Annette Dixon: Sadhguru, it's a pleasure to
have you here with us today at the World Bank, and I know there are many colleagues, who
have followed you closely. I have to say, this is a first for me interviewing
a mystic (Sadhguru laughs), and having a conversation with a mystic. So I’m here to learn and to
understand more about your philosophy, and how your work is helping to achieve a better world.
It's great to see so many colleagues here today. In the World Bank of course, our mission it
to help reduce or eliminate poverty in the world and to improve the living standards of the people of
the world. And we live in a planet, where there is too much to do, and I know your work
is also working to that goal as well. I want, today, to start with where we converge,
where we see the world in the same way, and as I’ve read and listened to you talking, and thanks to
the internet, I was able to watch you on YouTube. You tell us that humanity has the necessary
capability and resources to address every problem or almost every problem in the planet,
but the only missing element is our willingness. And I think that you work to kindle this willingness
within the millions of people, who follow you, and they work to extend their hearts, their heads
and their minds to the betterment of humanity. Here, at the World Bank – and I know there
are colleagues here from the IMF (Referring to the International Monetary Fund) as well
– we also work to this goal. And I think, by definition, because we work
on development, we are all optimists. So, I’d like to start by asking how we can
work to make the world a better place. You’re in a room full of economists, who
look at poverty through the lens of numbers, statistics. I always say, we can only make a decision
if we have a spreadsheet. But can you tell us how you define poverty and what
do you mean by raising human consciousness, and how this can contribute to ending world poverty? Sadhguru: Good morning to everyone (Laughs). Participants: Good morning. Sadhguru: I think and it's best that we… this much
abused word “consciousness”, we better define that in some sense (Laughs). See, when we look at our experience of life, when we
look at individual experience, everything that human beings experience here
is coming from what they see, what they hear, what they smell, taste and touch.
Or in other words through the five sense organs. Five sense organs, in the very nature of things,
can perceive only that which is physical. You can see only that which is physical.
That which is not physical, you cannot see. Similarly, to touch, smell, hear, everything has to be
physical. So what is the basis of physicality? Physicality means a defined boundary. If there is
no boundary, there is no possibility of physicality. We can call this a physical body, because
there’s a defined boundary. If there was no definition to this, this would
not be physical. So everything physical has to have a defined
boundary. Entire human experience, right now, is coming
from this defined boundary. Whatever structures you try to create, whatever good
intentions you have, once again it ends up as one… one more boundary, one more division,
one more segment in the world, one more caste or creed in its own way. Every one of these things which
have become terrible divisions in humanity, I believe they all started with good intention (Laughs). I don’t think they started with a negative
intention, but how many divisions have happened, how we have exploited each other.
Talking about poverty, do we have the resource? Well, people are… I mean if you look at the numbers, you
said without a spreadsheet you can't make decisions, if you look at the spreadsheet of the differentiation
between what is poor, what is rich in this world, it's obscene, to say the least. I’m saying, people are
saying the amount of money spent on pet food in Europe and America is enough to take care of basic
health care for the entire humanity. I mean, it's obscene, to say the least. So this
has happened not with bad intention. This has all happened with good intention, but because
human experience is limited to their physical nature they’re trying to think beyond that, but you cannot
think beyond your experience. You can think, and again, you’ll end up in another
cubicle, and another cubicle. So we’re talking about consciousness.
When we say consciousness, we’re talking about a dimension beyond physical nature.
When I say dimension beyond physical nature, what is physical to us, is all accumulated. This body is
an accumulation of the food that we’ve eaten. What we call as the mind, the content of the
mind is something that we accumulated by our impressions and experiences.
What you accumulate can only be limited. You cannot accumulate unlimited.
You cannot accumulate that which is boundless. So now we’re talking about solutions in
a boundless way. When we talk about solving problems seamlessly,
without thinking who is you and who is me, we need an inner experience which is
beyond our physical nature. Only then, we will identify beyond this, because human
mind functions from the identities we have taken. Once we identify ourselves as something,
knowingly, unknowingly we are always trying to protect that identity. So to
bring a human being to that dimension of experience that he or she can function beyond identifications,
is what needs to happen. So when we say well-being, from the imperial
times, you know, well-being meant taking whatever is there everywhere and bringing it to one place,
and creating well-beings in certain people. We kind of evolved out of that. Now we are saying
well-being means this continent or that continent. Some people… you are a World Bank, you are
thinking of the entire world but we’re still leaving out a whole lot of things which are
part of our well-being, the well-being of every creature on this planet,
the well-being of every tree and plant, the well-being of every microorganism is
connected with our well-being. This is not ecological awareness, this is consciousness. If your experience of life was beyond the limitations of
your physicality, you would just know this by experience. When you know this by experience, you don’t have
to generate intention, you will just do the right thing. We have to bring the world to that place,
that’s a long way, but at least we have to bring the leadership in the world to that place. When I say leadership, it is only a question
of maybe 5000 people on the planet. You know, when I was at the economic forum
they asked me, “Sadhguru, if there’s one think we can do for you which will change
the world, what is it?” I said, “I will name twenty-five people. You give them
to me for five days, you will see… in three years, you will see a significant change on the planet.”
