05:03

Sadhguru

You don’t mind if I cross my legs? My brain doesn’t work if I don’t cross my legs.

05:40

Sadhguru

They did not define inclusive consciousness.

05:47

Sadhguru

With all due respect, they spoke about intent. Right intent. They thought they spoke about right kind of thoughts, emotions, attitudes, and to some extent actions. There is no consciousness in this. If we’re understanding that the way we think, feel, and act is of a consciousness—no. It is like we’re mistaking a plant, we’re mistaking the flower, for the soil. We’re mistaking expressions for the source. This is something that’s happening everywhere, not just here. People think by changing attitudes their consciousness will change. No. By changing attitudes, certain actions will change. Yes—positive, beneficial, but it is not truly transformative. Change will happen. Transformation will not happen. If I have to define a distinction between change and transformation: change means the residue of the past will still remain. A transformation means: nothing of the past will remain—which is what is needed today if you want to create a new world, if you want a new generation to have a fresh life. It’s been expressed in so many ways, being in this part of the world, what their family are worth, generally, someone said, “Leave the dead to the dead.” It’s very significant. This is not coming out of recklessness. This is not coming out of unconcern. But this is coming with the concern that you must be a fresh life. You can learn many things from the past about how to conduct yourself. But there is nothing to learn from the past about how to be. Because you are a complete life by yourself. You don’t have to learn how to be a life from the past. Maybe you have to learn how to be a good engineer. Maybe you have to learn how to be something else in the society from the past. But you don’t have to learn how to be a life from the past, because past has nothing to do with this. This is a fresh life, and this is a complete life.

Consciousness is that dimension which is the very source of who we are. Our intentions, our actions, our thoughts, and our attitudes are a consequence of that. Or, in other words: we are trying to fix the consequence without fixing the source. Now, all these distinctions of variety of things that they said—gender discriminations, racial discriminations; every kind, okay?—somebody is a Hindu, somebody is a Muslim, somebody is a Googler. It becomes a religion after some time, believe me! Second-generation, they will become a religion by themselves. Yes! I’m saying… you see a football match going on: it’s like a religion! Two different clubs! They’re willing to fight and kill each other. It’s just a game! So where does this come from?

See, the nature of being human is this (if you give me two minutes): see, there are four dimensions of our mind. In modern societies, the nature of our education has constipated our mind in such a way because we’re just largely using one dimension, which we call the intellect. The other dimensions of mind—I have to use Indian terminology—it means buddhi, ahaṃkāra, manas, and citta. What buddhi means is: the intellect. You do what you want. The nature of the intellect is to slice things open and see. If you leave the world in the hands of your intellect, your intellect will chop it into a million pieces, and will want to chop it into further micro-pieces, and want to chop it into further micro-micro-pieces depending upon how sharp your intellect is. The sharper your intellect, the more you dissect the world. You cannot stop it because that is the nature of the intellect. And it’s good. So you must apply intellect only to know the material aspects of life. You can’t know life this way. If I want to know you, can I dissect you?

11:10

Sadhguru

So… but if a doctor wants to know some aspect of you, materially, what’s wrong with you, he will take a biopsy and, in a way, he opens it up and looks at it. It’s okay on that level. But I can’t know you as a person by dissecting you. I can’t know you as a life by dissecting you. I can know a part of your body, maybe. Similarly, I can know parts of the world to make use of it, but I can’t know life as such. So intellect has been over-energized. In the last 100–150 years, this is a European impact on the rest of the world, where we think our thought is supreme. Someone went to the extent of saying, “I think, so I exist,” or whatever.

I want to ask all of you a simple question. Tell me: is it because we exist, we may think? Or is it because we think, we exist? Which way is it? Hello? Because we exist, we may think. Because people are in such a state of mental diarrhea all the time—nonstop it’s going on—they think it’s more of an existence than existence. But my head is all the time empty, unless I want to think about something. So I know thought is not necessary. I can just live here without a thought. When I want, I will think. Otherwise I’ll keep quiet. Just like my hand: if I want, I use it, otherwise I keep it here. Similarly, you must be able to do this with your mind. Just because you lost control over your mind, and you think it’s everything because it’s entering into every aspect of your life where it has no business.

