show that, rather than sort of trying to pretend everything is okay, and that you're, you know, master of everything. It' s something positive, I think. So that's... that's something that I wanted to share. And the other thing I wanted to say before  I asked my question is, you talked about, you know, the... you know, how people might think of themselves as mentally ill or how after a particular point is crossed, that you know, anybody can actually reach that state. But, you know, over the years, I've seen that  there are many, many people in the world who suffer from mental illnesses where that has not been recognized, and the stigma and the secrecy that surrounds mental illness has actually devastated lives. And I think it is good, although we are not there completely, it's good that, that is being validated – the distress, the mental distress, whether it is at the pre-pathological  stage or whether it is at the stage where it reaches a diagnosis of mental illness. I think that more and more of that is being validated which I think is positive. So, these are some of my observations based on what you've said. Now, being a child and adolescent psychiatrist, my question to you or... or the thing that I was interested in is, discussing a bit more about the effect of the pandemic on children and young people. My experience is more in the UK, because  that's where I've been for the last twenty-five years, but I think this holds true to children  and young people around the world. Is that… different groups of people have had the pandemic impact them in different ways, but for children and young people, when they are at a very crucial period of their development, their emotional, cognitive development, you know, their independence, the pandemic has really made them sort of have to  rethink about perhaps, you know, their perspective on life or... or the way they're developing. So, whether it is the fact that they've had to stop their interactions with peers, education came to a standstill, the... the social media being the main medium by which they interact with peers, or whether it is seeing grief and loss mixed, although they themselves might not become seriously ill with COVID, they have seen their parents, grandparents,  their loved ones dying with COVID. In the UK, we know that in terms of unemployment,  it is the sixteen-to-twenty-four-year age group which has been the most heavily affected. We know that in the UK, compared to in all the countries in Europe, for example, the level of stress and anxiety felt by young people is very high. So, clearly there has been a particular impact on children and young people. And what I wanted to ask you was how can... what insights can you offer us about how young people can regain a sense of connection to life and hope and aspiration  amidst all the suffering and the... and the, you know, the stalling of things that they have taken for granted and are normal. Thank you. Sadhguru: Maa, when you say a child or a youth, what it is supposed to mean fundamentally is, is they're still unformed in some way. But unfortunately, in the present generation,  even very young people are too highly formed. If you get formed too early, you become deformed in some way. I'm sorry I'm using such words. But if you take a form very early in your life, that form becomes your way. That is a kind of deformation of life. It should... You should never get formed if you ask me; you must continue to evolve and, you know, reinvent yourself all the time. But these days because of the level of communication and exposure that they have very early on, the kind of exposure that we would get when we were twenty-five, today a ten-year-old boy or girl is getting that level of exposure, all right, to almost everything. So, because of that very early on, they're forming themselves into personalities, strong personalities, which will definitely bring various kinds of problems, pandemic or no pandemic. Pandemic is exposing that. About, you know, your work involves about doctor's suicide and things, I was just amazed about two years ago or three years ago, I was at the Yale Medical University, and they were telling me the numbers – I'm just... I don't remember the numbers. In that calendar year, how many medical students commit suicide in United States, it is shocking! People who are investing their  lives to make the world healthy in some way, if they are distressed and that they have  to kill themselves in school, I'm saying, in an educational institution, well, you can imagine what we're doing to ourselves. And of course, we've been working  with various aspects in India. The number of children committing suicide  between the age of twelve and eighteen in the... in the year 2018, it was around 18,600 children killed themselves. Out of this 7,300 or 400 of them were below fifteen years of age. A twelve, thirteen-year-old child, where is the question of killing myself? You know, you  should be exuberant and bursting with life. But that is going away. This is something if we don't watch this now, if we don't really take care of this now, as a generation, as a individual societies, oh, the price that we will pay will be an extremely big. And as your statistics in UK also showing between sixteen to twenty-four, the level of propensity to cause damage to themselves,  to physically harm themselves is increasing. Physical harm is a suicide in installments, all  right? You... You want to kill yourself, instead you're... you don't have the determination to  go all the way, so you causing harm to yourself, creating pain, creating damage to the body.  This is… you're trying to do it in installments. Well, all this is happening. I feel it's not  pandemic. I strongly see that it is not the pandemic which is causing this mental distress.  