(soft piano music) - You can look at everything joyfully or you can look at everything
with great sense of misery. Your joy and misery comes from within you. Ru means darkness, Ru means dispeller. One who dispels your darkness is a guru. You seek a guru because
you want your seeking to be more effective, not
because you're seeking an answer. Stress, tension, anxiety,
depression, madness, all kinds of things. What it means is your intelligence
has turned against you, that's all. Why your intelligence
has turned against you? There's no stable enough base. So the entire yogic system is about this, that you create a stable base so that your intelligence works for you. The word yoga means union. What you think as myself is
just a psychological boundary that we have set up. If you experience everything
around you as myself, this is yoga. When somebody experiences
the whole universe as a part of himself,
then we say he's a yogi. (light piano music) The significance of
being human is just this, for all other creatures how
they evolve is fixed by nature, your evolution is in your hands. If you strive, you can evolve
whichever way you want. (dramatic piano music) (upbeat electronic music) - [Brian] The world is changing. Inspiration is everywhere. It has never been so
easy to connect, share and bring people together. We're learning from others and finding the best in ourselves. Challenging our beliefs,
sharing our vulnerability, overcoming our fears. Transforming ourselves so
we can transform the world. How far can we go. This is London Real, I am Brian Rose, my guest today is... (upbeat electronic music) When I first heard the name Sadhguru, to be honest, I was a bit sceptical because every week on
the internet these days, it seems that a new guru
is popping up trying to tell me what to do with my life, but as Sadhguru told me later, guru is a four-letter
word and not something that he really subscribes to. He's really here to call
us on a lot of our bs and push us to change the ideas
that we have about ourselves and about consciousness and he's got a great book
called Inner Engineering which is complete with
stories of his life growing up as a kid who hated school, who rode his motorcycle all over India until they had a moment
where he came to terms with what he was all about and now he's here to spread the word and he believes we only have
about 10 or 15 years left to save the environment and it's gonna happen through
changing global consciousness which is exactly what we're
trying to do here at London Real through conversations at that scale and so I know you're gonna
enjoy my time with Sadhguru. Listen closely to what he
said, he's got funny jokes, but if you practically take his advice, I really believe we can save this world, we can save each other and
make a massive differece. So I leave you with Mr. Sadhguru. This is London Real, I am Brian Rose, my guest today is
Sadhguru the Indian yogi, mystic, visionary and philanthropist. You've been a keynote
speaker at the United Nations and the World Economic Forum and have been named as one of India's 50
most influential people. Your book, Inner Engineering,
a New York Times best seller details your transformational system for achieving inner fulfilment and your Isha Foundation with more than nine million
volunteers worldwide is dedicated to addressing all
aspects of human well-being, Sadhguru, welcome to London Real. Pleasure to have you here. Before we get started, you know, we're sitting in a kind of an
English countryside manner. I was wondering what is
your relationship like with London and with England and when you were a young boy
growing up in Mysore, India, what did you ever dream
that London would be? - Well, we had to inevitably read a lot of English literature. You can imagine I read Thomas Hardy. So I had a pretty good
picture of London (chuckles), I mean English countryside. - He used just to describe
it for pages and pages, right and you loved that. - Sentences ran for two
pages at a time (laughs). - He had a photographic mind. - Very, you almost had
a picture in your mind when you read Hardy (laughs). - And you used to do the same when you used to travel
through the the countryside. - Yes, maybe I was drawn
to Hardy because of that because I, even today
I don't think in words, I don't have languages in my mind. I think in pictures or videos, so my memory is also like that. I just crisscross to India
not trying to go anywhere, simply recording the terrain of the land. I still remember every
small outcrop, a rock, a twisted tree here and there, this is what lives in my mind. So I found the terrain,
the geometry of the terrain as the most engaging thing for me always. So in that sense, I think
some of the English writers became attractive to me
