EPISODE #1020: Is Curiosity the Key to Life, Science & Everything? – Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. One of the things that I have admired about you for 20 years is that you have a playful, curious, almost childlike curiosity. How do you keep that when you see all the things that happen in the world?

My question is, how do people lose it? We are all born with this, right? We are all born with curiosity. We are all born with innocence. And I wonder why people lose that. It is so valuable.

Were you born with a special power of keeping it?

No, no. I think everybody is born with these gifts. Yeah. Just be in touch with yourself. Be who you are, and don't get influenced by other things around you. Then that's it. You stay where you are. What do you want?

That's beautiful. Thank you. Not everyone is born with the ability to recite the Bhagavad Gita when they're four.

Oh, yeah, that. Of course. That. Of course. That's. Yeah. You know, this is not the one lifetime we have. We have many lifetimes and some past impressions like that that carries with us for the next life, too.

What do you say to skeptical Westerners who say there's no such thing. That couldn't be possible?

Well, skepticism is welcomed because that gives you an intriguing and scientific mindset. But cynicism is bad. I tell them cynicism closes you down. Skepticism makes you a scientist.

That's beautiful. You're an acknowledged scientist in addition to a holy man.

Absolutely. See, science is an extension of spirituality and vice versa. I don't see there is any conflict between these two. At least in the Oriental philosophy. Never a scientist has ever been prosecuted because the mode of operandi is the same. The pedagogy is same. The pedagogy is the same for both.

One of the things that's happening in the world of biohacking, which is a new field of saying, we change the world around us to change the world inside us. It seems like we're proving that a lot of the things you've been saying for the last 40 years are true.

Even the latest Nobel Prize for in physics that went to the three gentlemen scientists. They say the world is not real. That's what Japanese said. What you see is not real. What real? You can't see it. You can only feel it.

I've had experiences where maybe I pierced the veil of this and saw things, big things and what people would call mystical things. I've learned to do it more quickly than I used to, but it's still a lot of work. How quickly? Or do you Switch between seeing what most of us see here and seeing whatever you normally see.

It just in moments.

You can do that in moments.

In moments.

What does it feel like when you tap into the vastness of everything?

Well, it's from watching a movie to coming to the reality.

Wow. So this feels like a movie to you. How fun.

This is the movie, the realities, something different.

What would the name of this movie be?

You can name it whatever you want. It's your choice. It can be a comedy for you, tragedy for you or thrill for you. It's you who determine the title of the movie.

What would your movie be called?

Well, it's more fun.

It would be a comedy.

Enjoy. Yeah, absolute comedy.

You make me laugh.

There is not one comedian. Everyone is a comedian in this movie. What I see, the real truth in life, real facts in life doesn't need any definition or explanation. You simply have to acknowledge it, accept it where they are. What do you say?

I like this very much.

You know when we don't do anything, when we let go, that's when this comes up. If we try hard to smile, it doesn't happen. And even if it happens, it becomes faked. But when we just let go, relax and let the universe take over all that, you are left with great smile.

If you could go back in time and tell yourself something precious when you were 4 years old, what would you tell yourself, knowing what you know now?

See, I don't talk to myself.

You just smile and give yourself a hug. You really wouldn't say anything.

I don't talk to myself. Why would I talk to myself?

Many people have a voice in their head. For most people it's not a very nice voice in their head. It's their ego. Do you ever have a voice in your head?

The duality causes the voice in you. When there is split in your consciousness, a split in personality, split in your value system, then you keep having dialog with yourself. But when you have unison within you, you are in the non dual state of consciousness.

There is no dialogue and it never happens that you lose the non dual for half a second and you hear a little voice in there.

I mean, once you know it, you can never lose it. It's like once you know the driving, you cannot forget it, right? You know how to bicycle, then you know you don't forget it.

It's there with you is breathwork. The breathwork that you teach. The fastest way to get to that non dual state.

Well, if you asked me, I would say yes.

