#315 Sadhguru - Stop Letting Your Mind DESTROY You

Summary

The Shawn Ryan Show — Episode #315: Sadhguru – Stop Letting Your Mind DESTROY You

Date: June 22, 2026
Guest: Sadhguru
Host: Shawn Ryan

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Shawn Ryan Show features Sadhguru, a prominent yogi and mystic, who engages in a wide-ranging, candid, and deeply philosophical conversation with host Shawn Ryan. The central theme revolves around the functioning of the mind, the common misconception of “being in the moment,” the sources of human suffering, the nature of relationships, karma, and how one can attain inner transformation. Sadhguru debunks common Western self-help mantras, digs into the roots of trauma, discusses the authentic meaning of yoga, and shares practical thought exercises for personal well-being.

Tone: Thoughtful, provocative, and occasionally humorous, with Sadhguru often challenging both popular beliefs and Shawn's own assumptions.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. "Being in the Moment" — Misconceptions and Reality

[00:18–02:35]

• Sadhguru challenges the Western obsession with “being present,” arguing that everyone is, by definition, in the present: “For one moment, Shawn, be somewhere else and show me.” (Sadhguru, [00:40])
• The mind's ability to process multiple things is not a flaw but an evolutionary strength. Advising people not to think about the past or future "will destroy humanity."
• Quote: “If you do not think about the past and future, you will be a dodo.” (Sadhguru, [01:46])

2. The Mind: Tool or Enemy?

[02:35–04:44]

• People try to “stop” their minds but not their other organs – why is mental activity viewed as a problem?
• The real issue isn’t having thoughts, but the inability to handle them.
• Analogy: Not wanting your heart to stop, so why stop your brain?

3. Relationships & Need vs. Genuine Connection

[06:33–12:41]

• Most human relationships are transactional, built around needs: physical, emotional, social, financial.
• True relationships occur when bonds go beyond transactional needs; this is rare and precious.
• Quote: “Very few human beings experience the beauty of such a relationship where there's nothing to fulfill. It's wonderful.” (Sadhguru, [07:35])

4. Identity, Suffering, and Completeness

[10:51–16:29]

• The only part of us that feels "incomplete" is our psychological makeup, influenced by social conditioning.
• Action and effectiveness in the world depend on healthy relationships, but inner completeness must be felt independently.

5. Pleasantness: The Foundation of Well-Being

[16:30–18:13]

• Sadhguru explains different forms of pleasantness: body (health/pleasure), mind (peace/joy), emotions (love/compassion), energy (bliss/ecstasy), and surroundings (success).
• Modern people have more comforts than any generation, yet are less at ease — the problem is internal, not external.

6. The Mind as Sophisticated Technology: The User Manual Metaphor

[19:52–21:13]

• The human mechanism is the most complex technology, and yet we fumble because we don’t understand its "user manual."
• Expertise comes from close observation and understanding, not memorization.

7. Intellect, Identity, and Memory: The Four Dimensions of Intelligence

[24:54–44:12]

• Outlines four aspects (buddhi/intellect, ahankara/identity, manas/memory, chitta/pure consciousness).
  • Buddhi: Should be sharp, not blunt, but, “most people are cutting themselves all the time.” ([26:20])
  • Ahankara: Your identity, determines how the intellect is used ("the hand that holds the knife").
  • Manas: The storage of memory that contextualizes experience.
  • Chitta: Pure consciousness, intelligence unsullied by memory.
• Suffering is largely self-manufactured via memory and imagination.

8. Turning Suffering into Joy: How Attention and Identity Shape Experience

[44:13–49:22]

• Sadhguru challenges the belief that suffering is caused by outside events — most of it arises from memory and anticipation.
• Quote: "If your intelligence worked for you, would you keep yourself blissful or miserable?" ([32:20])

9. Personal Story: Sadhguru’s Spiritual Realization

[52:20–95:20]

• Sadhguru recounts his childhood sense of wonder, agnosticism, and shift following a mystical experience at age 25 where he lost a sense of inner and outer boundaries — “Suddenly, it had spilled over everywhere, all over the place.” ([85:42])
• “Bliss is not a goal by itself. Only if your body and mind are in utter sense of pleasantness, your genius unfolds.” ([92:47])

10. Consciousness, Yoga, and Real Union

[98:26–141:30]

• Yoga is not just twisting the body but realizing union: "One half of your lungs is hanging out on the tree." ([131:29])
• With expanded sensory boundaries, all is included in one’s sense of self—a lived experience, not an ideology.
• “If you experience whole creation as a part of yourself, then we say you’re a yogi.” ([141:30])
• Illuminates the difference between achievement and realization: "It’s not an achievement, it’s a homecoming.” ([144:45])

11. Karma: Action with Awareness

[108:13–122:42]

• Karma is not reward/punishment but action (physical, mental, emotional, energetic) and the awareness with which it’s performed.
• Most karma happens unconsciously, so life feels accidental.
• “Karma is not by action. Karma is by volition.” ([173:49])

12. Trauma, Desire, and Expansion

[180:37–199:09]

• Trauma results from reality not matching desire, which itself is never-ending: “There is something within you which does not like boundaries. Unknowingly, you’re seeking yoga.” ([184:00])
• Desire is the constipated form of spiritual longing for boundlessness.

13. Practical: Shifts for Handling the Mind

[157:27–162:07]

• Sadhguru demonstrates how simple changes in physical posture and breathing shift mind and energy.
• The right context (not just content) is vital for mental well-being.

14. Death, What is ‘You’, and Letting Go

[162:14–169:21]

• Explores the distinction between “my body/my mind” and “me.”
• Most people mistake their mind and body for the self; true freedom arises from knowing they are yours, not you.

15. Inner Engineering: Tools for Veterans and All

[202:44–213:39]

• Talks about programs for trauma and rehabilitation — “Inner Engineering” is offered free to veterans.
• Illustrates the transformative effect of such tools even in prisons.

16. War, Karma and Intention

[173:35–178:49]

• The karma of killing isn’t in the act but in the volition/intention behind it: “Another goes there as a friend, gets into an argument and kills him in the spur of the moment… So it is not in the action, it is in the intention or the volition.” ([173:49])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Present-Mindedness:
  “You are anyway in the moment. Why should I tell you, be in the moment? I am telling you, think of a thousand things. What is the problem?” (Sadhguru, [02:08])
• On Relationships:
  “If you address another human being as a human being, not as somebody who fulfills this or that for you, then there’s a genuine relationship.” (Sadhguru, [07:29])
• On the Mind’s Power:
  “The mind is a sharp knife; but most people are cutting themselves all the time.” (Sadhguru, [27:56])
• On Suffering:
  “Most of the time, human beings are suffering their memory and imagination.” (Sadhguru, [44:10])
• On Bliss:
  “If a little space arises between your psychological process and your physiological process and yourself…then it’s just blissed out.” (Sadhguru, [91:50])
• On Attention:
  “If you pay conscious attention to the simplest things, fantastic things will happen.” (Sadhguru, [148:11])
• On Identity:
  “Once you experience me and everything around you as a part of yourself… do I have to teach you ‘thou shall not kill’?” (Sadhguru, [138:09])
• On Death:
  “Life and death live in me at once. Never held one above the other… When one stands for life, I offer in closeness only death I deal in. In death of the limited, will the deathless be.” (Sadhguru poetry, [218:44])

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Important Timestamps (Content Only)

• 00:40: Sadhguru challenges concept of “being in the moment”
• 16:30: Sadhguru outlines different forms of pleasantness and the real roots of dissatisfaction
• 24:54–44:12: Breakdown of four layers of intelligence; intellectual suffering; memory and imagination
• 52:20: Sadhguru describes his mystical experience and journey to bliss
• 91:50: Sadhguru’s insights on bliss and establishing space between self and psychological/physiological processes
• 108:13: What is karma? The problem with unconscious action
• 131:29: True meaning of yoga (union) — practical breathing and awareness experiment
• 141:30: The yogic state; boundaries of sensation and compassion
• 162:14: What is “you”? Body, mind, and the process of seeing one’s true self
• 173:49: War, karma, and intention
• 180:37: Trauma, desire, and the real longing for boundlessness
• 202:44: Inner Engineering for veterans and transformative prison work
• 218:44: Sadhguru’s poem on life and death

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Closing Reflection

Sadhguru upends popular self-help notions, addressing suffering not by resisting thoughts but by shifting fundamental inner mechanisms: awareness of identity, harnessing attention, and realizing the innate union of all existence. Far from esoteric abstraction, his advice is practical, grounded in experience yet visionary in scope — urging each person to become conscious “drivers” of their minds, to expand their identity, and to engineer their own chemistry of well-being.

“The mind is the greatest miracle we have. But most people have turned it into a misery-manufacturing machine... If you are willing, you can turn this into a miracle.” (Sadhguru, [95:20])

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For inner practices mentioned by Sadhguru (including the free “Inner Engineering” program for veterans), check resources/links in the episode description.

Transcript

[Sean Ryan]

Foreign.

[Sadhguru]

SCOTT M. Good morning to you. Sean.

[Sean Ryan]

Morning. Welcome to the show.

[Sadhguru]

Thank you very much.

[Sean Ryan]

I've been really looking forward to this one. We actually tried to get you two or three years ago.

[Sadhguru]

Oh, really?

[Sean Ryan]

So it took a minute. But I just want to say I'm honored to have you here. I'm very thankful that you're here and, and I'm very excited to talk to you about a slew of different things. So you seem like a person that has mastered being in the moment.

[Sadhguru]

What does it mean? Let me address this properly. See what is being in the moment? I know in America this has gone on like this. Everybody's talking about being in the moment for one moment, Sean, be somewhere else and show me.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, be present. Be present with what's going on.

[Sadhguru]

Be somewhere else and show me. No. Is it possible?

[Sean Ryan]

It is.

[Sadhguru]

Huh?

[Sean Ryan]

Not in my mind. In my mind it's possible to be somewhere else.

[Sadhguru]

See, if you sit here and think of New York, you're thinking of New York, you're not there, right?

[Sean Ryan]

Correct.

[Sadhguru]

If you think of yesterday or tomorrow, you're only thinking about it. So essentially, when people say be in the moment, they're telling you, do not think about the past, do not think about the future. If you do not think about the past and future, you will be a dodo. Yes or no?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

It took millions of years to develop this brain to this level of capacity from a single celled animal to here and now they're telling you, don't think about the past, don't think about the future, because they don't know how to handle the damn thing. These kind of philosophies will destroy humanity.

[Sean Ryan]

Interesting.

[Sadhguru]

You are anyway in the moment. Why should I tell you, be in the moment. I am telling you, think of a thousand things. What is the problem? The more you wish to do in this world, the more you have to think, isn't it correct? So don't think about anything except what is here is a silly way to live. I have at least 12 to 14 tracks in my mind all the time running. Otherwise, how do you do everything?

[Show Host/Announcer]

Well, how do you balance that?

[Sadhguru]

Why are you off balance? I'm asking you. Ask a child, a toddler. Look, this, this, this is walking because he yet to know how to balance on two. Two legs. Do I ask you, how are you, Sean? You came walking down the stairs, how are you balancing? You will think I'm stupid or no. So I'm saying, when it comes to the use of the mind, unfortunately, our education systems have left crippled. They Never taught you how to use this. They taught you how to use every other gadget in the world except this. This is the most sophisticated technology, human mechanism, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

It is.

[Sadhguru]

And human mechanism is not just body. It's a combination of body, mind, energy, emotion, everything together. Only when you handle all these things well, in some way, you can do something significant. And you also be well. Otherwise, if you do something significant, you are broken. Otherwise you do nothing, you dope and sit in the corner. Is that the way human beings should live?