Pandemic is exposing people, change in situations exposing. But if you look at the mental pandemic, I know you said it in eloquent words of how it's causing suffering, if unfortunately, over a million people have lost their lives, many have lost their dear ones, many have lost  la... livelihoods. Yes, all these things are things to be compassionate about, but we must understand, compared to what previous generations have faced.  For example, you're in London, is it, Ananta? Dr. Ananta: I'm actually near Birmingham Sadhguru: Okay. Even Birmingham was bombed in World War Two, but  London was flattened, all right? Leave the other people. I'm just talking about the English people. What they have gone through, the previous generation, compared to that, this pandemic is a softball. You must hit it right. I'm saying compared to wars, famines and  natural calamities of great disaster, this is a very softball. With responsible conscious behavior, we can deal with this. But, because we have become such  compulsive creatures of habits, that now if you have to just change  some little thing, you suffer so much. Right now, going to work. Everybody was  complaining this commuting is such a nuisance, go getting onto the train, going there. See how people are st... standing in the trains like they're cattle going for slaughter. They're going  to work. You look at the expressions on people. Now, you don't have to go to work, you can  work from home. Now, this is great misery! So, we must understand we are not able to handle any change because this modern life with so much gadre... gadgetry and technology has brought a certain level of certainty which is unhealthy, I would say, too much certainty! No generation had this much certainty about their livelihood, their survival, their everything. If four children  are born in a family, only two lived, normally, you know. There was no such certainty. Today, there is such a certainty about life; you're misunderstanding this for a guarantee. Instead of appreciating it and enjoying that certainty, right now, people are thinking technology or  something else has given them a guarantee of life; there is no guarantee of life, all right? Life is a fragile thing. Only if you behave responsibly, it stays with you, otherwise it will go. So why are we behaving as rampantly as we're behaving? Because this is giving us such a false sense of certainty of four walls you have created. You don't know whether it's summer, winter, spring, what it is. Always it is seventy degrees centigrade, I'm sorry, seventy degrees Fahrenheit, and you think this is it; you're in a box.  We go into a box as a last journey. You can't live in a box all your life. If you live in a box all the time, that's not life. So right now, when life hits you – virus is life – when life hits you, you don't know how to deal with it. All that's happened is small upheavals. This is a very softball compared to what the previous generations have  faced. The... the Spanish Flu, the World War One, then the Great Depression in America, then World War Two, and so many things that they have faced, compared to that, just one century if you take,  if you look back, you will be terrified what was happening to them. One century, twentieth century, what it has done to people, compared to that this is an extremely softball; we must hit it. We must hit it well, and see that this becomes  a very transformative and wonderful time for us, rather than thinking some calamity has hit us. No calamity has hit us. Any amount of medical proof is there that virus infections have brought about so many aspects of our evolution into place. You know, in the past, in  the past millions of years, many virus infections were key to instigating  evolutionary process to hasten up within ourselves. Who knows with this, you may grow a halo with the coronavirus, who knows? Let us wait, let us strengthen our immune system, let us bring our psychological and physiological balance into our systems and sail through this. He's saying  there is no rough weather, everything is smooth sailing. (Laughs) Prof Bamrah: It is, (Laughs) it is still smooth sailing. (Sadhguru laughs) Ananta did you... did you want to just do a quick follow up? Dr. Ananta : Yes. I mean, I under…. that's very helpful, Sadhguru. Thank you. And I think, you know, in terms of giving young people, youth, that sense of hope and putting things in perspective, and asking them to sort of, you know, slow their expectations down is good. How... What would you be saying to people, you know, for many people who might be facing some immediate, you know, whether it is poverty, hunger, whatever it is, some  immediate needs, basic needs, which are not being fulfilled? What... what would you say to them,  what would you do to them in order to give them strength and hope that they can get beyond this, and there is you know, their particular attitude or way of life can help them, you know,  bear these indignities. What would you say to, maybe young people, but also families? Thank you. Sadhguru: See, there are two things kind of woven together in this question about indignities  that one may have to suffer and hunger. These are two different things. Hunger is a physiological, fundamental thing, all right? So, if societies or groups of people or  individual people are going into hunger state, starvation states, that's a different  matter. That has to be dealt on a... to be dealt on a war footing. But we must also understand  never before in the history of humanity, was food and survival as organized as it is today, never before. Still, there are places in the world where people are genuinely hungry. Genuinely hungry means they're starving; malnourishment is happening to some twenty, twenty-five percent of the people still going through that. But those people generally live on the land or in the forest. So, their lives have not changed in any way because of the pandemic, okay? It is happening the way it's happening, their food, their nourishment as it was, it is at the same level. Probably, a whole lot of things have gone a little better in many places where I have noticed. This is a very negative thing to say right now because everybody likes to be told,  "Oh, we are all suffering. We are all suffering." But in developed societies, let's say in UK or United States or whatever, these are not countries where you need to go hungry. If you're going hungry because you have specific choices of how your stomach should get full, all right? You're going... See right now, people are begging on the street.  