Well, I'm asking you. It's okay. It's okay to promote your work. I did it every day for five years without fail. And I think it really made a difference in opening some things up for me. And I still do it on occasion.

Absolutely, absolutely. Because see, the previous generation had more time. They were not as stressed as the current generation. So they could sit and do meditation, they could do Zen meditation and all other long time meditations, long hours of meditation, much easier for them. But the current generation, where there are so many stimuli and so many social medias and podcasts and Twitter and all that stuff, you need to work more with the breath and it is more effective.

Thank you for bringing that out. You were the first person to teach any kind of breathwork to me and you did something else that is worthy. The first time I went was to an event I was invited by one of the engineers I worked with in Silicon Valley and I went there and I had a hard time connecting because this was the first time. Robes and flowers and candles and I don't get it. This is too weird for me. And about a year later, you worked with some senior executives from intel and others, and you put together something in a language that I could digest and I said, oh, now I get it. And this was of course, my own arrogance and ego. But then that led me down the path of doing this. That was a part of why I started the field of biohacking, because you were kind enough to translate your work into words that I could understand. How would you translate your work now to say something to a 20 year old who's struggling?

You know, we have created 57 different workshops, right? From the healthcare professional to incarcerated people in the prisons. We have programs for kids in the school to youth in the college and corporate sector, CEOs and executives. So we have tailor made programs designed to suit those languages. Different generation communicate differently.

They very, very much do. It seems like we used to listen to our elders and the venerable traditions get passed from grandparents to grandkids. And today there isn't very much of that. Do you have any elders that you still talk to?

See, I keep myself very open. I take from I have a lizardy term. But more than that, I would say the truth is the same in whatever language you put it, because it transcends the real values transcend language and it transcends time. Age groups, see the age groups and other aspects in society, they are conditioned by time.

Do you believe in time?

Time is a fact.

The same noble physicists who won the award this year don't believe in time.

They don't believe time as it is perceived. But even to say that I don't believe something, you need to know it.

See, you need to be able to see it. If and if you don't believe it, it's the true story. Okay, I understand why the robes and the traditional things like that. It seems like sometimes. Tradition.

You mean my white robe like this? Yeah.

Why do you choose this?

Well, this is common in India. If you go in India, people wear dhoti and kurtas.

So just because it's traditional and comfortable, there's no significance to it?

No. I think different cultures have different dress codes. And so for yogis, there is a particular dress code. And so.

So this was the one that worked.

But I don't mind. Sometimes I can come in three piece suit also, but you cannot recognize me.

To make you more recognizable. I love it. I have not yet worn a white robe, but perhaps one day I'll go somewhere where that's appropriate, and I will.

Robe is not important. We have to get deep with them. We had to go behind our skin. Robe is outside. And our spirit is much beyond all the identities we hold on to. So we should never be fooled by robes. We had to see the spirit behind all that outer expressions. Everyone who has sensitivity, even little bit sensitivity, can catch it. They can catch it. Oh, look, you know, you are so genuine. You are right. You are authentic. This feeling one gets.

Right, People do get that feeling. There have been times in my life, though, where I'll say predators fooled me into believing that they were genuine when they had.

But you know, those moments you have not heard your gut feeling.

So that's what I. That's why I could do.

They were more caught up in the mind then they can fool you. But if you're connected with your gut feeling, nobody can fool you.

Okay. When you're connected with that gut feeling, is it this gut or this gut?

It could be all of them.

All of them. All right. I need that code. I don't have it yet.

You can't, you know, localize. You can't say where your mind is in your body. Can you ever say, where is your mind in your body? It's everywhere. In the same way, gut feeling also.

Okay, so your gut feeling can be.

In your elbow, you can point out somewhere, but it is everywhere.

Okay. I was hoping you were going to tell me the magic sign for that. You've been doing amazing work that gets bigger and bigger every year. What's the biggest change in society that you've picked up over the past 40 years.

Well, calming down the violence.

Calming down the violence, Yeah.