[Sean Ryan]

No.

[Sadhguru]

So I am not an expert in being in the moment. The whole creation is in this moment. What is my business? To be elsewhere?

[Sean Ryan]

So you're telling me that your mind wanders just as much as everybody else's?

[Sadhguru]

Much more.

[Sean Ryan]

Much more.

[Sadhguru]

Lot more. Many times more.

[Sean Ryan]

And that doesn't bother you at all?

[Sadhguru]

Why should it? Well, your heart is beating. Does it bother you? Should I stop it? Tell me.

[Sean Ryan]

No.

[Sadhguru]

Your liver. Shall I stop it?

[Sean Ryan]

No.

[Sadhguru]

It's not bothering you so much. They're doing right, all of them. Your heart, liver, kidney, spleen. Doing many, many things right now. Is it bothering you? Shall we stop it? Only your brain. You want to stop. What's your problem with that? Well, sometimes my.

[Sean Ryan]

Sometimes my thoughts do bother me.

[Sadhguru]

No, no, they keep me up. You do not want to stop the activity of your heart or liver or kidney or spleen, but only your brain activity you want to stop. Why? I am asking you.

[Sean Ryan]

I don't like it when I'm talking to somebody and I can't remember the conversation because my mind is in a completely different world thinking about something different.

[Sadhguru]

So if your heart is working, your liver doesn't work, is it? This is a complex system. All of them work at once, isn't it so? Similarly, your mind is also made like this. It can do a thousand things at once. But unfortunately, we made them so linear with our kind of thinking, our kind of education system, our idea of how to look at science. All these things have made us so linear. Now, if two things come confused, you've been in combat. If you can't handle 10 things at a time, you're dead man. Yes or no?

[Sean Ryan]

Well, don't you think that? Or do you think that being in the moment with another human being will develop a deeper relationship? Family, friends?

[Sadhguru]

No. I am asking you, can you be in any other moment in other than this moment? I am asking.

[Sean Ryan]

No.

[Sadhguru]

Then why such a teaching?

[Sean Ryan]

I don't know.

[Sadhguru]

Lot of trash is being dispensed in the world.

[Sean Ryan]

How do you deepen Your relationships, Me,

[Sadhguru]

I'm doing wonderfully well with everybody around me.

[Sean Ryan]

I see that.

[Sadhguru]

Not one, two, millions of them. Because human relationships are essentially need based. You need some somebody physically, you need somebody else mentally, you need somebody else emotionally, you need somebody else financially. Like this. See, human relationships are largely built on their needs. Physical needs, psychological needs, emotional needs, social needs, maybe financial needs and other kinds of needs. As long as it's need based. If you are coming to me for a certain need, if I don't fulfill that need, you will break this relationship. But if you hold relationship beyond the needs, then sometimes your needs may be fulfilled, sometimes they're not. But if you address another human being as a human being, not as somebody who fulfills this or that for you, then there's a genuine relationship. Very few people even have the privilege of having such relationships. Very few human beings experience the beauty of such a relationship where there's nothing to fulfill. It's wonderful. It's a privilege just to be with another human being. If you don't bring that into you, this is also there. Two people come together. Now this person has a need. Initially you go there because you have a need. After some time you think they have a need for you. Then it becomes ugly. If you see someone else is fulfilling your needs, there'll be gratitude, there will be a deep sense of, you know, connect. But I sit here and think I'm fulfilling your need. Then this turns ugly, isn't it? Initially it starts one way. After some time they'll make it another way.

[Sean Ryan]

Are you saying those relationships aren't important?

[Sadhguru]

See, for a human being, relationships are

[Sean Ryan]

important

[Sadhguru]

on two levels. For a whole lot of human beings, what kind of relationships they hold in their life at various levels determine the very quality of their life. This is a fact for most human beings. Very few people are above that. And above all, There are two ways to this. One is need based relationships. Okay, I give you this, you give me that. So transactional transactions have to be managed always carefully. If you do a wrong transaction, that means if both of us are transacting and you feel that I am giving you an unfair deal, doesn't matter how many years you know me, suddenly you will become, you know, you'll bristle up great. Friends turn against each other, lovers turn against each other because the deal has gone bad, essentially the transaction has gone bad, isn't it? So there are transactional relationships, but there can be relationships which are not looking forward to any transaction simply being together. So even if the being together is a need, then it Becomes a transaction. If I want to be with you, please spend this much time with me. If you cannot, then I will become unhappy about it. To come to a place where. I'm asking you as a life, you're a life, right? Sean, I'm asking this question in a very different way. I'm not asking are you living? I'm asking you are you a piece of life? Yes, as a life. You think this is a complete life?

[Sean Ryan]

Do I think I have a complete life?

[Sadhguru]

No, no, I'm not talking about you having a complete life. Is this a complete life? Yes, it is. But there's only one part of you see, the physical body, all the mechanisms inside, very complex, but they all feel like they're complete. There's only one part of you which struggles, which is your psychological space which feels incomplete. There are many aspects to this. A large aspect of it is trained, cultured by societies in which you live. So you join the army there, they're trying to reverse the culture. You're thrown somewhere alone. You learn to be there alone, by yourself, without anybody's anything. Maybe as a survival process, not as a way of being. But a yogi is withdrawing just by himself, just to see if he's a complete life or he's a half a life. Most people are feeling like half a life because if there's were not one more person, this person, that person around them, they'll feel lost. To. To act in the world, to be effective in the world, you need to hold good relationships. If people around you don't love you and they want to do the best for you, they will want to do the best for you only if they have some sense of love for you. What? One of the topmost global companies in the world, top 25 executives are with me for three days in a resort. I have nine volunteers. You know, our organization is a volunteer organization. There are over 7,000, whatever number of maybe 7,300 or 400 full time volunteers. Over 19 million part time volunteers.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Sadhguru]

All of them doing variety of work globally. So these nine guys are working for me. As you must have seen, two volunteers came here and they've been communicating with your teams. Volunteers means they're not paid employees. They're doing it because they want to do it. So these nine people are going about doing whatever they're doing. These top 25 executives of this major company in the world, a company that everyone knows on the planet, I don't want to name them. So they observe this and the second they ask, you know, they're Always looking for attrition. They asked Sadhguru, where do you get these people? I said, you don't get such people. You have to make them. How do you make them? I said, you have to make them fall in love with you. How do we do that? Then I say, first you have to fall in love with them. Then they say, oh, they don't pay us for that. So when your entire life is transactional, you live one way. When you operate out of inclusiveness of life, you made everything a part of yourself. Now it's different. See, right now, the air that you breathe as you sit here is coming from elsewhere, isn't it? The plants are exhaling, the trees are exhaling, we are inhaling. The water that you drink is coming from elsewhere. The food that you eat is coming from elsewhere. There's a transaction. It's if you treat it only as a transaction, you live a very superficial life which unfortunately is beginning to happen to modern societies. But actually this is life making material, isn't it? The air that we breathe, the water that we drink, the food that we eat, our very bodies, we slowly gather with these things, isn't it? So if you recognize that these are all the things making our life, this is not things to transact with, then we will treat them very differently. Beyond transactions, when you conduct relationships beyond transactional value of what it is, there may be transactions, but if you treat it beyond transactional value, then the relationships are better rooted and they function much better and more profound. Experience of life above all. After all, with life, there are only two things in terms of experience, in terms of action, another thing. Let's say three things. When you sit here for any human being, first thing is you want pleasantness of life. You want to feel pleasant. Pleasantness means what? If you feel pleasant in the body, we call this health. You want it. Say clearly, John. Yes, because if ill health comes, everything that matters to our life will go away, isn't it? Health becomes full time job. Right now there is health. So we do many things. No health, we'll do only that pursuing health. So when you say yes, don't say yes to me. You must say yes in such a way. Every cell in the body hears it. It's very important. Every cell in this body must hear that you want health. Mixed messages should not happen.

[Sean Ryan]

Okay?

[Sadhguru]

So, pleasantness of the body we call as health. If it becomes very pleasant, we call it pleasure. Well, that also people want. If man becomes pleasant, we call it peace. You want? Yes, it becomes very pleasant. We call it joy.

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

If your emotions become pleasant, we call this love.

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

If it becomes very pleasant, we call it compassion. If our surroundings become. If our very life energies become pleasant, we call this blissfulness. If it becomes very pleasant, we call it ecstasy. If our surroundings become pleasant, we call this success. Only to create pleasantness in our surroundings, we need the cooperation of many people and forces around us. To create pleasantness of the body, mind, emotion and energy is 100% our business, isn't it? Yes. That business not taken care of right now with most of the people on the planet. There's not stress distress in most people. Though as a generation of people, we have more comforts and conveniences than any generation ever in the history of humanity, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

It's true.

[Sadhguru]

But still we are not comfortable. We are not peaceful. So what's wrong? Something wrong with the world? No. We have not learned how to handle this. Nothing wrong with the world.

[Sean Ryan]

What are we doing wrong? What are we doing wrong?

[Sadhguru]

Do you agree with me that this human mechanism is the most complex technology in the world?

[Sean Ryan]

I would agree with you.

[Show Host/Announcer]

We talk a lot on this show about performance recovery and trying to stay ahead of all the stuff in the modern world. And the reality is we're constantly surrounded by things our biology was never really designed for. EMFs, artificial light, processed foods, microplastics, stress.

[Sean Ryan]

You name it, the list goes on.

[Show Host/Announcer]

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[Sadhguru]

have you read the user's manual? I have not. Then you're bumbling around with the sophisticated technology, that's all the problem is.

[Sean Ryan]

What was the manual?

[Sadhguru]

Huh? What manual? User's manual. The users how to use it.

[Sean Ryan]

There is no user's manual.

[Sadhguru]

Who says. You May not come with a tag around your neck when you come out of your mother's womb, but it's built into this. If you pay enough attention, it's all there. Is it true while you're a soldier, you know this well, Is it true among men or women, one person learns to use his body way better than the other one? Same body, yeah. How come? Figured out something, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Practice drive, doesn't matter.

[Sadhguru]

Figured out something how is not the point. Somehow figured out something. Whether an athlete or a soldier or a yogi or a cook or whatever, somebody figured out something better than the other. Yes or no?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

How did they figure out? More keener observation to things, isn't it? They looked at it better, they saw a little deeper. Everybody can use their hand. Somebody uses it like magic. People are even doing magic right in front of your eyes. You can't see what they're doing. Magicians are openly admitting no magic is just sleight of hand right in front of you. They do this. You and me think we are smart and you're watching like this. But something comes and something goes. Are they doing or no? I mean, they're doing it, they're doing it. Same hands, they also got like us. But they're doing something that we can't do, right. So our ability to use this mechanism is still at its minimum because people have not read the user's manual. So my fundamental work is this to provide them with a user's manual. Different levels of manual for different people. No belief system, no philosophy, no ideology, no teaching technologies for well being how to use this better, how to use it in a way that your own body and your own mind is not an impediment in your life. Well, the army is trying to do it in a different way. How? You are not an impediment to yourself. They're trying to kick it out of you. It works for that purpose, but it doesn't work beyond that. So those who are effective soldiers or athletes or something else where they performed at a level that most other men will not perform, are still quite incompetent with their lives, isn't it? As you figured out one aspect better than the other. Similarly, if the similar attention is paid, other aspects also can be figured out. That's all I'm saying.

[Sean Ryan]

Yes. How many levels are there?