At least they are honest these days – in America at least, they are honest – they say, "Give me two dollars. I need a beer." Ah... it's honest, whether you want to give him or not is another matter.  So, there is hunger and there is a lifestyle;  these are two different things. Lifestyles are disrupted; life is not disrupted. Let's understand this. Life is not about lifestyle; life is about life. As life,  unfortunately, certain number of people have died. People have lost their dear ones. Above all,  they have not been able to tend to them in their last moments which is the pain... the most  painful thing. But, lifestyle getting disturbed is not a bad thing, not a bad thing. Ecolog...  ecologically it is definitely not a bad thing. Even economically, it's not a bad thing. It is  good that once in a way, lifestyles get disrupted because that disruption will bring various new  possibilities and new thinking and new avenues as to how we should conduct our life. So, lifestyles are being dis... disrupted. And if you interpret that as an indignity of life, well, I'm telling you, you're talking about young people because they can't go to school, because they can't meet their friends, there is a problem. If I was fifteen or fourteen, and there was no school, I would be fantastic. (Laughs) I don't know  what's wrong with today's children – no schools, they're crying. If they declare no school for six months...  I wish there was a pandemic when I was young. Six months, no school means that would be  paradise for us. But that also they’re suffering. So, this is because too many structures in our mind too early. Too early they're being formed into concrete balls. Too early on with excessive exposure, excessive information, excessive expression before... See, there is something called as perception and then expression. In yoga, we always say the time that you spend to perceive should be higher than the time that you spend for expression. Perception is more important than expression. But today, with the technology available, it's all expression, no perception.  So, you will grow up as bloody fools, I'm saying. Without any profoundness to your life, just  sending emojis you think you're writing literature. From Shakespeare, from John Keats, where have you come – emoji language, is it? (Laughs) I'm asking you, English language has become all sign language. (Laughs) So, this has to stop. If virus is going to stop this, it's great. Because to create languages it has taken 1000 years; language doesn't happen like that. And language according to today's neurological thing, we've always known this, that language is one of the significant parts of human brain development, all right? How many languages you can speak shows in many ways how complex your activity has become; cerebral activity has become. So today, we are taking it back with technology. Right now, if pandemic is going to reverse that,  I'm very glad that it's happening. I'm very glad. Maybe, they're reading a little more than before rather than... than texting or doing something else. So, one-hundred-and-forty words or one-hundred-and-forty characters has become the character of the literature of today. Okay (Laughs), from Homer, you’ve  come to  one-hundred-and-forty characters of literature. This is something we need to look at. If virus is disrupting that, I'm very glad it's disrupting that. Only lifestyles are disrupted. Life we must protect. We must ensure this is a fundamental  responsibility, young or old, you must make sure as long as this virus lasts,  however long it lasts, you must stay alive. This is your fundamental responsibility, and you  must ensure everybody around you stays alive. If this much responsibility everybody takes, life is fine. We may live with little less. This what when I said this, everybody got angry with me. I said, "What is the big ruckus about the economy?" What may happen to us at the most,  we may live like how we lived ten years ago or maybe twenty-five years ago. Twenty-five years ago, believe me, life was good. Hello? We didn't have so many things that you have today, but life was just good, very good. It was great for me, twenty-five years ago. So, if it becomes like that, I don't see what you're complaining about. You will consume less, which is what everybody  is trying to talk about it like a philosophy. You didn't get the philosophy, so the virus  is doing it to you, you're consuming less. It's great. So, lifestyles being  disrupted – I have no sympathy for that. Life being disrupted, that needs  to be handled compassionately. Dr. Ananta : Thank you very much, Sadhguru.  Very useful and fascinating insights. Sadhguru: I'm sorry if I'm very abrasive. (Laughs) Dr. Ananta: To have this conversation. Thank you. Prof Bamrah: Well... well, the bottom line is life has to be preserved; you're absolutely right. Dr. Ananta : Absolutely. Prof Bamrah: And the materialistic work... world, which you've very eloquently described is something that we all need to look at. So next, we've just arrived at the next destination which is harbor Swaran Singh. So, Prof Swaran Preet Singh. Sadhguru: Namaskaram. (Laughs) Prof Bamrah: Swaran is a... is a great friend again, but he is a renowned Prof in psychiatry all over the world. He is Prof of social and community psychiatry at Warrick Medical School. He is director of Centre for Mental Health and Well-being Research at his university and associate medical director at a local NHS Trust. He is director of NIHL Warrick,  India, Canada group for improving psychosis outcomes at the National Institute of Health Research, and an adjunct Prof at the Faculty of Medicine in Denmark.  