A violence free society is what we all have to, you know, imagine dream work towards it. So we want to give a better society for the coming generation. Don't you agree with me? See, you said you met me 20 years back. 20 years, 30 years back, there were not so many violent incidences here in America today. People are so anxious, they are anxious to go to grocery store. They prefer ordering on the. What is that? App? Yeah, ordering on app and shopping on eshopping. They prefer rather than going to a grocery shop and they prefer homeschooling for kids because there's violence in classrooms, there's violence in gas stations. 600 mass shootings in this country sometimes make you wonder, are we in the barbaric cage or where have we gone? Right again here. You know, I feel these culprits, they're not at fault, but they never got education in peace. They never got education how to manage their emotion, how to calm down. They were never exposed to a bigger dimension in life.

I believe that there's so many highly traumatized people, traumatized by parenting, traumatized by birth, traumatized by, by doctors, traumatized by bullies. And enough of that anger builds up. And traumatized by past lives too, for that matter. That we've created a society where there aren't a lot of ways to let it out. And if you could wave a magic wand and create peace, what would it look like?

That's what we have been doing.

This you have.

We have been doing with the veterans, war veterans. 27 veterans are taking their life here in this country. That's so sad. We have already taught about 8,000 veterans and their lives are totally changed. 180 degrees change in their life. And similarly, the students in college campus, we do the sky campus in colleges, universities, that has made a difference. But still I find what we are doing is just drop in the ocean. We have to do much more. I need to gain more teachers, more instructors, more volunteers. We all have to work together. I feel the civic society have to come together to condemn violence and to educate our young people in serenity, in peace, in friendliness. See, you just ask a child how many friends you have in a classroom, they'll count on the fingers and you can tell. See, when you graduate, you hardly have a dozen friends with you. And how are you going to be in this world with 8 billion people? And if you don't know how to be friendly with, you know, couple of hundreds of your own college bench so.

Building community is a really big thing, which is hard to do when we're all at home and not connecting people. Come here in la, you have a room that fits a thousand people and there's something magic that happens when you see a thousand people all doing your Korea, your breath exercises. What's happening? Why does it feel different when you're in a room with a thousand people doing it?

Yeah, you know, when we do it in groups, we all energy, we all radiate energy. You sit with someone who has a negative energy, you can pick up on that. Right. You also feel not so good. So when a thousand young people or young, old, everyone together, when they have a common, serene experience, it just multiplies. When they emit positive energy, everyone catches.

So it multiplies exponentially with the number of energy?

Yes, exponentially. It multiplies, yes.

For people listening to the show, if you've never been in a room of even 10 people who are doing breath work, I would recommend Art of Living Together, much less a thousand. It'll blow your head wide open. It's very, very different. And you just explained why. And people, artofliving.com is where you would go. And honestly, it's worth trying. So let's get into the world of romance. Lots of my followers are at that point where they're finding the right person for them. What advice would you have specifically for men? Looking to find the right person, Be the right person.

Then you can draw everybody. You don't have to go looking for a right person.

Is it any different for women?

Same. Same for women. Also, you be the right person, radiate positive energy, be radiant with enthusiasm, joy and this sense of giving rather than grabbing. Then people will flock around you.

People flock to you. What do you think about dating apps? Good for society or bad for society?

I'm totally ignorant about dating apps. I never tried one. I never looked at it. So it's a wrong number. Wrong question. The wrong question.

Wrong question. Got it. I worry that they're blocking some of the heart connection that you might notice with someone because they're just a picture on a screen.

It's good to connect with people and with whatever excuse, whether it is employment or rating app. If you are able to connect with more and more people, get to know them.

Now.

Each life is a movie on this planet. Each life is a novel and it's very interesting novel. You don't have to sit in front of the screen and OTT and you know, watch many movies, watch the life of people around you. Know, there is comedy, there is tragedy, there is all sorts of things.

There thrill lots of comedies from Trillers. There's also science fiction. What do you think about Elon's plan to go to Mars?