[Sadhguru]

You shouldn't fix it like that. Because see, if you look at the body, there are many levels, but it'll stop at some point. Physical body has a limit. With mind, it's many more but still, there is a limit. But if you explore human consciousness, there's no such thing. There's no limit even with the physical world. We've always said this in yoga. We call the universe as an ever expanding universe. This is how yoga describes the universe. Today, modern scientists have started saying the same thing that they're saying. It's expanding. They're not able to figure out where it begins, where it ends. So now they're not only saying that we do not know. The top physicists are saying we will never know. In our perception, we will never know where it begins, where it ends, because it seems seemingly endless. So when the physical nature is like that, you can't figure out where it begins, where it ends. When you talk about consciousness, there is no limit. There is no level. Just how much are you cut out for?

[Sean Ryan]

What exactly does that mean? There's no limit to consciousness. What does that mean for us?

[Sadhguru]

Let's put it this way. There are four aspects to human intelligence. These four. I'll use the Indian terms because they describe this exactly. The Sanskrit terms are like this. First one is called buddhi, which we can largely say is the intellect. Would you like your intellect to be sharp or blunt?

[Sean Ryan]

Sharp.

[Sadhguru]

Why do you think so much?

[Sean Ryan]

Because I think there is a. I think there are advantages to being blunt, really disadvantages as well. But I think with blunt, if when you're blunt, your message will come across directly, but maybe with less confusion.

[Sadhguru]

No, no, I'm not talking about you being blunt with somebody, okay? I'm talking about your intellect. You want it sharp? Are blunt. Sharp because the purpose of the intellect is to penetrate. Sharper the better, isn't it? So if I give you a knife, I see you're keeping a Rambo knife out there. You want it sharp or blunt?

[Sean Ryan]

Sharp.

[Sadhguru]

Sharp, because a blunt object is not called a knife. The sharp object, which is called a knife. We don't give sharp objects or knives to children. Why is it because knife is dangerous.

[Sean Ryan]

They don't know how to use it.

[Sadhguru]

Their hands are not steady. They may cut themselves or cut somebody else. Knife has never been a dangerous thing. It's never jumped up and stabbed somebody. It's the hand that uses it. One hand uses it to save a life, another hand uses it to take a life. So the instrument of knife is. Has to be sharp. The sharper the better. Similarly, intellect, sharper the better. But most people are cutting themselves all the time. See, you've been in the army, though. You've been in a fighting force. How many times did you get stabbed. 0 nothing. Those who live ordinary lives, even a mosquito doesn't bite them. But from inside, they poke themselves every day because they have a sharp knife and they're trying to dull it by dipping into these bottles. Why do you think in the evening they're soaking their brain in alcohol or drug?

[Sean Ryan]

Because they're trying to escape something.

[Sadhguru]

No, no. To dull the knife that's cutting them from inside.

[Sean Ryan]

Okay.

[Sadhguru]

Because if from outside, if you are coming at me with a knife, these bottles are dangerous for me, isn't it? From inside I am cutting myself up to dull my knife. I drink or drug or do something. If you dull your knife, maybe it'll give you some relief. Not a solution, isn't it? Definitely. It gives you some relief. Otherwise so many people are not going into it. But it's not a solution. Essentially, what I'm trying to tell you is your intellect should be sharp. But if you want to handle a sharp object, your hand must be steady and you must be conscious. If you are like a child, if you are la la la la la kind, you'll cut yourself up right now. That's all that's happening. If you had the brain of an earthworm, you would be quite peaceful. But you have a human intellect and you're suffering. Where do you think all the human suffering is manufactured in Franklin, is it?

[Sean Ryan]

Where do I think all the human suffering is manufactured?

[Sadhguru]

Is manufactured in Franklin?

[Show Host/Announcer]

I don't think so, no.

[Sean Ryan]

Where I think it's from within.

[Sadhguru]

It's in the head, in our own head. So why are we manufacturing something that we don't want? Unconscious handling of the knife, isn't it? Have a knife. And if you move unconsciously, your intestines will come out. If you have a very sharp knife, you must be very conscious. How you pull it out, how you put it back, otherwise it'll cut you up. Because knife doesn't have a mind of its own. It will do the way you handle it, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

It's true.

[Sadhguru]

The same with your intellectual. If you don't know how to hold it, you don't even know which is the blade, which is the handle. The tighter you hold it, the more it hurts. It's happening to people every day. Not a joke from a single celled creature. To evolve a life like this and to give you a brain of this capacity, of this cerebral capacity, it's taken millions of years of research and development. You can dismiss this off with one single word. Evolution. Evolution is not just like that. It made things right, wrong, right Wrong, Right, Wrong. And got it this way, isn't it? Trial and error happened in the evolutionary process. And after all this work, this much brain came. And now this is the worst enemy you have. See, nobody, even you went to battles. Nobody stabbed you. But from inside it stabs you. What is this? I must tell you this, a tragic story. I saw the stats for the vets. Committing suicide is horrendous. This happened with a reasonably popular television anchor in India, in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad. She's just around 33, 34 years of age, young woman. One day she jumps off the fifth floor window of her apartment, kills herself. She leaves a note. No one is responsible for my death. My brain is my enemy. I thought this is the greatest gift we have, that we have intelligence. Why we are dominating this world is not because we are the strongest. Actually, if we didn't have this brain, a colony of ants could dominate the human beings. It's our brain which made us who we are. But now brain is the enemy for most people. Some, unfortunately, they go to this extent that they take their own life. Others daily poking themselves and suffering in thousand different ways. You can call it stress, you can call it anxiety, you can call it distress, depression, this, that you can give a thousand names. Essentially your intelligence has turned against you, isn't it? If your intelligence worked for you, would you keep yourself blissful or miserable? Yes, blissful, isn't it? So essentially you don't know how to hold. Hold this sharp knife. You've been given a sharp knife and this sharpened over millions of years to get this to this place and now you don't know how to hold it. Isn't it a tragedy?

[Sean Ryan]

It is.

[Sadhguru]

So that's what I am trying to fix all the time. How to hold your stupid knife. Don't hold it like this, okay? Don't keep poking yourself. Or what? You can use these fingers to do many things or you can use these two fingers to poke your own eyeballs. What is the point? So this is what is happening because the hand has not been trained. So let me use this analogy. Knife and the hand. So the second part of this first part of the mind, we call it as buddhi or the intellect, sharper the better, but by itself it cannot do anything. A hand should pick it up then only it works. The knife, the hand we call ahankara. Ahankara literally means the identity. See, you are identified as an American man. So you go and fight for America. You could die, possible fortunately, or here. But many did not come back because of Your identity, you are willing to stake your life. In many ways, life is the most precious thing. But our identity becomes larger than that. That we are identified as American or Indian or this or that, white, black, yellow, green, whatever we are, once we identify ourselves with something, the intellect works only to protect that identity. So if you see a knife which is sharp, the hand that holds is your identity. So how you identify yourself is very important. If your knife is super capable, it's extremely important. The hand that holds it also must be equally steady and stable, isn't it? For this to happen, we, we devise something in the yogic systems when we want to start education for a child which was usually at the age of 12, today they're starting at three and a half. That's a wrong thing to do because people saw in ancient times, till 12 years of age, the only thing that should happen is the body and brain should grow to its full size. Child should eat well, play well, sleep well. That's all. No abc, no one to three, no nonsense, no becoming a CEO at the age of nine. You know, today all this happening because we are in a hurry to live. So till 12 years of age, no teaching. Child should simply grow physically, mentally with brain and body should grow. So when we initiate a child into education, because education is not seen as accumulation of knowledge, education is seen as empowerment. Now you're trained as a soldier, there's a certain empowerment. You could do certain things that I cannot do. So how you use this empowerment is extremely important. Otherwise you could be a very dangerous man, either for others or for yourself. So many people who get this empowerment in so many different ways use it in terrible ways in, in the world, people do it all the time. The same goes for education. Education is an empowerment. So if you have to empower a human being, what should we do? First thing we did was we created a mantra. It's called Aham Brahmasmi. What this means is A child of 12 identifies that my identity is cosmic. I belong to the family, but my identity is not of the family. I belong to this community, but my identity is not of community. I belong to this nation, but my identity is not of nationality. I belong to this species, but my identity is not to this species. My identity is cosmic, all inclusive. Because now I am being empowered to. If I am empowered like this, my identity should be as large as possible. Because see, we think there are good people and bad people and this and that. No, there's only limited identity and a larger identity.

[Sean Ryan]

I literally just had this conversation with My wife last night

[Sadhguru]

she had with you or you had with her once. Your identity is limited then see what you call as crime is just that. Right now I think I should be. Well, I don't care what happens to you because my identity with this, this is a crime, isn't it? So now I think no, no. Sean is my friend. We two are one. All the other guys are different. We can do whatever we want with them. So this will happen with family, with community, with society, with nationality, with race, religion. We are doing this in a thousand ways. So we always did this. Before education starts, first thing is my identity is cosmic. That is all life is included in this.

[Sean Ryan]

So you're saying you don't identify with any particular group or people. You your identity is caused?

[Sadhguru]

Myself, yes. Definitely not. That's why I'm called a yogi. The word Yoga means that. Yoga means union. Union between what and what? Who created the separation? You think the planet can exist without the sun?

[Sean Ryan]

No.

[Sadhguru]

Or you think the sun can exist without the universe?

[Sean Ryan]

It cannot.

[Sadhguru]

Universe can exist without the galaxy. Who is separating this? We in our small heads, isn't it? So when you realize experientially that actually there is no separation then we say you're in yoga. So anyway, let's finish this. There is a Buddhi or the intellect which is a sharp knife and there's a hand that holds it. Now this whole hand is identity. This training is completely missing in the world. Across the world, everybody identifying with a football team and fighting with the other guys. Identifying with the community and fighting with other community, nation and other nation. Endlessly we are going on because see, look at this. What is it that is causing maximum damage on the planet? Educated people are uneducated people.

[Sean Ryan]

Educated people.

[Sadhguru]

See, the empowerment has turned against us. Isn't it such a tremendous empowerment of education, understanding of science, technology. This is what has turned against us. Because the hand that holds is not well trained. So first part is Buddhi. Second is Ahankara. This is the identity. The third is called Manas. This is a silo of memory. We identify eight types of memory. There's evolutionary memory. There is elemental memory. There is elemental memory. There is evolutionary memory, genetic memory and conscious and unconscious levels of memory. Articulate and inarticulate levels of memory and the surface memory that you have on a daily basis. You remember what you ate for breakfast. You remember the conversation that you had with your spouse. This is surface level of memory. So eight types of memory. All of them are playing with you right now. Do you remember how your 10 generations ago, how your great, great great great grandfather was. No, no. But his nose is sitting on your face, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

His nose is sitting on my face?

[Sadhguru]

Yeah. You resemble him in some way, isn't it? So a million years ago, how your forefathers were. Even your skin epithelial cells remember the tone of the skin even today, isn't it? So I am saying memory, this is a body of memory, enormous memory. Today you are looking in a certain way, you sit in a certain way because your genetics does those things. Beyond that, you have this form because it's an evolutionary memory. Suddenly you can't look like a tiger or a lion. You can only look like this because there's evolutionary memory which decides this is a human being. So eight forms of memory which are ruling you every moment of your life. So between the intellect and the silo of memory, there is this hand which is the identity. If this identity creates the context for your life, identity is not action. Identity gives you the context. If you don't set the right context, everything that you do can be wrong. Everything that you do can be against somebody or yourself, against another life or this own life, this life, all the time. This is what is happening to human beings right now. Because there is such a complex web of memory within us, which is what makes us sophisticated life, which is what makes us a kind of a rich life. But if you do not know how to handle the context of that, then everything seems to be a problem. Everything people remember, they are suffering, isn't it? See, what are people suffering? They think why this whole being in the moment has come is because people are suffering. Their memory and their imagination both. What happened yesterday, they already suffer.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, they're also suffering from their desires.