Thought has been over-energized by people. And the very nature of the thought is such that, if you think, it must be logical. It cannot be any other way. Well, what somebody is thinking may look illogical to you, but they have found their own logic. The most extreme person that you have met, within himself or herself they have their own logic. Isn’t it so? They are not speaking illogically as far as they’re concerned. They have found their own kind of logic. Logic means it needs two. Logic means it needs division. Now, logically, you are trying to arrive at inclusive consciousness. It’s not going to happen, because you’re using a knife to stitch. This is not going to work. If you use a knife to cut, it’s efficient. You use a knife to stitch things together, you’ll only tear it up further.

So my thought and your thought, I’m telling you, whatever great meetings you have, conferences—I have been to every kind of peace conference on the planet. What happens there? It’s just short of war! After some time it heats up, but on the second day, anyway, it’s over. They all get drunk in the evening and they go home. If you make them stay there for a week, I’m telling you, right there, there’ll be a battle. Yes, it is true. I’m not saying this with any disdain. I made a sincere effort to participate in all these conferences at one time believing they are going to lead to peace. But eight years ago I decided I’ll never again go to these events, because people are professional conference attendees. They’re making a living out of it. It’s not about peace.

So the next dimension of intelligence is called ahaṃkāra. Ahaṃkāra means “identity.” This is important: that, in modern societies, we have not cultured our children to culture their identity. When I say identity, the fundamental identity for you is always your body. This racial thing that concerns him and concerns all of us—I’m darker than him, you know? I face it all the time—joyfully, but I face it everywhere I go. I have extra features which make me further discriminated. But our first identity is with the body. When we are identified with the body, the color of the skin also becomes part of it. Why do we identify with the body? Because our experience is limited to this. If you say “me,” you mean this, isn’t it? Because your experience of life is limited to this, naturally you’re identified with this, and this is you, and this is how you look. Somebody looks so different—whether in gender, or because of race, or because of maybe just fashion. Who knows what makes them different? But suddenly, this is me, that’s you. It’s established. But we sit here in this hall, whatever the color of our skin, whatever our religion, whatever our gender. We are inhaling and exhaling the same air. But we have no issue. The body has no problem. But the identity has a problem. You’re identified with something.

We have not cultured our children right from an early age that your identity should be universal. This is something in India. Traditionally, before you start education for a child, there’s something called vidyāraṃbhaṃ, where the first chant that they must do is that my identification is the entire cosmos. Without this, you should not give education to a child—that is the understanding. Because education is seen as an empowerment. You should not empower a person who has limited identifications. Because it doesn’t matter whether it’s of individual nature, or of family, or of community, or race, religion, nation. It doesn’t matter: once you have limited identity, you will cause disharmony. You will cause cruel things thinking you’re doing the right thing.

I know the debate always go to ISIS and things like this. I want you to understand this: these people, looking at their actions, you may be sitting here—I know I’m getting into a minefield—sitting here, all of us think these are horrible people. But you must understand this: they believe they are doing the greatest thing that a human being can do. They’re working for God. There can be no better employer. Not Google—God!

18:11

Sadhguru

That’s my problem! What I’m saying—you should have seen this. You know, I’m sure you guys can google anything. You must see: there is a press meet that the Afghan Taliban is conducting with the international media just before the United States invaded Afghanistan. All these young guys with long beards and big, big turbans, they’re all sitting like this. And they’re asking questions. Just then, they bombed that Buddha statue, and they made this thing that girls should not go to school, and many other things. So these kind of questions are coming. Whatever you ask them, they’ll say, “In our holy book, our prophet, our god, said this, this, this. We’re just doing that.” I was just watching these guys. I had tears in my eyes. These are wonderful guys. These are guys who are willing to die for what they believe in. But they’ve been screwed up by the scriptures. Yes! These are wonderful people who are willing to die for what they think is right, alright? A man who’s willing to die for what he thinks is right is a great man. But look at the consequence. Simply because of limited identity.

So there’s ahaṃkāra. This identity is what wills the intellect. If you hold the right identity from an early age, if it’s brought into us that your identity is with the entire cosmos—because nothing happens here without everything’s involvement in you. We are sitting on this round planet which is spinning and moving at a great speed in the middle of nowhere. You don’t know where it begins, where it ends, this thing. And look at us sitting here and talking. How many forces, how many forces in the existence are keeping you and me in place on this chair? So there is no way we can exist without the involvement of all this. But talking about this intellectually is not going to help, because if you try to understand intellectually, you’re using a knife: further you will divide. So there is another dimension of intelligence within you which can make you come to an experience of this.