I encourage, you know, imagination among technocrats. It's good that they imagine. See all that we see around has all sprung out of imagination. Only when they imagined, when they thought about it, spoke about it, people ridiculed them very much. But after some time, you know, they all manifested. That's good. Good to have great and what appears to be impossible dreams and work towards it. That's one way to avoid depression. Other people get so depressed doing nothing.

Having a big mission. That's hard to do. So beautiful to have a mission. What about putting a computer chip inside your head?

Well, your head itself is a computer. You must realize that you don't need to put a chip inside that. You only need to know where the delete button in your own computer.

Oh, there you go.

You don't have the password to your own computer. You don't operate the supercomputer you have properly. If you learn to operate the natural God given computer inside of you can do miracles. You know, we are experimenting and we are training kids in intuitive processes, intuition processes. And then kids can do wonders, you know, blindfolded, they can read, write, they can do many things, play video games. They are using some other part of the brain so we can play a lot with our own. As I said, the natural computer that we have been gifted with.

Are you working with scientists on publishing studies about this?

Yeah.

That is so good. Because when you see the skeptics or the cynics more to your point, who say this is impossible and you say, well, I did science your way and here's the numbers.

We are working with neurologists, we have a whole setup on this, even meditation, breathing. What's the impact it has? We have more than 700 papers on the breathing exercises which has been published so far on Kriya Sudarshan Kriya. Its impact on our cortisone levels, on our blood pressure, on our mental abilities.

That is so joyful to show to people who say that can't happen. And if you show them one paper, that's something, you show them 700 papers, you have to be very stubborn to deny that something interesting is happening. Where does that stubbornness come from? Because I know people who would still say it doesn't work no matter how many papers we give them. Why do humans do that?

You know, they become too old to Grasp the new ideas and they lose the scientific temper. A real scientist is never cynical. If he's cynical, he's no longer a scientist.

Wow, okay.

One will always have to have an open mind if he wants to call themselves rational or scientific in temper.

So we can never say the science is settled because we're still curious that there might be something new.

Yeah, and that's the scientific temper means you're always open to investigating further, knowing further and denying even before knowing it is dogmatism. So there could be some people who think they are scientists and they may be dogmatic.

Okay, so there's some dogmatists pretending to be scientists.

That's a pretension of scientists. Or you know, they label themselves as scientists, but really they are dogmatic.

Okay.

A real scientist is always open to investigation, understanding and allow the possibilities of. I usually say, you know, there are two types of I don't know. One is an ugly I don't know. And people get so upset and angry they say I don't know, don't ask me. And there is another type of I don't know which is of the scientist say, well, I don't know. What I know is less, what I don't know is much more. When this fact glaze on you, on your face, then you accept what you know is very little and what you need to know is a lot more. And then there is cynicism, there very skepticism there. There will be only enthusiasm, there will be spirit of enquiry. There is more impotence to do research and go into the unknown. Everyone should accept there is a whole field of unknown out there. The moment you accept there is something that is unknown, you no longer are skeptical or cynical.

Many people fear the unknown. What's the antidote for that fear?

Immaturity. One word. It's like kids don't want to go to school.

You know, so it's immaturity. It's not a matter of courage of saying I don't know, do it anyway. It's more of a curiosity thing.

No, someone with curiosity can never fear the unknown. Curiosity itself means venturing into the unknown.

Okay. And if you're too immature to be curious about it, then you basically are afraid of the dark.

If you're fearful, that means you're not curious.

I understand that, isn't it?

You see, if someone is curious, then there is no fear.

I'm asking because I don't understand it, because I'm always curious. So I was hoping you'd have insight and that was very helpful, thank You. When you look through your life, is there one period where you felt the most sense of awe ever? What would that look like?

You should ask me the question the other way around. Is there any time in your life where you didn't feel the awe?

Somehow I knew you were going to say that every minute.

That child had to think.