[Sadhguru]

I'll come to that.

[Sean Ryan]

Okay.

[Sadhguru]

See, what happened 10 years ago, they can suffer today, isn't it? Say that again. What happened 10 years ago, you can sit here and suffer, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Sadhguru]

So are you suffering life or you suffering memory?

[Sean Ryan]

Both.

[Sadhguru]

No, no, no. See, what happened 10 years ago, is it alive right now? No, no. So are you suffering life or are you suffering your memories, memory. You're suffering your memory. What may happen day after tomorrow, you already suffer. Are you suffering life or are you suffering imagination?

[Sean Ryan]

Imagination.

[Sadhguru]

So most of the time, human beings are suffering their memory and imagination. So somebody churns out a philosophy. Be in the moment. You can't be anywhere else. You can only be in the moment. There is no other way to be. Essentially, they are saying, don't think about yesterday. And Tomorrow, then you will be a dodo life. Not a worthwhile life in any way. So let's go to that later. Right now, there is an intellect. There is an identity which holds it. Depending on what this identity is. Accordingly, this intellect will function. If I hold my identity as by my nation or by my race or religion or family or whatever, or my individuality. That's how my intellect will function. Now this is being fueled by my memory. If you cut the memory off, your intellect is useless. It's like if your computer has no memory coordinate, it's a blank screen. Your intellect is just like that. If you remove the memory, it may be sharp, but it can't do nothing. Because there's no memory. It won't know where to act. So these three instruments are functioning and we have not handled. We are only handling one aspect. Loading it up with more and more memory. Fortunately, AI is coming. It will handle our memory load. We don't have to walk around like stupid data centers. Data centers are being built. But right now, what you call as education is build some silly data center in your head. Don't take me wrong. With all due respect to all those professions, I am saying this. See. If you read three books, you can become a schoolteacher. If you read 10 books, you can become a professor. If you read just one book, you can claim you're a agent of God. I read nothing. People accuse me that I am a mystic. Strange world. We need to change this. Very important. Because based memory, based world we have created. So this is what AI is going to disturb. Our memory will look puny and insignificant and useless compared to what the machine can do. And it's fantastic. Anyway, we were talking about consciousness. There's a fourth dimension of intelligence which is. In yoga, we refer to this as chitta. Chitta means there is an intelligence within you which is life's fundamental intelligence, which is unsullied by memory. There's no memory in it. It's pure intelligence. This is the source of creation. It's everywhere. It's not just in me or you. You and me have captured a little bit. But it's everywhere. In the existence, in the creation. So this intelligence we call as Chitta. In the yogic culture, they like to be mischievous about this. They say if you touch chitta, if you touch this intelligence which is the source of creation, they say God will become your slave. Because he will do what you want even before you think about it, even before you ask for it, even before you think about it. He will do that for you. What more do you want? You don't even have to desire because you have touched that intelligence which has no memory in it, but pure intelligence, which is the very basis of life and creation. Once you touch that intelligence. This in English, loosely, we are using the word consciousness, but word consciousness. Medical people are using consciousness in one way, environmental people are using consciousness in another way. I'm not talking in that context. I'm talking about. You know that you're here only because you're conscious, isn't it? If you become unconscious, you would know that. If you sleep, you wouldn't know that. But if you sleep, does it mean you're not at all conscious? You're conscious, but the surface has slept. But if I poke you, you'll wake up, isn't it true? But if you're dead, if I poke you, you don't wake up. So consciousness is that which is the very fundamental of life, that intelligence which makes everything happen here. If you are religious kind, you can call it God. It's just that I'm not using that word because immediately people say, okay, which God, which religion? This, that. That's not it. Whatever human beings think fundamentally, we didn't create the universe. Hello. I didn't. You did.

[Sean Ryan]

No.

[Sadhguru]

No. Okay, don't blame me. I didn't. So we didn't create the universe. Before we opened our eyes, it was all here, many things we created, some of them good things. Some of them maybe are not so good things. But before we came here, universe was here. So naturally a question arises in our mind, who created this? Being human beings, we think it must be a big human being somewhere if we were buffaloes. I am particularly using the buffalo because it seems at that time, 300 years ago or so, when the first people from Europe came here, there were over 60 million buffaloes on this land, North America. 60 million. Much more than the human population. So by if they had vote and if there was a democracy, naturally the president would be a buffalo and God would be a buffalo. Isn't it for them, yes or no? Yes, because we are human. We think everything in human forms. But if we were in some other form, we would be thinking in those forms. So the question is not about what you believe. And disbelieve is another matter. That's a question of faith. I won't touch that. That's individual faith. They can believe whatever, but essentially we all know whatever nonsense we believe or don't believe, we did not create the universe. Obviously it happened, and the magnificent nature of it just reeks of Brilliance everywhere. If you look at a leaf, if you look at a leaf for your entire life, you can't figure it. With all this science and scientific exploration, we still do not, do not know one atom in its entirety. We know how to use it, fuse it, break it, make a bomb out of it, but we do not know what a single atom is. That's how complex and sophisticated creation is. Obviously, it's the most brilliant job ever done, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

So you want to ascribe it to God or to another intelligence. Do whatever. But the important thing is we didn't make it because we don't make it as far as possible, we shouldn't break it. It's a simple sense. It's not an ultimate knowledge. Simple sense. Because something that we cannot create, we shouldn't break, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

That much sense we have makes sense. Something that we cannot create, we should not break.

[Sean Ryan]

Very good idea.

[Sadhguru]

So this dimension of intelligence, if we touch that life evolves in ways that you cannot believe. In my own experience of life, I did not look for any of these things ever. I. I was the most. If at that time, if anybody had told me, you will turn spiritual, I would have just laughed them out because I was the last person in the queue. If I would never stand in the line. First of all, for that, I grew up very agnostic to start with. Then slowly, as you know, as you move towards your teenage, you become arrogant enough to become atheistic. And I must tell you this in a better format, you okay the story. I must have been just over four, four and a half years of age. Suddenly one day I realized I don't know anything, don't know anything at all. To a point where if somebody gives me a glass of water, I'm just staring at this water for two, three hours. I know I can drink this water. I know how to use the water, but I don't know what it is. Even today, you don't know what it is. If you want to look for life somewhere in some other planet, we're looking for a drop of water. That much we know. The usefulness of water we know, but we don't know what it is. Actually, we don't know anything about anything. We know only how to use them. We do not know what it is. If I find a leaf, I am just staring at it for five, six hours. I sit up in my bed and I'm staring at the darkness for the whole night. My dear father, being a physician, he thinks I need psychiatric evaluation. This boy Is all the time staring at something. It looks like he's lost it. My problem is I'm looking at this. I still don't know what it is. I'm not able to shift my attention to this. When I look at something, it just absorbs me. I am not able to look at another thing in this condition. They sent me to school. I never realized why I am going to school. Anyway, they sent me to school. My mother said, don't look. Stare here and there. Pay attention to the teacher. I went and paid attention to the teacher. The kind of attention that they would have never received in their life. Absolute attention that I'm seeing them through and through. Initially, I sort of understood what they were trying to say. After some time, I realized they're just making sounds. I'm making up the meanings in my head. Even now it is. So I'm just making sounds. You are making up the meanings in your mind, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

Suppose any of the South Indian languages. You know, we have 1900 languages in India.

[Sean Ryan]

1900. That's a lot of languages.

[Sadhguru]

If I speak any one of those languages, you think I'm just making sounds, isn't it? Language is a conspiracy between two people. Suppose we know English and there's a bunch of people who don't know English here. If we don't want them to know what we're talking, we'll talk in English. Otherwise, we'll talk to them in their language. So language is I make one sound, you make up the meaning. I make another sound, you make another meaning. Yes. Even if I mispronounce an English word, you won't know what to make out of it. Isn't it because it's just a sound?

[Sean Ryan]

This is true.

[Sadhguru]

So when I realized they're just making sounds, why am I making up meanings in my head? So I sat there with full attention, not ignoring them, with full attention, listening to them without making any meanings. Hour after hour, different teachers come and make different kinds of noises. It became very amusing for me. A big smile spread on my face. They were not amused at all. So my schooling went like this. I went there only when it was absolutely necessary or when they caught me and took me back. Otherwise, I got lost somewhere. I climbed up a tree and one day went away. Another time I got into somewhere else and another day went away because I. I was just. I didn't know anything. Anything means anything at all. So I'm trying to pay attention to the world. I'm trying to figure out at least one or two things. School you go, they're talking something that doesn't mean anything to them. I first thing, within few months, months I realized they're just doing this for a livelihood. They're saying things that doesn't mean anything to them. Even today, this is my stance. You speak nuclear science. I will not listen to you unless it means something to you. You're talking some nonsense, but it means a lot to you. I will listen. Because if it doesn't mean something to you, why the hell should I listen? It means something to you. Maybe it makes sense. It doesn't make sense. It means something to you. Means I will listen. It doesn't mean anything to you. First of all, you shouldn't be talking on top of it, I shouldn't be listening. So in the school, this was my problem. I couldn't listen to them. The moment I see they're saying something that doesn't mean anything to them, I'm not willing to listen to them. So if the bird calls, I went out. If a monkey calls, I went out. If a squirrel calls, I went out. The mangoes calls, I went out. Went on like this. About 17, 18 years ago, I think this school where I studied over 50 years ago, they came to invite me for their 125th anniversary. The trustees came. I said, see, I was not just a not good student. I was not even a student. I barely came there. Somehow I went through your school. I'm not an inspiration for your children. Please leave me alone. They said, you know, our school has produced cricketing stars. You know, cricket is a big thing in India and produce union ministers, film stars. But you are the only mystic. You must come. So I went stood up to speak in the quadrangle. Same oppressive buildings. I just looked around and looking for something to say about this school. Then I look at this classroom and I suddenly remember I was around 12 years of age. One afternoon, the teacher is trying to get some response from me for some question he's asked. By the time, by that time, I have graduated to place. If I look at you initially, I see you. After that, I see your energies. I know your past, present and future. But I won't hear what you're saying because what you're saying or what anybody's saying didn't mean anything to me. Because I have seen them through and through. What they're talking is not even something of any relevance to me. So his question. I see energy forms, but I don't hear his question. But I'm in full attention. I'm not ignoring him. 30, 35 minutes. He strives hard to get an answer out of me. But these are times, these are a few years where I wouldn't speak a word for sometimes a week, ten days like this. Because when you don't know nothing, what are you? What is there to say? I'm still trying to grasp life, paying attention to the smallest things around me. And when he doesn't get any response, the man goes wild, comes and holds me by the shoulder, shakes me like this, violently, and says, you must either be the divine or the devil. I think you're the later.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Sadhguru]

Till then, my problem was. What is that? What is that? What is that? What is that? What is that? What is this? I have a billion questions. But one thing was clear. This is me. Suddenly, this man confused me about this also. I look like this. Is this divine? Is this devil? What the hell is this? I couldn't stare at myself. So I started closing my eyes. My journey began initially. Minutes, hours, days, I closed my eyes. That's how my journey began. This man confused me about who I am.

[Sean Ryan]

Why did you close your eyes?

[Sadhguru]

Trying to stare at myself. I was staring at everything, trying to figure it out. But one thing was clear. This is me. There was no question about this. I had question about everything. Suddenly the question rose about this. What is this? So I tried to stare. It didn't work. So I closed my eyes.

[Show Host/Announcer]

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[Sean Ryan]

know we sent you. What did you see when you closed your eyes?

[Sadhguru]

See, the eyelids are like the cameras are there. There is a lens cap. You put a lens cap and ask the camera, what are you seeing? What is that you see?

[Sean Ryan]

Nothing.

[Sadhguru]

Isn't that the reason you got eyelids? But people close their eyelids and replay their old videos. I don't. When I close my eyes, world is over for me.

[Sean Ryan]

Interesting.

[Sadhguru]

Isn't that the way it should be?

[Sean Ryan]

It's black.

[Sadhguru]

It's just blackness. If you shut your mouth, you should stop speaking, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

Inside I'm speaking. That means I'm crazy. Yes or no?

[Sean Ryan]

No,

[Sadhguru]

you don't admit.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, everybody has an internal voice.

[Sadhguru]

See, one of the fundamentals with which the medical professionals decide whether you are sane or insane is voices start speaking inside of you, you start hearing voices. Either you can say you're ill or you can say you're possessed. But something has gone wrong. Isn't it? Because if my hand is like this, if I want, I keep it here. If I want, I do this. If I want, I do this. This. It's a good hand, but without my permission, if it starts jumping, you think Mr. Parkinson is visiting or something, right?

[Sean Ryan]

You would think that.

[Sadhguru]

So similarly, if your mind starts hopping around with your pan without your permission, your speech starts going on without your permission, and your videos start running without your permission, it means something is wrong. Because a lot of people are in that condition. We are trying to make it normal. When I first came to United States in the year 96 or 97, wherever I go, people are talking about but stress management. I couldn't understand this. I said, why they want you, why American people want to manage stress? Because in my understanding, we manage things which are precious to us. We manage our family, our wealth, our business, our money. Why would you want to manage stress? Took me some time to realize. Everybody has concluded that stress is a part of their life. Stress is not a part of your life, nor is it the nature of the work that you do. It's just that you are an inefficient machine. So there's friction within you, isn't it? Okay, there's friction.

[Sean Ryan]

Lot of friction.

[Sadhguru]

Lot of friction means either it's not well engineered or not well aligned or not enough lubrication? Yes,

[Sean Ryan]

I would agree with that.

[Sadhguru]

You should, because you handle weapons. Then it gets stuck. You know what it means? So if you close your eyes, the eyelids are made in such a way. If you close it to cut out the light, to cut out the scenery. No, you close it and play your own scenery. What is that?

[Sean Ryan]

Taking control?

[Sadhguru]

Not taking control. When you're done with this, if you switch off this light or you're taking in control of something. It's a simple nonsense. When the, the purpose for the life light is over, you switch it off, right?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

Similarly, now we want to see, our eyes are open, we don't want to see, we close our eyes. We're making such a big deal about that because very highly sophisticated machine without users manual. That's why it's like this.

[Sean Ryan]

How many people out there do you think don't have an internal voice?

[Sadhguru]

See, if you consciously speak within yourself to prepare for something else, that's okay. But it's speaking by itself. Means we're on the verge of madness, isn't it? We are not already there?

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, I mean, I see what you're saying, but I mean stress enters people's heads, fears enter people's head. Things you need to do enter your head. Being prepared for future events.

[Sadhguru]

No, I'm not talking without being empathetic to all the things people are going through. I'm trying to address the very fundamental nature.

[Sean Ryan]

Okay?

[Sadhguru]

The fundamental nature. If any instrument is the camera is there, you put the lens cap. The idea is it doesn't shoot anymore, right?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

So you put your the eyelids down. That means the idea is you don't see anything. Now you ask me, you close your eyes and what do you see?

[Sean Ryan]

You want me to close my eyes?

[Sadhguru]

No, you said when you close your eyes, what did you see? The idea of closing the eyes is you don't want to see. If you want to see, you must open your eyes. If you close your eyes, one thing that you have done is one major sense organ input. You cut it off. Ears don't have flaps like that, but you can ignore it. Nostrils don't have flaps like that. You can ignore it. But eyes are nearly 80% of the input. You cut the input so that there is more attention for what's happening within.

[Sean Ryan]

We're talking about closing your eyes, seeing nothing, basically tuning out. Correct.

[Sadhguru]

See, that's what we are trying to make it a principle out of a simple act. Right now you are sitting like this. Does it mean you are holding your ability to Shoot in your hands and holding it like this, or your ability to do so many things holding it like this and sitting, is it? No, they just sitting in your hands. When you want to use it, you use it. Otherwise you keep it here. But if you are. If you're unconscious, this may start moving and doing its own things without your permission. When that happens, we say somebody's unwell, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes, that's what we say.

[Sadhguru]

So if that happens in your mind, what would. What should we say? You're not very well. Let me put it mildly. If it goes beyond a certain point, then you know it's unwell, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

So I am saying, instead of addressing the root of it, we are always trying to prune it and see how it will be okay. It will not be okay. You can be either insane totally, or you can be sane in such a way insanity cannot touch you. Or you can be in a socially accepted level of madness. My choice for every human being is there must be above the possibility of insanity. It's possible for everybody to be like that. It's just that there is no structure. There is no striving in that direction. Everybody thinks it's normal to be anxious. It's normal to be stressed. It's normal to be distressed. No, it is not. When you were a child, it was normal to be joyful, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

When did it become normal to be stressful?

[Sean Ryan]

Adult life, when you come, when you become an adult, maybe is the answer to that.

[Sadhguru]

See? When you were a child, were you eager to become an adult quickly or quicker than it was happening, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

When you are 8, you want to be 12. When you are 12, you want to be 18. When you are 18, you want to be 30. Yes or no?

[Sean Ryan]

And then it reverses.

[Sadhguru]

Unfortunately, if you handled it badly. Not for me. I don't want to go back there. If you handled it badly, you want to reverse and go back into your mother's womb one day. No, no. The life doesn't allow you that. Once you're out from womb, tomb is the only place to go. In between. Will you make it wonderful or ugly? It's up to you. I'm repeating this. We didn't make the creation, but how this this one experiences this life, we can determine that, isn't it? In the yogic terminology, we call this karma. Karma means action.

[Show Host/Announcer]

Karma means action?

[Sadhguru]

Yes. Are you getting bored with me? Let me read you one poem. You like substance abuse? Ah, look at you. The poem is called Substance abuse. Okay, to be sober is dreary, but inebration takes you away from all that is reality. How to dwell. How to dwell in the empty room of dry, lifeless logic. Logic through the day and in aberration at the end of the day. Logic through the week and inebration for the weekend. Logic at work and inebration for the vacation. Say the compromises come. I have a substance that leaves you in throes of ecstasy and peak of alertness at once. No need for secrecy. No one will find us in our within. Let us abuse the substance without dimension. Let us abuse the substance without dimension. But within Let us get super sober and stoned. Because the greatest chemical factory on the planet is this one. Isn't it the most sophisticated? If you were a good CEO of this factory, what chemicals would you produce? Chemistry of ecstasy and blissfulness or chemistry of stress and misery?

[Sean Ryan]

I would rather have blissfulness.

[Sadhguru]

So lousy CEO.

[Sean Ryan]

So what?

[Sadhguru]

Lousy CEO? I'm saying if you give a an industry to a lousy CEO, the product that needs to come out, that won't come out, something else will come out. The square one of your life. If you see when you're 5, 6 years of age, for no reason, you're just bubbling and bouncing with joy. Somebody has to work hard to make you miserable at that time. Now everybody has to work so hard to make you happy. Even peaceful has become a challenge. I must tell you this. I was to speak in Tel Aviv. I'm flying out of Atlanta and I was to arrive there around 11 in the morning and speak at 6:30 in the evening. But due to some flight delays, I got delayed and I landed at six o' clock in the evening. I have a reputation that I never go late for any event. In this over 43 years, I have not been late to a single event.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Sadhguru]

It takes a certain commitment to do that. No matter what, no matter how I am, what's happening, I will be there. This has been my reputation. So I quickly change in the airport to rush to the venue and I'm flying an American airline. There's nothing edible on that plane. You know, they're throwing some dog parts to me which I don't eat. You know what I'm talking about.

[Sean Ryan]

I know what you're talking about.

[Sadhguru]

So I end up there, famished, super hungry, but no time for anything. So I rushed to the venue and this never happens to me on that day. I'm speaking in a fine restaurant, so hungry, and I go into the restaurant and already guests have Arrived and they're going about, you know, they have their initial whatever. So people come up to me and greeting me and stuff. One man comes up to me and says, shalom. I say, what does that mean? He says, this is the highest way of greeting. I say, see, that's your opinion. But what does it actually mean? He said, no, no, this is the highest way of greeting. I said, all right. What does the word mean? He said, it means peace. I said, see, unless you're born in Middle east, why would peace be the highest way of greeting? In southern India, if somebody comes up to me and in the morning they say, peace. I'll say, what's wrong with you? I am saying anything that you deprive yourself of. Slowly, over a period of time, it grows to divine quality. Today you ask people in that part of the world, they say, God is peace. Ask in America, they say, God is love. Somewhere else, if you ask something, they will say something else. Whatever is missing in their lives slowly rises into heaven. Peace, love, joy, blissfulness, everything are human emotions which makes a human being nice and pleasant. We don't know whether God needs it or not. Hello. Yeah, we don't know whether needs it or. Today in California, people are saying the core of the universe is love. I said, did you go there? Did you go there and see? No. And why? The core of the universe needs love. You need love to make yourself into sensible human being. If you have love in your heart, you behave sensibly. If you have no love in your heart, you behave abrasively, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

It's true.

[Sadhguru]

That's all there is. It's a human emotion. Instead of having it here, you export it to heaven. What do I do here? It is needed. Your joy, your peace, your love, your blissfulness is good here. If both of us are blissful, we can banter. If one of us is feeling resentful, we'll do something nasty to each other inevitably. Yes or no?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

So all the substances here, this is the greatest chemical factory. This I realized when I was 25 years of age. Going back to the story. So after 12, when this confusion happened in the school, which is me, which is not me, then I went through so many things. I don't want to go into all that many, many things. More experiences than most people will go through at that stage in life. And then I cycled across South India. Then I got onto a motorcycle and crisscrossed India. Then when I hit the borders, I realized I can't go beyond this unless I have a Passport. I was nearly 20 and I didn't know there is something called a passport. Those days we are like that. Just wild nonsense. So I came back, got myself a passport. Then I realized I need money. Then I started some business. It became successful. I started one more and one more. Everything became successful. So you are young. Things that you're doing, everything is working. When everything starts working, people start clapping their hands. Slowly you. I'm not arrogant but a bit cocky. Slowly you start thinking the planets are going around you. You not around the sun. Because everybody else makes you feel that way. So I'm in business. Busy, busy, busy. I'm thinking today, tomorrow, next month I'm going to stop everything and ride away. I have enough money to go away somewhere. Nowhere. Rather simply right across the world. Which I never did. Because success is a trap, you know.

[Sean Ryan]

I'm figuring that out.

[Sadhguru]

If you fail, you can drop the damn thing and go. But when you're successful, you put one finger, one more, one more, one more. The whole hand is caught there. You can't leave your hand and go. So I am in a successful trap. Not able to go anywhere. Totally in the office, on the field, working, construction, this, that endless work. So one afternoon between two business meetings when there was a break I went up a small hill. This is in the heart of the city. Mysore city where I lived. Success in those days for that small town. Not like today. People are talking about trillion dollars. Not that kind of success. But for that small town, successful. For a 25 year old, very successful. So I went and just sat in one place. There was a small hill. And this is a hill I know very well. As a child I got lost in the forest in these hills and spent a lot of time there. I trekked there, I camped there. When we grew up, we partied there. Meetings. If you fell in love, you went to Chamundi Hill. If you fell out, you go to Chamundi Hill. If you have nothing to do, you go to Chamundi Hill. You have something to do, you go to Chamundi Hill. If you want to test your motorcycle, you go up Chamundi Hill. Do whatever you want to do. Chamundi Hill is the for the youth of that town. Because it's a little exciting road up. So I went half the way up Chamund Hill. Because I am very familiar. There is a particular huge rock. I don't know. We can send you a picture of that rock. Nothing special about the rock but it became the most eventful place in my life. So I went and sat There suddenly, for the first time, I did not know which is me, which is not me. This is me. That's you. I got no problem with you. But this is me. That's you. Suddenly, I did not know which is me, nor which is not me. The trees around me, the rocks around me, the mountain, everything around me had kind of become me. See what is in this body right now? This was somewhere else. Yesterday it was on your plate. You ate it. And now somewhere, it's become a part of you, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

What was me was all over the

[Sean Ryan]

place, like a oneness.

[Sadhguru]

I don't want to put a word to it because all these words have been misused.

[Sean Ryan]

Okay?

[Sadhguru]

I am saying what was me was just spilled over. What was me was contained here till that moment. But suddenly it had spilled over everywhere, all over the place. I thought this lasted for about maybe 15, 20 minutes or so. But when I just shook my head and felt kind of what I thought was normal till then, four and a half hours had passed.

[Sean Ryan]

Tears.

[Sadhguru]

Me. And tears were impossible. I lived like this. Tears to a point. My shirt is all wet. And I shake my head and ask. By then, I'm a super skeptic. I'm skeptical about everything. About religions, about politics, about the financial arrangement in the world, about family, about social structures, about. I am a super skeptic about everything. And I don't believe anything other than what I see. I'm in that condition. I did not grow up in spiritual literature or teachings or anything. I grew up on Dostoevsky, Camus, Kafka, you know, all those European guys who. Who kind of raised their confusion to a grand height. So I am in that state. When I shake my head and ask my own mind what's happening to me, because I am dripping ecstasy. Every cell in the body is feeling, like, totally blissed out. What is happening to me? When I ask, my mind says, maybe you're going off your rocker. Then I ask my closest friends, hey, something is happening to me. Hey, come on. What did you drink? You popped something. You got some acid? Did you find some mushrooms in the hill? Then I knew I've hit something for which there is no context around me. Neither my own mind nor anybody around me is able to tell me what it is. But I know I've hit a gold mine. I don't want to miss it. So I started experimenting with it. What is it? If I close my eyes and sit like this, I think it's two minutes. If I open my eyes, seven, eight hours are gone.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Sadhguru]

Time like. Like that. So things started happening to me like. Which I would never believe if anybody tells me these things. Because I am not that kind of person who takes anything that's not logically correct. But absolutely insane things which I always hated started happening to me.

[Sean Ryan]

What kind of things?

[Sadhguru]

Memories which had no connect with my life. Then I go there and check it and the damn thing that I've seen is right there. What I see in my mind is actually there. So like it's clearer than daylight. But my mind will not accept. It struggles and it says no because it doesn't fit into my box of logic. By then I've started thinking I'm smart. That's the biggest problem. Because you're successful. Everybody's clapping their hands and you started thinking you're smart. From the age of four you knew you know nothing. But slowly I've started thinking I'm becoming smart. Because everybody's clapping their hands. So suddenly destroyed everything. The man that was there, the young man was cocky, confident, doing the right thing, successful. That guy just melted away like that. In few few days, completely gone, Just gone. That man just went away to a point where my body changed, my gait changed. I. I didn't try to change my style of walking, my gait changed, my voice changed. My voice had broken when I was just 13. But my voice changed, the shape of my eyes changed. And people started seeing what's happening to you? I'm just blissed out for no reason. What can I do? Then I started experimenting. What is it? Then I realized all that I have to do is if I can sit here and keep a little distance between my psychological activity and me. My physiological activity and me. See, right now you're sitting here. Can you see me?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes, I can see you.

[Sadhguru]

If you close your eyes, can you see me?

[Sean Ryan]

No.

[Sadhguru]

But are you there?

[Sean Ryan]

I'm here.

[Sadhguru]

If you close your eyes, are you still there?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

So right now, are you looking at me or is your eyes looking at me?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

Which one?

[Sean Ryan]

I'm looking at you.

[Sadhguru]

You are looking at me through the window of your eyes, isn't it? If you close the window, you don't see me. If you open the window, you see me. But you are there beyond this body, isn't it? For the first time I realized I just. I'm there. I'm there inside and outside. Just like this. What I call as my physical self. I thought, you know by then, my weight has remained the same since I was 19 years of age. To today I have the same weight. It's just as those days, most of my weight was here because due to continuous pressure of gravity, slowly it's moved a little down, Too much gravity, you know.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah. I have the same problem.

[Sadhguru]

I figured out if I keep a little distance from my psychological process and my physiological process, within moments I experience a wave of bliss. I repeatedly experimented in so many ways and I knew this is all it is. If a little space arises between your psychological process and your physiological process and yourself little space, then it's just blissed out. Now that was my experience today in the major laboratories in in some of the top universities in the country and in the world. Now they have studied this and now they are saying people who do the simple practice that I teach them, very simple 21 minute process. With that they are saying the bliss factor is up by 70%.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Sadhguru]

BDNF, the brain derived neurotropic factors are up three times 270% up. And they are saying the bliss factor is such that it's 23% higher than what normally happens in a sexual orgasm simply sitting here. So when I realized this, all these studies and these numbers are by studying people who have done the practice for six weeks, eight weeks like this, they didn't study me. So when I saw that you can be completely blissed out without any reason, my first thought was who wouldn't want it? I couldn't think of one guy who will not want it, who wouldn't want it simply sitting here. You can be blissed out absolutely. Because bliss is not a goal by itself. Only if your body and mind are in utter sense of pleasantness. Your genius unfolds. Your physical body and mind works at its best only when they are in a pleasant states of experience. There is substantial scientific and medical evidence for this. At that time when I realized this, I thought this is very simple. Why wouldn't everybody in the world want to be blissful? Then I sat down. I was 25. I sat down with the world map and made a plan. In two and a half years time on that day, the world's population was some 4.82 or something like that. In two and a half years time I will make the entire world blissful. 44 years, 7 days of the week, 365 days. I'm on, on, on 16 to 18 hours a day. Today people say we have touched over 2 billion people. That's not my idea of the world because that bloody population is multiplying, say 8.4 billion people. So I will die a failure. This is for certain. But I am a blissful failure. This is my blessing for everybody. You must die a blissful failure. You set up small goals like this, like childish goals, and say, I did it. I did it. This stupid. For human intelligence, you can think of something that will take 10 lifetimes to do. If you take two steps today, maybe the next generation will take another two steps.

[Sean Ryan]

That's a great point.

[Sadhguru]

So this is very simple. See, this is what I call miracle of mind. Mind is the greatest miracle we have. But most people have turned it into a misery manufacturing machine. They give it so many reasons. Don't find excuses. If you are willing, you can turn this into a miracle. Every human being, without exception. Some might have come with more conducive atmospheres. Some might have come with little, more difficult atmospheres. So some may need little work, some may need a little more work. But everybody can do it.

[Sean Ryan]

Foreign.

[Show Host/Announcer]

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[Sean Ryan]

They do it right.

[Show Host/Announcer]

What does he do in the movies? Tell me if I'm doing this wrong

[Sadhguru]

because I don't watch any of this

[Sean Ryan]

little flick like that.

[Show Host/Announcer]

Right? Seems pretty cool.

[Sean Ryan]

It is pretty cool. Gotta silence it. In another lifetime, I did gun reviews for a living.

[Show Host/Announcer]

Proprietary magazine. Supposedly the best engineering in the world. When that breaks, you're. And now we're bringing Them back.

[Sean Ryan]

It does look pretty cool. I gotta. I gotta admit that. Okay, if we're back from the break and we were talking about blissfulness of the mind.

[Sadhguru]

Correct. And about the blissful failure that I am.

[Sean Ryan]

The blissful failure that you are.

[Sadhguru]

So let me read you one poem just to break the monotony of the talk. This was written for the trees in Tennessee. You know, we. We have a property which is wild and beautiful in McMinnville. Close to McMinnville.

[Sean Ryan]

I almost moved there.

[Sadhguru]

It's really.

[Sean Ryan]

I did.

[Sadhguru]

It's over 20,000 acres. And we are trying to build a. Build a place where people can come and make use of it beyond religion, beyond belief systems, beyond political party nonsense. Just as human beings, they can come, learn something and go which is good for their well being. Not against anybody in the universe, just for their well being. My well being should not be against your well being. Isn't it? That's the most fundamental thing. This is how nature is made. This is how creation is made. Trees breathe. We breathe what they don't want. They breathe in what we don't want. We throw out carbon dioxide, they want it. They throw out oxygen. We want it. Isn't this a fantastic arrangement? Everything in creation is like this. But we human beings think that my well being means you must suffer somehow. Not necessary. There is a way to live so fundamentally it's part of the Conscious Planet movement that people live more consciously, understand life as is not the way we make it up in our head. So this is dedicated to the trees. To the trees in Tennessee. O blessed beings, your green raiment, source of our breath and being. Your stoic stance mistaken for lifeless existence. Your immense presence could escape human sense. This lack of cognizance could mean a disastrous consequence. But for now, you and me in this intimate embrace, the joy of sharing each other's breath is beyond the joy of having a breathless wench. I can only nourish you with tears of gratitude. When I come back in winter, you will stand naked and gray, giving a taste of what the world would be without you being gay. You, a permanent resident, me a wandering vagabond. But can I ever break my breath bond? Wait till I am done with my deeds. I will lie at your roots to nourish you with my body's juice. To become the SAP of your SAP. To put back all that is hers into her lap. Till then, you and me in this romantic romp. Lest someone should notice, let us carry it on without any pomp. I must tell you this.

[Sean Ryan]

I

[Sadhguru]

After I finished my business stuff and education was over and business stuff. And then I started teaching for almost 12, 15 years. I avoided teaching in my native town because I thought I should keep it as it is. Friends, family stuff. Don't become a teacher in your town. But, you know, the word spread and people came to know and they said, you have to do something here. So I had to announce a two day program. It was at the foothills of that hill that I was talking about. I announced this program. A few thousand people turned up. And I look around right from my kindergarten, school, friends, teachers from my school, from my college, all sorts of people, friends and enemies. And everybody turned up. So then I did the program. At the end of the program, my English teacher, she came and hugged me. And she said, now I understand why you did not let me teach Robert Frost. I said, ma', am, why would I not let you teach Robert Frost? I like Frost. I went to his place in California and I even have a voice recording of his. Why would I not let you teach Robert Frost? Why are you saying this? She said, do you remember? And she went back. What happened was, till then we were learning only English poets, American poetry. She introduced and she said, robert Frost. Glowing terms, this and that. And then she started reading the poem. And then she said, woods are lovely, dark and deep. I said, stop. A man who calls a living tree a wood. I will not listen to that guy. She said, no, no, no, Robert Trott, she's a great poet. I said, I don't care how great he is. A man who calls a living tree a wood. I will not listen to that guy. Then she changed and we. She thought as Edgar Allan Poe and Longfellow. So trees have been such a thing for me that when I was going to school, I had my bicycle, I had my lunchbox. I went up a tree. I just sat there whole day. The tree swaying like this, swaying like that, swaying like that. Just this thing just made me so crazy happy and nice. I never came down. I ate my lunch there, stayed there. When it's time to go back home, I went back home. Today we planted over 138 million living trees as a part of a project.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Sadhguru]

I'm saying living trees because, see, nobody plants a tree. We plant a small twig. It takes minimum six to eight years before you call it a tree. So our trees are all geocoded. The Indian Space Research Organization provides this service free for us. It geocodes every tree. If any tree goes away, it tells us the growth of the tree is measured because there is subsidy for the farmer for the growth of the tree. So hundred and thirty eight million trees today are standing. Because my association with the trees has always been so strong, because we breathe. And I started a whole movement based on this. I, you know the place where we are today in India, our center there, it's about 850. About 850 acres or something like that. Here it's over 20,000 acres. So when we came there, at the foothills of the mountain, I have a weakness for the mountains. That's another big story. Without mountains, I can't live. So at the very foothills of the mountain, our backyard is 10,000 square miles of rainforest.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Sadhguru]

If you walk a mile in many parts, you can't see the sky. You can't see the sky even if you walk a mile because the canopy is like this, full of wild animals and everything. When we came, this particular hill, which is close to us, was completely sheared off trees because there was an illegal furniture industry close by. We bought it out and closed it. We had to pay three times the price and buy it out and close down that furniture industry because these guys slowly, over a period of time have completely sheared the mountain. Our temperatures were at least 3 to 4 degrees higher than the city temperatures close by. So I just came up with a simple idea how we can replace. Because the land is still rich with lot of undergrowth. So I took about 4,500 volunteers up for about three and a half days. I gave them two meals a day and one song to sing. And how a unique way of planting seeds so that they will all come up over 90% plus sprouted today. If you go there, you will see all the trees are about 27, 28 years of age.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Sadhguru]

And we planted over six point whatever number of million trees in a matter of three and a half days. That's why I'm saying you don't have to give up your life if you have the necessary commitment. Everybody can do compensatory work in a very easy manner. And today our temperatures are minimum 4 degrees less than the city. You can feel it. At that time, the mountain was radiating heat in summers. Today it's just cooled the whole place.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Sadhguru]

So when I was in Tennessee, the Tennessee trees fell in love with them. What to do?

[Sean Ryan]

I love that. I love that. Could we talk about karma?

[Sadhguru]

Karma, what is it? See, the word karma literally means action. In the simplest connotation of the word, it means action. What does it mean by action? See, life is action. Whether you sit and laze around or you are in full of action. Still there is action going on as you sit here. This physical action going on, isn't it? In this body, mental action is going on. Emotional activity is going on. Energetic activity is going on. So four levels of karma everybody is doing in wakefulness and sleep. Four levels of karma are always happening. As an example, since the time you woke up today morning, till this moment, how much of these four karmas have you performed consciously?

[Sean Ryan]

I don't know.

[Sadhguru]

You don't know? It's fine, but it's minuscule. Most of it is happening by itself. I would say for most human beings it's less than 1%, way below 1%. Because everything that is happening is not in consciousness. It's just happening. Your breath is happening. How many moments since morning have you been conscious? If it stops, you'll be conscious. If it becomes difficult, you'll be conscious. But if it's working, you're not conscious, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

This is true.

[Sadhguru]

So when 99% of what you're doing is being done unconsciously, life will seem accidental. Suppose you drive from here to somewhere in Nashville, not far away, just say 20 miles. You drive 99% of the time in this. You slept. You know where we should pick you up? Okay, so this is all that's happening. Karmic tragedy is happening because all the karma is happening unconsciously. If you bring 2 to 5% into your consciousness, people will think you're a superman because suddenly you look like that. So karma means action. Whose action? My action. So right now, the way I'm running my thought, the way I'm running my emotion, my energy and my body determines the quality of my experience and life, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

It may not determine the nature of the world. To some extent it does, but not hundred percent. Nobody can determine the situation 100%. Only to some extent we affect it. But what is happening within, in the experience of this person or this human being is entirely caused by me. But if 99% is happening unconsciously, it looks like somebody is doing it to me. If you were driving and you slept, it looks like suddenly things happened. Nothing happened. You slept.

[Sean Ryan]

Because it's happening unconsciously.

[Sadhguru]

Unconscious for a moment and things happen, isn't it? So most of the time we are unconscious. So things are happening in ways that we can't figure. So karma means action. Action should be conscious. But most of it is unconscious. So everything that we can bring into consciousness, if you bring suddenly, you will determine the nature of your experience. See if you can think of what you want right now, is everything fine with you?

[Sean Ryan]

No.

[Sadhguru]

If you can think of only the way you want, is everything fine with you? Yes, that's all I'm saying. If you can feel the way you want, is everything great with you?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

If your energy functions the way you want, is your life doing fantastic?

[Sean Ryan]

I believe so.

[Sadhguru]

Only thing is, you can't make the world happen the way you want it. To some extent we can push it, but you can't make it happen totally your way. World will never happen your way. Hundred percent, ever. And I'm glad it is so. Because if everything happened your way, where the hell do I go? Little bit your way, little bit my way, little bit somebody else's way. That's the nature of the world and it's fine. But this one should happen my way, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

I see what you're saying.

[Sadhguru]

If this one happens my way, the quality of my life is determined. Like now the world is making sure that I'm a failure. But because this one happens my way, I'm a blissful failure. If this one did not happen my way. Failure means misery, isn't it? Because one thing that a man seeks is success in every action. The purpose of every action is success, isn't it? Whatever the nature of the action, whether you are going out there to save your country or you are doing yoga or you are a thief, the purpose of every action is success, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

So right now my actions are a failure. I want 8.4 billion people, but I'm getting only 2 failure. But what happens here? Because I decide, I make sure this is a blissful failure. But normally if things don't happen your way, you become miserable. This essentially means the external situations determine the nature of your experience. Or in other words, you do not know the distinction between what is psychological and what is existentially true. Your psychological situation is your drama. It's got nothing to do with reality. You can sit here and. And you think you're in Afghanistan. You can sit here and you can think you're in Timbuktu. You can sit here and you can think you're in top of Mount Everest. But you're sitting only here. Yes, yes. In your mind. You can sit on top of Everest and feel cold also if you want. In yoga we say, this is a classic example. If I take a piece of rope and throw it at you and say, snake. Now everything that a snake would do to you will happen to you. Blood pressure will go up, your heart will palpate, palpitate Somebody may even have a heart attack and die. Everything will happen. But it's just a rope. Only thing is this, the rope cannot bite you, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Sadhguru]

So the psychological reality and the existential realities are two different things. People have lost the distinction between the two. They don't understand. This is my drama. I need to direct it this my way. They're letting the world direct their psychology now. If you leave it to the world, world is crazy. It'll never happen your way. When I say crazy, I'm not saying it's wrong. All I'm saying is it'll never happen your way. Isn't it? Even if you're just two people at home. Hundred percent. It will never happen your way. 51% your way. You are the boss. You try more, nobody will be around you. Yes or no?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Show Host/Announcer]

So do you.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you believe that what you put into the world will come back to you? Is if you pump good.

[Sadhguru]

Oh, you're looking at it like that.

[Sean Ryan]

If you pump bad evil into the world.

[Sadhguru]

See, if you take a stone. If you take a stone and throw it there, will it bounce back and hit your head? No, no. But you may trip on it if you're not careful. But if you throw it up, will it come and hit your head? Yes, most probably. This is true with everything, isn't it? If you put it there, it is not going to bounce back and hit you unless you try a golf ball. I. I heard you have a terror of the golf balls. If you throw a golf ball like this on a hard floor, it may come and hit back at you. But if you throw it up right above your head. Yes, it's going to land on your head. Depending on the strength of your throw, it may just put a small hole or it may go right through. So karma is just action. It will determine the nature of your experience. It will not determine everything in the world. But sometimes it does. Depending on the type of action. But the most important thing is karma is not determined. Karma is not a question of reward and punishment system. Nobody is sitting there and giving you rewards and punishments. It's just that the residual memory is there within you.

[Sean Ryan]

It will alter your reality.

[Sadhguru]

See, right now I did something very wonderful yesterday. Now that residual memory is there within me. Now suppose you do something. See, you put something in this room which makes me sneeze, but I'm okay with you. But if I do something yesterday which is making me feel nasty, the residual memory is there in me. Slightest irritation, I will flare up.

[Sean Ryan]

How would you rid yourself of those memories.

[Sadhguru]

You don't have to rid yourself. You just need to understand that they don't determine who you are. Your current karma is what determines who you are. It is trying to tell this. The people are bumbling into this thing. Be in the moment. Do you understand? Essentially, yesterday's karma is there for everybody. Good, bad, ugly things we might have done knowingly or unknowingly. But right now, this moment's karma is in your hands, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

How you think, how you feel, how you conduct yourself, is it in your hands?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

If you are conscious, if you get little excited, it may go out of your hand. This happening to people all the time. Otherwise, why are people do things and they regret later? Because at that moment they are not conscious enough to determine what to do and what not to do. I am not only talking in terms of action. Even what to think, what not to think, what how to feel, how not to feel. Say right now you are. If I say something abusive to you immediately in your mind, maybe 10 times more abuse will come. Even you may not say it, but it came. The residual memory of that stays. But if you are determining the nature of your experience, it's like this. A yogi is going to conduct something with the people. On the way, the village people stopped and abused him in every possible way. He heard everything very attentively, not ignoring very consciously attentively he heard, they went on. Then he said, see, I 10 o', clock, I have a meeting. I'll finish that on the way. I'll come back this way. You can tell me more when I come back. These people are those kind. They said 10 things. If he says one thing, they will beat him. But he says, I will finish my work and come back. You can tell me more things. What do you do with this man? Now he is like this not because he is a coward. He is like this because he's made up his mind that nobody hijacks his life. Nobody hijacks his experience of life. Ah, it's okay. You say you're saying what you know best. If you're abusing me, what are you talking? Are you talking about me? You're talking what best you know, isn't it? Yes or no?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

If abuse is coming out of you, you're not talking about me. You are talking what is the best things you know. Unfortunately, if that's the best things you know, it's fine. You own. This becomes my karma. Only if I react to it. If I react to it now your Abuse will determine my nature of experience. If I do not react to it, if I consciously look at it, he is saying all these 10 things. How much of it is true with me, how much is not? Then I will respond to it consciously, as I should. This is not pacifism, you know. This is not about being pacifist. This is responding intelligently and consciously. This is not about reacting. Because the moment I react to you, I have become your slave, isn't it? You determine the nature of my experience. Is that slavery or not?

[Sean Ryan]

It is.

[Sadhguru]

Unfortunately. Everybody's in that, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

I believe yes.

[Sadhguru]

People can determine whether you are peaceful or not. People can determine whether you are happy or not. This is slavery. People ask me, sadhguru, how is it so much activity? You're doing all kinds of projects, all kinds of stuff. Political things, this, that, everything. How are you always like this said? I have never given anybody that freedom. They can make me happy or unhappy. They can make me peaceful or be in turmoil. I decide those things. So it's okay with me. Not that everybody is perfect around me. No, they do stupid things, many things. When you are so widely active around the world, not everybody is doing perfect things with you. There are lots of idiotic things. But I don't let someone else decide what is my experience of life. Maybe the work may happen well if all of them go well. May not happen so well if all of them don't go well. But they will never decide my experience of life. I have taken charge of that. Every human being should take charge of that. Because see, if you are feeling wonderful right now, you're feeling blissed out like me. Will you do something nasty to me?