They asked, “Who are these people?” I named the twenty- five heads of states of the major
nations on the planet. “Give them to me for five days. You will see everything will change” (Laughter), because
there is money, there is resource, there is technology. Only the intent is missing. But the intent is missing
not because of bad intentions, not because of some evil in their minds, intent is missing because there is
no larger experience within themselves. Annette Dixon: Thank you. I guess, the question I have is
that in…you know, you work and live in South Asia and I work in South Asia, and this is a region
where many groups are left behind. Sadhguru: Indians are feeling very insulted, you’re
not referring to it as south India (Laughter). Annette Dixon: Well, that’s another conversation
about (Sadhguru laughs)… about the continent, but my question is that, you know, we firmly
believe that you can't have development unless development actually reaches everybody,
that it is development for women and girls, it's development for people of tribes and ethnic
groups that are often left behind or marginalized. It's for people of all backgrounds, regardless
of their religion, their caste and their ethnicity and so on. So… And this is a constant challenge in development,
as how we actually ensure that development reaches all of these groups who have been
shut out of economic and social opportunity and who are unable to seize opportunity on the
same terms. What's your thinking on this challenge? Sadhguru: See, by law, everybody is equal,
at least in India (Few laugh). No, there are countries where by law you are
not equal, especially genders are not equal. In India, by law, you’re equal but by practice, it's still not.
These are a thousand year old problems. They don’t get solved overnight. A sustained push
has to happen. The problem is of many levels. One thing is the democratic process itself addresses
people as religious groups, caste groups, because that is the way to get a bunch of votes.
So every election, if you’ve forgotten your caste or religion, when the election comes, they’re going
to remind you who you are (Laughter). I’m saying that’s a reality in which you live. In case
you’ve forgot what is your caste and religion, when the election comes, they’re clearly
reminding you, because people have understood the technology of
manipulating democracy. The science of how to manipulate democracy,
people have understood this number game, how to add up the numbers. It is no more about a
big pitch for… to where to take the nation. Everybody has understood the science of winning
an election, which I think is very dangerous and which I think is one of the most divisive
forces that are happening in India, at least. Otherwise generally, on a day-to-day basis,
most people don’t know what is their caste. Only when they want to get married, they check
a little bit (Laughter). Otherwise generally they don’t know what is their caste.
It's not… you are not reminded of that on a daily basis, but when the election comes you won't be spared,
you will be reminded (Laughs). So, some fundamentals have to change. Though by
law it is all equal, in practice, there is a difficulty. Definitely we’ve moved a long way, we’ve come a
long way in the last twenty- five years. A big change has happened.
Those divisions are much less. There are more girls in school today than ever before.
Probably there are more girls in school than boys. In most of the villages, it is true. Where we are
running schools in southern India, generally sixty percent of the students are girls,
forty percent are boys, because boys like to do other things than studying. They don’t always come
to the school, but the girls come straight to the school (Laughs). So there is a certain… a natural studiousness
about them, or they’ve figured it out, unless they get educated, they’re just going to be
rubbished around, here and there. They clearly understand that. Boys still don’t get it
(Laughs), and probably for them, somehow they manage something around. So, how to level this, is once again, is a question of
the consciousness of the leadership. When I say leadership, it's not just a question of
Prime Minister, Chief Minister, like this. A leadership... the tiers of leadership which
are down, they’re not in the same mindset. The Prime Minister may be having a certain thought.
The next level of… The Chief Minister’s thought is totally different. Down
the line, to the bottom most leadership which is Panchayat (Referring to Hindi word – a system
of village administration) is another world by itself. So this disconnect is there. I think right now, a serious
effort is being made to get everybody on the same pitch with the Prime Minister’s vision for the country. A pitch is
being made, but being a democracy election always round the corner, everybody
misunderstands this as a political intent. You don’t know whether to make out of it as a genuine
intent or a political intent to win the next election. I feel in a country like India; this may create lots of
trouble for me, but (Laughs) let me say it, in a country like India, I think we must skip one election,
that is, not every five years every ten years. Give them ten years to create something, because
in a nation like India, with a kind of diversity and complexities we have, I think any political
leader, to have any fair shot at creating something, he needs at least eight to ten years run. But the fear is always, if somebody becomes corrupt,
somebody becomes a despot, then you end up for ten years. What to do with him? So these problems are there, but these are
intrinsic problems to a democratic society. But all said and done, in terms of eliminating
caste, creed, religious bias, gender bias, the movement is tremendous. What has happened in
the last five years itself is quite tremendous. On the ground, there’s a huge change.
But still, if you don’t change rapidly enough, one generation’s life may pass. That is the concern. Annette Dixon: And in your work, you work
with leaders, and you said if you… if you had the opportunity to take twenty-five leaders,
we would probably say a hundred and eighty seven leaders, I think we have something like that
in our membership, but it would be helpful to me and others, I think, to understand, when you work
with leaders in your work, what are you trying to do and how do you do it with… in your work with them? Sadhguru: See, generally, I find though
there is a lot of opinion all over the place , when you meet most of the leaders, they are
well-intentioned, but they are caught up in a mire of situations (Laughs). Democracy is an obligatory game. To climb up there, by the time you reach to
the top place, you’re obligated to so many people. When you sit there, if you don’t take care
of all these people, they all think you’ve betrayed them. If you take care of them, other people think
you’re corrupt. So this is a very funny game. That’s why I said if he has a long enough
term… he or she has a long enough term, maybe they could… maybe if they’re well
intentioned, they can go without these obligations. But my work with people has been… I’ve kept little focus
on politicians because their term is four to five years. You see in this country, I see election is on
for... it's a four year term. Two years election campaign is going on.
It's a four year term for the Presidency. Two years election campaign is going on. No. Some
time limit must be put, three months is enough. Let them prove themselves in three months.
Why does he take two years? Every day you watch the news, only election
is happening on the news channel. In India, I thought it's bad, it starts six
months ahead. I’m pitching not more than three months
there must be any kind of election work. Let them focus on administration. We elected them to administer, not to fight
one more election and one more election forever, okay? So I think somewhere, some limits have to
be put, because we have celebrated… I think moving from dictatorships and monarchies,
we’re kind of a little too thrilled with democracy. We need to understand, every system has its
flaws, and democracy has too many loopholes. Only thing is, at least the mistakes are a…
ours, you know (Laughs). It's not somebody else’s mistakes we suffer,
it's our mistakes we suffer. That is the only satisfaction we have. But yes, we’ve
decided this is the best way to run the world, that’s fine. But I think some limits have to be put.
You can't run a election for two years. Election campaign cannot go on for two years. There
must be a limit four months, three months is enough. This is costing enormously. This is costing
enormously for the lives of common people. And everybody… the entire country is in a election mood.
For two years nobody is focusing on what they’re required to do. So the leadership… as political
leadership, I’ve generally kept away for variety of reasons except those we find are visionary in nature. My work has been largely with business leaders
and bureaucratic leaders because these are people, who are there for a solid, minimum
twenty- five to thirty years. These are the people, who can make a difference. So about eight years ago, we made a list of
2000 people in India, who are business leaders and bureaucratic leaders, who will definitely
be there for another twenty-five years in the country, doing things that they’re doing. They
may not be in the news, they may not be up there. These are not photo-op leaders, these are
real leaders, who are doing work on the ground. So, we made a list of these people and said, if we
can bring about at least ten percent change of heart in them, they can change everything in the country.
So we aimed, in four years’ time, we will get these 2000 people but now it's
eight years or almost nine years now. We have touched about forty-six percent of this
leadership. They’re quietly making a change for sure. They are everywhere today, in the administration,
in the bureaucracy, in the business field, all of them making significant difference in the work
that they were... how they were working before and how they are working today, with what intention. My main work has been to shift people from
personal ambition to a larger vision. Personal ambition is a way of tweaking your desire,
you know (Laughs). People keep tweaking it every year, it gets little more and little more and little more.
And this is what is destroying the world. Why are you going in installments? Why don’t you
have a desire, you know (Laughs)? It's not by reducing desire the world will get better.
You just have to increase your desire. Why are you stingy with your desire, that
I have to live well, my family have to live well? Why don’t you make a real greedy desire,
I want everybody in the world to live the way I am? So I’m trying to increase their desire from being personal
ambition to a larger vision that we want to do this. So especially for business leaders - See,
whether you’re manufacturing a safety pin or a computer or a spacecraft, it doesn’t matter,
fundamental business is human well-being. Somewhere in these spreadsheets, I’m
sorry, I’m not referring to your spreadsheets (Laughter) this, you know, what do you call them, the
balance sheets of three months, balance sheets, this quarterly balance sheets have become paramount
goals. You’ve forgotten why we’re looking at numbers is just to give us a guidance, are we going
forward or backward. It is not an ultimate god-given thing to anybody. But now these quarterly balance sheets have
become the ultimate goals. So generally, my work is to move people from
this kind of short-term things to a larger vision that… be really greedy. If you manufacture safety pin, what should
be your thing? All the seven billion people must use my safety
pin, the best safety pin, okay (Laughs). Similarly with everything else. I’m saying, instead
of trying to curtail human aspirations, which is never going to work. It's never going to work.
You can try as hard as you want. You can teach whatever philosophies
you want to people. They will all nod today, be content with what you have, tomorrow
morning they are on with their own stuff. So it is better to make an all-inclusive aspiration,
rather than trying to curtail aspiration. Curtailing aspirations have never worked. And one of the biggest things that I’m pitching
with the political leaders in India, and elsewhere also is, we need to curtail human population. That’s our only
problem. Nobody wants to address this. We took charge of certain things. There used to
be epidemics, there used to be serious infects… diseases and there used to be a certain number of
children dying before they reach four years of age. All these things we took charge. Once we take life
into our hands, we must understand that birth is also our business.
Once you postpone death, you also must postpone birth, isn't it? The beginning
of twentieth century we were 1.6 billion people, today we are nearly 7.2 or 7.3 billion people. In India,
in 1947 when we got our independence, we were just 330 million people, today we are 1.2 billion
people. So, four times in sixty seven years, I think it's irresponsible reproduction (Laughter). Yes. People are taking pride “We’re the youngest
nation, we’re the youngest nation.” So I asked… A minister was talking about how we are the youngest
nation. I said, “What happened to the old people?” He said, “What! No, no, we are the youngest nation.”
I said, “Fine. What happened to the old people?” Nobody got old, that’s not a great thing to gloat about.
In 1947, the life expectancy of an average Indian was twenty-eight years. Today, it's sixty- four.
It’s a great thing. People are living longer, but that’s becoming our
curse because we postponed death. We must also postpone birth. We need to understand
this, otherwise whatever you do is not enough. Whatever you do is not enough. Just going on
doing more economic development, more economic development, is not a solution.
It's going to lead to a disaster. See, economic development is fine but there
is only that much world. People are talking about wealth generation.
There is no wealth generation. You can only take something that is here and put it there,
what is there you can put it here. It's the same planet. Today, the Living Earth Statistics tell us,
that if the entire world has to have what an average American citizen has,
if the seven billion people should have this kind of comforts and convenience and life
styles, we need four-and-a-half planets. But we have only half a planet left. In India,
for example, with… I’m addressing this and we’re starting
movements to save some rivers now. A big movement is happening and fortunately
the government is responding very positively. Year on year, an average of eight percent
drop is happening in the river waters in India. So this is approximately sixteen to eighteen years,
most rivers will be gone. They will be just seasonal. Right now the major rivers, people who
come from south India, they have been fighting with this river between two states like Kaveri,
touches the ocean only five months in a year. Seven months it doesn’t reach the ocean.
This is true with most of the major rivers. It is not reaching the ocean.
It's getting all used up right here. So you do more development, more dams, more
people, more food, but there is no more. There is only this much.
But we are nice, but we are too many. We don’t have to kill the people who are here, but we
can postpone the birth, which has to be done. And it's not a God-given duty for everybody
to reproduce. If human race is in danger, everybody must reproduce,
but right now there is no such danger (Laughter). Every other creature is in danger. We should tell
the tigers to reproduce, elephants to reproduce humans, slow down (Laughter/Applause). Annette Dixon: And there are many young people
watching this (Laughter) and I’m sure that’s a message that probably has more resonance
for them than for me but… (Laughter) But more seriously, we were talking earlier before
we came down here, about the search that many young people have for identity and meaning
in the world, and the choices that they make. What message do you have for young people
and the role that they can play in making the world a better place? Sadhguru: See, when you say youth, you’re
talking about humanity in the making. That means you’re not fully conceited yet (Laughs). That
means you’re not set, you’re still an open possibility. So that’s a tremendous phase of life. Youth means,
it comes with enormous energy. Those of you, who are young, you don’t understand
what I’m talking right now (Laughs), because youth means it comes with enormous energy. Slowly, it doesn’t matter how well you keep yourself,
I think I kept myself pretty well, but still you don’t have the same energy. Well, I’m
doing better than most youth but (Laughs), but still you don’t have the same energy
after some time. So this moment of enormous energy is the time
when we can make tremendous things happen. But unfortunately (Laughs), your intelligence may
get hijacked by the hormones, that you can't think straight (Laughs).
It just gets entangled into this and that. So this energy largely goes waste in anger,
in compulsions of various kind, this and that. If only youth invest a little bit in stabilizing themselves,
if you bring stability to your way of being, this energy can become a tremendous force. This
energy is a real solution to the world for everything. For every problem that you have, the energy
that the youth carries, if it had stability, it would become a solution for every problem
that we have on the planet, because that human energy is needed to make things happen. So as a part of this, we are going into schools this yoga
day, as I was telling you, 18,632 schools across India, we’re bringing a simple yogic practice, that we’re training
teachers so that they will sustain it for the children. To bring this balance, I’ll tell you how this balance is. When we opened our Isha Home School of… you know, a decade ago, one day I went in the morning to the
assembly, where all the tiny tots were sitting, all seven year olds are sitting. They are all like this, like
this (Gestures- makes restless movements) (Laughter). Then I said, why these kids have become like this?
They are like broken tops. So I just said, twelve minutes a day, we just
brought some simple sounds. Seven notes of the Indian classical music.
Every day twelve minutes they do. After two months I go, they are sitting like this (Gestures
– indicates sitting still). That’s all it takes, I’m saying. The simple methodology of what brings stability
into a human being unfortunately is missing in our education systems. Our education system as it is,
I mean, to the first question that you asked also Our education system is all about how
to exploit everything in the universe. Our idea of science is just this. How to use everything in
the world, including human beings (Laughs). Yes. How to use an invisible atom, how to use
an invisible microbe, how to get protein out of bacteria (Laughter)… why (Laughs)? I mean, we are looking at the world as a killing field.
We are looking at the world as a way to squeeze it. This is fundamentally because we’re in pursuit
of happiness. This is the biggest problem. If you pursue happiness, you will endlessly
run, without ever finding it, because it's not out there. Every human experience, joy or misery, both
are generated from within us. If you know how to manage this, (Referring to oneself)
if your mind and your body took instructions from you keeping this healthy and joyful would be a
natural consequence. Now your body is compulsive, your mind is in a
compulsive mode, and now you are in pursuit of happiness, this is a mad humanity, just ravaging
through the world. The more empowered humanity becomes, the more
damage they will cause. Let us admit this much, it's the educated on the planet,
who have caused the maximum damage to this planet. Isn't it so? The uneducated don’t cause so much
damage. So our education has not brought sense to us. Our education has not brought life sense to us,
it has only given us empowerment as to how to squeeze life out of every damn thing in the
universe. So our mode of education has to change. Fundamentally, how to live, how to manage
this one (Referring to oneself) is not there. We know how to manage the entire universe, but we
don’t know how to manage this (Referring to oneself). What is it that human beings are struggling with?
Their thought and their emotion, entire life. They spend an entire lifetime still not knowing how to
manage their own thought and their own emotion. Something as simple as, let's say anger… from the
caveman till now, you’re getting angry the same way, isn't it (Laughter)? There’s no hi-tech way
to get angry (Laughter). Maybe today if you get angry, you don’t pick up a stick,
you pick up a nuclear weapon (Laughter), but the same anger, nothing has changed. I’m saying
such a simple emotion, we can't handle it. Why? Because the education systems have not given
a moment to the quality of what this is (Referring to oneself). We’re trying to teach discipline,
we’re trying to teach morality. People know how to subvert those things.
Only if you create an inclusive experience, then there is no subversion of that, because
it is life enhancing in every way. Every moment, whatever every human being is trying is
just this in some way, to expand their experience of life. Somebody may think money will do it, somebody may
think wealth will do it, somebody may think knowledge will do it, or love will do it, basically what you’re thinking
is to be little larger than who you are right now. But if that happens, you want to be little
larger than that, if that happens, little larger than that. So you’re going in installments towards what? Fundamentally, you want to become boundless,
but you’re approaching boundlessness or infinite nature, in installments. Infinity in installments is a hopeless
case (Few laugh). It's a hopeless case. Even if you become the king or queen of this
planet, it's not going to stop. You’ll look at the stars. Already we are, isn't it? If you conquer five galaxies,
you think you will stop? Let's understand the fundamental nature of a human
being. We don’t know how to manage our minds, but we want to manage thousand people,
obviously you’ll go bonkers (Laughter). So fundamentally, if your mind took instructions
from you, would you keep yourself blissful or miserable? It's a question. Hello (Laughter)?
Participants: Blissful. Sadhguru: Blissful, isn't it? So, the fundamental
thing is just this nobody ever taught you from your kindergarten to your Ph.D. how to manage
this (Referring to oneself). So this is what needs to happen to humanity. They must know how to keep their body, how
to keep their mind, how to manage this. If you know how to keep this (Referring to oneself)
joyful…When you’re joyful… let me ask you this question, If I meet you when you’re very joyful, I’m sure you’re
a wonderful human being (Laughter). Yes or no? But if I happen to meet you when you’re angry,
when you’re frustrated, when you’re miserable about something, you’re depressed, you could be nasty.
Yes or no? Participants: Yes. Sadhguru: This is true with every human being.
So, we have not taken care of the most fundamental thing, how a human being should be within himself
or herself. We are leaving it to ethics, morality and fixing the world. You fix the
world as much as you want. If you fix it any more, there’ll be no planet left,
(Few laugh) we have fixed it that far already. But still we are in pursuit of happiness. From pursuit of
happiness to expression of joy, if you do not shift, there’s really no solution for anything.
Youth, this is the time to do it. The first thing before you step out into the world is, that
this (Referring to oneself) must be in a wonderful state. If this steps out in a wonderful state, it
will do only wonderful things. When you are feeling wonderful, are you not
wonderful to everything around you? That’s the only insurance you have (Laughs). Annette Dixon: I’m sure we have time for
a few questions. I think we have a question in the front row here. Questioner: I’m just wondering, if we gave
you the twenty-five leaders or the hundred and eighty seven leaders to lock up for five
days, when they came out of the room, what are the three things that we would notice
about them that would be different? Sadhguru: You would notice, they would be
much more joyful. You can always trust a joyful person, believe
me (Few laugh). Yes (Laughs), because when you’re joyful
you will not think of doing anything nasty. That’s true with all of you, isn't it?
That’s true with every human being. But when you’re feeling nasty, there’s
every possibility you will find good reason to do something nasty (Laughter). Yes. You’ll find a very
good reason to do something nasty. And to be balanced, to be joyful, if these two things
happen, the third thing will be a consequence, that you will use your body and your mind to the best. There is substantial medical and scientific evidence
to show that if you’re in a pleasant state of experience, then your intelligence and your physiology
functions at its best. There is lots of medical evidence today, to
show that for twenty-four hours, which has not happened to most human beings for
twenty-four hours if you spend without a moment of anxiety or agitation or irritation or stress
or anything, simply blissed out for twenty-four hours, if you stay like this, they say your intellectual
capacity would increase almost hundred percent, in twenty-four hours’ time! So we could do with little more sense on the planet,
for sure (Laughs), and we could do with little more joy. Questioner: I agree Annette, so…, Annette cannot deliver
the hundred and eighty-seven leaders, but (Unclear) you could deliver Jim Kem and his
management team. So (Laughter) that’s my proposal for you (Applause). Sadhguru: Okay (Laughs). Now she is setting the bar
(Applause). She is setting the bar to an impossible level. I’m saying, if these twenty-five people come,
others will simply follow (Laughs). Questioner: Thank you so much for coming. You
were saying, if you live your life based on what you accumulate in the past so you can't go beyond,
right. So my question is how can you go beyond? Sadhguru: See, let's understand what is beyond,
right now. Right now, your entire experience of life is being gathered through the five senses of seeing,
hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. Everything that you know, all judgments that
you make, is coming from the information that you’ve gathered through five senses. These five
senses gathered information in a very fragmented way. In the sense, if you see this part of my hand,
you cannot see this (Gestures) part of my hand. If I show you this, you can't see this (Gestures).
This is not just with my hand, even with a grain of sand it's true, if you perceive
one part you can't perceive the other. And you know everything only by comparison. When I say comparison, suppose you were a tall person,
that is, you were six feet tall. Now you stand like a tall person, you walk like a tall
person, you think like a tall person, you feel like a tall person, you are a tall person. You went
to another society where everybody is eight feet tall. Suddenly you stand like a short person, walk like a
short person, think like a short person, feel like a short person, and you are a short person. So what I’m saying is, what you perceive in comparison,
is not perception, it's a distortion of reality. It is good enough for survival in a particular
situation, but you don’t know anything about anything around you, because you perceived
everything only as it is relevant to your survival. To such an extent you do not even know what is
light and darkness. That’s insulting, isn't it? You’ve seen an owl? The bird, the owl? If you and
an owl sat together and started an argument as to which is light and which is darkness, where would
you it go (Laughter)? Endless argument. I’m asking who is right. You or the owl? Who is right? Participants: Both. Sadhguru: Both, ah! If you’re saying both, either you
are in the diplomatic core (Laughter), or (Laughs)… or you have a successful marriage (Laughter).
You’ve learned to say both, both to everything, otherwise you won't survive (Laughs).
I’m asking, which is the truth? Which is light, I’m asking. You don’t really know. That’s the fact of the matter. What
you see as light, somebody else is seeing as darkness. What is day for you is night for somebody else, isn't it?
And there are more night creatures on this planet. Just if you hold an election, and if you gave everybody a
franchise, the night creatures will win hands down, because their numbers are huge, all right (Laughs)? So what I’m saying is, your sense organs are good
enough instruments for survival, but once you come as a human being,
survival is not good enough, isn't it? Till it is taken care of, it's a big issue. Once it's taken
care of, doesn’t mean anything, because for every other creature, there’s only one
issue for them stomach full, life settled for them. But for a human being, stomach empty, only one
problem food. Stomach full, one hundred problems (Laughter). Yes. Who has more problems?
Poor or the rich? The rich have complex problems. Poor have only one problem, food. They truly believe
this one thing is taken care of, everything is settled. Only when it is settled, they know it is not so,
because the nature of the human being is like this. For every other creature, their life ends with fulfillment
of survival process. For a human being, life begins only after survival
process is taken care of. So, what is beyond, is in many different ways.
The simple thing is this, these five sense organs, because they are survival instruments, the moment
you were born, they came awake. You could see, you could hear, you could smell
and all this stuff. But anything beyond survival, unless you strive,
it’ll not come into your life. So this striving to know beyond sense perception
has not happened to a large segment of humanity, because that’s been taken out of our
education systems. There was a time when that was an important
part of growing up in the world, but today we’ve completely banished that, because
our entire education system is somehow machine you into a right shape and size so
that you fit into the economic engine. It's a very gross way of running the world. If you’re willing to commit thirty hours
of focused time, we will give you a vehicle through which you touch something which is
beyond sense perception. Questioner: Thank you so much for a truly inspiring talk.
I have two quick questions for you. The first one is, according to you what would
be the best school for learning to manage oneself, if you had three tips per day or per week? Sadhguru: You should not go to that school
which gives you those three tips (Laughter). Questioner: If one feels that there should
be harmony in the world, and a lack of inequality, how can we accept that we have strayed so
far away and where can we find some deeper answers to why we’re here and what we can
do to live with more harmony? Sadhguru: First let me give you a tip (Laughter).
The fundamental tip is this. You know when… Can I share something with you? When my girl was growing up, I made one rule
around me, nobody should teach her anything, because the biggest problem in the world is
this the moment you are born, every idiot wants to teach you something (Laughter).
Something that has not worked in their lives (Laughter). I said nobody teach her anything, just leave her alone. I just made sure she has enough exposure to nature and
life around, but human beings don’t teach her anything. Any of your tricks she doesn’t need. So she grew
up very joyfully. When she was around thirteen, she had some…whatever,
some little emotional stuff and she came to me. And she asked me, “You never told me anything,
you know. You’re always teaching the world. You never told me anything.” I said, “See, there’s only one
thing I want to tell you,” because I knew her (Laughs) current state at that time, and I told her
just this, “This one thing you fix it in your head. Never look up to anybody. Never look down on
anybody.This is all. No looking up to anything. No looking down on anything.
Just look at everything just the way it is.” That’s all it takes to make a beautiful life out of
this (Referring to oneself). The problem is you’re looking up to something.
This means authority has become the truth in your life. Truth will never be the authority in your life. If truth is not the authority in your life,
you will never know what this life is about. You may do patchy things here and there. The moment you look up to something, it is inevitable
that you will look down on something else. Yes or no? The moment you look up to something, can you
avoid looking down on something else? In one stroke, this will destroy both heaven
and hell for you, and you will live on this planet. And when you know you have to live on this
planet, you will sensibly (Laughs). Because you think you’re going somewhere else,
you’re doing all the rubbish here because you want to go to some other place
(Laughter). And about harmony. How many human beings or
how many of you can really put your heart on your hand and say that if you sit in one place,
you’re really harmonious within yourself? I want you to understand, the world that you
see is a manifestation of what's happening in individual human beings. Because it's magnified,
it looks ugly, but it's ugly on small scale too. So, you know, people come to me and tell me,
“Sadhguru, my husband, ah” (Laughter)! And, “My mother-in-law, she is beyond everything,”
“My boss…” like this, wife, husband, mother-in-law, this person, that person. So I tell them, “You come,
don’t worry, you come in the Yoga center. You stay. We will not let your husband, wife, mother-in-law
(Few laugh), father-in-law, nobody. Just you. I’ll give you a nice place to stay, good food to eat.
Don’t have to do anything. Just be joyful, that’s all. Any way we have prevented all of them from
coming. You be joyful (Laughter). Random checks I will make. When I check,
you must be joyful (Laughter). Otherwise I don’t believe in feeding misery, you
know (Laughter).” Oh, you leave them in one place for twenty-four hours, you must see in how
many ways they’ll twist themselves! When you are alone if you are miserable, obviously
you’re in bad company, isn't it (Laughter)? Hmm? If there is no harmony in this (Referring to oneself), how
do you expect to bring harmony in such a large world? If you can't bring harmony to this mind,
if you can't manage this, how do you manage the world efficiently and well? Till human beings… individual human beings
work upon themselves, there is really no solution. There is no such thing as global solution. It is individual emancipation which will lead
to the world’s emancipation. When you and me are doing great, the world
is doing great, isn't it? World is just a word, humanity is just a word,
you and me are a reality. Without addressing the reality, we are pumping
slogans which have no connection with reality. We want to fix the world. Where is the world?
It's you and me, right? If you and me are not… don’t fix ourselves,
then fixing the world is just a popular slogan. At one time, I went to all these World Peace
Conferences. I got invited here, there. I thought really something is going to happen.
Then I looked. In one of these peace committees (Laughs)
where about forty-three noble laureates were there, I just asked them because I looked at them,
when I looked at their faces, I knew these people have not known peace for
a moment in their life (Laughter). I just asked them, “Genuinely tell me, except when you’re
sleeping–” which some of them were doing (Laughter), “– except when you’re sleeping, have you known
genuinely, what is peace within you?” They were sincere enough. They said, “No, we
don’t know.” Then don’t talk about world peace. There is no such thing. If you and me are peaceful,
the world will become peaceful. If you and me are loving, the world will become loving. If you and me are blissful, the world will become
blissful. The only problem is human mind. But human mind is the most wonderful gift
that we have. I’m saying the best gift that you got, you made a curse
out of it, because you’ve been given a super computer, but you’ve not bothered to read the user’s manual.
This is your problem (Laughter). Yes. You’ve not read the user’s manual, how
to manage this (Referring to oneself). And then this intelligence, this is the greatest thing. This cerebral capability that the human beings have,
is the greatest thing that’s happened to us. It took millions of years of evolution to
get to this place, but now this is a curse. What are you suffering? You’re suffering your own
intelligence, please know this. Yes or no? If I take away half your brains, most of you would
be peaceful (Laughter). Yes. Harmonious (Laughs)! In harmony with everything. So I am saying the
best thing that you got, you made the worst out of it. Because no user’s manual. Because your education
systems, or family systems, or the national cultures have no sense about how to manage this
one (Referring to oneself). We are always thinking how to conquer the world. There are two ways you can take the world, you can
either conquer the world, or you can captivate the world. If you captivate the world, the world will come with you. If you conquer the world, you have to sit on top of it
and struggle for the rest of your life. Questioner: Thank you Sadhguru. Question. You talked
about working on yourself and meditation comes into it. Yet I’ve seen plenty of meditators that don’t seem to
act that well. So can you talk about that a bit? Sadhguru: (Laughs) I’m not in any way identified
with any political nation on the planet, but when I use the names of countries, don’t
think it's from some prejudice. When anything comes to America, it takes on a different
form. It just amuses me what forms it takes (Laughs). Because… The yoga, for example.
What forms it's taken is (Laughter)… Well, yesterday somebody sent me a Whatsapp
message about how they’re propagating beer yoga (Laughter). Okay. So yogis who have drinking problem,
and drinkers who have yogic problem (Laughter), they do beer yoga. Okay, like this there are many
(Laughs). So we need to understand this. This is not… When you say meditation, when you
say yoga, this is not an Indian thing or an Eastern thing, as it is being understood. This is paying attention
to the inner nature of who you are, all right? Fortunately, the fundamentals of being human,
is same fundamentals doesn’t matter which continent you have come from. Though for a long time people have been prejudiced
against… one against the other, but fundamentally, these creatures are made the same
way. This entire species is made the same way, okay? On the surface, maybe I’m made of chocolate and you
are white chocolate, whatever (Laughter), okay (Laughs), that’s different. So we need to understand this. For example, you used the word “meditation”. You must understand this, these words
are being thrown around. The word “meditation” in English doesn’t
really mean anything specific. It's too general. If somebody sits with their eyes closed,
you will say they’re meditating. You know, with your eyes closed, how many
things you can do (Laughter). Yes or no (Laughs)? So in the yogic parlance, you can do japa, tapa, dharana,
dhyana, samadhi, you can fantasize about something, or you can just master the art of sleeping in
vertical postures (Laughter), you know (Laughs). You don’t know what you’re doing. So
specific aspects are not there. General, because it's a fashion, it is not an endeavor,
it is more a fashion it's an in-thing. You will see people are walking with yoga mat in
New York City. You ask them, “What?” They say, “Today is my yoga day. Yesterday was
my cycling day. Tomorrow is my swimming day.” This is not like that. The word yoga means union. Union means, in some way, you learn to obliterate
the boundaries of your individuality, because your individual existence is a fake existence.
if you don’t understand what I’m saying, close your mouth, hold your nose
like this (Gestures) for two minutes. You will understand, without the larger atmosphere
supporting you, you can't exist for a moment. Yes? What you exhale, the trees are inhaling, what the
trees exhale, you are inhaling every moment of your life. But this is not there in your experience. Actually one
half of your breathing apparatus are hanging out there. If you experience this, do I have to tell you,
don’t cut the tree, do I have to tell you something else like this,
to plant the tree? It wouldn’t be necessary. If you really experience one half of my lungs is hanging
out there, you wouldn’t call a tree a wood, isn't it? If I call you “flesh” is it an insult or no? So calling a
living tree as wood! (Laughs) See this happened to me. You know, when I was in… doing literature,
this… we were always studying English poetry, and we were introduced to American poetry. So the first day this lady teacher comes and
she says, “I’m introducing Robert Frost to you and he is a great poet,” and this,
this, this. She says so many things and then she starts
off, “Woods are lovely dark and deep…” I said, “Stop!” I was only nineteen. I said, “Stop.” She said, “Why?” I said, “A man, who calls a tree a wood,
I’m not going to listen to that guy” (Few laugh). She said, “No, no, this is a great poet.”
I said, “I don’t care how great he is. A man, who calls tree a wood, I’m not going
to listen to that guy.” I didn’t let her teach (Laughs). Because this has gotten into our minds. We have
not experienced life. We’ve concluded about everything. We’ve made conclusions about everything.
We’ve not experienced it. If you sat here and experienced life, very
well you would know, what the trees exhale, you’re inhaling every moment. You can do
without any relationship in your life. This one relationship you can't break. Yes or no? Participants: Yes. Sadhguru: We have not brought human
beings to experience. Meditation means this, yoga means this, to
bring people to a living experience of life. It’s not just the trees and the atmosphere. As you sit here, every subatomic particle
is in communication with the rest of the universe, otherwise you can't exist here for a moment. This entire
fake idea of who you are has to go. That’s meditation. So any way, technically what is meditation? Meditation is a consequence, but because these
societies have become so goal-oriented, they want the mango, they don’t want the tree.
If you want flowers in your garden, you don’t have to do flower meditation.
You don’t even have to think flower. You have to think soil, manure, water, sunlight. None of them look like flowers, but if you
take care of that, flower is a consequence. So meditation is a consequence, but people
want the consequence, not the process. If you cultivate your body, your mind, your
emotion and your energies to a certain level of maturity, you will become meditative. That will be your quality, that will be the
fragrance that you’ll carry with you, but now you want the fragrance, you don’t want
the process, what will you do? You’ll buy some French perfume (Laughter/Applause). Annette Dixon: Thank you very, very much (Applause). The Bank will be very different for having
had this experience, so thank you for the time and thank you to the India _________
(Unclear) facilitators (Applause).