The next dimension of intelligence is called manas. Manas means there’s a huge silo of memory. There are eight types of memory in this. I’ll just name them, I’ll not go into this. These eight types of memory are referred to as elemental memory, atomic memory, evolutionary memory, karmic memory, sensory memory—and in the karmic memory there are two types, one is called sanchitamprarab. There is a bank of memory which determines the very shape and size of your body. There’s another one which is right now in play. So two dimensions of karmic memory. Inarticulate memory: that there is memory, but you can never articulate, but it’s finding expression. When you see a chair, you know this is where you should sit, not there. You didn’t think about it, because there is a memory in you that this is where you must sit. When you see a glass, you know this is how you must hold. This is not simple. Without this knowledge you cannot do this. There is an enormous memory which allows you to do almost everything automatically because an inarticulate memory is constantly in action. And there is articulate memory, which is a very minuscule part of your memory.

The next dimension of intelligence is most important. This is called citta. This is an intelligence without an iota of memory in it; unsullied by memory. See, memory means a boundary. You guys are always dealing with information. Today you’re in technology; I think memory does not mean what’s here, memory means all over the place. Memory is a boundary. What I know is always a boundary. What I do not know is a limitless possibility, isn’t it. We have misunderstood the power of ignorance! Our knowledge is always bound within boundaries. Our ignorance is boundless. So always, in the yogic system, we are identified with our ignorance, never with our knowledge. This is something we must do in a technology company, because that’s where the possibility is. The new terrain is in your ignorance, not in your knowledge. So citta is unsullied by memory. It’s just pure intelligence. Right now, if you eat an apple it turns into a human being. You cannot do it with your brains. Even your brains were created by what you eat, isn’t it? There is an intelligence here which is capable of transforming anything to this, because it making use of the memory in the manas and making this happen. But the most important dimension of your intelligence is citta. In today’s education systems, in today’s social conditions, there is no effort to dip into deeper dimensions of our intelligence. We are just too enamored with our own intellect. I’m now using this knife to stitch everything.

23:55

Sadhguru

See, “identifying with the cosmos” is just another thought. As a thought, it doesn’t do much. It makes people a little airy-brained and they’ll start acting funny. You become new-agey, you know? “I love the cosmos!” It’s very easy to love the cosmos, because it’s not here with you. You’ve got to love somebody next to you, there’s lots of problems! So this wanting to set up boundaries, the instinct of wanting to set up boundaries, is so deep. You see a dog peeing all over the place not because he has some urinary problem. He’s building a kingdom, you know? It’s a pee kingdom, but it’s a kingdom, alright? He’s building a kingdom. Every human being is also doing the same thing because there are two dimensions of your intelligence. One is designed to create self-preservation. One aspect of your intelligence is designed for self-preservation, which is your intellect. The citta, that dimension of the intelligence is designed to make you expand.

Once you have come as a human being, this is your issue, fundamentally: whoever you are, whatever you are right now in your life, you want to be something more. If that something more happens, you want to be something more. If that something more happens, you want to be something more. I’m sure you guys want to set up Google Maps for Mars. Yes. If that happens, for the entire universe if it’s possible. Because this is the nature of being human. There is one dimension which always wants to expand. Another dimension which always wants to build walls. You build a wall, you feel safe. After two days, you feel you understand the walls of self-preservation are also the walls of self-imprisonment. You want to break it, you break it, and you put a new wall there, and you think this is great, this is freedom. After some time you feel that’s not it, and you want to expand it.

These two dimensions are not opposing each other. They’re not diametrically opposite to each other. They are complimentary. There is only one thing about you which needs preservation. That’s your physicality. This body must be preserved, because if you break it you can’t fix it. Everything else in you, right now—suppose I take out all your thoughts, all your emotions, all your ideas, all your philosophies, all your belief systems, and trash them right here; break them into pieces. You can come up with a fresh thought, fresh emotions, fresh belief systems, fresh philosophies just like that. So all those must be every day put into the—what do you call them?—the shredder. You must have a pulverizer, because shredder means they’ll go again, pick it up, and fix it. You must have a pulverizer for yourself before you go to bed. Today’s ideas, today’s thoughts, today’s belief systems, today’s experiences—you must leave the dead to the dead!

27:22

Sadhguru

See, the experience of life can cause two things. All this is nice when things, small things, happen. When really major things happen to you, the wounds are so big for people that they don’t heal in a lifetime, many of them. Okay? So the choice is just this: the experience of life, whatever happens to us, you can either make it into a wound or into wisdom. You can either become wise or you can become wounded. If you become wise you will become a solution. If you become wounded you will also become one more problem. This is a choice we have.

28:28

Sadhguru

See, it’s like this: right now, there is water in this glass. This is definitely not you, yes? But if you drink it, it becomes you. What is it that you did with this water that something that’s not you became you? When you say “inclusiveness,” this is all you’re talking about. Something that is not you, you want to make it a part of you in some way, isn’t it? So this is, right now, not you. But if you drink it, it becomes you. So what is it that happened, technically, for you is just this. Right now, I’m asking you: you take your right hand, all of you. Take your right hand and touch your left hand. Is that you? Hello? Touch the chair on which you’re sitting. Is that you? How do you know this? What is the basis of this? How do you know this is me, and this is not me? Hm? Here, there are sensations. Here, there are no sensations. Or, in other words, what you’re saying is: whatever is in the boundaries of my sensation is me, whatever is outside the boundaries of my sensation is not me, isn’t it? Right now, this is not me. If I drink it and include it into the boundaries of my sensation, this becomes me, isn’t it?

Now, the boundaries of your sensations are such that, if you make your life energies very exuberant, you will see they will expand. If it happened to you, suppose—it should have happened to many of you—there was a moment in your life when you felt so joyful, tears came to you. Has it happened to you? You were so joyful or loving, tears came to you. At such a moment, if you take your hand and just put it six to eight inches away from your body, right here, you will feel sensations. If such things did not happen to you, I can do something horrible to you so that you experience something. We can chop off your right leg. If you chop off your right leg, the leg is gone, but still the sensory leg may remain intact for a period of time. You heard of this phantom leg? Physical leg is gone, but the sensory leg is still there. This means: sensory body has a structure of its own. If your energies become very vibrant and exuberant within you, your sensory body expands. Suppose my sensory body became as big as this: now you become a part of me in my experience. If it became as big as this hall, all these people become part of me and my experience, because my sensory body has stretched.

We can do a small experiment. You okay to be a guinea? Hello? What we will do is: with your eyes closed—you have to do this, but right now observe me—what you do is, with your eyes closed, just rub this briskly like this for two minutes. Let me see one minute. And briskly.

[hand-rubbing exercise]

Okay, keep your eyes closed and just hold your palms three to four inches away from each other. With your eyes closed. Something happening between your hands? Hello? Okay, please, open your eyes. So just a little bit of rubbing. You didn’t do it for a minute, either. Just twenty seconds. You rub it, and suddenly something happening between these two hands. Simply because of vigorous moment, the sensory body has expanded. You can feel something happening right here. You know why people are rubbing each other all the time? It’s an effort! It’s an effort to include someone who is not a part of you as yourself. If this happens in a very basic, physical level, we call this sexuality. If it happens emotionally, we call this love. If it happens mentally, it gets labeled as greed, and ambition, and conquest. If it happens on the level of your sensory body, we call this yoga.

Now, yoga means union. Union does not mean you cause the union. Anyway, it is happening as one. You allowed yourself to experience it. That means the walls of self-preservation, you loosened up a little bit. That’s all. Why you want somebody close to you? Why you want a loved one in your life is: somewhere, you want to loosen the walls of self-preservation, where you don’t have to worry about protecting yourself. Suddenly you feel one with them. And once you feel one with them, in some way, you want to be in touch with them. Because you are trying to loosen up your sensory body in such a way that you can experience that which is not a part of you as a part of yourself. Now, this need not be limited to one person, or anything like that. This need not be biologically connected. If you can sit here with your life energies at its peak of exuberance, you will experience the whole universe as yourself. Then we say you’re a yogi.

34:50

Sadhguru

See, let’s describe what is being skeptic. Being a skeptic means you don’t believe anything unless it truly makes sense to you. Most people are just downright suspicious. But they think they’re skeptics. No, they don’t qualify as skeptics. They’re just suspicious about everything. This comes from a certain fear within you that everything around you can be wrong. Suspicion means you made a conclusion about something that you do not know. Believing something positively, or believing something negatively, is not different. They are the same things. You believe something that you do not know. Skeptic means: whatever I do not know, I do not know. I don’t assume things in my life. What I know, I know. I think everybody should come to this much sense and straightness in our life: that what I know, I know. What I do not know, I do not know. It’s perfectly fine. “I do not know:” it’s a tremendous possibility. Only if you see “I do not know,” the longing to know, seeking to know, and the possibility of knowing arises. So if you are a skeptic you are an ideal candidate. If you are a believer, we have to make you… you know, debrief you.

36:12

Sadhguru

Because you assume too many things that you do not know. You know the geography of heaven, though you can’t operate the local Google Map!

36:46

Sadhguru

Those of you who are interested. Because right now we must understand this: your intellect needs data to function—yes or no? Hello? Without data, your intellect is useless. It needs data. That’s why you guys are in the business. Everybody knows everything in the universe right now, not because they went there and saw it, [but] because they Googled it up. Because intellect feels stupid without data. Now, the nature of the intellect is like this only: that it feeds upon the data. Where does the data come to you? What you see, what you hear, what you smell, what you taste, what you touch. In the very nature of things, these five sense organs—which are the main agents of gathering information for you—are all outward bound. You can see what’s around you. You can’t roll your eyeballs inward and scan yourself. You can hear this. So much activity here, you cannot hear this. If an ant crawls upon your hand, you can feel it. So much blood flowing, you cannot feel it. Because in the very nature of things, your sense organs are outward bound. You cannot use these to turn inward. There’s another dimension of perception which needs to be activated.

Why is it not active in me? Because the sense organs are instruments of survival. They come on when you’re born. Whatever kind you are, anyway it comes on. It comes on for a dog, pig, cat, elephant, for everybody. Similarly, it comes on for us. Whatever is needed for survival for any biological creature, it turns on at the time of birth because it’s needed. Otherwise you won’t survive. But anything beyond survival process, without striving, it would not have entered your life, isn’t it? Anything that you know. From an alphabet to whatever else you know—I’m sorry, I’m not talking about your brand. I’m talking about the real alphabet. Anything that you know from reading to writing to using a computer or singing a song or whatever, you know these things with certain striving. I want you to remember when you were three, four years of age, that damn A! How complicated it was! As if it was not enough, there were two versions of it, which freaked the hell out of you. Today, you can write with your eyes closed. But still, there are others in the world who did not strive in that direction. Even today, you ask them to write, they will struggle. Yes or no? Without striving, anything beyond survival would not enter your life and will not enter your life. So turning inward is not a survival process.

So there are two fundamental dimensions within you: instinct of self-preservation, longing to expand limitlessly. Both are true for a human being. This is essentially a human problem on the planet. No other creature wants to expand limitlessly. They’re only thinking of survival. Their stomach full—life settled. For you, stomach empty: only one problem. Stomach full: one hundred problems! Yes? All your trouble begins after stomach gets full, isn’t it? Because this is longing to expand limitlessly. In the evolutionary process we can say this: for every other creature, nature has drawn two lines within which they live and die. They’re quite fine. But once you become human, there is only a bottom line. There is no top line. So what humanity is suffering and confused about is not their bondage. They’re suffering their freedom. What do you do with that?

40:41

Sadhguru

All these identities of religion, race, caste, creed, nationality is: they’re trying to set their own bondage. Because no bondage has been given to you by nature. You’re trying to set your own bondage so that you feel secure, somehow.

41:02

Sadhguru

Yes. All these identities—being identified with the color of your skin, with whatever nonsense you believe in, and nationality. Just a cloth; a flag. People will stand there and tears will come to them, isn’t it? Just look at that! It really amazes me. And on one level it’s beautiful, on another level it’s super ugly that you get identified with all these kind of things. People can get identified with a symbol, with a word, with just about anything, alright? So you’re trying to create some artificial boundary of your own. Once you create this boundary, and you have another boundary, I have my boundary, when they meet, we clash.

42:39

Sadhguru

See, when you say, “no politicians, thank god,” you’re just not attending to the source of problems. Politicians are not another breed of people. A democratic society means: tomorrow, you may become the president of this nation. That’s what it means, yes? If you’re willing to stick your neck out, you may become the president of this country or prime minister of another country. So the politician did not drop from the sky. He is not some other creature. He’s just like you and me. He stuck his neck out, which you and me are not willing to do. Let’s admit this. It’s not an easy thing. It’s easy to sit down and comment, but it’s not an easy thing to try to run a nation! It’s complex, believe me. So you must have politicians. But you must have an atmosphere where it’s not political in nature, where they will also let their hair down and talk like common citizens or human beings. But without them, what are you going to change? So peace conferences, if it’s just an entertainment, you can gather your friends and have a peace conference. But if you want peace on the planet, the most important politicians, the most powerful politicians in this world must be there. Only then there is a possibility of peace, isn’t it? Otherwise it’s just entertainment.