You'd have to think. Okay. How about the flip side? Sorrow. Is there a time where you have just the greatest sorrow? And how did you handle that?

Those moments I remember the doctor who is healthy yet surrounded by all sick people. You feel the pain of the people, no doubt. But you don't get carried away by that. You are not stone. You are not a stone that you don't feel anybody's pain and you are simply happy. That's not what I would say. You do feel that. But at the same time you don't get carried. You don't lose the center.

So you have equanimity. You're aware. You have compassion. But the equanimity means you can stay happy. Joyful. Curious. Gurudev, instead of being carried into the sorrow.

Yeah. You are centered.

Centered. What is the trick to building that level of centeredness? So that we don't get carried away by what happens in our life? Meditation. Okay.

Breathing. Meditation.

Breathing and meditation. How did I know you'd say that?

Simple. You know it. I think you are using too much of your gut feelings now.

That's probably something you haven't said very often. When you look into the future, the future of your work 20 years from now, what does it look like?

I'm done.

You're done? In 20 years?

I'm done now itself. I would have the coming generation to envision whatever they want to envision.

So you're going to pass it on?

Well, I've already passed it on.

You've already passed it on. So are you going to retire?

Well, it's sort of. I'm already retired.

You can say. Because you're doing what you love. Yeah. Okay. You'll continue leading breath work for the foreseeable future, it sounds like.

No. I've trained so many teachers. They are carrying on the way work and yeah, people are. As long as see more and more smiles. Tears turning into smiles. That gives you satisfaction.

That gives you satisfaction. Do you ever get bored of feeling good? All the time. It's a serious question.

You know. Boredom is simple repetition. Right. And it happens in two occasions when you repeat how? Either you get bored or you are in love. When you are in love, you don't mind Repeating. So when you are repeating anything you repeat, it indicates either you are bored or you are in love. So I am in the later, not in the former.

Ah, so you are just in love with life. Wow.

Now I think you are running out of all questions.

It's not that you're confusing me a little bit here.

That's my job.

So many of my teachers have explained, in order to have light, you have to have darkness.

See, confusion indicates your growth.

Of course, I love it.

One level of understanding breaks down. You have not yet caught on to another level of understanding. That's when the confusion happens. So my job is to only confuse.

You're doing a great job. So how do you experience one state without its opposite? Pleasure without pain. Heat without cold, Light without dark.

Yeah. These are dualities in life. But there is something which is beyond the dualities.

And that's why you stay in the joyful state.

That's where your nature is. True nature. Your nature is beyond duality. Duality is beyond. The mind belongs to the mind. And no mindness is going beyond the dualities. This is pain and pleasure and happiness, unhappiness and all these are all. We have done it so many lifetimes. These are things there. And it stays with the mind. But when you transcend that, you have a blue sky. It's like going beyond, you know, the clouds. When you go, when you project beyond the clouds, you have the totally pure blue sky. Stars there. And then you can't look for clouds up there. Clouds are much below you there.

Have you, as a scientist, calculated the average number of lifetimes it takes to do that?

Unfortunately, there is no such criteria.

Darn.

It doesn't depend on the time. It doesn't depend on number of lifetimes or things like that.

Can most people do that in one lifetime?

One lifetime possible, yeah.

Wow. And that's possible for everyone?

Yeah.

Ah, that's inspiring. What percentage of the world needs to make that change to bring everyone else along with them?

Well, more the media.

A very precise number.

More the media. Yeah.

Gurudev, it's been an honor to interview you today and thank you for your wonderful sense of humor and for the gift you've given me personally with. With your teaching. Because it's made a big difference in my evolution as a person and the evolution of the field of biohacking. And I think that many hundreds of thousands of people will benefit from this interview. And I hope you're here with us for many, many, many more years of joy, because it amuses me greatly and makes me happy. Thank you.

Thank you for doing what you are, and thank you for being what you are. And keep spreading the joy and the good work you are doing. All the best. God bless.

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey.