EVERYTHING You've Been Taught About Manifesting Abundance IS WRONG! | Sadhguru & Lewis Howes
Sadhguru and Lewis Howes discuss why everything you've learned about manifesting abundance is wrong. They explore karma, identity, and consciousness, with Sadhguru offering insights on memory, empowerment, and what actually creates happiness.
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It's not about whether I have fear or not. I made myself like this. Only what I want happens within me.
What I want may not always happen around me, but within me only what I want happens.
I think you gotta have a dream.
The School of Greatness.
Really? Yeah.
Please welcome, Lewis Howes.
Coming from the Midwest in Ohio. I grew up hearing the word karma saying that if you do something bad, then bad things are coming for you. And you talk about in the book that it not necessarily that case. Can you define karma for the uneducated person like myself on what karma truth?
I thought that was my title. You're stealing that from me. Uneducated guru is what people say and now you're saying you're uneducated interviewer. Anyway, about If you do bad things, bad things will come for you. This has been the way of the world. You don't need the word karma for that because people have been trying to control people either with fear or guilt. This has been the basis of a whole lot of things happening in the world. If you do this, you will go to hell, if you do that, you will go to heaven, otherwise here itself it will happen to you, whatever. Or there is somebody up there with a stick waiting and they will whack you. All these kind of things. Essentially you're trying to manage humanity, control humanity with fear or guilt. Yeah. Fear and guilt, I see particularly in the Western world is like enormous. It is in the psyche of people in such a big way. Well, karma is not about fear, karma is not about guilt, karma is about liberation. It is about freedom because you are a composite as you sit here, you are composite of various memories within you. Yes. It goes back, it goes way back but let's start with amoeba in recent times.
Okay.
From amoeba to now, the whole evolutionary process in some way is recorded in this body. Otherwise, this body would be confused every other day whether this is human or not. This is one-hundred percent clear that this is human, this is evolutionary memory always there. There is genetic memory, there is karmic memory, there is articulate, inarticulate, you know, unconscious, subconscious and conscious memories. Right now when we say memory, people think only of their conscious memory which is less than one percent of their actual memory.
So the things they actually remember in their mind, the conscious memory.
Yes, that is less than 1% of the actual memory. See, for example, I can give you a thousand examples like this, which are manifesting in everybody's life. The simple thing is this. Let's say 500 years ago, how your great-great-great-grandfather was, you don't remember for sure.
No.
But his nose is sitting on your face probably.
Right.
My ears are his ears, yeah.
Yeah, many things. Even the color of the skin and the texture of the skin, everything. So the minutest details of what happened to your forefathers a million years ago, still living with you right now.
Wow.
It is living with you right now. Now all these memories, a composite or an amalgamation of all these complex memories is what you call as myself. What you call as myself consciously may be just a small part of that, but that small part is happening because of this massive memory that is there. In, you know, like in India we have in the yogic culture we have this word called Vasana.
Vasana.
Vasana literally means smell.
Yes.
So we say your personality is just your smell. See, right now you walk there, there is jasmine. You recognize the jasmine by its fragrance. You will recognize filth by its stink. So we recognize your personality by your vasana. What kind of vasana or what kind of smell is coming out of you right now depends on what kind of stuff have you gathered. So now karma means to understand that there is all kinds of things because when it comes to memory, you have no choice what to keep and what not to keep.
You can't erase memory.
You cannot.
No matter how hard you try.
Try and see. What you try to forget will be foremost in your mind.
Amplified, yeah.
Whatever you think you should not remember. So always people tell me, Sadhguru, my memory is bad. I say, Just try to forget it. You see, you will remember it always. It's simple. So because this is the nature of the mind, you cannot... There is no subtraction and division in your mind. There is only addition and multiplication. Whatever you try to do, it will be one more. If you try hard, it will multiply. This is the nature of your mind. So, what is there in your memory is not your choice. Whatever you see, it's all recorded. Whatever you hear, everything recorded. Whatever you smell, taste, touch, every perception that you have is recorded within you. You have no choice what to record. Here there is a flower which is beautiful. Let me just record that. There there is filth, I don't want to record that, there's no such thing. Everything gets recorded. So if all this is there, how do I live clean? How do I live happy?
How do you eliminate the waste, the trash?
You don't have to eliminate the waste. Waste is very valuable. If you know, right now in this garden, they buy waste at a very exorbitant price because their waste goes into the public system. They have to buy waste from somewhere. They have to buy filth.
To fertilize.
Yes. So whether you turn your filth into a fertilizer or you smear it on your face and walk around, that's your choice. This is why karma. So what kind of karma happened in my life till this moment is not always my choice. So many things have happened. But what kind of karma I perform right now in this moment is one hundred percent my choice. Will I use this filth as manure and blossom into a wonderful fragrance or will I smear it around me and walk around with filth? This is the choice everybody has. When unpleasant things happen to us, which happens to everybody in some way if you're living in the world, I'm saying, unless you drop from somewhere else. If you're living in this world, so many unpleasant things happen. Now with these unpleasant things, do you become wise? Or do you become wounded? This is a choice. To exercise this choice, there must be a little space. When I say little space, where is your memory stored? People think here, your brain has very little memory, okay? Every cell in the body carries a trillion times more memory than your entire brain.
Every cell in the body?
Every cell in the body. Because if I take one cell from you, we can, you know, create you completely in a lab. That means what? Well, your parents, your father and mother gave you only one cell each. They were not very generous. Only one cell each. See, a whole man came out of it.
Yeah.
So in that one cell, all this memory head to toe, everything was there, isn't it?
Yeah.
No mistake. Texture of the hair, texture of the skin, the nails, the works, every detail to the minutest detail. Was it packed in that one cell or no?
Yeah.
Yes. So every cell in your body carries a trillion times more memory than your entire brain carries.
Wow.
So if you do not use that, if you just use one part of your body, then everything seems to be stressful, everything seems to be a struggle. Today everybody complaining about everything. Everything is stressful. You are a toddler, you have stress of diapers. You are a teenager, you have hormonal stress. You are middle age, you have crisis. Your old age is geriatric stress.
Right.
All right.
Which is not stress.
Entire life is stress. Tell them, okay you die. Oh, that is enormous stress. So this is not because There is something wrong with anybody's life. It's simply because it's like you have a car, it's supposed to go on four wheels. Try to drive on one, okay one may look like too much. Try to drive on two, well within ten miles your tires will burst. Because too much stress on one point, other things are not being used. This is all that's happening to human beings.
Are we stressing our minds too much?
See, when we say mind, See again, your hand went all the way here. Are we stressing our minds? No, there is an entire... There is a mind across this body. What is it that you call as a mind? A certain combination of memory and intelligence is mind.
It's our whole body's mind.
Yes. In yoga we see physical body, mental body, energetic body, etheric body, plus body like this, everything is body. Because it is right across, it is not in any one place. Only intellectual activity is here, okay? Right now, because modern societies, particularly Western societies, have become such slaves of their intellect, because of that they think everything is here. Intellect works only with the data that you have gathered. You cannot function beyond your data. That means you will remain so small because even if you have read the libraries on this planet, What you know in terms of data is minuscule compared to what this cosmos is. With that minuscule, you think you are very intelligent because you are analyzing and processing. Anyway, all these people who think they are intellectually very smart are going to feel dumb, stupid in the next five years because your phone will be far more smarter than you. Already people are calling it a smartphone. See, why would you call somebody or something smart? Only because it's smarter than you, right?
Right. Yeah.
Yeah. Otherwise you wouldn't. All right. So right now, too much dependence on intellect because our education systems are crafted like this, not exploring other dimensions of intelligence at all. See intellect, if I ask you this simple question, would you like your intellect to be sharp or blunt? Choose quickly. I'm going to bless you.
Yes.
So essentially, Intellect is like a knife. If you want to dissect something, it's very good.
Yeah.
So now the only instrument that you have is a knife in your hand. You want to stitch your clothes. If you stitch your clothes with the knife, what will happen? You will be in tatters.
Right.
This is what is happening to people's lives. They are trying to fix everything with their intellect. The harder they try, the more tatters they have become. With all this education, tell me, Uneducated people are more unhappy or educated people.
Are more unhappy in the world.
It depends what type of education.
Generally illiterate people in the rest of the world, tribes and this and that, even in India, many, many people.
Whenever I visit, I go to Guatemala almost every year and I visit small villages and the kids seem so happy.
Yeah.
So they didn't go to school like me.
They don't have much, but they have family, they have community.
What do you mean?
They don't have much.
I mean, they don't have much in terms of material wealth.
It's not environmentally disastrous.
That's what you were saying.
Right, exactly.
Yeah.
They don't have a lot in the material side of things, but they have a lot in their hearts, richness, connection, community, love, and they seem very happy.
Uneducated people or illiterate people are happier than the educated people. With education your life should have become better, isn't it? Unfortunately, they're becoming unhappy simply because they only have sharpened their knife and a sharp knife in your hand and you're unconscious, you're cutting yourself all the time. All the time cutting yourself?
That's pretty bad.
You don't need any outside help.
You can stab yourself.
Yes.
See, people come to me and say, Sadhguru, my boss is horrible, my mother-in-law is not even human, my wife she is such a pain. My husband like this. I say, you, come here to the yoga center. I'll make sure your boss, mother-in-law, wife, husband, nobody enters this place, just you. I'll give you a nice place to live, good food to eat, nothing to do, just be happy, that's all.
Yeah.
You must be just joyful. I'll make random checks on you. If I find you unhappy or miserable, then I won't feed you because I don't believe in feeding Misery. If you remain joyful, I will feed you for the rest of your life and take care of you like you're my prized guest. But if you show misery, we won't feed you. Well, you leave them in one room for twenty-four hours. You will see in how many ways they'll twist themselves out is unbelievable. Because when you are alone, if you are miserable, obviously you are in bad company, isn't it? Right. I am with you. I am miserable. I think it's because of this guy I am miserable. This guy I am miserable. I am sitting here alone and miserable. Now who?
Right.
Who is causing misery?
How do we get out of that though?
No, essentially one must understand human experience is caused from within, not from outside.
Right.
What we do, arrangements we do outside in the form of home, family, automobile, this, that. These are arrangements to facilitate our activity. They are not going to make you happy or unhappy. But right now, the car sellers are telling you only... This is joy, this car... I'm sorry, I'm not against any brand. I like the brand. They say, this car is joy. Another somebody else says, this car is love. Oh, all the best.
This is power. This is... Yeah.
Power is okay car has power. But where is love extruding from the engine or joy extruding from the engine, all right? Power, all right. But right now, if you, you know, this is something I have been noticing, it's only in recent times, probably last 10-15 years. If you look at any car, I look at every advertisement, whether they're selling an automobile or a machine or a crane or an earth mover, Because I'm interested in anything that works, not that I'm going to buy them. So when I look at it, car adds, nobody is telling you what's the engine, what's the transmission, what's the power, what's the torque, nothing. They're talking about the leather, they're talking about the wood paneling, they're talking about the stereo. Are you buying... you buying a sitting room? You want to buy a drawing room or do you want a car? If I want a car, I would look at the engine, how it is made, what does it do? No, nothing. Only... Why is that? Because they are buying a car for neighbor's envy. They are not buying a car because they love to drive a good machine.
Yeah.
It's always about being better than somebody else.
Why do we obsess over that in general? And is that mostly in America or do you see that all over?
No, no, it's everywhere. America kind of setting the, you know, path breaking.
The standard. We're the best at trying to be the best.
So this is unfortunate cultivation that is happening from kindergarten. If you are going to school, what your parents will say, you must be number one. If you are number one, what about all the other 30-40 kids who are there? They must be below you.
They're losers.
They're losers. So your joy is only in other people failing. When your joy is about other people's misery, that's not joy, that is sickness.
Phew!
Right now whole world is invested in this. It's not just America. America kind of displaces it like that.
Not that it's not there everywhere else.
In the world, everywhere it's there, but here it's being shamelessly displayed. They are little shy everywhere, least of.
The world, but still they got it.
Yeah.
What would the world look like if we chose to lift everyone up and celebrate other people succeeding or being happy or whatever it looks like for them to succeed, what would the world look like?
See, I see in America everybody keeps talking about family, family, family. But you've forgotten just as maybe a century ago, yeah. Maybe a century ago or even seventy years ago or fifty years ago, If you said family, it meant crime.
Why?
Because the families were running the crime.
Oh, wow.
The Cosa Nostra. They always refer to crime as family. Because family is a crime.
Really?
Let me come to that. I know this will get me into trouble.
Let me explain it to you.
See, there is only one crime and there's only one evil in the world. that is limited identity. How much crime you will commit simply depends on how empowered you are.
Say one more time, how much crime you...
Commit simply depends on how empowered you are.
How empowered you are?
Yeah.
So do I want to be...
If you are highly empowered and your identity is very limited, you will do terrible things. So the most important thing is to enhance or to expand one's identity.
How do we do that?
See, for example, traditionally in the yogic culture in India, before we start education for a child, the first and foremost thing is that he must take a cosmic identity.
A cosmic identity?
Yes. He has to take that.
What is that look like? So if I'm a child in your.
Teaching, so the thing is, one thing is there is a A mantra which says that, that he has to say it again and again. He has to look at the sky and say it, he looks at the earth and say it, look at the air and say it, look at the fire and say it, all the elements of water and say it, because these are all the composition of the cosmos. You look at empty space and say it, you look at water and say it, you look at fire and say it, you look at the earth and say it, so that you understand your identity is limitless. Why this is being done? Why this is being done is education is seen as an empowerment. You should not empower a person who has a limited identity because he will cause havoc. I'll take the worst example which will get me into trouble.
Sure.
See, everybody talks about you're not even supposed to mention this name Adolf Hitler. Well, many people have been there who caused enormous pain to other human beings. But I don't think anybody managed to organize it, mechanize it and really deliver it like a factory of misery like this mandate. All right? It's a factory.
Yeah.
Literally a factory of misery, manufacturing misery, properly organized. But do you think there aren't thousands or hundreds and thousands of people with the same mindset in the world?
Absolutely.
They are. Only thing is they are not empowered like him. Competence is the only thing that's lacking. Tyranny is there in people's mind. They are as much tyrants as Adolf Hitler. You may find them in a school teacher, you may find them in your parents, you may find them all around you in your neighborhood, only fortunately they are not as potent as that man. That man is super competent, that is the problem. So right now human competence becomes a terrible problem. Simply because you have a limited identity. So you invest your identity in a family, you invest your identity in a community, race, religion, nationality.
Your relationships, your Tell me in the.
Name of nations, in the name of race, in the name of religions, in the name of communities, how much terrible how many terrible things have we done in this world?
It's still happening today.
No, the most terrible leave what's happening today.
Just look back in the last 100 years.
All for someone's identity, pride, country, city, state, religion, all these things.
How you just take 20th century, okay, one century past, 21st century is just progressing now. 20th century take it in the name of race. What all have we done to each other? Yeah. In the name of religion, what have we done to each other? In the name of nationality, what all have we done to each other? Just look back and see. We have literally killed half the world's.
Population in 20th century.
Because of identity.
Yes.
Of a philosophy, of an ideology. People have killed, all right?
Right.
So limited identity and empowerment is a disaster. But we are continuously cultivating this all the time. So I said family is crime because family is the first identity. that you take. After that comes community, after that comes maybe race or religion or nationality. Right now, nationality is reasonably the largest identity you're taking. Within this nation, it looks nice that you are committed as an American to the well-being of America. But just see who is fighting who in this world. A good Indian is fighting a good Pakistan. A good Hindu is fighting a good Muslim, a good American fighting just about anybody. Because you never fought a war here, you go out and fight all over the world. Well, you will find reasons as to why you fought that war and the heroic nature of it. I know people who lost their lives believing that they are doing the best thing in their life. Yes, but I want you to know that man that you think is horrible, that terrorist, that miscreant, that militant or whatever you want to call him, that guy also like a suicide bomber, see anybody for every human being or even for an ant, its life is precious. You try to catch him, see he'll do everything possible to save his life. So somebody to throw away their life like this, Obviously, what they believe in means much more than their life.
Crazy.
Right? It's not crazy. See, if they do it your way, it's heroic. If they do it their way, it's crazy. I'm not trying to support terrorism or something, I'm just telling you it's limited identity. Genocides have been committed because of limited identity. Nations have been razed down because of limited identity. Evil things we have done to each other on individual level simply because of limited identity. So this is what yoga means. Yoga means union. That means you consciously obliterated the boundaries of your individual nature and your experience of life expanded. Once you sit here and you experience everything around you as a part of yourself, after that you do not need any morality, you do not need any commandments. Thou shall not cut that tree, thou shall not kill this man, thou shall not Rob this. This is meaningless to you when you have experienced something as a part of yourself. So the entire system of yoga, when I say yoga, I mean yoga, all right, not the yoga that's happening in Los Angeles Studios.
I have nothing against that.
But I'm saying we've reduced it to something just to build an identity around.
Yes.
Yeah. Still twisting and turning your body. It's good for you. You will become flex. flexible and maybe healthy, that's good for you. But I want you to understand, would you not wish that Adil Fitler was a sick man instead of a healthy man?
I would not wish that, yeah. I wish he was a healthy man. I would wish he was a healthy man.
He was healthy, that's the problem I am saying.
You wish he was a sick man?
Yeah, would you, wouldn't you be happy if he got cancer at 25 and.
He wouldn't kill all these people, wouldn't.
Set up this factory?
Yeah, I wish they wouldn't have died.
I am saying health becomes a curse, competence becomes a curse, intelligence becomes a curse. Why? Because you have limited identity. It's in that context I said family is crime. Family is a wonderful place where people are supporting each other. Like you said, is it not important if you create a world where everybody is supporting each other to do their best? Well, that's happening in the family. That's the most beautiful aspect of the family. But why is it only limited to those four people or five people or whatever?
What should families start to reconsider about their unity, their connection? How could they expand it to something greater than just the family of four or six in this home living this way?
I don't know if you've heard even political leaders in India. For example, wherever our Prime Minister goes to United Nations, he will say, Vasudev Kutumbakam. This means the world is my family. It's a chant that always he says, the world is our family. Because this has to be inculcated from childhood that your identity is not about a few people who are born around you or people, a couple of people who bore you, Your identity is the air that you breathe, is your identity. This is your life. So if you identify with the air that you breathe, what is it that's not you and what is it that's you?
Everything is you. Yes.
If everything is you, your intelligence is a boon. Your competence is a boon.
Is a what?
Your intelligence, your competence, your capabilities, everything is a gift to the world.
Right.
But if your identity is small, all the wonderful things that human being has becomes a curse. See right now, our intelligence, so much science, technology we developed. But the cutting edge of science and technology always goes into military equipment, isn't it? First at least. Many of these things will never come to you on the street, it's always there, all right? Only when every other nation has Maybe then it'll come to you. Till then it's just kept there. So our intelligence is going into destructive force, why? Limited identity. But right now can I just open up the borders of this nation and say, I love everybody? We are not there. We are not yet there. The world is not yet there. We cannot do that, all right? We still need nationality, we still need all these things. But we can hold it little lightly. We don't have to hold it like it is absolute. It is not absolute, it's something that we have done. Our idea of family is our making, our idea of community is our making, our idea of race, religion, everything is our making, our idea of nationality is our making. So don't treat it like it's an absolute.
What would happen if we open up every border in every country?
That would be possible only if there was no economic disparity. if there was no economic disparity, there were no national boundaries about two centuries ago. People could walk wherever they want. There were no visas and passports anywhere because economically, reasonably everybody was in there.
What about race though? Would people be, you know, well India.
Is a classic example. If you travel from north to south, every fifty kilometers people will look different. They dress different, they talk different and they eat different. Every... every few kilometers you will see people are different and we have no problem. That's what... that's how it would have been.
Yeah.
Only because you protected yourself for too long, now race seems to be one big issue, right?
But the money disparity you think is the issue.
It is the economic disparity which is difficult to handle.
Yeah.
Right now if you take away the boundaries of this country, Maybe half the world it will be right here in United States and that will not be a solution because you will become poor.
Right.
Okay? United States will be poverty ridden if that happens. But if you totally wall yourself out, then also you will become poor in a different way. So this has to be... First thing is if your identity is little flexible, you will do things judiciously as it's necessary for the situation. An appropriate action. Not our actions are never ever absolute. Our actions are just about being appropriate to the situations in which we exist.
Yeah.
If there are some parents watching or listening and they're like, Wow, this is very eye-opening. I've never thought of it this way. They've always raised their kids a certain way. Their kids are between this word.
This is a word that I hear very often in United States, we don't hear this in India. I was raised this way. People say, I was raised Catholic, I was raised Jewish, I was raised Baptist, I was raised this way. See, you don't raise human beings, you only raise cattle. A human being is a possibility that needs to be nurtured, not raised in a particular way. So you are raising people in a certain way because you are already committed to something that you think is absolute.
Wow.
Nothing is absolute. Life is a possibility. Will you allow your children to explore that possibility or do you want to make them like concrete blocks that they come out in a particular shape raised in a certain way? No, this is not the way to handle humanity.
So, say these parents are hearing this and they want to nurture their children in a different way.
Yes, the first thing they must do is...
But they've been taught something their whole lives.
They can do their prayers as they.
Know it, but let them know that it's not absolute.
They can sing their national anthem with pride, wonderful. Let them know it's not absolute. Let them also teach them are two lines of global anthem. If not cosmic anthem, one global anthem which includes every life's well-being. Every child should sing this in every school.
A global anthem?
Yes, we need to make a global anthem.
Yeah.
I am singing Indian anthem with great fervor and you are singing American anthem. What does it mean? Next moment we get an opportunity, we are going to pull out each other's eyeballs. Right. Yes.
Yeah.
Not because you are bad or I am bad. Because I am Indian and you are American, all right?
Right.
It's a global anthem.
We need a global anthem for sure. Today technology has many ways made national boundaries meaningless, all right? People are sitting in India and working in America right now. Whole lot of people.
Sitting in India and walking in America?
Working in America.
Working, oh yeah. Yeah, they are getting paid, yeah.
You pick up a phone, the Indian guy is practicing American accent and he is speaking from Bangalore. Right, right.
Yeah.
So when national boundaries, borders have become so porous, it's time to work towards that.
It's not, see tomorrow morning if you.
Open up all the borders, there'll be disaster.
Yeah.
We must know these things we made at certain times for certain conveniences. It is not absolute. The lines that we have drawn on this planet are not absolute. We just made it for certain convenience. It's time to relax it. See, one great example that's happened in the world is Europe. They fought as bitterly as they fought World War I, World War II. Did anybody think Germany and France will share open borders. Hello. In 1944, would you believe that?
No.
See today they have open borders. I don't see this as a geopolitical whatever. In a way it's an evolution of human consciousness itself. They might have done it for economic reasons, political reasons, but still there is human consciousness involved in this because that's not easy after fighting such bitter wars When that generation is still alive, you opened your borders to each other, trusted each other, is not a small thing to do. Yeah. We need to make that happen in the world everywhere. But for this, we need a reasonable level of economic parity. Otherwise, you cannot do it.
Can't do it. One of the things I feel very grateful for my childhood, my father, we didn't have a lot of money growing up to travel to other places outside of Ohio. But I had seven exchange students from around the world live with us for six months at a time from Brazil and Japan and Germany and France and Philippines.
Nobody came from India.
No one from India.
See, otherwise they would have taken you back. Exactly.
But I felt very fortunate as a five-year-old until I was about 12, having these cultures come.
That's a wonderful thing to do.
And learn the language, learn the food, learn about their beliefs.
When you live just in a limited environment, atmosphere, you don't know how horribly prejudiced you've become. You never realize that. You think you're doing fine. You become horribly prejudiced. I'm sure even Adolf Hitler is thinking he's fine. He thinks he's fine. That's why he's doing what he's doing.
Yeah. Right.
I'm saying the extreme example.
Right.
Even he thinks he's doing fine. Only the wrong thing he did was he lost the war. If he had won the war, whole world would have said what he has done is fine.
Right.
Please know that it's a horrific thing.
Do you think someone who's doing that feels a sense of guilt?
No.
No, no.
Like when they're taking another life and they're seeing someone in pain.
See, every nation is taking somebody else's life, isn't it?
Every nation?
Yes, every nation is, isn't it?
But I mean an individual, one person.
See, nation means it's individuals who act on the ground, right? Yeah. It's an American pilot who drops the bomb, it's an American sniper who pulls the trigger, all right? But he believes he is doing it for the country.
Right.
So he won't feel any guilt. Even the terrorist who is right now which we think is absolutely unreasonable and insane, That guy thinks he's doing the right thing, he's doing God's work, not a simple thing. He feels great pride in what he's doing. So this is why I'm saying it's a limited identity. It is not that somebody is bad, somebody is good. The moment you have limited identity, you are a crime. It's just that whether your crime is recognized in the law as a crime or not is a subjective thing. But you are a crime. Right now I sit here, my identity is with myself. I'm interested in the well-being of this, I don't care a damn what happens to this. So this is a crime. I may not shoot you with a gun, but I'm committing a crime because I don't care what happens to you.
Hmm.
The moment in some way you forsake your humanity.
I don't care.
Means I have forsaken my humanity, it is a crime. Will I cause enormous damage or small damage? Simply depends on how competent I am. Competency becomes a curse.
The more competent you are, the more you can hurt and harm.
Your intelligence and competence, instead of being a solution, becomes a problem. Isn't that what is happening in the world today?
So where does karma fit in? around people that are acting to harm or to not support someone else's well-being or the things around them. How does Karma feel?
If all your identity is only from your memory, isn't it? How are you an American? You remember that you were born in America. Yes. Suppose I erase your memory. Are you American?
Suppose what?
I erase your memory.
Am I an American?
Yeah.
I don't know.
No.
So how does your family identity come? How does your racial identity come? Everything is by memory, isn't it? Now karma means this accumulated massive amount of memory. Now will you stand above that? This is the stage for our life. This karmic background is like a platform. If you create enough surface tension in this, you can stand on it and do your fresh act today. But if your feet sink into it like quick sands, then you are just a victim of your memory. Right now, the person that you think is a racist is a victim of his memory.
Right.
The person that you think is a terrorist is a victim of his memory. The person who is a suicide bomber is a victim of his memory because he remembers. what has been taught to him, all right? If he loses his memory, he's a fine guy.
Right, right.
Yes.
So right now you don't have to lose your memory.
Where is your memory?
Your memory is in your body and what you call as your mind, which is all one, all right? This is hardware that is software.
Sure, sure.
So this software, you wrote it unconsciously through various incidents, your own perception according to your intelligence. You wrote your own kind of software unconsciously it's written by you but unconsciously. There have been cases where people have sleepwalked and committed a murder. Even the judiciary thinks that is not worth punishing. They don't punish them even though they committed murder, sleepwalking. As far as the act is concerned, somebody died, they lost their life. Not a small thing, but this man was sleeping. So that man doesn't get punishment because he was sleepwalking, all right? He could have even killed himself in sleepwalking. It's possible.
Right.
But instead he killed somebody else. So essentially you're unconscious, so you're not punishable because you're less than a child, I'm saying. But the important thing is to become conscious. Where is your memory? It's in the body, it's in the mind. If you create a little distance between you and your body, between you and your mind, this is the end of your karma.
The end of your karma?
Yes.
The karmic influence, I mean to say.
Karma is still there.
Yes.
Karma is the richness of your life. Okay, if you have no karma, you will be a bimbo.
Right.
All right. There is karma. There's the more rich and vibrant the karma is, the better. Only thing is, is it your platform to dance upon or is it a quicksand that sucks you in? Most human beings right now are only suffering their memory, isn't it?
Yeah.
This moment they are not suffering. What happened yesterday they are suffering. What happened ten days ago they are suffering. Why, what happened twenty-five years ago they are still suffering.
When they hold on to the thought, the memory.
See, it is not their choice.
To think about the thought.
They don't have to. They're identified with the situations in which they were. Now it makes them suffer. Today we know that a whole lot of diseases that people are suffering are psychosomatic. It does not mean they're always thinking about it, but it's working. The memory is working. Depending on how strongly you're identified. Let's say you're strongly identified with your family structure. Now, something happened in your family which is not pleasant, something very unpleasant happened, let's say. Now, you don't have to everyday think about it. Slowly your face will become like this. A lot of people, just see. Because the memory is working from inside, it doesn't even ask your permission. It doesn't ask your permission, Should I come or go? It just works on every cell in your body. Slowly you lose your vibrancy. What was a vibrant, exuberant person slowly becomes like this. This has happened to more than seventy-five percent of the population.
Right.
When they were five, six years of age, how joyful and exuberant lives they were.
Mm-.
By the time they're thirty, they're like this. What is their problem? What is their problem? Is somebody poking them? No, because their karma is overtaking them. So, The entire process of this book is step by step way of standing above your karma. On the richness of your memory because you can convert this memory into manure and you can blossom upon that. Because what happened yesterday you cannot change. What is happening today you can only experience. What is tomorrow you have to create. Hmm.
When you have... I mean you've experienced Some bad things in the past, right? Some harmful things, some challenges, pain, you've felt these things, right?
No.
In the past?
People try to do lots of bad things and they're still doing lots of them. Every day a whole bunch of people abuse me, people that I have never met. They have enormous hatred for me. Because you know, like today what I have said, a whole lot of people will hate me for this, do you know?
Yeah.
Because their identities are shaken. They have created false sense of identity upon which they are standing, shaking. They know if this is gone, they have nothing to live for. They need to understand there is a life beyond identities. Identities are created for purpose of action in a given situation. It is none of our identities identities are absolute. See, first of all we need to understand, before you and me came here, countless number of people walked this planet. Where are they? All topsoil, part of the manure in this garden. Yes or no?
Yes.
You and me, what will we be in hundred years time?
Same thing.
Same thing, unless your friends fear, you may raise from the dead and bury real deep, so no roots can get to you. I'm saying. So, We are just a small pop-up in time, but we are thinking too much of ourselves.
Yeah.
Because we are we attached too much self-significance to ourselves. Because of that, our identities have risen beyond observed limitations.
Can identities be good at all? Can having an identity be good?
Without identity, you cannot function in the world. Right now this is me, that's you. If this identity is not there, if you ask me a question, I will look like this. What's the point of that? No activity is possible without identity. The important thing is to... It's like wearing your clothes. Right now these are my clothes. See, I wear loose clothes.
Yeah.
So that always you're aware this is my clothing, this is not me. Suppose I wear skin-tight nylon clothes. After some time I don't know which is my clothing, which is my skin. So that's all the thing is. Do you have a space between you and what you have created or are you stuck with it? That's the important thing. If you are stuck with it, you will do crazy things thinking you are doing good things.
If you're held on to the identity, if you're attached to it.
It will wrap you up. Once you create it and leave it, it will just wrap you up unless you're conscious.
Sure.
So if you can see this is the entire inner engineering process we are offering is just this. If you do this practice which we call as Shambhavi, if you sit here, your body is here, your mind is out there, what is you is elsewhere. Once there is a little space between you and your body, between you and your mind, this is it. One thing is there's no suffering within you anymore. Because suffering happens only two ways physical suffering, mental suffering. Do you know any other kind of suffering? Once there is a little distance, this is the end of suffering and above all, this is the end of all identity.
And how do you distance the suffering?
You don't distance the suffering, you distance yourself from your own body and your mind. This is what the practice is about. How to distance means this. See, right now there are life energies. See, when you were a five-year-old child, how much were you identified with your body?
I'm trying to remember a five-year-old child. How much do I identify as my body? I think I was probably exploring my body, trying to run around.
Not at five, you were not exploring anybody.
My body? I think I was like running and jumping and I was like, I was.
Using it, but I was not identifying it. Every day it's changing. you can't even identify with it. Right, right.
Yes.
Your identity with the body got strengthened when you became an adolescent.
Okay.
That is when hormones started poisoning your mind. When your hormones hijacked your intelligence, suddenly you lost your sense of who you are. Otherwise, you as a life were far more exuberant than your body can ever be. Yes or no? Yes. When a child laughs, when a child jumps, when child does this thing, I am still like this. I am saying you will see body is just a thing to use. He is not that. That is not the prime thing. The same was true with your intellect and your mind also, isn't it? When you were a child.
So now... You are curious, you are exploring.
Yes, because it was changing and growing.
You are questioning everything.
You not that you consciously realize. But you know this is not it because your exuberance is beyond that. If you keep your exuberance of life like that today, very clearly you know what is you, what is your body, what is your mind. When I say what is you, let us not give a definition to that. But your body we can define. It's a defined physical form. So we can define this. How did this happen? Just the food that you've eaten, isn't it? This is a heap of food.
Right.
What you call as my mind is a heap of impressions. What you gather, whatever you gather, can be yours but can never ever be you, isn't it?
What you gather...
Right now, this cup...
It's yours but it's not you.
Yes.
Your thoughts are yours but they're not you.
They're not you because yesterday you had one kind of thought, today you have another, tomorrow you may have different thoughts.
Does a collection of your thoughts make Up you?
No.
What makes up you?
Why are you asking Mia? See, this is the problem. You want to get life into a definition. You can only define that which has distinct physical boundaries. Anything which doesn't have a physical boundary, you cannot define that, isn't it?
It's boundless.
Don't go there. That is also a definition because that's just a word.
Okay.
All right, boundless is a good word but still it is just a word. People think boundless means oh, maybe like that. Boundary means like this. No, no, that is also a boundary, isn't it? Sure. Yeah. When you are a child, maybe this house compound was your world. Today your world might have expanded but still it's a boundary.
Right.
Larger boundary, but still it's a boundary. But there is something naturally within every human being that the moment you realize you are restricted by a boundary, you want to go beyond that. Whoever you are right now, you want to be something more.
Don't touch this. Okay, I want to touch.
No, no, I'm not talking about that. See, whoever you are right now, you want to be something more. If that something more happens tomorrow, you want to be something more.
Why is that?
That's what I'm saying. This is an innate longing within the human being because there is something within you which is not physical in nature. It doesn't like boundaries. Till you experience that, you will think you by shopping you will expand your boundaries, by ambition you will expand your boundaries, by conquest you will expand your boundaries. See, always a human being is seeing how to be something more. If it finds a very basic physical expression, we call this sexuality. What sexuality means is something that is not you, you're trying to experience is it a part of yourself. It works for a few moments. Then anyway two people are separate. If it happens mentally, it is called ambition, conquest or simply shopping. Different people do it different ways. If it happens on an emotional level, we call it love. What love means is somebody who is not you, you want to experience them as a part of yourself. But if you do it consciously, we call it yoga. That if you do it successfully, it's called yoga. Yoga does not mean twisting and turning, yoga means union. That means you consciously obliterated the boundaries of your individual individuality. so that you experience the union with everything. This is not an idea, this is not a philosophy, this is the nature of the existence. Most people get it only when you bury them unfortunately. Really? When you bury them, they understand they are part of the earth, right?
Right.
That also they won't understand because today they are burying them in a concrete box.
Right.
They are creating a boundary around them.
Yes, that's the worst thing to do. At least when you die, you should become part of the earth.
Right.
Why is it so hard for people to feel that type of love, that unity love, the conscious love in a relationship, an intimate relationship?
See, this is because they are interested in the fruit, not in the root.
The fruit, not the root.
Yes.
What's the root?
Say right now, you want to experience love. So what will we do? Like people are going about chanting this mantra, I love you, You love me, you love me, I love you throughout the day. Because you know if you don't say it for two days, it may go away. Love does not happen because you say it. Love does not happen because you are attracted to somebody. Yes, you may feel it at certain moments. When you like something, you may also begin to love it, all right? Essentially, love means sweetness of your emotion.
Sweetness of your emotions.
When you have very sweet emotions, that's called love, isn't it? If I have nasty emotions, that's called hate, that's called whatever. So sweetness of your emotion, why is it that you have tied it to something that you like to eat? I love ice cream, I love this man or woman, I love this, I love that, I love car, I love food, I love heavy, you know, people are talking this everywhere. All right. So, or I love God, that's the safest thing to do. Because you can always claim God loves you. But if you claim, this person loves me, tomorrow the guy when it goes away, you can't say anything. But this is a safe thing to do, all right? People have found various ways. I am not saying there's anything wrong with that. It's okay. You use whatever means you want. to feel the sweetness of your emotion. But you must understand, it's the sweetness of your emotion. I am asking you, what happens within you? Why is it determined by somebody else? What happens within you if it's determined by somebody else? This is the worst form of slavery, isn't it?
When love is determined by someone else.
Not only love, your happiness, your joy, your peacefulness, your love Anything that happens within you, when your inner experience is determined by something or somebody, that is the worst form of slavery.
Yeah.
But we are a free country.
So, when people are in a relationship and there seems to be a wave of joy and love and acceptance and then other days maybe it's anger or resentment or frustration How do we move out of that and more into acceptance and conscious love as opposed to control or manipulation or well, you need to do this to make me happy. How do we expand beyond that?
See, first of all, you must decide, is your life in pursuit of happiness or is it an expression of joy?
Is it in the pursuit of happiness or expression of joy?
Tell me in your life, when you're expressing your joy, was that the best moment? Or when you're pursuing happiness, was that the best moment?
The joy.
Yes. So why is it that you have not done that? Because you still believe there is joy in this tree and you can squeeze it out. There is joy in this man or woman that you can squeeze it out, you bring them and then you expect relationship will be great. It will not be you bringing them. out so that juice of joy will come to you or love will come to you. No, love is not something that you do. Love is something that you can become. It's your quality. If your mind is in a certain way, it's joyful. If your emotions are in a certain way, it's loving. This is the quality of sweetness of body. If your body becomes sweet and pleasant, it's called health and pleasure. If your mind becomes very pleasant, it's called peacefulness and joyfulness. If your emotions become pleasant, it's called love and compassion. If your very life energy becomes pleasant, it is called blissfulness and ecstasy. Only if your surroundings become pleasant, it's called success. Only to achieve success, you need competence, you need cooperation, you need help from other people, all right? Because without all of them cooperating, there.
Will be no success.
Right now, these guys must cooperate, otherwise this shoot is not going to go well.
They can cooperate.
All right. But even if these guys don't shoot well, we can still be joyful. They cannot stop us.
No, we can be joyful, yeah.
Yes, they cannot stop us. But for the shoot to go well, they need to cooperate. If they don't cooperate, this situation will not go well. For the success of this situation, you need the cooperation of all these people. But for my body, for my mind, for my emotion and my energies to feel pleasant, I don't need anybody's cooperation. This is one hundred percent my business. So right now to experience love within you, you are asking somebody to be in a certain way. Oh, all the best. You're going to have a trip.
Is that why you think most marriages go through divorce? Because it's more of needing the other person to support you in feeling a certain way?
See. Suppose you cannot walk without a crutch. Without a crutch you cannot walk.
Right?
Then next moment you go and say to somebody, some pretty woman, I cannot live without you. Between the crutch and her, what is the difference, I am asking. One is a physical crutch, another is an emotional and psychological crutch, isn't it?
Yeah.
So essentially you have crippled yourself. This life is a complete life by itself. If this is a complete life, it's joyful, loving, wonderful by its own nature. Now, when it's feeling so wonderful, it may want to share this wonderfulness with people around. You can share this with thousands of people, but you also want a more intimate sharing to happen. For that you need one person. So, if it's about you expressing your joy and love to somebody and you find that person, you think that person is going to run away from you?
No.
You want to squeeze them for love and joy. Initially they drip, afterwards sometime they dry.
Yeah.
So you squeeze them too much.
Yeah.
For the people watching or listening who might be saying, you, know what, I've struggled in my relationships, I don't have financial abundance, I'm struggling financially, out of shape, struggling in my health and wellness, and they're wondering how they can use karma in a sense to support them to create more abundance, financial abundance, spiritual abundance, relationship abundance, health and well-being, or maybe they've been thinking, well, maybe karma's been against me in that way of thinking. How can they start to think differently to apply these principles?
See, you are setting up all the wrong goals.
What should the goals be?
Simply this. See, right now, if you instead of philosophizing, reading scriptures, reading self-help books, all this, just pay attention to the trees around here. What are they doing?
Being.
Be... no, no, no, no, no. They have no capability to be. They are not called beings, only you called being, human being you are. They are not, that's just a tree. It's a wonderful tree, what is it doing? Beneath the ground it's fighting, all right? What is it fighting for? Is this maple tree trying to produce apples?
No, no.
It is just trying to be the best plant. possible maple tree it can be. It is not trying to produce apples. Definitely I don't see any coconuts up there. All right?
Right.
This is all. As a human being, you must see how this life can blossom into its fullest. If it blossoms to its fullest, somebody may become rich with money, for somebody may become intelligent, somebody may become knowledgeable, Somebody may become loving, somebody may become an artist, somebody may just wonder, but a fully blossomed human being is a joy to see, no matter what the hell they're doing or what they're not doing, whichever way they're an asset to whole humanity. Instead of doing that, you want, for example, you said abundance in economic terms. What is your idea of abundance in economic terms? Jeff Bezos, is it?
Me personally, that's not it. But you mean having enough to be able to do what you want. Not feeling like you're a slave to paying your bills.
No, no, I'm not insulting anybody. I'm just saying right now, everybody's saying he's the richest man in the world or whatever. So, what is your idea of abundance? $200 billion of personal wealth? I'm asking. Are you up to it?
$200 billion for me?
Yeah, yeah, why not?
That's not my definition of abundance, but.
That is- what is it? $2 billion?
Probably, I mean, probably over a, I guess it depends on what age I am. Tell me if I'm 10 years old, it's like $100,000. I'm rich, you know. Am I present? I mean, I feel pretty abundant financially, but I mean, if you're asking for.
A specific number, no, no. I'm asking for a number, not because I want to find out your number.
Yeah.
I'm asking because these numbers are bloody meaningless.
Right.
They're all socially relevant, not relevant to you. And anyway, talking about karma right now, let's say you are the guy who has 200 billion dollars. Yes. It's only in your memory. If I erase your memory, your money is gone.
Hello? Yeah.
It's gone, isn't it?
Well, it's in your bank account.
It is in the account.
But if you. If you've forgotten what?
Yeah.
If you've forgotten the code or you've.
Forgotten the access, then it's a whole lot of people buried their treasure all over the bloody world. and somebody else found it thousand years later.
It's true. A lot of people have lost all their Bitcoin and they can't get access to it.
Yeah. Yeah.
So all these issues are there. But the important thing is, why do you want affluence? Let me put the word abundance is affluence. Okay. An individual person wants affluence. A Society wants affluence. A nation wants affluence. Everybody is striving for that.
Why?
Because initially it means a choice of nourishment.
A choice of nourishment.
Yes. If you have money, you can eat what you want. Initially that's the goal. Yes. If it goes beyond that, after you eat everything you want to eat, next thing is a choice of lifestyle. Yes. Now, for example, United States of America has the highest choice of nourishment choices, Highest level of nourishment choices, highest level of lifestyle choices, all right? But you are spending 3.25 trillion on healthcare.
Right.
Oh, wonderful. That is larger than India's economy.
Really?
For 1.4 billion people, we don't have a three and a quarter trillion dollar economy, all right? So, what is the abundance you are seeking? You want to destroy the planet. That's what you are saying.
How do I say for me? I am saying for people watching it here.
No, no, I am saying the thing that you are thinking is because you are in California, your idea of abundance is here. If you are in Timbuktu, your idea of abundance would be this, all right?
Of course.
So I am saying do not think in terms of abundance. Think in terms of a fulfillment of life. If you are a fulfilled life according to your competence, according to your capability, according to the times in which you live, you will do the appropriate thing. Right now in pursuit of abundance, people are doing vulgar things. Two people are living in a fifty-bedroom house. What's the point of this? You can't sleep in fifty different places.
Yeah.
You can have everything that you can use well. But the important thing is, are you making arrangements of home, automobile, this, that, everything as a means to act in the world or as a means to enhance yourself? This you must decide. This is why I said the car advertisements are all talking about the leather, about the paneling, about this, why? Because this is a way of enhancing yourself. Your car is little shinier than your neighbor's car and you are supposed to be better. I'm saying nothing makes you better, all right? Nothing makes you better. The only thing is everything that you can be within yourself, are you or are you not? That's all. In our lives, if we do not do what we cannot do, there is no issue. If we do not do what we can do, we are a disaster. So, I am saying, at least are you as joyful as you were when you were five years of age? At 35-40, if you are not as joyful and as exuberant as a five-year-old boy or girl that you were, obviously you are a disaster because you are not even square one. That was square one of your life when nothing was in your control, all right? You are not even in square one, you sunk deeper. That's a disastrous life.
So we shouldn't be thinking abundance in finance or this or that.
It will happen according to times, isn't it?
Yeah.
See, if you and me were here 10,000 years ago, I would definitely find an Indian cave because there are many. I don't know if you would have found one. Ohio has caves.
Yes, it does.
You wouldn't have come to California, you would have found a big cave in Ohio. I've gone to neighboring state of Kentucky and found a really massive cave out there, all right? I've been visiting all these caves.
Yeah.
So, trying to find some water, that's abundance.
What would be your idea of abundance at that time, I'm asking.
Yeah.
So, I'm saying do not think of abundance because the moment you thought like that, that is what destroyed this planet massively. And now you are saying you want to be eco-friendly by driving an electric car. No, no. It is because fundamentally wrong thinking has come. Life has become about something else. Something else around you enhances you.
No.
The only way to enhance yourself is to bring this to its full blossoming of what it can be at its fullest best, what it can be. What I am at my fullest, am I better than you? No, I'm just different. This tree, is it better than that tree? No, this is one way, that's another way and that's why the world is so beautiful. If there was one more guy just like you in your house, could you live there?
No. No.
If there were seven billion people just like you, could you live in this world? You would commit suicide, believe me.
So how does someone know what their full potential is of who they can truly be?
See, if you don't fix yourself with limited identities, if you do not compare yourself with anything, if you explore and see, if you want this tree to grow to its fullest thing, that's why I said not the fruit. Root. If you count the fruits, maybe that tree is bearing more fruit than this one. That's not the point. You nurture the root, the fullest possible nurture if you give to the root, what it has to become, it will become a blade of grass, cannot become a tree. But is it not wonderful?
Yeah.
Is it not wonderful, you may step on it. Yes. But is it not wonderful?
Yeah.
You mostly have the garden for grass, not for trees actually.
So how do we nurture our inner roots and not focus on the fruit?
See, as there is a science and technology to create the situations that we want in external situations, there is a whole science and technology to create inner situations the way we want. If you want to be nurtured, First and foremost thing is, just look back and see, has there been 124 hours in your life or many people that you know in your life, 124 hours that they passed without anxiety, without fear, without being agitated, nothing. Simply at ease, 24 hours. 24 hours if you come to ease. Believe me, your ability to use your mind and body may go up 100% in twenty-four hours. Just ease. This has not come to people, they are not even at ease. People ask me, Sadhguru, how are you like this? I say, I am like... I am talking to a crowd of hundred thousand. The way I would talk to somebody, they came and asked me something, I am in the bathroom, I have to peep out of that and speak. Just like that I am speaking to hundred thousand people on stage. With the same ease and with the same Not being concerned about what somebody thinks about me, what happens. That's not the point. What I see as truth, I speak. You like it, you don't like it, you realize it, you don't realize it, that's left to you. But you will get it someday. If you heard the words, not today, maybe on your deathbed you will get it, but that's a wasted time. If you get it today, it would be wonderful. Today, if you understood, sitting here, This body is just a piece of the planet that I've picked up. This is not really me. It's for me to use it right now, it's wonderful. Okay? This human body is the finest mechanism on the planet. It's given to me as a gift. I must keep it well. But it's not me, it's something that I picked it up from the planet. If I understand this now, I will live a very sensible life. If you get it, From the maggots, what to do? Some realization happened, at least for the maggots.
Yeah.
It's good.
Yeah. Do you have any personal fears?
What do you mean by that?
Do you have any fears of anything in your life? Are you afraid? Do you remember the last time you had fear? How old were you?
I know fear only from other people's experiences. See, it's not about whether I have fear or not. I made myself like this, only what I want happens within me. What I want may not always happen around me but within me only what I want happens because this is my space, it must happen my way. Why should it happen your way or somebody else's way? The same goes for you, isn't it?
Yeah.
What is within you must happen hundred percent your way. No other way.
When you see chaos around you in whatever way that might be, someone's screaming.
It all the time.
What's your initial response inside to whatever, someone screaming at you or something unjust or some pain happening around you or whether it's attacking you or not, how do you internally respond or what do you say or what's your come from in that moment to stay grounded, say peaceful, joyful, in a moment of pain?
I will act as it is needed. That's all. I will not do anything other than that. If it needs action, I will perform that action. If it is not necessary, I will walk away from that. It depends what kind of situation it is. And I am facing such things all the time. All the time. Don't think I am always celebrating. There are millions of people who celebrate me as a very... in a very fond manner that I am very dear to them though they have not seen me. There are also quite a number of people who simply hate me, endemic hatred towards me though they have not seen me. Simply because they are all invested in something.
In identity.
If you... Something, whatever it is. They call it nationality, they call it religion, they call it caste, creed, race, whatever. The moment you say something that threatens that identity, they will hate you.
What is hate saying about the person who is hating something?
It empowers him.
It empowers them?
Yes. Hate is far more empowering in terms of propelling you into action than love. When people are loving, they hesitate. They hesitate. But when they hate somebody, they go all out.
What does the hate do to someone who is creating the hate?
A little acid. But you know, California acid is popular.
Right?
And do you have any big dreams? Do you think about your dreams of the future or is it more just you're here in this moment, you're here to show up the most joyful way you can?
See, this whole thing about being in the moment is just a mixed up idea. See, what this means is right now the way it is understood in this part of the world, the way it's understood is being in the moment means Don't think about the past, don't think about the future. Essentially they are saying, Do not use your cerebral capability. A human being is endowed with a phenomenal cerebral capability which no other creature on this planet has. In that department, we are number one on the planet, isn't it?
Yeah.
So right now, because people do not know how to use it and they are torturing themselves with their cerebral capability, They're poking themselves with their sharp intellect. Because of that, somebody is saying, Don't think about the past, don't think about the future, just be in this moment. If you're drinking water, just drink water. If you're talking, just talk, don't do anything. See, this is just saying, why don't you become an amoeba once again? An amoeba also has a brain, small brain, that's all. No problems. Amiva need not pray, Amiva need not meditate, Amiva need not think how to be peaceful, very peaceful and fine, all right? So even now for the human beings, if you remove half their brain, they will all be peaceful. Essentially their problem is they don't know how to handle their own intelligence. So either you come up with philosophies like this or you soak your brains half in alcohol or Drug it, do something, eat too much so that it won't work, all you're trying to do is somehow dull the brain. I am saying this evolutionary process took millions of years to give you the cerebral capability and now you don't know how to handle it. How sad is that? That's a miserable thing that you're doing because no other creature has the cerebral capability that human being has. So essentially we are thinking intelligence is a curse. I told you already, it's a curse. If you have limited identity, intelligence is a curse, not just for you, for everybody around you. See, somebody who is very sharp but evil thoughts and they're doing things, you wish he was brainless, isn't it?
Yes.
So this is simply because of this, you don't know how to handle your intelligence for well-being. You tell me in your experience, is intelligence a solution or a problem?
It depends on how it's being used.
No, no, that's not the point. Is intelligence a solution or a problem? Essentially, I feel like it's a solution. It is an absolute solution. But people are making a problem out of a solution. Right. Right now people are making a huge problem out of a solution. You think we evolve like this to create problems? We evolve like this to sort out everything that other creatures cannot sort out, isn't it?
Right.
But we are not able to sort out anything simply because we're crippling ourselves with these kind of things. So the most important thing is you have an intelligence for you don't have a stable enough platform. That is a fundamental problem. If you do not create a stable chemistry, stable energy system, stable physical body, your intelligence is the worst curse you have.
Right.
The sharper it is, the more you will hurt yourself. So this is your inability to handle it. For this there are various reasons because people are being raised like cattle. All right.
Not nurtured.
Not nurtured. I don't say everybody. But unfortunately that's a majority.
Right.
We've got many more questions, but I want to finish with two final questions.
Two is not considered final. Only when you come to one, you say it's final.
Two additional questions. Before I ask those questions, I'm very grateful for your time. Thank you for showing up the way you do and for educating an uneducated human being on all these things. I appreciate it.
You're grabbing the title from me.
This book is really inspiring. You shared some of these things that we talked about today that are in the book in the first chapter I read. A lot of these concepts I heard here. I know there's a lot more to go into, so make sure you guys get the book. Very inspiring. I recommend to get three to five copies, give them to friends if you want your friends to also have expanded identities and not be limited in that thinking. So get karma. A yogi's guide to crafting your destiny. Extremely inspiring. Also check out innerengineering.com for more, lots of courses, books, programs, everything there. I'm gonna have to come to Tennessee someday.
You should come.
And check it out. Don't come there to check it out.
It's already well checked out by me. Come there to experience it.
That's my joy.
Make use of it.
I will use it. I will use it.
Checking out, I've done all the checking out and saw that it's all working.
It's all working. Well, I want to acknowledge you before I ask these two final questions or two additional questions. I want to acknowledge you for being in a journey with all of us. I think the fact that you have learned so much and you want to show up every day and teach and you want to show up and create content and offer solutions through whatever means necessary, whether it's books, courses, videos, TikTok, things you're not even a part of that you're aware that are impacting the world. I'm just appreciative and acknowledge your showing up.
All this effort is to, because I want to live in a joyful, loving, exuberant world. So I'm just trying to set the atmosphere for myself.
Of course.
All right. So this is not a service, this is not a mission. This is just a simple like a dog comes if it wants to sit down, rearranges the rug and sits down, you know? I'm just trying to rearrange humanity so that I can live among joyful, exuberant, loving human beings. Don't you want to?
Absolutely.
Yes.
I mean.
So as a part of this, we are working towards creating a conscious planet. Louis, you must be part of that in some way. I'm trying to put together all the influencers in the world to come together, own this process and create a conscious world because that's the only thing that's lacking. Never before in the history of humanity any generation had these kind of conveniences, these kind of comforts, these kind of wonderful things that we have today. Never before human survival was better organized than it is today. If we don't do it now, when? Many great beings have come on this planet, but when they spoke, hardly ten people could hear.
It's true.
Today we can sit here and talk to the entire world. When we have this, If we do not transform the world into a more loving, joyful, exuberant humanity, it simply means we don't care. I don't want to go as that. Yeah, it's beautiful.
It's a beautiful way of being. This question I asked you last time, but you didn't really answer it, so I'm going to ask it again. Really? Yeah, it's okay. This is called the Three Truths, and maybe you don't have an answer and that's fine. It's called the Three Truths. It's a hypothetical question. So, I'd like you to imagine you get to live as long as you want to live in this physical body on this earth, but then one day you got to go. And you got to take all your work with you. All your content.
Why would I want to take it?
It's a hypothetical. It's a hypothetical. You don't, you don't, you're not going to take it, but it has to go somewhere. No one has access to it anymore. So, it's got to go somewhere else.
But we don't have access to your.
Information, your content, your books, all of it's gone. For whatever reason. I've already taken care of it. It's a hypothetical, right? So imagine that you only get to share three final things that we would have, three final lessons that this is all we would have to remember you by, your information. I call three truths. What would be your three truths for the world?
Oh.
Only three.
Maybe that's why you didn't answer last time.
Everybody just shut up, look and listen.
Yeah?
Really look. Right now people are not looking. If they look, they are making their conclusions based on their identities. They are not hearing anything. They are making their conclusions. Just shut up, look and listen. Life is all there.
Yeah, that's one.
That's all.
That's three.
Set up is one.
Shut up is one.
Look and listen. Three.
I love it.
If you do this, everything that I am speaking will be naturally yours.
Yeah.
This all I did. I just set up, looked at everything absolutely, investing my whole life energy in my look and investing my whole life energy in listening. And that's all I know.
Yeah.
And you whatever I know, you will know if you just learn to Look and listen, but first you must shut up. I love it. Shut up means not just outside, inside you must shut up. And the final good teaching.
It's great.
I love it.
It's perfect.
It's perfect.
Final question now. Now this is my final question. What's your definition of greatness?
What is my definition of greatness? If it can be defined, it's not great enough for me. As I said, definition means it has clear boundaries. Well, if you can be here without any sense of boundary, that's greatness.
There you go. Thank you so much, Sadhguru. Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. It's a pleasure talking to you. Pleasure.
I hope you enjoyed this interview with Sadhguru. Every time I get to hang out.
With him, I'm always inspired by his.
Wisdom and his knowledge and how we can apply this wisdom in our life. and I actually interviewed him before recently and I want to share with you this interview as well. And I would love for you to leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts on the biggest takeaway from this first part of the interview and this second interview also. So leave a comment below on which part you enjoyed the most and the.
Biggest value you got. Here we go. Adults, as you know, get caught up in a lot of things that aren't their true nature. And why is that? Why is that do you think that we forget how to play and think like a child? when we grow up.
See.
People have forgotten that in this vast cosmos where we don't know where is the beginning, where is the end, in the middle of nowhere on a tiny little mud ball called Earth, you and me are sitting long distance and talking right now, okay? So, and for the kind of creatures we are, we are not even a speck of dust in this universe. But we have an individual experience. This is the magnanimity of creation that it's given as an individual experience, though we are nothing. Tomorrow if the whole humanity operates, nobody will miss us in this cosmos, that's how small we are. But we have an individual experience. So this individual experience, human beings have taken it rather too seriously as if they are the beginning and end of the world.
The center of the world, yeah.
Yes, they thought they are the center of the universe. So this misunderstanding makes them believe as they grow up or as they degenerate, I would say. They don't really grow up because at the age of five, if you are so joyful and energetic, by the time you are thirty, you should be ecstatic and bursting. But if the reverse has happened, this is degeneration of life. So this degeneration happens because people take their individual existence rather too seriously. They don't understand before you and me came here, countless number of people who thought they were smart and they were strong and they were beautiful and they were wonderful, they are all topsoil now. Countless number of people. And you and me also will be one day, unless our friends to... our friends choose to bury us really deep, fearing that we may raise from the dead or something. So, we have taken our individual existence too seriously. Because of this, life has taken a backseat. Our physical structure has taken front seat, our psychological structures have, you know, gone to the stratosphere, but the life that we are is somewhere which is not even in most people's experience. So this is the whole problem. When you are a child, you are just a piece of life. Slowly you took your personality so seriously, you took your boundaries of your form so seriously that you think this is it. So till death knocks on their door, they don't realize that this is not it.
And, you know, I've learned that in some cultures they focus on death multiple times a day to bring them back to that moment of this is the only time we have, make the most of this moment, don't take things too seriously. Do you focus on death a lot throughout your days or Is that not something you think about?
I live death all the time.
You're on a motorcycle.
Not just that, motorcycle I live.
Yeah.
Just now if you do not know this, I just released a book on death.
Really?
Do you know this? Yeah, it's a bestseller in India right now.
Wow. Is it here in the USA yet? I gotta get a copy.
We will send you a copy, but it's not released in USA. It's only released in by Penguin India. Because USA, we are releasing another book, so this has been stalled. In US, we are releasing a book on karma.
Perfect. I did both.
So the book is about, it is only for those who shall die. That's how it is titled, Death, a book for only those who shall die. Because most people think other people die. They don't realize we die. They do not see, death essentially means it reminds us that we have a limited amount of time and energy to live. Nobody has unlimited time or unlimited energy. If one is constantly conscious of this, definitely they will organize their life and they'll prioritize their life in much better way than the way they're doing it right now. This is a fundamental death does not mean something else. Not some terrible thing. Death simply means it is clearly reminding you, you have a limited lease of time and energy. That means you need to organize your time and energy to what is most valuable for you, not do one more thing that is not necessary for yourself or anybody around you. And because people think they are forever, they are in some restlessness all the time. I think they just put up a poem which I wrote three, four days ago, It's called life. The most restless ones rest so well when life is taken out of them. As if the only curse was life.
What does that mean to rest so well? You mean sleep so well or live so well that you feel restful?
Oh, even in sleep they're rolling all over the place.
They're not sleeping well.
No, no. They need to either drink or pop a pill to Sleep most of them.
So how do we get to a restful place? Is it more about our thoughts? Is it more about our heart, our soul, our karma, our physical body? What's the place to start for rest?
See.
Right now people generally people's understanding is rest means sleep. Wakefulness means something is happening. No, you have to make your wakefulness also restful. It is just like if you... if you have an automobile who is running at a very high RPM all the time, it'll naturally wear itself out. So it's important that you run cool. So if you run at... running at a easy pace, your efficiency will go up, your ability to do things will go up, your competence will go up in everything. Above all, The number of hours that you sleep will go down dramatically. See, for most people who are practicing inner engineering practices, their pulse rate is somewhere between 45 to 65.
Really?
Many of them... Yes, yes, many of them below 45, between 35 to 45 also in sitting states, in restful states. So once your system is going at such an ease, then the need for rest will come down. There was a time, not anymore, I'm becoming little old and lazy these days. So there was a time, three days and three nights if I don't sleep, I will still be perfectly normal, still doing all my activity. Whole night I will drive, next day whole day I will teach, whole night I will drive and again I will teach like this. These days I can't do one night, next day I will Need to rest a little bit.
Right, right.
You take naps throughout the day now, yeah.
No, no, no, no nap.
I'm joking.
For almost 25 years, more than 25 years, my average sleep time was only two and a half hours.
Wow.
Today I'm sleeping between three and a half to four and a half hours.
You're getting lazy.
You're getting lazy.
Wow, yeah, I think I did a five mile run yesterday and my average heart rate was over 165. So, I wonder if I can do it. Now, I'm pushing it pretty hard on my run. So, I wonder, is there a way to work out hard and keep the heart rate lower than normal still, even while you're pushing and pumping so much blood?
Dr.
Uh, the important thing is, see how you easily oxygen and nutrients are distributed to the cellular level. That will determine. See, this has not been... Generally they are not thinking on these lines, they are always thinking about increasing the lung capacity. Yes, that is also important, but the important thing is with how much ease the nutrients and oxygen get to the cellular level, accordingly your pulmonary system will function. But it's not only about the heart rate. Even at the cellular level with how much stress or how much ease it's going, this can be determined. We have what is called as a cobra test for people. Would you like to go through cobra test?
You've been bitten by a cobra?
No, no, no. If it doesn't bite you, then it proves something. See, most of the venomous creatures are like this, particularly cobras. In the wild, if you just go and pick up a cobra like that, he will simply come, not holding his head or anything. Simply in the middle of the body, simply he will come effortlessly in your hands without any reaction because he is only sensing your chemistry. If you show little anxiety, if you show even a little bit of anxiety, he will go for you. If you don't show any, he is very comfortable with you because he senses everything, his safety and his danger only by the chemistry of your body. So, this is a cobra test. People say, I claim they are very meditative, we say, okay, let's do the cobra test.
Do you do that test with people?
We can check you out 165.
I love your, I'm really enjoying your inner engineering course right now. I've been going through it and I'm really enjoying it.
Okay.
You have a quote, I think I'm going to get the quote correct, I believe I wrote it down. Where you said, only what you perceive, you know. the rest is imagination. And you were talking about that in the context of what we learn in school. You were giving this example of, you know, we only really have 50% of our time available because the other 50% is with our faculties and with sleep. And for many years, we learned things, the content that we only use 1% is what I remember you saying. What do you mean by this? Only what you perceive you know the rest is imagination.
See, perception happens to you in five different dimensions. Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, this is how you're perceiving life. This data has gathered within you only because this data has gathered within you. Now you are able to walk on a round planet which spins. It's not a small thing. It is not a small thing that you are able to walk on a spinning round ball. Because all this data has gathered through five senses, it is not intellectual information, but it is a perceptual information. If this information is not there, you won't be able to walk actually. You will not be able to walk straight. This is what is happening for people when some people lose their memory and things like that. suddenly they become unstable in their body because some of the data is gotten disconnected with their system. So this data that you perceive is most important, that's what a child is all the time drinking up everything. You see how the child is looking at everything because he wants to drink up as much data as possible because instinctively he knows without that data he will not be able to function. So how attentive you are, How attentive your eyes are, how attentive your ears, nose, tongue and touch is, accordingly you have that much you know, that much usable information. So why one person is more efficient while you are an athlete? Why one person is able to catch a damn ball, another person can't catch the damn thing? Why is it? Because that level of attention of exactly how that ball will behave, how you can anticipate where it will go, this is not there. Intellectually, suppose you have a PhD in football, you think you can play football?
If you have a PhD, no, I think you need to experience it as well if you just study it only.
Yeah.
No, that is not experience, it's perception. You are watching it out of your keen interest, you are watching exactly how a ball moves. You may not be thinking the physics of it, but you're watching it and perceiving it. Because of that perception, you know something that you cannot know by reading 100 books about it.
That's true.
You've got to experience life.
Of course.
You've got to experience life.
That's the only reason we are here. To experience life as profoundly as possible.
Absolutely. What do you think is missing in the world the most right now, especially here in America? There's a lot of, you know, we have corona, and then people feel like they're suffering, they're angry, they feel unjust with a lot of different things that are happening. What is missing in the world?
See, talking about those situations in America, America has an unfortunately very cruel history, whether it concerns the Native Americans or the African Americans today, there's a very cruel history. By trying to put it under the carpet, it'll keep popping up. We have to come to terms with it. Everybody has to come to terms with it. Some remorse, some settlement must happen. I think that expression of remorse has not happened, so it keeps popping up. Well, this one policeman's inhuman act, is not the real thing. The real thing is it's there in the air because whatever has happened in the past, certain number of people have resentment about it. And another set of people somewhere, maybe not exactly for me, maybe it may be wrong for me to say this, but somewhere they think that's the natural order of life. That's how it was supposed to be. Somebody had to die, somebody has to be a slave, that is how it is supposed to be. That must go. We must understand historically every one of us have made mistakes. We must bow down to our own mistakes and say, We are sorry for this, let's see how to create a new nation, a new world. This much sincerity and humility should come in every human being. Otherwise, one set of people are resentful, another set of people think they deserve it. Then how will this go?
Yeah.
Do you feel talking about mistakes of the past? I've made a lot of mistakes in my past personally in just different ways from my business to relationships to family dynamics, a lot of different things. And I'm constantly trying to learn to be better every day. Do you feel like you've made a lot of mistakes in the past that maybe you regret or you think to yourself, oh, that was pretty stupid of me to do. Or have you always been this enlightened?
I don't know, I never looked at life as a series of mistakes, learning from that. I don't look at life like that. Well, have you done... made some dumb decisions here and there, of course.
But.
I wouldn't see them as mistakes, I just see them as part of growing up. becoming more mature because enlightenment is one thing, you see things clearly but still operating in the world you need wisdom. Wisdom you have to earn it with experience, there is simply no other way for that.
So you must stumble and fall and learn and grow and just go through life.
Not necessarily, I would not say it is necessarily so because today it has become fashionable with all these management gurus and all saying, you must learn from your mistakes, you must learn mistakes. That means you must keep on doing mistakes. I don't believe that you must learn from your mistakes. I would rather live a life where I don't do any mistakes. Because life is so brief, you do a bunch of mistakes and then you will learn and where will you use it in the grave? Too late.
So learn from other people's mistakes.
Yeah.
Yes, of course. That is what being human means, that we can learn from other people's experience, from history we can learn. We don't have to do all those things once again. And especially you are from the aviation state, if you are trying aviation or if you're trying skydiving or something, if you don't do things right the first time, well, that'll be the last time.
People talk about suffering a lot and I know you address this in your training, in your course and a lot of your social media content and you get interviewed on this a lot. When I went to India to study meditation for my brief time, my beginner mind of meditation, I was told that suffering is the obsessive self-centric thinking that we have about ourselves, the obsessive self-centric thinking. And when we focus on ourselves, then we suffer. I don't know how accurate that is in your mind or in your practice and philosophy, but what is suffering and why do we have it so much?
See, there are two faculties in a human being which are unique to human beings only. No other creatures have these faculties. This is a very vivid sense of memory and a fantastic sense of imagination. So what is it that human beings are suffering? Just check out with any suffering human being. They are suffering what happened five years ago, ten years ago. or they are suffering what may happen day after tomorrow already. So essentially they are suffering their memory and their imagination. Rarely they are in life, they are just suffering these two fantastic faculties which make us human. Our life is rich only because our memory is so vivid. Otherwise we would also be like an earthworm. Essentially what they are complaining is, they are complaining, why did nature evolve us into this, fantastic place of being human being, we would have been happy being earthworms because our only intention is to be eco-friendly right now. Earthworms are very eco-friendly, they are very peaceful, but the possibility is only that much. With the possibility, human being is a tremendous possibility. If you do not know how to harness this possibility, Every possibility will become a problem. That's all that's happened. If you do not harness your faculties the way you should, then it becomes a problem. How come this has happened to us? Well, your name sounds French, I don't know. And you went to Pondicherry. You French background?
Not that I'm aware of, I don't think so. English and Welsh and Italian.
Okay, but your name sounds French.
Lewis Howes, yeah, I'm not sure.
Okay. But you went to Pondicherry, which is a French place.
Yes, I did.
Yes.
Anyway, now that you said English, anyway, an Englishman called Charles Darwin, you heard of that guy?
Of course.
You have no problem with him in Ohio, because we come from Tennessee. We are in Tennessee, that's why I'm telling you. So Charles Darwin said something like this. I'm simplifying it, over simplifying it. But something like this, a goat could have become a giraffe over a million year time. A pig could have become an elephant over many more million years. But a monkey became a man rather too quickly.
Hmm.
So quickly that anthropologists are looking for a missing link which they have not found. Actual difference, the DNA difference between a chimpanzee and a human being is only 1.23%. 1.23% is not too much of a difference, isn't it? So physiologically, physiologically that's how close we are to a chimpanzee. But in terms of our intelligence and awareness, we are worlds apart from a chimpanzee. So right now what human beings are suffering is their own intelligence. You remove half their brain, They will be very peaceful. No meditation will be needed for them. They will simply sit. Peaceful.
And just be, yeah, exactly.
Just be, because that's what the whole American spirituality is just talking about. Just be, just be. If you remove half the brain, you'll just be. That's what a whole lot of people are trying to do by soaking their brains in alcohol. Maybe they're preserving it for some other place. or drugging themselves out, they're just being, all right? That is not the way to explore human possibility. If human possibility has to be explored, all our faculties must be full on and we must see how to further enhance them because the profoundness of experience comes to you only with sharpness of perception. You cannot dull your perception and think you are having a profound experience.
So how do we... Sorry, go ahead.
Please tell.
So how do we maximize or expand our perception?
See, it's like this. Because as human beings, we knew that only enhancement of our perception, our life will become better. We wanted to see what is up there. Our eyes could not see. So we made a telescope. We want to see the virus, so we made a microscope. We want to hear what is happening somewhere else, so we made a telephone, we made a microphone, see you and me talking, literally twelve hours across the planet, all right? Why all these technologies we made? We want to enhance our perception, isn't it?
Yeah.
So right now, this is a bunch of youth, you know, all... all these youth events, below twenty-five events, I get invited because they think I'm twenty-five.
You have the curiosity of a child, that's why they bring you.
So they were asking me, Sadhguru, you have so much influence in the government, why can't you make marijuana legal for us? So this is over ten, fifteen thousand people in Bangalore city and it's a open air thing, I can smell the smoke. They all gathered and they sang, Why don't you make it legal for us? I said, why is this marijuana? We will make cocaine also legal, meth also legal, whatever else you name it, I will make all that legal for you. But why do you wanted this to be legal? Because you want to smoke dope and go to the university, isn't it? Yes, they said, why not? We are fine with that. I said, See, we'll do one thing. I'll get you a small plane. And the pilot comes, really smoked up. Do you want to fly with him? Ah, like this. Then I said, you,'re not getting it. You need a major surgery. The surgeon comes really smoked up. You want the surgery? They said, no. So you understand, by smoking these things or drinking these things, whatever, your faculties go down. Lowered faculties will mean less efficiency of life, not only in terms of work, in terms of experience also. It means less life. So, you want to be high, but you are going low and you're thinking you're high. If you want to be high, you come to me, I will show you how to tune up all your faculties to such a level that you will be bright and alert, All the time? Joyful, blissful, ecstatic, look at my eyes, I am always stoned, without any substance.
Right.
Because this is the most complex and sophisticated chemical factory on the planet. The question is only, are you a great CEO or a lousy CEO? That's all determines the nature of your experience. So I don't want to Give a philosophical explanation to human suffering. Human suffering is essentially that they have an intelligence for which they don't have a stable enough platform. So they don't know how to handle their own intelligence. You can call it tension, stress, anxiety, misery, whatever. Essentially, your intelligence has turned against you. That is all it is.
So much to unpack here.
So when we have emotions, thoughts or feelings, emotions of anger, resentment from something that happened in the past, upset that we see on social media, frustrations in the world, where should we be redirecting these thoughts, feelings and emotions? Should we be feeling them and allowing ourselves to go with anger until it stops? Should we be guarding our thoughts with the reverse of that? What's your ideas on thoughts and feeling and emotions?
You must punch a window pane or a wall better. A stone wall is good.
You'll feel it more, yeah, exactly.
Because that is the model that the Hollywood and the television shows, everything is setting up. When you get angry, you break something, all right?
Exactly.
So, see, first of all, people are assuming that anger is happening to them or misery is happening to them. No, this is exactly what I said earlier, maybe I didn't articulate it fully. No, you are creating anger, you are creating misery, you are creating joy, you are creating whatever. All this is happening from within you. Is it true all human experiences happening from within us?
It's, it's, yeah, because we perceive something.
And then we... Something else, something else may stimulate. But human experience is happening from within us, isn't it?
Right.
Whether it's love or hate or anger or misery or joy or anything is only happening from within us. The simple question I am asking is, what happens from within you? Should it happen your way or somebody else's way?
It should happen your way.
Of course, because the world will never happen your way hundred percent. Because there are so many stakeholders in the world, little bit will happen my way, little bit your way, that is fine. But what happens within me must happen my way. If what happens within me does not happen my way, this is the worst form of slavery, isn't it?
Wow.
Somebody decides what happens within me, somebody decides where I should sit. This is slavery, everybody understands this. Now somebody decides whether I am happy or unhappy, isn't this the worst form of slavery?
Yeah.
So this is the liberation that humanity needs to work at. This is what inner engineering means. Inner engineering is not some mechanical process, Because engineering means this essentially. You will say something is well engineered only if it works the way you want, isn't it? If this one doesn't work the way you want, what the hell are you expecting other things to work the way you want? It's just an accident. When you live accidentally, anxiety is normal.
Yes, it's every day. But when you're living on purpose and intentionally and mindfully, You should be able to shift out of that.
No, no, no, no. I wouldn't use those words.
Okay, what words would you use?
When you say purpose, intention, mindful, see this is the whole problem with people. Their mind is full all the time.
Right.
My mind is just empty all the time. Nothing happening. Nothing. That's why I wear a turban just to make it substantial. There's nothing in my head. If I'm walking there, I'm just walking, nothing happens. Because see, right now your hands are there. Suppose your one hand starts jumping like this. Or if let's say my hand starts jumping like this, what will you think? You think Sadhguru has some kind of a...
I just don't know. That's the way intelligent people do things, you know?
No, no.
Suppose my hand starts jumping like that, you will think there is some ailment, isn't it? You will think I am... Maybe Mr. Parkinson's is visiting me or something like that.
Sure.
So your mind is jumping all over the place. Why is that not ailment, I am asking? Your only comfort is other people cannot see it, isn't it?
I guess they see it through the manifestation of you being anxious or tense or stressed or angry or...
Whether they see it or not, they see it or not. If any part of you is simply jumping without purpose, is that an ailment I am asking?
If any part of you is jumping without purpose, is it an ailment? I think in your inner engineering course, you talk about how we have certain faculties that we can't control, like going to the bathroom and doing certain things that are part of our body. So, yeah, but... I don't know if that's a trick question or not.
No, no, the pee is just filling up in the bladder. It's not jumping all over the place.
Gotcha, gotcha.
If it jumps all over the place, that is an ailment.
That's an ailment, yes, correct.
Right now, suppose, let me take a worse example. Suppose your hand starts beating you in the face.
That's an ailment, yes.
For sure. So right now your thoughts and emotions are beating you up from inside. Why is that not an ailment I am saying?
No it is.
So let us not think anger happens to us, resentment happens to us. No, these things we are creating. We have the power to emote. We can make it love, we can make it joy, we can make it ecstasy, but people have chosen to make it tension, anger, resentment, hatred, they have turned it that way. Now they will claim this is because life has been unfair to me. Life has not been fair to anybody. Especially not me. Life is not fair to anybody. Life is simply rolling. It's for you to learn to ride it. Sometimes we are in uncomfortable situations, sometimes we are in comfortable situations. Sometimes we are in situations where we know exactly what to do, in some times we are in situations where we don't know what to do, sometimes somebody else is controlling the situation, sometimes you are controlling the situation, this is how life is. If you are constantly stepping into unfamiliar situations in your life, that means you are growing at a rapid pace. If you are in constantly in comfortable situations, that means you are a stagnant life. So if you look for comfort, if you look for a comfort zone, because the moment your thoughts and emotions are going to torment you with external stimulant, external stimulation that happens, what will you choose? You will choose a comfort zone. This means you will limit your life. So the moment somebody can cause you pain or suffering, this means unknowingly you will make the very scope of your life very limited. Only when a person loses this fear of suffering, that no matter what happens, this is how I will be. If this assurance comes to you, then you walk full stride because whatever happens in the life around you, it will not really make you suffer. Once you are free from suffering, only when you are free from suffering, When you're free from the fear of suffering, that is when you will explore your life in full depth and dimension.
How do we rid ourselves of the fear of suffering then?
See, as I told you, the suffering is happening because your faculties are not held in your hands. If I have to go to this in little detail, I will have to take a few minutes. See, for example, if I ask you a simple question, Do you want your intellect to be sharp or blunt? What is your choice?
Sharp.
Sharp, of course. So you understand your intellect is the better... the sharper it is, the better it is. It's like a knife. So if it's like a knife, it's a cutting instrument. So if you give anything to your intellect, it will dissect everything and see. This is the nature of our intellect. You don't have to physically dissect, but it dissects everything and sees what is this, what is that. This is the nature of the intellect. Without dissection, it doesn't know because it is a knife, it's like a scalpel. It must be sharp. A knife that is not sharp is no good knife, isn't it?
Right.
Good for butter.
Yeah, that also depends. If it just comes out of the refrigerator, even that it won't cut.
So.
If you are using a knife to do everything, to do everything, let's say you eat with a knife, you brush with your knife and you do everything with your knife, of course you will be bleeding. That's all that's happening. Only one dimension of intelligence within us. In yogic way of looking at things, we look at mind as sixteen parts. This intellect is just one part. Because our education systems are such, which are totally intellect oriented, human beings largely are using only one dimension of their intellect to do everything. You use a knife to stitch your clothes. What will you wear? Only tatters. See, that's what you are seeing in Los Angeles right now, half the people are wearing tattered clothes, maybe they used a knife to stitch their jeans.
Hmm, exactly. With holes in it, yes.
So if you use a knife to stitch, that's what will happen, all tatters. Right now human life is in tatters, mainly because of this. Instead of using a needle, you are using a knife. So intellect is a very good instrument of survival. If you want to survive on this planet, you need a sharp intellect. The sharper it is, the better you will survive. But that will not make life, that will not put everything together. Right now because through intellectual process people are trying to handle everything with so much care they're trying to do everything right, right, right, right and a blunder. The result is a blunder, everything right but the end result is a big blunder because you're using a knife to do everything.
When, okay, here's a question for you. When was the last time that you felt anger or resentment and actually expressed it?
I was just thinking of getting angry with you just now.
Perfect.
Bring it. I love that.
The thing is, Luis. I did not give this privilege to anybody that somebody can make me happy, somebody can make me unhappy, somebody can make me angry, somebody can make me miserable. I have not given that privilege to anybody. It's not that I'm incapable of all these things. If I want, I can be all those things.
Right.
But I have not given this privilege to anybody. They can't do something to me and make me angry. I have not given that privilege to anyone.
Did you have that experience or give that privilege to someone when you were younger? Did you learn that at a certain point where you transitioned?
Till I was 23-24 years of age. From the age of probably 11-12, I was always 24 hours angry.
Really?
Yes. Because I was on this binge of what is justice and injustice. So once you start looking what is justice and injustice, just about everything in the world looks unjust.
Everything makes you angry.
Small, small thing.
Yeah.
Yeah, everything, anything unjust means it makes me angry. And everywhere I see, whether at home, in school, on the street, in the society, in the country, in the world, wherever I see, I think this is unjust, this is unjust, this is unjust. So much injustice. Always angry.
Right.
I mean, I feel like there's a lot of people in America and in the world who a lot of things make them angry and there's a lot of injustice for people. So when did you shift and how did you come to that realization that this no longer works for you in your life?
See, it doesn't work for anybody.
That's true.
Not just for me.
For you personally, when did you realize?
The reason why people think anger is some kind of a virtue, because they say righteous anger, all right? Right now America is seething with anger and they think it's righteous anger. This is simply because it takes some horrible thing to stimulate them into action. There's not enough love in your heart. to stimulate yourself into action. Something has to poke you, you must get angry and then it propels you into action. So that kind of action sometimes will produce results, of course. But if you want genuine results which will be good for everybody, we must do it when everything is right. But when everything is little comfortable, nobody does anything. When something horrible happens, Then we will get angry and propel ourselves into action. Right now, this propelling yourself into action with anger, how long will you keep it up? You cannot keep it up forever.
Take it forever. Yeah, you get tired.
Yes.
If you keep it up forever, you will destroy yourself and you will destroy everything around yourself. So anger is become valuable because most people are so lethargic. in their responses. Once in a way when they get angry, they feel empowered and seem to be doing right things once in a way. You must be doing those right things all your life. Then by the end of your life, everything might not have changed but you would have made a difference. That's the way the world works.
Hmm.
So how I... Man. So, if people are lethargic and comfortable a lot of the times and they're unwilling to choose love and act with love to make a change, how do we get people to wake up when things are calmer so that they can act with love and get the change and the results they want?
See, today, this whole movement, what you're seeing as Inner Engineering, is a movement from religion to responsibility in a way. Essentially what I mean is, religion means people are thinking responsibility somewhere up there. Where is that up? Nobody knows, all right? You just have to believe where is that up. But now you are sitting in California, I am here in Tamil Nadu. If I look up, I am looking at looking up in one direction, if you look up, you are looking up in another direction. So my up is different, your up is different and by tomorrow morning again my up will be yours, your up will be mine. It'll be big confusion. The damn planet is spinning and it's round. Which way is up? Does anybody know which way is up in this universe? Is it marked somewhere in the cosmos, this side up? There is no such thing. So, responsibility is up there. No, no, no, it must come here. We must understand, if we want to live in a wonderful world, it's only us and us and us who can make this happen. No other force from anywhere is going to make this happen. Unless we realize and transform ourselves from religion to responsibility, that it's here, what this whole thing has come up is, See, because we have no explanation for creation. Before you and me came, so much creation has happened. Who did it? A simplistic, childish understanding of this is a big man must have done it. So he is somewhere up there, because you can't see him here, he must be up there. Now of course women are claiming, why not it be a woman? In India we sorted these problems out. There are... we have man gods, we have woman gods, we have snake god, we have cow god, we have elephant god, every kind crawling ones, creeping ones, flying ones because we foresaw all the future problems that may happen. You don't know who will claim what tomorrow. So we said everything is God. So what I am saying is our idea of God has essentially come because we have no explanation for creation. How did all this happen? Such a complex, fantastic stuff. Who did it? Because we are human, we think it must be a big human being. Suppose you and me were buffaloes having conversation right now. We would definitely think God is a huge buffalo, isn't it?
Mm-.
Nobody could argue with us about that. We would definitely say He's a huge buffalo because that would be our imagination. Right now this is our imagination. It's fine. If you are using it to settle a few things, if you are using it, as a way of a psychological process, fine. But solace is one thing, solutions for life is a different thing. So one first thing that we must decide is those who are in extreme states of poverty, war, other kinds of misery imposed upon them, only for them you must give solace. Rest of us who have eaten our breakfast today morning or dinner, We should talk about solution, not solace. Solace is just a psychological process to settle something within you. But why? People who have eaten well, people who are healthy, people who have a life to live, why are they psychological problem? They should not have any psychological problem, that's all I'm saying. I know this will be very cruel for lot of people, but they better get it because life is brief. If they don't get it now, and they think being psychologically disturbed is normal, they will spend their life like this, it is not normal. To be healthy is normal, to be balanced is normal, to be joyful is normal. Look at yourself when you were five years of age, were you miserable or joyful? And if somebody had to make you take the joy out of you by poking you with something, otherwise joy wouldn't go, you would be bouncing all over the place, isn't it? Today somebody has to make you happy, Somebody has to work hard to make you happy. At that time somebody had to work hard to make you miserable. Today somebody has to make you work hard to make you happy. The whole equation has gotten reversed. What is it? What is it that happened to you? You just grew up. If you grew up, life should become better when you grow up, isn't it? All other life, you see a little plant when it grows up into a tree, does it become better or worse?
It becomes better.
It becomes better. Everything becomes better. Only human beings are saying, oh childhood was so fantastic, my adulthood is misery. Why? This must be the best time. Your old age must be the most fantastic time.
But I'm hearing, what I'm hearing you say is we've allowed our inner engineering to not to be broken and we allow it to stay broken with our thoughts and our emotions and our feelings and we don't take care of it.
See, as a society, as a culture, as a generation of people, we have not given enough significance to the life that we are. Our whole business, you ask any child today, he knows where that Galaxy Z163 is, all right? Because he's seen it on the phone screen. But he doesn't know a damn thing about himself. You do not know the fundamental mechanics of how you function. For example, let me put this in a very simple way. Right now I will give you a simple exercise. Next ten seconds, you should not think about a monkey. Do not think about a monkey. Do not think about a monkey, that's what I am saying. Only monkeys, isn't it? So to this mind, this is the nature of your mind. If you say, Do not something, only that will happen, that's the nature of your mind. To this mind, somebody told you, what is good, what is bad. Do not think about bad things. Well, that's a full-time job. I'm saying you have not understood the simple most fundamental mechanics of human mind. This doesn't need any enlightenment. If anybody sits with two minutes eyes closed, they will realize that in this mind there is no subtraction and division, there's only addition and multiplication. Whatever you try to do, only more will happen. There are no breaks on it, all three pedals are throttled.
I wish we could go for another six hours, but I want to be respectful of your time and I have many, many questions that I know I'll always want to ask and continue to learn and improve in my life and I know my audience will want to ask as well. But I want to be respectful of time and finish with a few questions. This is called the Three Truths. I asked this question to every guest that I have on at the end. It's a hypothetical question. So bear with me. The three truths. A truth. Hypothetical question.
There's only one huh?
Okay, perfect. Well, here's the question if you can share with yours if it's one or three. Imagine you have lived your life fully and you've gone off to do everything you want to do. You've lived many more years but eventually you must go. Your body must go. For whatever reason, Sadhguru, you have to take all of your teachings, your books, your videos, this interview with you when you pass, for whatever reason, hypothetical. And you get to, before you go, write down three things you know to be true about all of your life experience, about lessons, about what you'd want to share with the world that we would all have access to. And this is all we would have access to from your wisdom. What would you say are those three things for you? And maybe it's only one thing, but what would you say are your three truths?
Well, I'm anyway planning to do that. What you said, take all the books and videos and everything. Because all the idiots around me, if they don't get the point when I'm alive, they're not going to get it after I'm gone.
There you go.
So.
Books and videos are only inspirational, that will never convey truth. It will only inspire them to seek. So that seeking, I clearly know that I have instilled in millions of people, that seeking will live on. It doesn't take books and videos and stuff. It'll anyway live on because the seeking is not about me. The seeking is the fundamental nature of every human being. The fundamental intelligence within the human being essentially seeks. So the seeking is destroyed by making them believe something all the time along the way, this is right, that is wrong, that is God, this is devil like this. Beliefs and beliefs and beliefs and you block the seeking. So my whole work has been to unblock those blocks so that people become seekers. So, if they have become seekers, they will anyway continue to seek. If they haven't, well, all the best for them. What can I do?
Okay, so is that one truth then? Become a seeker?
We can explore all the other truths.
Perfect, perfect.
Different doors to the same building.
Different doors to the same building. Got it. I want to encourage everyone to get in your engineering because as I'm going through right now, I'm really enjoying the philosophy that you're sharing with everyone. Where can we go to get access to this and follow you on social media? I've got a couple questions left for you, but I want to make sure everyone goes and gets access to this because there's a way for them to continue.
One thing is right now, if you are a frontline worker working for the COVID virus, Then it's offered free to everybody. Otherwise it's offered at half price because of the virus situation. So millions of people are making use of it. They should go to innerengineering.com, is it?
Innerengineering.com?
Innerengineering.com, in the United States, that's where it is. So it's available there and they should go through it as quickly as possible. They shouldn't spread it. Let's say seven days. Within fifteen days, if they go through it, it's most impactful. Now in the next few days we are adding an extra bonus, extra day, eight days, eighth session which will come on day four or something, where we're teaching some practices mainly to enhance the immunity of the system. Considering these times, right now we can't be locked down forever. The only way for us to get back, we don't know a damn thing about this virus. I have been looking at every scientific studies, every day 128 new papers are being released, scientific papers. That means we don't know anything. Every day little, little, little they're learning. So, if you look at it, we don't have a clear statement, this is the nature of this virus, this is what it can do, nobody has said that. So, the only instrument that we have is a strong immune system. If you have, you know you can pass through this. So as a part of this, we are introducing one more extra session which must go in within the next few days that there will be a series of practices that one can learn in one session which will enhance the immune system. Here we have taught to millions of people in rural India which is making a huge difference.
Yeah, that's powerful.
Yeah, I encourage everyone to go get that and we'll have it linked up on the show notes and everything as well. What are three things that you think, three habits that you apply in your life that you think are simple habits everyone should be applying? for increased happiness and immunity in general.
Oh, these are two things, happiness and immunity. Some people are immune to happiness.
I feel like if you have more happiness, your immune system would be increased as well.
Definitely, if one is exuberant, all systems including the immune system will function. better because we should not understand happiness and joy as just a certain type of emotion. Essentially when your life energies are exuberant, it will naturally bubble out. You don't have to try to be happy, you don't have to be... try to be joyful. This will naturally happen. When your energies are exuberant and effervescent, naturally your immune system will work well. So those two things are different but To considering the times, I think I should say a few words on the immune system. There are a few simple things that you can do. In India, we have so many herbs and other things in a tropical land that we are using very effectively. I must tell you this, where we are right now, we are near in the western part of Tamil Nadu, where you went is the eastern part near the coast. This is the western part of Tamil Nadu. In this region, our volunteers have been active giving a few you know, a few herbal drinks all around for the police, for the medical personnel and all the whole population, a few million people. And we are also distributing this in various places. Wherever this has been done, in this region of Tamil Nadu, there's not been a single case till now. Though it's rampant in Chennai, it is there's not a single case here. I cannot claim it's only because of this drink, but this drink has made a huge difference. This drink has nothing to do with the COVID virus, but it has something to do with enhancing your immune system, your system functions better. One simple thing that in United States people can do, if you have a garden, just spend at least one hour barefoot in the garden, put your hands into the earth, do something, Just connected to the earth in some way, believe me, your immune system will work very, very well. Lovingly, if you handle soil, you must call it mother soil, not dirt, okay? And you handle it, you will see your immune system will go up. This is something we have completely disregarded. All the time on whatever, if you are a woman, you are on three or three or six inch heel, If you are a man, you are on a proper boot, never connected to the earth. It's important that you connect to the earth because what you think is your body is just an extension of this earth. You are just a pop-up on this planet. One day you will pop back into the planet, all right? So, this is very important. This is a simple thing you can do. If you don't have a garden, volunteer to work in your neighbor's garden. He will also be happy. You will also be healthy. That's one thing. And today I think certain things are available in United States. One simple thing is turmeric. If you mix little bit of turmeric in warm water along with honey and drink it three to five times a day, your immune system will work wonderfully well.
Okay.
These are simple things that you can do and there are also certain other things may not be available. It should be available in California. You have these gooseberries, raw mangoes, these are all wonderful things for your immune system. This is naturally when people are going into certain states, particularly when women get pregnant, they have an urge to eat certain things. All these things have been identified as things which are extremely good for your immune system because it's a natural urge, instinctive urge in the system to strengthen the immune system when a woman gets pregnant. This is a natural process which is happening in the... It is intelligence invested in our bodies which may not necessarily get articulated in our minds.
Yeah.
Beautiful.
And there is a simple practice which we can give to you, you can put it on your cast, podcast. It's called Simha Kriya. Simha Kriya, it just takes twelve minutes to do it. This will immediately enhance the immune system. I would say within Within two weeks of practice, there will be a significant improvement in the immune system.
Wow.
Now everybody is stepping out from the lockdown. Either you want to go to work or you want to protest, do whatever.
You want to do.
Your immune system should be good. It's very important.
Wow.
Yeah, we'd love to share that. We'll connect with your team after. And by the way, do you have a podcast, Sadhguru?
No, really.
I'm all over the world.
The world needs to hear your voice on audio as well. I know you have a big YouTube following in social media, but I'm happy to connect with your team later to you already have the content. It would transform a lot of people's lives if you choose to do that in the future. So I'm happy to support.
I'll ask our US team to get in touch with you. Please support us.
Yes, of course. My final before I ask my final question, Sudhir, I wanted to acknowledge you for the incredible gift you are to the world, for the incredible example you set every day for the people around you. Again, I think you explaining that our life should get better the older we get, not have more problems and more challenges and more disease, it should improve, it should flourish, we should have fruit hanging from our limbs essentially. I love the example you set of demonstrating love, peace, childlike joy every single day because that example is rippling into in so many lives. And so I just really acknowledge you for the gift that you are and all you do to serve humanity in a big way. And my final question for you is what I ask everyone at the end as well is what is your definition of greatness?
See.
We used to print a brochure for Nina Engineering programs. We would say inner engineering from ordinary to extraordinary. So these are physical programs at that time when I'm doing this, after one or two days they would come and ask, Sadhguru, you said something special will happen, what is it? I said, I never said anything special. The brochure says ordinary to extraordinary. I said, Yes, that's what I mean. You will become extraordinary. more ordinary than ordinary people. When you become very ordinary, you just become life. When you just not one mess in your mind trying to be special, you just ordinary life. Because ordinary life is fantastic because there is no greater phenomena than the so-called ordinary life. Everybody is trying to be something other than life. Who are those people that you consider as great people? Only those people who broke the boundaries of limitations of their persona, isn't it? Those who operated within their personal context, you don't call them great. It is only those people who operated beyond that. That means they were not trying to direct their love in some direction. They were not trying to become great first of all. They just allowed their love to direct them. You should never direct your sense of inclusiveness that you have. You'll allow your inclusiveness to direct your actions. Is it right, wrong, is it successful? There are a whole lot of self-appointed, you know, advisors around me who keep saying, Sadhguru, for what you have, you could make billions of dollars, you could do this, you could do that, what are you doing? said, what do I do with billion dollars,? I want 7.6 billion people. What do I do with billion dollars? I don't know what to do with it. What will I do with it? Anyway, wherever I go, people feed me. Wherever I go, people make sure I stay in good places. Wherever I go, I travel well. So why do I need money? I don't need money because the problem with humanity is, as I said earlier, They have taken their own physical and psychological form too seriously. They have a shape to their body, they have a shape to their mental structure. This is what transformation means. When I said inner engineering, tools for transformation, transform means you destroy the existing form and become a larger form. And then you destroy that and become a larger form, continuous transformation means moving from form to no form kind of state. Anybody who showed or exhibited those aspects in their life, at some point they broke their form and did something beyond that, those are the people that you are recognizing as great, isn't it? I have no intention of being great. I'm just fooling around.
I love that. Well, hopefully next time you're in Los Angeles, we'll be able to have some food and I'll pay for your meal for you and hopefully when I come to India, we can connect.
You have to pay for my food because every day somebody pays for my food. I got you.
I don't earn anything.
I got you. And hopefully, and maybe we'll meet up.
In Dayton someday if you go back to the museum. Why not? Dayton will be good.
It's been years since I went there. I love that.
So, Guru, thank you so much for your time and for your wisdom. Thank you, Louis. I look forward to supporting.
I hope it's been useful to you.
Of course.
Thank you very much. Catch up somewhere in U.S. I don't know when I'll make it. I was just thinking I'll take a boat to United States because airplanes are so unsafe.
Right?
Come on.
Come on over. Yeah.
We'd love to connect. Love to have you come back on in the future as well and keep sharing your message and promoting your program. So what you're doing is a.
Is inspiring.
So thank you. Thank you.
I appreciate it, sir.
Have a good one.
If I saw something was difficult. I wanted to master it.
I was driven to do that, just to see how far I could go.
In these multiple directions.
And that left me vulnerable to one thing. It left me vulnerable to being in.
A situation where I wasn't healthy enough to manage it.
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