I’ll tell you: I was in a very important peace conference. There were 42 Nobel laureates, each one of them pulling out 10, 20, one of them 44, 45 pages of printed sheets, without even looking up at anybody—just went on reading their speeches from morning to evening. And slowly, the hall was becoming peaceful. In one afternoon, the second day afternoon, I’m sitting right here in the front row, and I look around: literally everybody has fallen asleep, except the security man who’s standing there, and me, the idiot—who is sitting up there and believing there’s going to be world peace because of this conference, and sitting up there, alert, listening to every word. Then I looked around. Everybody’s become very peaceful. They’d been having late night parties, and they’re all very peaceful. Then, when my turn to speak came, I said, “See, I’ve heard so much peace since yesterday. I want to ask you: can all of you or any of you put your hand on your heart and say you are genuinely peaceful in your life?” They were straight enough. They said, “No, we are not peaceful.” I said, If you cannot make your mind peaceful, how the hell are you going to make the world peaceful? What’s happening in the world is just a larger manifestation of the nonsense that’s happening in our heads, isn’t it? If you and me were truly peaceful human beings, do we have to worry about you and me fighting some day? Hello? Whatever the issue is, we’ll sit down and handle it, right? Because there is violence in us, now we have to have a boundary. Here, there is a barricade—just in case I get violent or you get violent.

42:39

Sadhguru

Anyway, whatever you tell your children, your children don’t listen to you. You better know this. If you have them on the way, I’m telling you, forewarning you. They don’t listen to a damn thing that you say. But they observe you. They pick up things from the way you are behaving. If you don’t show that in your life, your teachings will be hated after some time. Yes? Many—see, this is most unfortunate. I just see this happening to so many people. When they have a child, these parents, they did everything possible to the child. They thought this is their life. Not just changing diapers. So many things. Everything possible. They thought they were living for this person. As this person becomes bigger, and in their over-concern about how this child should be, trying to teach him the best things in the universe (which is not true in their lives), slowly you see by the time he becomes a teenager: he avoids them. If he wants to share something, if he wants to listen to some sense, he goes to his friends, never to his parents. Not everybody, I’m saying. But largely it is happening. Because they don’t make sense. They talk things that don’t make sense.

People keep asking me, “Sadhguru, how did you become like this? What is the sādhanā you did? You just played your life, and you’re like this.” This is all I did: I strive to remain uneducated. It’s not easy, believe me. From the day you’re born, just everybody around you is trying to teach you something that did not work in their life! You can clearly see it’s not worked in their life, because if it had worked they should have been joyful and ecstatic. It’s not worked. They’ve become long-faced. But they’re teaching you all kinds of best things; allow the universe. It’s not going to work. You don’t have to say a word.

I will tell you—Is this okay? I can share something?—I brought up my girl alone. At the age of seven she lost her mother. So one rule I put—she’s been traveling with me since she was 4.5 years of age. I’m sorry, since she was 4.5 months, not years. 4.5, I sent her to school. [As] a little infant she traveled with me. And I made one rule. Wherever I went, always stayed with many, many families all over the country, I always told everybody: “Never teach her anything. No A-B-C, no 1-2-3, no rhyme, no nonsense. I don’t want anybody to teach her anything.” People thought this is strange, what Sadhguru is doing. I said, “Just leave her.” By the time she was 18 months, she was speaking three languages fluently—because nobody messed with her. And she grew up joyfully, went to school, everything.

At the age of thirteen, something… she was disturbed at school and she came back home on one day. She said, “You are teaching everybody so many things. You’re not telling me anything!” I said, “Well, I don’t do anything unsolicited. I’ve been waiting. It’s alright. Now you come. There’s only one thing you need to know.” I said, “Never look up to anybody.” She looked at me, what-about-you kind of thing in her face. I said, “Not even me. Never look up to anybody. Never look down on anybody. That’s all you have to do with life. Never look up to anything or anybody, never look down on anything or anybody. Suddenly you will see life just the way it is. Right now, something is high, something is low. Something is god, something is devil. Something is virtue, something is sin. You’ve divided the universe in a million different ways, and then you’re trying to fix it. It’s not going to work. The instrument which broke the world into pieces is your intellect. With that you’re trying to fix everything. It’s not going to work.

Now, this racism thing: it’s disastrous that, in the twenty-first century, every day there’s a shooting. I think this has been happening all the time, only now, because of cellphones and Facebook, it’s out there and every knows. I think it’s been happening right through, alright? At one time it was happening legally, now it’s been happening illegally. Now, these kind of things are happening because we are using our intellect to fix the problem. You are using a knife to stitch. This is not going to work! You just live that way. Whichever way you live, your children will grasp it and they’ll make sense out of that in their own way. And maybe they’ll fall this way or that way, because you are not the only influence upon them. You better know that. You are going to be a mother? You must know this: you are not the only influence. There are all kinds of people—and there’s Google!

52:57

Sadhguru

See, this is the beauty of our existence. In this existence, in this cosmos, we are not even a speck of dust; that small we are. But still, creation has given us an individuality, an individual nature, that we can experience these things. But countless numbers of people who lived on this planet before you and me came, where are they? They’re all topsoil. They have become part of the Earth, isn’t it? So if you get it from me today, you can transform your life. That really, everything is a part of you and you are a part of everything—not as a thought, but experientially—if you can experience everything around you as you experience the five, ten fingers of your hands, then you will see: life becomes tremendously beautiful. Otherwise, anyway, one day you’ll get it from the maggots, but it’ll be a bit too late [of a] lesson. But everybody will get it one day, isn’t it? Hello? When people bury us, we’re going to get the point that we are part of the Earth. Right now, if we get it, we can live sensibly.

So, this must come from an experience. If you come from a thought, again, you’re thinking: how is inclusiveness and individuality existing at the same time? That is the beauty of this existence. It is the filth which has become the flower, isn’t it? Yes or no? Hm? It is the filth which has become the flower. In your mind, filth is different, flower is different. But in existence, filth and flower are [the] same. They’re not different! Just different ways of existing. For your nose, filth doesn’t feel good. But if you are a pig, you would like the filth. Nothing wrong with that, because it’s the same thing. Is it the same thing or not? Hello? It’s the same thing, isn’t it? It is just that, in our mind, with our intellect, we are breaking everything. This breaking is only a psychological reality. This is not existentially true.

See, we started a huge movement called Project Greenhands; I think something a little bit was there in this. This happened like this: when I saw that the entire southern India was turning into desert very rapidly—rivers were drying out, ground water went from like 100, 150 feet to almost 1,500 feet, and palm trees, the crowns were falling off—we thought we must do something. Then I did this to them. One day I went to a small village and called for people. About 5,000 people turned up. So I made them [???] around 11 o’clock in the morning. The weather is not like this in southern India. It’s hot summer sun. I made them sit there. Close by, there were about five rain trees. Three of them really large ones. You’ve seen rain trees? Some of them can be as large as an acre; it’s shade. So three of them are really large ones. Two of them were medium sized ones. Very attractive. I would love to be under those trees, but I made them sit here in [the] hot sun. And I went on talking, stretching the talk, telling them stories, telling them jokes. They were all very enthusiastic in the beginning. Slowly…. If you’re walking around, you won’t feel the sun. If you just sit under the sun, it just really gets you. About one and a quarter, one and a half hours, they were really going away. They were thinking, “What’s wrong with this Sadhguru? He’s just frying us in the sun!” Then I said, “Come,” and I took them under the tree. “Aaaah!” Everybody! Suddenly you know: what is a tree? Otherwise, you are thinking how to make furniture out of this. Now, suddenly, you know what’s a tree.

I made them sit down there and breathe. It’s a certain spiritual process, that I set up a process for them where I told them: “What you exhale, trees are inhaling. What they exhale, you are inhaling.” Once they experienced it, now you can’t stop them from planting trees. They’ve planted over 28 million trees, and you can’t stop them. They changed their entire culture! But when—you know, this happened to me about nine, ten years ago—I went back to my source city, which I’d not gone and done any work there, I never spoke there. I avoided this because my family lives there. I wanted to be anonymous in that town; not recognized. But because of Google and stuff, I got recognized everywhere. So when I went there, they insisted I must do something. I called for a program. All kinds of people turned up. My kindergarten school friends, teachers, my college teacher, school teachers, everybody. When I spoke, and now this happened, and my English teacher came up to me from school and she said, “Now I understand why you wouldn’t let me teach Robert Frost.” I said, “Ma’am, why would I not let you teach Frost? I like Frost! I have some poetry in his own voice!” I said, “I like Frost. Why would I not let you teach?” “Don’t you remember? You didn’t let me teach Frost.” Then I remembered. One day, she came up, and we were always studying English poems and English literature. Suddenly she introduced this American poet and said, “This Robert Frost is a great guy,” and she started off the poem: “Wood so loudly dark and deep.” I said, “Stop!” I said, “A man who calls a tree a wood, I’m not gonna have anything to do with this guy.” She said, “No, no. Robert Frost is a great—” “I don’t care who the hell he is! He calls tree a wood. I’m not going to listen to that guy.” I didn’t let her teach. We chose Longfellow instead of Frost, because I didn’t let her teach Frost that year.

So I’m saying: if you call a tree a wood, it’s a commodity. This water, this earth that you walk upon, the people that you see, these are not commodities. This is life, isn’t it? The air that you breathe, the water that you drink, the soil that you walk upon, the trees that you sit under: everything else in this world is life and life-making material for you. If you forget this, you will treat it as commodity. If you experience this—that this is actually what is making your life—then you will see the most fantastic thing about this universe is: everything is one, but everything is separate at the same time. That’s what gives us an experience. That’s why I can sit here and talk to you. Otherwise, how to talk to you?

1:00:18

Sadhguru

No, no, no. If voices are happening within your head, it means something else!

1:00:30

Sadhguru

You mean to say you have nightmares every day?

1:00:57

Sadhguru

See, there are two levels of reality here. There is a psychological reality and there’s an existential reality. Existential reality is not your making. Psychological reality is entirely your making, but a large part of it is unconsciously made, so you believe it is real. Whatever is true in your psychological reality may have some social relevance, but it has no existential relevance. Right now, if I say, “You are within me,” you will feel good. If I say, “I love you,” you will feel good. Maybe it’s true for me and maybe it’s true for you. But it’s not floating around anywhere here, okay? It’s just my emotion and your emotion. Yes, it is nice that our emotions are sweet, our thoughts are sweet, our actions are sweet. It’s wonderful if it is so. But it has only psychological and social relevance. It has no existential relevance. If you want to know life, you have to step out of this bubble called psychological reality and step into existential reality. Then, only, you have a taste of life. Otherwise, you are just a bundle of thoughts, emotions, ideas, opinions, and now I’m there in all that.

So what I would tell all of you is: instead of thinking about it, instead of analyzing it, an experiential dimension has to happen. If you are willing to dedicate 28 to 30 hours of focused time, we will give you tools with which you can make this happen for yourself. This is not some empty talk. This has happened to millions of people. This has worked. And I must tell you, [the] first 25 years of my work, as a rule, I never appeared in the media. Of course, I didn’t have a website. Never put up one poster or banner or even a brochure. Only by word of mouth, millions of people came. Obviously, it must have worked for them to bring their family and friends. And now, I’m not promising any miracle. I’m not taking you to heaven. I’m telling you: the source of all your problems is you, not somebody else. I’m saying: it’s hard talk. It is not some miraculous promise of going to heaven, some la-la land is there, and everything will be fine for you? No. In spite of that, people came because they saw the transformation within themselves, and people around them had to come. There was no other way.

So I’m saying: this is a technology of wellbeing. We are handling our external wellbeing in a scientific way, through many means of technology. Why is it that we are so crippled when it comes to our interiority? We are trying to handle it through our emotions, we are trying to handle it through our philosophies, we are trying to handle it through our ideologies and belief systems. No. It’s time you approach this human mechanism in a scientific manner. How to make this into a full-fledged possibility? See, every life in this world is only trying to become a full-fledged life. Whether it’s a worm, or an insect, or a bird, or an animal, or a tree—all they are striving for is to become full-fledged. But we know what is a full-fledged worm. We know what is a full-fledged insect. We know what is full-fledged everything. But we do not know: what is a full-fledged human being? Because even if I make you the king or queen of this planet tomorrow, still you will aspire for the stars. Because there is something within you which is longing to become infinite. If you are longing for the infinite, you can’t go about conquering space. It’s not going to get you there. The finiteness to you has come to you only because your identification with your physicality, because the nature of physicality is a defined boundary. Without a defined boundary, there is no physical nature. But is it true that this physical [body], you slowly accumulated? Is it true? Or were you born like this? You accumulated this. What you accumulate can be yours. It can never, ever be you. Or, in other words, you are living your life without experiencing the life that you are, even for a moment. Your entire involvement is with your physiology and psychology. It’s time it changes; that you experience the life that you are. This life that you are doesn’t come with boundaries. It is only the body. It is boundaries, and you must stick to the boundaries. That’s very important: don’t expand it too much.

Thank you very much.