because in their minds, it look like they also saw it that way but they were trying to
paint a colourful picture maybe for the readers, but they had, even in that reading I only
saw the geometry of the land. - And when you finally did come to London, do you remember your first
thoughts, what it was like? - See for me, one place is not
so different from the other except for the culture and the
people and stuff like that. Wherever I am, I enjoy
whatever kind of place it is because I, see people are
thinking they can enjoy something, no, if you are joyful, everything
is a pleasant experience, so is London for me. - You've been a busy
man the last few years and you've been travelling, speaking in front of
universities, doing interviews because I think you feel that we don't have that much time left, maybe 10, 15, 20 years. Can you talk about what you mean by that? - Say as a generation of people, our survival is better
organised than ever before. We have ability to
communicate like never before. We have comforts and conveniences that nobody had ever
imagined, this generation but also certain things happening. One thing is, there are more people on the planet today thinking
for themselves than ever before otherwise a religious book
was thinking for them, a priest or a Pundit or
Mullah was thinking for them or there was one wise man
who was thinking for them. Now, for the first time, a huge massive number of people
are thinking for themselves. Well, you can debate always whether they're thinking
right or wrong all that thing, but at least they're thinking. When I say thinking, what
happens to thought process is, say if two people get into an argument, both the people think the
other person is illogical. That means in their mind there
is a certain logical pattern. However logical somebody may seem to you, in his mind, he has his
own logical pattern. Once this pattern sets up that
there needs to be some logic for you to come to a
conclusion about anything then many fanciful
things that you believe, like your journey to
heaven and what is up there and all these things,
they start collapsing. If you look at this generation, let's say two generations
ago, how many people in UK thought they will go to heaven and today how many people
think they're going to heaven and they're preparing for it
has come down dramatically. 80% heavens have collapsed
in people's minds. Still they don't dare to say that because there is still fear, but in their minds, the aspiration of going to
heaven is largely collapsed. So when heavens collapse,
what will human beings do. They will try to find it here,
which is a very good thing but if you don't show them
any way to find a heaven within themselves, that
is when at least 80 to 85% of the population today is then on alcohol or some kind of drug
happening simply because they are trying to build
their own little heaven because the other heaven that was promised for a long time has
collapsed in their minds. We have come to a place where, to grow our food we need chemicals. To be healthful, we need chemicals. Today 70% of the population is on prescription medication of some sort. To be peaceful, we need chemicals. To be joyful, we need chemicals. To be ecstatic of course you have ecstasy. So we are going towards
chemicals in a huge way. The water that you drink
is full of chemicals, the air that you breathe is like that and the food that you eat is like that. So if 90% of humanity goes into chemical consumption
consciously or unconsciously, if they consume a lot of
it, the next generation that we produce will be of a
lesser quality than who we are. That's a crime against humanity. - Has that happened before in history? - No, generally always the
next generation is better than the previous generation but today we are coming to a place where we could be
producing a next generation which is less than us. Once that happens, we have
done something very negative against the fundamental life process. So this heavens collapsing
and there it is, it's like a trapeze,
you're leaving one trapeze, you need something else. If you don't find it, you
will hang on to anything. So right now chemical is the net. Is not another trapeze, it's
a net that you can fall into and people experience
their own little heaven. Well, it ruins you in so many ways. See anything, this is
not a moral issue for me. What I am saying is the
important thing about life whether it's a grasshopper
out there or you, both of us are striving to
be the fullest possible life that we can be. A grasshopper is trying to be
a full-fledged grasshopper, a human being is trying to be
a full-fledged human being. So suppose you cut off
one of grasshoppers legs which is supposed to hop, the hopping leg if you take it off, have you enhanced its
life asking you know? - No.
- No. So similarly for a human being if you take away any of
his faculties in any way, even temporarily, have
you enhanced his life? - No. - So intoxication is just that. It is taking away your
faculties for a period of time but if you continuously do it, it will take it away for your life. So you're taking away or
subjugating your faculties for a little bit of pleasure
or maybe a lot of pleasure, however you wish to describe it but the important thing is
you're taking a backward step with life because life can
only be enhanced by sharpening and increasing our faculties, not by decreasing our faculties. Our ability to be active
physically, mentally, emotionally spiritually, if
this is in any way crippled, this means we are taking a backward step though there may be
pleasure attached to it. So I'm teaching them a way. If you sit here with your
eyes closed every day, I'm very proud of this now, there are millions of people,
in the morning if they sit with the eyes closed for a few minutes, tears of ecstasy will flow. Millions of people across the world. - [Brian] That you've thought. - Yes, this is what needs
to happen because you need to understand the
greatest chemical factory, the most sophisticated
chemical factory is right here. The question is only, are you
a great CEO or a lousy CEO? If you are a great manager, you will produce what you want from this. If you're a lousy manager,
you do wrong things. You get anxiety, you get something else, you get rubbish going on within you because you are misusing
your chemical factory or you don't know how to
manage your chemical factory. Just look at my eyes, I'm always stoned. Never touch the substance,
but always stoned. - Is this because we have the
technology for the chemicals or are people taking
the chemicals a reaction to this anxiety we feel? - No, no, see people, every human being wants his life enhanced. If you don't show them
proper ways to enhance, they will find shortcuts. See a man who goes to the bar
and a man who goes to a church or a temple or whatever,
they're seeking the same thing. They're trying to enhance
that life, isn't it? If you do not show them a proper way, they will take whatever ways are available on the street, that's all. That's why I'm saying it's
not a moral issue for me. It is just that it sets you backward. You want to go forward
but it sets you backward. - Besides the chemicals,
what else bothers you about the world? Are you worried about climate change or are you worried about
AI, mobile devices. - Why would I worried about
artificial intelligence? - I don't know. - (laughs) If they were
going to do all my work, I will be glad (laughs). - What about global warming, what about some of these other issues of-- - The environment is a
huge issue right now, there's no question. Am I worried about it, no, I have a plan and I'm working to the plan. If everybody works to one plan, because the plan is not made by me or you, our plan is along with the
natural contours of life. If all of us have the same
plan, we can turn this around. But if you don't do that
in the next 15 years time. If you start now and next 15
years actively across the world if we do certain simple things to correct, in either 25 to 40 years, there'll be a significant turn around but if you leave this for
another 25 to 30 years, you go on business as usual
and then try to turn it around, it will take 100 to 150
years to turn it around because that is the kind
of threshold we are on. If we cross that, then turning it around becomes a much bigger challenge than the way it is right now. This is a good time to turn it around. - Are we gonna make it, are
we gonna turn it around? - You're asking for a prediction. I'm telling you I have a plan, are you committed to the
plan, that's a question, isn't it (laughs). Prediction means what, that
means we don't have a plan. - And how do we get people to do this? Is it about education, is
about people spending time without the chemicals,
spending time with themselves, is this why you wrote the
book Inner Engineering. - See all those things have to be done, but they are not the solution. They are incremental changes. The important thing that needs to happen in the world is policy
changes need to happen in the government level on a global scale. This is what we have achieved in India for the rivers of India, I
did this rally for rivers which got a phenomenal
support from the people. 162 million people participated, it's been the largest moment ever. 162 million people in one month's time. So we made a recommendation
how rivers should be handled in India so this has become
official recommendation from the federal government
now to all the states. So once the policy change happens, budgets will come and everything, the government machinery will start moving in that direction. Well, we've been doing lot of work. We have changed a few things. Many other organisations are doing this, but this is not real solution. Solution will happen only
when the fundamental policy in every nation changes towards a more eco-friendly
way of doing things. One big mistake that's
happened in the world is all these environmentalists
are always fighting somebody. This fighting people, nobody
wants to be a part of it because they are fighting
against the economy. If ecology and economy fights,
economy will win hands down. So one fundamental change
that I brought about in Indian mindset is I
said I'm going to marry. I'm going to officiate the
marriage of ecology and economy. If our economy is not conducted in a college ecologically sensitive way, if you say ecology or economy, well only economy will
happen ecology will go, totally get destroyed. We will only turn around when some great disaster happens to us. You don't have to wait till then. So it's important that I
involved the corporate sector in India and made them understand, we are not looking for how
to destroy your industry, we are only giving you suggestions how to transform your industry
so that you could be serving in a larger way than the way
you're serving right now. So this is important for
this policy change is needed, hand-holding is needed and
turning around is needed rather than going against somebody. - You used to be a businessman. Does that help you talk their language? - That's a long time ago. - (laughs) Your father wasn't too happy about the chicken farming but you did have a background though, does that help you
sometimes navigate things? - What (mumbles). - To give you an extra edge
or understanding business as opposed to never having experience? - See this question comes
from the presumption that everything has to
come from your experience. That means you're going to be very small. In this world how many things
can you personally experience? Very small, even if its
wide-ranging experience, still it's very small. So essentially this whole
attitude and questioning and this kind of thing
has happened to the world in a big way because our
education is confusing people to make them believe that
memory is intelligence. Memory is not intelligence,
memory is useful as data but intelligence is a different dimension. We have gobbled this up that
we have made children believe from a very early age, if you remember something you're smart. No, no, a tape recorder
can remember everything, this camera can remember everything. This doesn't mean it's intelligent. So one major aspect of my
work is to separate this tool. Within your experience, your memory and your intelligence
are two different things. If you have an intelligence,
which unsullied by memory, you will see everything just the way it is but if you look at everything
through the filters of your memory, everything is prejudiced. - We see a lot of fighting
happening these days. Us versus them, democrats
versus republicans. I think the New York Times
did a survey the other day and they found out that
someone would rather be against someone than for someone
even if they supported it. As in, we're kind of, we're
looking for the enemy. - No, see this is a
culture that's evolved, many places this is happening. Because elections are coming, I'm tweeting to encouraging people to vote-- - In India or in America? - In India, I'm saying in India. So as a process of that I say, democracy is about all
of us getting together and creating a wonderful nation. This is not about pointing
fingers at each other. Oh, there's a whole
barrage of comments saying, what does he know about democracy. Democracy is about
criticising the government. Democracy is about pointing fingers. Democracy is about
pointing out the mistakes. So some very left-leaning media came to me and asked me this question. I said do one thing, you're married right? You go home today from morning to evening, you'll be all right. In the evening, just for two hours, criticise your wife for
all the small, small things about which is not okay. If you pay enough attention,
she is not okay on many things as every human being is. You criticise her, 22
hours you appreciate her, you enjoy her but two hours
you criticise her every day. Believe me in 30 days your
marriage will be over. Is that so or no, said yes, then why do you think you have
to do this to the government? Once people elect, next
five years you support them in every possible way, you bolster them. They're doing something wrong of course but from day they get elected
if you start criticising what are they supposed to do, at least wait for them
to make some mistakes. So about being republican, democrat, this American culture is
unfortunately spreading to other countries also. See, just tell me, when I
first came to United States it's always amazed me. How are you republican
or democrat by birth? This is feudalism, this is not democracy. Democracy means whatever
happened in the last four years, you look at it, what they
have done is good for you, good for the nation in
which you live or not and then make up your mind who should rule for the next four years or five years or whatever the term is. Now no by birth you have decided because my father was a democrat, my grandfather was a republican, accordingly I have
decided this is feudalism, where is democracy? This is like another religion. You've destroyed democracy. Democracy has something
called a secret ballot. That means who you vote, even your family need not
know whom you voted, all right but now you already declared from birth, I am going to only for this
party no matter what they do. This is just a feudalism. I think the you know, the 18, 1900s, the feuds of middle America have gotten to the whole of America now. America needs to rethink
if they want democracy, I'm suggesting this in India, none of the political
parties will like it. I said one thing is political parties should not have membership. They can have office
bearers, whatever number of people they want as
people who work for them but there should be no national membership where millions of people
are enrolled as members because then it's already decided who they're going to vote for. It's important at every election, every citizen thinks
whether this is good for me and my nation or not and according to their own intelligence they will think and they will vote otherwise there's no democratic process. So I'm pitching for this that political parties
must surrender their, this thing, this should go that there should be no membership because you just formed a new religion. - Why do you have so much
pride and passion in India. I mean you flew back for one day to vote, you're constantly giving back, doing things for this country. - I'm doing everywhere in
the world, not just to India. - Okay, but you do a lot
with India too, notably. - Because a large part of
the work is still in India. Above all, for me a nation
is not a geographical or political entity, for me
nation is the largest segment of humanity you can address. So India as a nation
is 1.3 billion people. If you make some changes then you are addressing a massive amount of humanity right there. So I am looking at every nation as just a segment of humanity. Not as a political, a
geographical borders, that's not important for me, but we have still not found a way where the entire world
can embrace each other and become one global entity
that's not it a reality. It's still far away. - That's not Twitter. That's not twitter and
social media, not yet. - That is okay but in
terms of administration, in terms of goals. See even now European Union, you're having a Brexit, all right, people find their own reasons as to why they cannot be together. So world is still not in that place where they can embrace
each other and live as one. So right now, how do you address, how do you address the
well-being of human beings. Nation is the largest
piece that you can address. - You get to speak to a lot
of young people in their 20s, you become very popular. You're kind of the uncle they never had, the grandpa they never had. What do you see in our young people today? What do you see them struggling with and do you see hope, do you see confusion? - See the problem with every generation is the previous generation thinks the next generation is
all confused (laughs). It's not true, it is just that the older generation
is not able to come to terms with the new possibilities that the next generation is exhibiting but one concern is physically, mentally, the next generation, the generation that's coming up now seems to be much weaker than
the previous generations especially physical strength I'm saying because I'm not talking about
you being your muscle man or something but this is
weakening of the species, which is dangerous for a period of time. Maybe after some time only
two thumbs will be living because the only thing
they do is text (laughs) there will be just having big thumbs but not nothing else growing in them. so I feel the youth of
today should get little more in terms of physical activity. a little more into nature,
maybe climb a mountain, maybe swim in the lake. Everything has become super safe, especially in the United States, you can only swim in the pool, nobody can jump into your pond and swim, you'll get arrested by the local cop. The sheriff will come and pick
you up if you swim (laughs). When did this happen? How will a young person
gain strength, courage, learn to handle many things if you don't do something
a little unpredictable. Everything is a set track, it's not good. I'll just tell you an example. This is when I came first
to the United States, we're doing programme after programme. I do one programme, finish
this and overnight we drive and next day morning I am
doing another programme, so I'm driving across United States. So around 2 a.m. we are starved,
we've not eaten anything, we've been driving so no place
then I see one Burger King then we walk into this place and then we ask what they have. All their burgers have
meat and whatever else. I said, no then I said, you do one thing, you just give me the
buns, you keep the meat. He said what am I
supposed to do with that? I said, it doesn't matter
you can give it to somebody or you can eat it yourself. Well you anyway eat it, you eat it, I'm not going to eat it. So why should I take it and throw it? He was so confused I
couldn't believe this. He was so confused, he's
refusing to give me the buns. I said I'm gonna pay for the whole thing, whatever the burger cost
I'm paying for this, just give me the buns you keep the meat. He was confused for a few minutes. What am I supposed to do
with this piece of meat. I say, you eat it, give it to somebody. Somebody will appreciate
it if you could double meat and give it to them. Said no and he picked it up
and threw it into the trash can and gave me two buns. It's so single-track mind,
why should you do that? In India means if I told somebody, I don't want what is in between, he would just take it and
eat it and give me the buns. - Do you think people
these days are missing that relationship with their own body? - I would say-- - Because that was a big part
of your evolution, wasn't it? - This whole thing about how
our education systems are set are making it all logically
correct and in terms of life, it's all wrong. - The movements, the physical movement? - No, the way you use your intelligence. - Okay, okay, can you speak
on the physical movement because when you were a young boy, you started a yoga practise and I'd love for you
to define what yoga is because there's the Western version and maybe your version. Maybe we start there, what is yoga? - Well today from where you come (laughs), Yoga means you must look like a leftover noodle
(laughs) twisted out. The word yoga means union. Union means whether you are aware of it or you're not aware of it, right now you are happening here as a part of everything else. What the trees exhale, you're inhaling. What you exhale the trees are inhaling. Not just on the level of respiration, on all levels this is happening. If you live for 75 years they are saying you could be eating somewhere
between 12 to 14 tonnes of food. That means right now you must be at least 600 to 700
tonnes of food, are you? - Apparently. - No, no I'm saying are
you carrying that much? - Not that much now. - So this is because even
what you call as your body is not the same body
every day, it is changing. The very content is changing every day. So what you think as myself is
just a psychological boundary that you have set up. So yoga means consciously
obliterating the boundaries of your individuality. So if you sit here, if you experience everything
around you as myself, this is yoga. If you experience all this as myself, do you need morality? Be good to people, don't
harm them, don't do this, don't do that, would it be necessary? - No. - Did anybody teach you
all to these five fingers? This is a small finger, don't cut it off. Is this a morality needed like that? Anything that you feel is a
part of yourself with that, you don't need any values, ethics, morals, nothing because it's a part of you. This is what yoga means, you experience everything
as a part of you. When somebody experiences
the whole universe as a part of himself
then we say he's a yogi but today in California
where you come from, if you wear a lulu pant
you are a yogi, lululemon. - So they've confused
the physical practise with the spiritual, transcendental idea. - See the physical is important because after all you're
cased in this physicality. You're not free from this. So one important aspect of why
there is a physical dimension to yoga is it is the science
of aligning your geometry, your individual geometry
with the cosmic geometry. When geometry is congruent
with something larger, it becomes like that,
it functions like that. It makes you experience yourself like that so in that sense you are trying
to reorganise your geometry so that it's congruent to
the larger or cosmic geometry but just doing yoga as an exercise, you can better swim or play
tennis or something, believe me because yoga is not an exercise like that, it's a very subtle practise. If you're doing it as an exercise, you may feel stretched
and flexible whatever, but that's not the purpose. The purpose is to realign your geometry. - And when you were young boy, you were jumping down a very deep well and you saw an older
man do the same thing. - [Sadhguru] Only 70 feet. - 70 feet, I'm still
trying to imagine that, jumping into a dark hole hoping
there's water on the bottom. - There is water, you can
see, not a hope (laughs). - Then you have to climb back up but you saw a 70 year old man do it and he ended up teaching you yoga and by using that physical practise you started to become aligned
and you didn't realise that was happening. - Many things happened to me
which you know when I was, as a child, as a young boy waking me up in the morning was a project. It would take two hours
for my sisters or my mother to drag me out of the bed. Make me sit up, I'll fall asleep. Make me stand up, I'll sit down
and fall asleep right there. My mother will put toothpaste in the brush and give it to me, I'll stick it in my mouth and fall asleep. They'll push me, they'll
splash cold water in my face and push me into the
bathroom to have a shower, I'll fall asleep right there. Once I started doing simple physical yoga, within a month or two, it doesn't matter where I am till today, morning 3:30 to 3:40, within those 10 minutes
I always come awake. It's my choice whether to
get up and do something or if I wish to rest some
more I could rest some more but it just comes awake
because it just got aligned. There is something happening
in nature between 3:30 to 3:40, it's called Brahma muhurta in yoga, it's a very significant part of the time. So when that happens, your
body just comes awake. It happens to everybody
but they don't notice it. So like this, many changes happened simply because simple yoga. So that's why I'm
constantly reminding people, it doesn't matter for what
reason you do the right things. Even for wrong reasons if
you do the right things, right things will happen to you. - In your book you talk about how everyone is out
there searching for happiness and joy and yet it's
inside them the whole time. Everything is inside them if they look. - See all human experience
comes from within isn't it? I don't know what kind of
geniuses start these things. I know in America there must
be a million books telling you how to you know milk
happiness from something else or somebody else but all human experience is generated from within. What comes from within you must be the way you want it, isn't it? Isn't that simple enough, I'm asking. - [Brian] Yes. - What comes from around you,
may not be the way you want it but what comes from within you
must be the way you want it. If whatever happens within
you the way you want it, will you be blissed-out or miserable? - [Brian] You should be happy. - Blissed-out (laughs).
- Blissed-out. Now it's simple, that
doesn't mean it's easy. - Well, it's not difficult either. See most people understand
complexity as intelligence. If they make themselves difficult, they are supposed to be intelligent. Making a simple thing
difficult is not intelligence, making a very complex thing simple is intelligence, isn't it? So wrong sense of intelligence, idea of intelligence has
entered people's minds. They think if they make a problem out of every solution, they're intelligent. No, no, if you find
solutions for every problem, that is intelligence,
that's my understanding. - And how do people start on this path because a lot of this
makes sense to people but in the world they live in, they don't know where to start. - Even yesterday I was at
this how-to academy talk. The last question was,
all this is fine Sadhguru, can you give us one mantra
that we can take home and that'll work for us. So I asked a simple question, see to learn abc, to learn to read and write a
simple language like English. I'm saying simple language,
just 26 alphabets. Tamil language 212
alphabets, very complex. To learn a simple language,
you take 12 years of schooling, to read, write, understand, that's all you're doing in the school. You may be reading a science book, but you don't know any damn science by reading a high school
textbook, all right. So for this you're taking 12 years. To transform your life you
want to do it in two minutes. So is that what your life is worth? So if your life is worthwhile, is it not important that you
invest a certain amount of time and energy rather than
looking for this stupid stuff of one mantra with which
I will transform my life. It will not happen like that. That's the reason why
most people have remained the way they have remained because they've not invested
in their well-being. - So it's a serious long-term investment. - It is not long-term, I would say, if I ask you is your
life worthwhile enough to invest 30 to 32 hours of focused time to bring some basic
transformation within you. If I teach you a way where you can manage your
chemistry the way you want, but we need 32 hours of focus time, do you think your life is valuable enough for that much investment, I'm asking. - Yes. - Then you must invest, that's what is called Inner
Engineering programme. It's 32 hours of focus time. We can format it in different ways, but that much investment has to go in. You want a two minute mantra? This is like this, it once happened Shankara Pillai
had a serious spinal issue so he went to the doctor,
doctor took an x-ray and told him see you need a surgery and it cost you 50,000 rupees. You can convert that
into pounds if you wish and you need six weeks of bed rest. Shankara Pillai said don't
you know I'm a busy man. I am a television anchor (laughs). I can't take six weeks
break nor do I have 50,000. I'll give you 100 rupees, what can you do? The doctor took the x-ray,
toyed with it for some time and said, well I can
fix the x-ray for you. - Tell me about your jokes, you have a lot of good jokes Sadhguru and you have some bad
jokes as well (laughs). - Because when they don't get a good joke, you have to tell a bad joke. - Sometimes you tell jokes
like my grandpa would tell like you just want to leave
the room, they're so bad but they always have a point,
have you always used humour because there's a lot of it in the book. - Well, I don't know what's a bad joke. For me it's not a joke,
just another device to make them see something because most people cannot
even laugh simply out of sheer joy, you have to tickle them. Even if you tickle them
in that they're judging what's a good joke and a bad joke and getting angry about some
job that they don't like because they think it
was attacked something that they believe in, that
they're identified with. It is just a device, it's
just a device to make a point because if the same thing is told to you in at most seriousness, you
will make a dog mount of it which is very dangerous. The idea is, see people
are always looking. In the end, all this is fine,
but what's the take away? They want a commandment, we are
talking about consciousness. Commandments won't fly. Commandments means you're
trying to fix your life. Consciousness means you
want to liberate your life. My intention is you
must liberate your life. People come and say Sadhguru, please teach us how to control my mind. I say you want your mind
controlled or liberated? Oh yes, yes liberated, but how to control because they think that
intelligence is a serious problem and it's been in their lives. So what is the solution, if you remove a part of
your brain you will be fine. You're essentially complaining, I wish I had the brain of an earthworm. This human brain I am not able to handle, yes that is a fact. See according to Charles Darwin,
he's an Englishman, okay, he's not me. Charles Darwin said that
you evolved out of a monkey. You are a monkey then you became a man. Some of the neural neuroscientists
today are studying, I mean genetic scientists are saying this that the difference, the DNA difference between a chimpanzee
and you is only 1.23%. So in that sense, physiologically
you're only 1.23% away from a chimpanzee, not a big
difference isn't it, a shade, it's just a shade of difference but in terms of
intelligence and awareness, you are worlds apart from a chimpanzee. So your problem is just this, you have an intelligence for which you don't have
a stable enough platform and that's why yoga, to
create a stable platform so that your intelligence works for you. Right now you may call it so many things, so many exotic names have come up. Stress, tension, anxiety,
depression, madness, all kinds of things. All this essentially what it means is your intelligence has
turned against you, that's all. You can give any number of reasons but essentially your intelligence
has turned against you. If your intelligence was working for you, would you create blissfulness or misery? - [Brian] Bliss.
- That's all. Why your intelligence
is turned against you? There's no stable enough base so the entire yogic system is about this that you create a stable base so that your intelligence works for you. If your intelligence turns against you, no power in the universe
is going to save you, you are a done thing. - You talk in your book
about thoughts, you know, we're obsessed with thoughts in this world and I'm thinking this
and I'm thinking that. In the book you talk about--
- (laughs) You must understand when I say I'm thinking
this, another word, another way of saying it
is I'm making up this, I'm making up that. You can make up whatever you
want as long as you enjoy it. - But that can be dangerous, always trying to think of the solution. Always trying to be your thoughts. - See if you become what you
make up, unfortunate isn't. Your thoughts belong to you
or you belong to the thoughts, you must make up your mind. - [Brian] They can be
dangerous those thoughts. - They're not dangerous,
they're fantastic. Only thing is fantastic things
mishandled can kill you. A car can kill you isn't. It's a wonderful thing an automobile. It made our lives. If you handle it
irresponsibly it kills you. Every possibility is like this. Every possibility, if
you do not harness it, it becomes a problem. So the same goes for
your cerebral capability. If you do not harness it,
it's a serious problem. It's taking away, 80% of the human beings
are simply suffering, they don't need any outside
help, they're on self-help. (light electronic music)