For a long time, nearly six years, he was the Commissioner for Equality and Health Rights Commission, mandated by the UK Parliament. He's published extensively, Sadhguru, on culture,  on ethnicity in mental health, uncertain outcomes of early psychosis. In fact, he's been a pioneer in early interven... intervention in children and young adults who... who become psychotic. And he's an expert on mental health law and medical education, so, he is a... I can tell you this, because he told me this, Swaran is, of course, a serious academic, but he also believes in the virtues of spirituality, he tells me. So, we're all in good company, Swaran. Sadhguru: (Laughs) Don't throw a  pattiala at me, hmm? (Laughter) Prof Swaran: I'm not from Punjab; I'm from Kashmir, so it's ok. Sadhguru: Oh, okay. (Laughs) Prof Swaran: So, you're in  safe hands. (Laughter) Prof Bamrah: I'm the one  from Patiala here (Laughs). Sadhguru: Yeah, yeah, he is from Patiala. (Sadhguru laughs) Prof Swaran: Sadhguru, I... I know, you've,  you've spoken about science and spirituality. And in... in, we are in a very fortunate time when we can study the living brain. You know, we can see neuroscience has shown us through imaging the profound impact that spiritual practice like meditation has on the brain structure and  function. In hard sciences like physics, in quantum physics, we're understanding the observer phenomenon. You know, the, ultimately, you can... Some people argue that you can reduce the universe to consciousness; consciousness is the ultimate essence of the universe. The yogic concept of Brahman being the Tatwam _____ (Unclear). So, sciences and spirituality are coming close together at one level, but at another level, people see them as polar, as separate. You're  either a hardcore empirical scientist or you're a spiritualist. Where I see it or where we see it at the conflict is with people who suffer from serious mental illnesses. Now, I've heard you  describe mental illness as a... as a product of not being able to be the observer  detached from... from mental phenomena. That is... that is true, but once  somebody is seriously mentally ill, they need biomedical care including medication. What we find all around the world is people with serious mental illnesses, sometimes seeking only spiritual care, and then ending up not treated for their serious mental disorders. And we know that in serious mental disorders like schizophrenia, the earlier you treat someone, better are the chances of subsequent recovery. So, with your broad understanding of both science and spirituality, I presume you see that they are just two different ways of looking at the same thing, what could leaders like you do to help people with serious mental illnesses  seek the treatment that they so badly need, so that they don't... it doesn't become it's either spirituality or biomedical care? Sadhguru: See, the problem with people is  whatever they touch, they get stuck to that. What I mean by that is, whatever they get involved  with, they got... they get identified with it. You become a (Laughs) scientific researcher or  you become a spiritualist or something else. What is needed is an open-ended approach to life. Right now, you need some support in the form of maybe conducive atmosphere or maybe chemical support from outside. Whatever else you may need – therapies and stuff. If you don't do that, it is just like... a child is anyway going to become a man or a woman, but will it just happen if you just throw him on the street? You have to put him through his paces for him to become a reasonable man or a woman, isn't it? You have to take those steps. So, as a child is born, anyway, it's... it's  like anything else, you just throw it there in the ... See, if you take a seed and throw it in the soil, if the soil is good, it will just grow, largely. You don't have to tell a mango tree that "Don't forget it; you're a mango tree; don't end up with apples; you have to produce only mangoes." No teaching needed because they have all come as composite life. All other creatures have come as composite life within the two lines that nature has drawn for them. So, there is not much risk of them going off. A tiger is born, you don't have to teach him how to be a tiger. If he just gets to eat well, he will become a tiger. He has no such  conf... confusions, "Will I be a good tiger or not? Will I end up as a house cat? Will I grow up as a tiger?" no such insecurities. But a human being has come unformed, and this being unformed is not a curse. It is the most fantastic thing that you can determine  the nature of your growth and your form. What form you want to take is determined by you,  but most people are allowing this form to happen by society around you and influences  around you to tinker you into some form. Instead of human consciousness determining  the shape of the society in which we live, the society in which we live is right now determining the shape of the human consciousness which is the fundamental flaw in the way we are conducting ourselves. Having said that, when it comes to an ailment, an ailment first needs compassion; mental ailment, especially, it needs compassion. Because as I think the doctor mentioned that you can't take a blood test and say, "Okay, you're  mentally ill." Maybe, there's some things, which are visible these days. But largely, it is not like you can take your blood test and say your liver is not functioning properly. You cannot say that. So, there is no proof. In America, there is a way of expressing this – "Are you just crazy or are you crazy, crazy?" you know. (Laughs) Just crazy means you're crazy in a nice way; you're crazy about something. It is nice experience; you're just crazy. If you're crazy, crazy means you need treatment. So, the thing is, what is sanity, what is insanity is such a thin line. A whole lot of times, people around you, people who work with you, people who live with you, many times you think they're crazy, isn't it?  But they're just crazy, they're not crazy, crazy. So, why I'm trying to make this distinction in a crude way is because it's that crude in the world outside. When somebody behaves little out of control, we do not know whether they're doing it out of their irresponsibility or  something else is for... compelling them to do it that way, you know. You don't know! One moment, it looks like they're really ill. If you reached out with compassion, They suddenly take advantage of that and start doing other things to you; then, you push them back. This is a struggle; I'm sure you've seen this with your patients all the time. You cannot really make out absolutely when are they really sick, when are they making it up, when are they playing it to their advantage, you know. You cannot make a distinction. With physiological ailments you can clearly say this is it, this is what is happening.  Even if the person pretends to be in pain, doctor will say, "No, he doesn't have enough pain,  his threshold may be low, he's just acting up," whatever, because it's all indicative largely. But mental suffering is not like that. We do not know exactly what's happening because it's a complex mechanism like that. There is no one single or absolute parameter to say, "Yes, this is happening. Yes, this is not happening." It is... I'm sorry to say this, in whatever kind of psychiatry we are in, there is a little bit of evidence, there's a  little bit of guesswork, there's a little bit of arriving at certain conclusions – all these things are involved. Otherwise, you cannot handle human mind because there are no absolute lines –  this is it; this is it, there is no such thing. Having said that, if somebody needs societal support, can we create it? That is a question mark, always. Sometimes we can create it; sometimes we cannot. A whole lot of them would come out with proper love nurture around them, a whole lot of them. But that nurture is not practical most of the time  because when a person behaves irresponsibly or rather unreasonably, how many people around  them are sane enough to provide a very loving nurture – they will also go crazy. If this person  behaves in unreasonable ways, they will also start responding in unreasonable ways because they are not very far away from this person. They also with small provocations are  capable of going into the same states. So, where do you find that ideal society,  which will nurture them like that – very, very hard. We have tried a lot with a whole lot of them in our yoga center, but even in the yoga center, though everybody is committed to making this happen, when somebody becomes beyond certain reason, you know, their behavior becomes beyond reasonable situations; they start creating scenes and throwing things around; then everybody starts reacting, "Sadhguru, do we need to take care of this person – not possible for us." It comes up at some point, because everybody gets tired of it somewhere. So, then medication becomes absolutely necessary when they are... we are not able to do it by talking to them, by creating a nurturing atmosphere, you're not able to do it. Obviously, it's medication, not meditation. I'm talking about medication,  your... your arena. It... it has to be (Laughs) by medication because without chemical influence  there, you're not able to correct their... whatever is happening within them. Not that  everything gets fixed, but at least it gets controlled. When it gets controlled, reasonably controlled, then we can teach them methods. But, the biggest problem that I've seen with  people with psychological imbalances is, getting them to commit to do it; they will develop such a resistance for something that's good for them. To make them take the medicine is a huge challenge. I don't know, if you face these things. Because, you know, if you're just  reading people by prescription, at homes, there is a huge challenge to make that person pop the pill.  They're in such bad condition. They're suffering so much. They're making everybody suffer around them, but getting them to take the medicine is such a big challenge, every day circus you have to do around them to get that done. Because there is a natural instinct of self-destruction in them. They're moving towards that so rapidly; you have to mask the medicine and give it. But  today there are so many human rights stuff, you cannot give medicine forcefully to somebody  even if they are dying, you know. There are all these issues are there in the society.  But, I have seen so many people, the moment they get to a certain level of psychological imbalance, there is a kind of a superiority kind of thing within themselves that they think they're better than everybody; they think the whole world is crazy. They don't want to take the medicine. They openly say, "You take medicine. You are the one who needs it." Well, it's tough. There  is… Because there is no absolute measures that, this is this, this is that; there is no absolute measure. So, where does something come in? Where does spirituality come in? It depends how you describe or define spirituality. Spiritual process is not one aspect of life. Spiritual  process incap... includes psychiatry, includes psychological therapy, spiritual process includes chemistry also, but we are looking at chemistry as managing from within. In India spiritual process and Ayurveda always connected; they never separated the two. Because if you look back at the Ayurvedic doctors of the past, not today, they are coming from the four years or five years of college, but otherwise if you look back at the Ayurvedic and Siddha Vaidya people, they were all considered as Siddhas – they're sages. They are both spiritual and they're doing medical part of it on one side. So, we never separated human well-being  that it can be treated in a compartment. We always saw it has to be treated on all levels. If you do not address it on all levels, there will be no results. It is this addressing my way or your way has come up because what we are involved with unfortunately, we are getting identified with it, which is a wrong way to approach. Prof Swaran: So, may I just ask a follow up question there? Sadhguru: Mhmm. Prof Swaran: So, Sadhguru, what in your view is the fundamental cause of mental disorders? Sadhguru: Ah, if you're asking for one cause? Prof Swaran: One. Could be many? Sadhguru: There are too many. If you want me to list it a little bit, I can't list all of them. See, one thing is the way we eat; it's a very big part of mental illness. The way we are ingesting chemicals and  hormones today unconsciously at various levels, is a serious part of mental illnesses of this generation. How we ingest, how we take food in, this may sound a little far-fetched for UK, but please listen to me carefully. We... we look at life there like this. You are who you are as a person; you are who you are because of the parentage that you had, the schools that you went to, the education that you had, now the exposure that you have in your life. That's why you’ve become this kind of a person, isn't it? It's all, many, many things receiving. So, all the time you're receiving. What you're receiving is not just information and thought. Life receives in so many levels; on the energetic, level it receives. So, in India, we see that anywhere if you want to receive something, first thing is you cross your legs, all right. Right now, I'm sitting that way; it may not be visible to you. But first thing is cross your legs because we don't want to receive from the lower part of our body; we want to receive... anything positive means we want to receive from the upper part of our body. So, if you go to some place where we think it's energetically strong, first thing is we cross our legs and keep our hands open. Because we want to receive from the dimensions which represent... You know,  in the yogic physiology, it's like this. There are one-hundred-and-twelve chakras, one-hundred-and-fourteen, but actually one-hundred-and-twelve within the sys...  human system. Out of these one-hundred-and-twelve, there are seven categories of them, sixteen in each one of them. These seven are generally known in the world today as chakras. So, the first three are survival processes. And the in between one is representing a meeting of this. It is from here on (Gestures), from Anahata onwards, which is enlightening processes of life. That dimension of life may not open up for most human beings. But, at the same time, though there is no specific practice or intention within them, just by education, just by focus, just by attitude, you might have become, you know... Every human  being is evolving themselves at their own pace. The question is, they're consciously evolving at a rapid pace or are they going slowly. But nobody can say that, "I've been the same since I was ten years of age." We are all evolving in some way. In our understanding, in our experience, in our perception, in our wisdom, every one of us are evolving. But spirituality what it means is, because we understand we are mortal in nature and our time is very limited, we want to evolve as fast as we can. Everywhere in the world, in every language,  (Laughs) this... many sayings are there like this, to suggest that wisdom comes only in old age.  Isn't that a terrible waste of wisdom and life? Wisdom should happen at the earliest part of your life. That is when you can really enjoy your life. That is when you can create a wonderful life.  Wisdom happened just three days before you died, what is the point of this wisdom? Maybe, it's still useful; I'm not saying it's not useful, but it would be far more useful; it came when  you are twenty years of age; you became wise. Oh, you would build a fantastic life, isn't it? So, in that sense, it is important you receive certain things in certain ways. Food is considered very basic level of reception. How we receive food; what we receive is very important. Today, what are we receiving? Right now, as you see societies get more and more  affluent, they start eating worse and worse food. What a rural person in India would not touch, very sophisticated cities are eating that kind of food. When I say that kind of food, almost anything that western societies are using today are a minimum thirty to sixty days old. In yoga, their food is classified as Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. Tamas means inertia. If you eat anything which has Tamas, inertia will come in your system. Inertia does not mean you just become lazy. Inertia means certain things slow down; certain things means essentially regeneration of the system slows down. Today, you know that rural... neural... neuronal  regeneration is one of the most important aspect of keeping your brain reasonably functionable…  functional throughout your life. The practices, you know, where the simple practices that we are teaching as a part of Inner Engineering program, now studies have been done by various universities  in US, now they've set up the Beth Israel Medical Center with the Harvard in the... Harvard Medical School has sent up... set up a center called Sadhguru Center for Conscious Planet. The idea is consciousness, cognition and compassion. Because cognition is not the same  from person to person. Why is it so? There are various aspects to it. Now, that I'm talking about food, if you are consuming foods which are Tamasic or causes inertia in the general function of your system in the energetic process of who you are, then you will see cognition levels slowly will go down over a period of time. And to instigate that to... Because everybody understands this, this is why they're drinking cups and cups of Coca Cola or coffee or alcohol or something else, because they know they need to balance that. So, this kind of balance is a very rudimentary way of balancing your system, that you're putting wrong things and then you're trying to correct it with right things. The highest number of antacids in the world, nearly sixty percent of the world's antacids, are sold... sold in America, the most affluent population on the planet; this means they have a whole choice of nourishment, they can eat the best food. But no, they will eat the worst food. Because commercial forces will decide what you eat. You cannot eat consciously anymore what you want to eat. Just I'm saying, if everything becomes fresh food... In the yogic culture, if you cook something, the maximum time in which you can eat it is one-and-a-half hours; ninety minutes before that you should have eaten the food. After that, we won't touch the food because it is started  gathering Tamas; inertia will begin to happen. If you want to experiment, you can experiment;  use something... eat something very fresh for one week, eat something which is processed and kept for one month, two months and then eat it. You will see the level of alertness in the system; you will notice it in your experience. But it is happening at the cellular level; it is happening in terms of... We call this Ojas; there is no English word for that.  If you create sufficient Ojas, which is a non-physical dimension of energy.  If every cell in your body is wrapped in this, believe me your aging processes is almost... will not progress. Your cellular age will almost remain  stagnant for a long period of time. Some of the tests they have done on me and,  you know, (Laughs)  they are saying that I'm... my cellular age is twenty-five. Well, I still am like twenty-five. I'm maintaining the same level of activity; I'm maintaining the same weight, same everything. This is not some miracle; every human being is capable of this with some simple attention to fundamental things. Going further in terms of food, there is something called as Virudha Ahara. That means if you eat one thing and put another thing which works opposite to that, then in your system there is a war. You know digestive process is largely between acids and alkalines and all this stuff. So, if you put things like this, mixed up together...  Right now, ah... because the ... because the British have taken a lot to the Indian food; I see Indian curry and Indian restaurants doing very well out there. For example, you eat meat which is fatty; if you eat it by itself, it may not cause that much damage. But you ate that with rice and ghee, you called that biryani and you ate it; now the damage is big because these two things will not go together. The mo... This is why any... any non-vegetarian food and milk and milk-related food were never mixed because the moment you mix it, it will go opposite to each other and you create a battle within yourself. Battle means just this, if you eat food... In the yogic culture, food should not... should not remain in your stomach bag for more than two-and-a-half hours. Within two-and-a-half hours, it should have moved out; you must be feeling empty stomach. Hunger will not come; empty stomach will come, and that is good. We want our stomach to be always empty because in an empty stomach everything works well. And the colon health is something that's completely neglected today. If you do not keep your colon clean, keeping your mind in a balanced state is very, very difficult. So, in Ayurveda and Siddha, first thing if you say anything – you are having sleepless nights;  you are having disturbed something; mild any kind of psychological problems – first thing is, purging. Purge the system, clean the colon, suddenly you feel a little balanced. It is not a whole solution, but it will bring the basic nece... necessary atmosphere in the body to make the corrections. either with medicine or with necessary practices you can bring about correction. So how we eat, how our... our mothers ate when she had the responsibility of nurturing another life, how she ate, how she did things, all these things have significance. We are not taking care of food; we are not taking care of our practices, how we breathe, how we drink, how we do things. No. When we eat, always we want our legs to be folded because we don't want to receive from lower level of body. This may...  People may think oh, this is superstitious. Well, what do you think is superstition,  believe me in another... Now, that we have this research center going, we'll focus on these things. You will see in another ten years; you will find medical evidence for this. You  will find because we know this is how it works. This... this nobody can dispute because we know from experience this is how it works. But evidence you can find... See, somebody commits a crime; it takes ten years to prove. Does it mean to say murder happened after ten years? No!  Murder happened; there's no doubt about that, but evidence building may take time. Right now, medical sciences are going in that way that they want to build evidence for everything that we know by experience. It is good, it gets... it gets... it gets a undisputable kind of legacy later on. That's a good thing to do; this research must happen; I'm not against that. But the important thing is to observe life the way it happens within myself because this is the closest life that you have. In your life, this is the closest life. If you do not know what's happening here (Referring to oneself), how do you notice what's happening with somebody else? Just by external observation, by gathering, you know, gathering data about various things and coming to conclusions; that may work sometimes, but a whole lot of time it does not  work because that's not how a human being is made. You cannot add up lungs, liver, kidney, spleen and make a human being. You cannot add up all these things and make a person either. Well, you can get one rough picture, with that you can do treatments and works. But there is no question; there is relevance to every dimension of life. How would we apply this to a person who is suffering right now? That needs a compassionate approach, not a standard approach. “My way or your way,” it's a very silly way to go at it – this is the only way it can be done. Because that's not how human beings are.  Something very simple I'm telling you, children especially with a lot of mental ailments.  I look at them and say, "They don't need any yoga, nothing. He... he's not going to do yoga, nothing.  Put him into swimming classes, put him into tennis classes. Send him trekking in the mountains."  Within six months, they're doing fine, you know. All they needed was that activity and exposure  to nature and something to focus on intensely, something to get involved, spend the...  expend their energy in a certain way. This all they needed, but instead of that, if we put them on medication at that time, that may become a lifelong problem. So, taking a judicious action, there is no perfect action. Nobody has perfect action anywhere. A judicious action of what could be maximum right rather than wrong, more right than wrong, is all you can do. I don't think anybody has an absolute right  about mental conditions that people are in. Prof Swaran: Sadhguru, thank you very much. Prof Bamrah: Thank you very much Sadhguru. And I'm sorry to use that word again, but thought-provoking discussion, food for thought and thought for food as well. And really quite interesting and of course mental disturbance is a serious mental disorder which is of course very... Sadhguru: There are various kinds of disorders which are celebrated. Because you asked the question about spirituality, there are various kinds of disorders which are hold as sacrosanct and celebrated in the world. This happened in a mental asylum in United States. A bishop came there and he was giving a lecture. A room full of, you know, inmates of the asylum,  not a single one was paying attention. They were all busy with their own things – picking nose, picking ears, picking whatever they wanted to. Only one guy in the front row was without blinking an eyelid, he was just watching and listening intensely. Towards the end of the talk, that guy who was watching the bishop closely and listening to every word, he called the doctor who was in attendance, and whispered something to him. Then the session got over; they all left. Then, the bishop had a hard time speaking for one hour to a group of people who… not one is paying attention except one person. Then he was interested in, and he asked the doctor, "What!  That guy was the only one who was listening to me. What did he say?" So, the doctor said,  "He asked, 'How come he is out and I am in?'" (Laughs) Prof Bamrah: Profound. (Laughs) Of course,  Sadhguru, of course, what you said earlier is very important, that one approach isn't what helps; it's a combination of approaches. And... and people who have serious mental disorders,  of course, that commonality of approach in various ways, you know, medication, meditation, and proper societal support, and themselves taking ownership of what they eat, what they drink, and the drugs that they take, all of that is very important. So really profound. We... Sadhguru: Above all, as a generation of doctors, all of you, I know, it's not just in the hands of you four people or a hundred people that are there, but as a generation of people, we should strive to create a culture of health which includes physiological and psychological health. That is not going to happen overnight; we have to strive for that. The way we eat, the way we sit, the way we stand, the way we breathe, all these things need to be looked at. This is  what the yogic system is about, that if you take care of all these things, definitely you will be healthy, both physiologically and psychologically. But that is not just... cannot be done just as... Individual level, it can be done easily, but cannot be done to the entire society or to the world just like that. It may take a couple of generations to bring that. That is why I see this pandemic as a possibility. At least with this little bit of outside threat, people may turn inward and look, "What am I doing with myself?" Prof Bamrah: Thank you. That's such a... such  a profound thing to say, so thank you very much. And obviously, as captain of your ship, I took the privilege of inviting my wife, Jasminder again. Because we... I thought that it's important  that she comes in, she's able to say... Sadhguru: A captain who is so distracted can crash the ship. I'm glad you did not. (Laughter) Namaskaram Maa, namaskaram to you, both of you. Prof Bamrah: We were... we were in the safe hands of all of you, Sadhguru, and I'm ... I’m very grateful to you for taking time out. Of course, on a Sunday, I'm very grateful also to my colleagues, Adrian, Ananta and Swaran who... who've engaged in this discussion. I hope we can discuss this again. I think there's lots of scope to take this further. And, you know... Sadhguru: I know there is a... there is a rampant pandemic situation in UK; all of you stay safe and healthy. And a lot of people's lives depend on you, so please stay well yourselves. Thank you very much. Dr Ananta: [in Telugu ___ ] Dr James: Thank you, Sadhguru namaskaram. Prof Bamrah: Thank very much. Thank you.

Channel: Sadhguru

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Length: 93min 58sec (5638 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 03 2021