[Sean Ryan]

No.

[Sadhguru]

So joy is an insurance, isn't it? You are feeling nasty right now, without any reason. You may do some nasty things to me. Isn't it true? Because human beings are only sharing their experience. If there is joy, they share joy. If there is misery, they share misery. If there is resentment, they share resentment. So the most important responsibility that you have is you keep this life pleasant and well. If pleasantness happens, then one more requirement comes. You want to be profound. In search of profoundness, people seek sexuality. Bottles. No, what's in the bottle? They seek drink, whatever. Alcohol, drugs, this, that. Somebody seeks God. Somebody goes to the temple, somebody meditates, somebody will do yoga, all this. Why? In search of pleasantness and profoundness, somebody says, all this will not work. I will go to heaven. Why? Because the advertisements have always said heaven is a very pleasant place. Right from your childhood. If I told you, God lives in heaven. But it's a horrendous place. Do you want to go there?

[Sean Ryan]

No.

[Sadhguru]

You'll say, I'll pray from here only let him be there. But they have advertised that it's a pleasant place. So all I'm saying is whether you want to drink or you want to drug, or you want to meditate, or you want to do yoga or you want to go to heaven, essentially you are in search of pleasantness and profoundness. But human experience is caused from within. Is that a fact?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

Neither pain or pleasure ever came from outside. Stimuli may come from outside. Pain came from inside. Pleasure came from inside. Isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

Joy came from inside. Misery came from inside. Stimuli may come from outside. Agony and ecstasy also came from inside. Isn't it? All human experience comes from within you. What is coming from within you? If that doesn't come the way you want, isn't that a major derailment of life? Yes, that's what we need to fix. But we are trying to fix the world all the time. No, world is not the problem. Yes, some things need to change. We will work on that. But without you and me being well, how will the world be well, it's just a joke.

[Sean Ryan]

It's a damn good point.

[Show Host/Announcer]

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[Sean Ryan]

What helps us fix ourselves? Is it yoga?

[Show Host/Announcer]

What?

[Sadhguru]

I'm sorry?

[Sean Ryan]

Yoga.

[Sadhguru]

What.

[Sean Ryan]

What is. What are some.

[Sadhguru]

I am afraid to use the word yoga in United States because people Think yoga means roll up a mat, keep it under your arm, armpit, and wear Lululemon pants and go to that fancy place and twist and turn and look like a leftover noodle. That is not. I mean, I'm not saying that's not yoga at all, but I'm saying that's a very rudimentary understanding of yoga. The word yoga means union, Yog means union. What needs to be united here? We already went through this. Your breath, your exhalation and trees. Exhalation, inhalation, all happening together. Suppose you sat here and actually experienced it. This is what I did with people. Because a UN agency came and said the southernmost. Are you familiar with India?

[Sean Ryan]

A little bit.

[Sadhguru]

Been there?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

Which part?

[Sean Ryan]

Mumbai.

[Sadhguru]

Okay. Further south is Tamil Nadu. Chennai. You heard of Chennai?

[Sean Ryan]

No.

[Sadhguru]

Bangalore?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

Okay. So further south, the southernmost state in the country is called Tamil Nadu, which is where our center is right now. I am from close to Bangalore, a city called Mysore. But our center is in Tamil Nadu, which is the southernmost tip of India. This whole aspect of what we call as yoga. I was just looking at this and one day some UN experts came to Tamil Nadu. I got to meet them and they said in the next. This Is in late 90s, not even late 90s, mid 90s. They said by 2025, 60% of Tamil Nadu will become a desert. I said, what? It's one of the richest agricultural states. Among the richest. We have agricultural history of over 12,000 years. Same land. We've been tilling four crops in a year. We take rich lands. And these guys are saying, in 25, 30 years, you will become a desert. 60%. As I don't believe anybody say anything. I want to see myself. So I just drove across Tamil Nadu, crisscrossed. And then I saw what they were saying was not right, that it'll happen much sooner because three major rivers had gone dry. Dozens and dozens of tributaries have gone dry completely. People are taking sand home. They've built homes on the riverbeds. And when you go and test the soil, it's all becoming sand. Soil is becoming sand. And I go to the coastal regions and see people have emptied the whole villages and gone somewhere because the marine ingress is happening. That is the marine water is. Has come into wells and sweet water has turned salty. So people have left and gone elsewhere to cities. I thought, wow, it's not going to go till 2025. Then I checked. The national aspiration in India is 33% green. Cover should be there in every state. But Tamil Nadu had 16.5%. So I made a simple barefoot calculation. This many thousand square kilometers and of land. So how many trees you have to plant to make it 33%. So I came up with a number. 114 million trees. If you plant in the next six years time, in the next 12 to 15 years time you will have 33% green cover. That means we would have prevented this desertification. But how to plant? So I small call a small group of people and say hey, we need to plant hundred and fourteen million trees. They rolled their eyeballs. Sadhguru, do you know what is hundred and fourteen million? How many zeros in that? How can anybody plant hundred and fourteen million trees? Then I asked what's the population? 62 million. That if all of us plant one tree today, take care it for two years and plant one more. We got the number just that we don't do it. That's all our problem is. So I got a few thousand people. I know they won't get the point if I just say around 11:30 I met them all Tamil people, you know, small town, rural people. Everything nicely. They get washed up and put fresh clothes and silk sarees and everything. Women, children, everybody came and sat. The meeting is in open place where it's hot, 11 o' clock sun. They're all sitting and sweating. I came and I also sat there in the sun. I'm simply gossiping with them, letting them burn down a little bit after they initially they are laughing, happy. I'm telling them so many things. Then slowly they're wilting away the sun. They're looking at me like this. What's wrong with Sadhguru? Just making us sit close by. There are huge rain trees, about five trees which each tree covers more than 3/4 of an acre. That kind of massive trees, wow. They're right there. But I am sitting in the sun. They are also sitting in the sun, wilting away. They are looking at me. Something. He's lost it or something. I made him sit there for about one and a half hours to one hour 45 minutes. When I saw everybody was like wilting away, I said come. And we walked and went and sat under the tree. You know, a tree is such a fantastic thing. If you really burn down in the sun, you go under the tree hang. Fresh life comes into you. I said is this nice? Yes, very nice. Said this is all we need to do. And I made them sit down and do a certain kind of meditative process where I made them experience what you exhale. This tree is inhaling what? The tree exhales, you are inhaling. They sat like this. Breathing, breathing, breathing. Now you can't stop them from planting trees. Because suddenly you realize one half of your lungs is hanging out there. This is yoga, that you realize there is a union. So if this happens. How can this happen? Can we do a little experiment with you? Yup. And cross your leg. See, with your eyes closed, hold your palms like this. And for about 2 minutes.

[Sean Ryan]

Brisk.

[Sadhguru]

Eyes closed. Now hold the palms about 4 inches away from each other. Eyes closed. You notice something happening between your hands.

[Sean Ryan]

Feels like opposite magnets.

[Sadhguru]

Hmm.

[Sean Ryan]

Feels like magnets.

[Sadhguru]

Whatever. Some sensation beyond your physical body, right? Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

So there is a sensation beyond your body just because of bricks. Brisk action. But please, you can open your eyes. You have. Definitely. Because you've been in those situations. You have seen people losing limbs. Unfortunately. Either because of road accidents or in the battles and wars. Unfortunately, these things happen. Somebody lost a limb, the leg may be gone. But they still have sensations of a non existent leg. Yes.

[Sean Ryan]

Yes, they do.

[Sadhguru]

It's called the phantom leg. That means beyond the physical body there is a sensory body. Your sensation is the outermost part of who you are, isn't it? See? Right now we'll do a simple experiment. Just touch this and see your right hand. Touch your left hand. Is that you?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes. Yes.

[Sadhguru]

Touch this furniture and see. Is that you? No. How do you know?

[Sean Ryan]

Because I can't feel.

[Sadhguru]

Here there is sensation. Here there is no sensation. So what is the definition of yourself? Whatever is within your sensation boundaries of your sensation is you. Whatever is outside the boundaries of your sensation is not you. Isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Correct.

[Sadhguru]

Right now this bottle of water is sitting there. Is that me?

[Sean Ryan]

No.

[Sadhguru]

If I drink it, does it become me?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

What happened? All I did was what was in the bottle. I put it into the boundaries of my sensation. Suddenly it's me, isn't it? Suddenly everything that we have eaten and consumed became us. Because it came into the boundaries of our sensation. So what is within the boundaries of sensation is you. What is outside the boundaries of sensation is not you. That's the fundamental definition of your experience of myself. Let us say. Let us say you are hundred kilograms and you came to me. I made you 75 kilograms. I can do that to anybody without any drugs or medicine. So I made you 75kg. Will you go about searching? Where is my 20kg? 25kg have shown. No, it's not you anymore. Because it went outside the boundaries of sensation. This is the fundamental definition of your experience of yourself. What is within the boundaries of sensation is you. What is outside the boundaries of sensation is not you. Now, suppose I taught you a simple way where you can make the boundaries of your sensation as large as Tennessee. Let's not go that far. I made it as large as this room. Let's say now I am also in the boundaries of your sensation. Now you experience me as a part of yourself. You experience everything. Animate, inanimate, as a part of yourself. Once you experience me and everything around you as a part of yourself. Do I have to teach you? Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not do this. Thou shall not do this, that. Now, what is part of you? You. Anyway. Do your best, isn't it? This is yoga. Yoga means you experienced beyond your physical limitations that what I thought was myself. Suddenly I realized what is me is not just this. One half of my lungs is hanging out on the tree. This. This. This. Everything. Because I expanded the boundaries of my sensation or I opened it in such a way that entire cosmos is a part of me. Then we say you're a yogi. If you experience whole creation as a part of yourself, then we say you're a yogi. Otherwise you're a yoga practitioner. You twist and turn. You don't become a yogi. Anyone who twists and turns. They call themselves yogis. No, no, no. You must know some sense of union. You might not have heard the word yoga in your life, but you sat there and felt one with everything. You are a yogi. You understand? This is not because of a certain practice. If you didn't have enough sense, we'll teach you practice. Otherwise, if you have enough sense that if you're not too identified with this and that that you've grown up with, if you simply open your eyes and look at the world, you will be one with everything just human intelligence is capable of.

[Sean Ryan]

This.

[Sadhguru]

This is why we call you a being, not a creature. That you should know how to be.

[Sean Ryan]

Makes sense. It sounds like you're saying that a lot of problems with humanity come from. Maybe all problems with humanity come from an identity crisis. Am I wrong?

[Sadhguru]

Let me read this for you. This is another poem. Okay, so I'll. Nirguna. That means attributeless. As there is nothing I truly call as mine. Neither this body nor any body, neither this world nor the other, neither friends nor foes belong. No fear of losing, no anticipation of gain. Here I am a transference without substance, a presence without Persona, a being without self. Hence activity has become stillness. The din of the world, my silence, the very cosmos, my being. This is yoga.

[Sean Ryan]

The very cosmos, my being.

[Sadhguru]

Yep, this is yoga. That means you're one with everything in your experience. Not as an ideology, not as an intellectual thought, but a living experience. Because your living experience is determined by where you hold your sensory body.

[Sean Ryan]

So how do you know when you've achieved that?

[Sadhguru]

It's not an achievement, it's a homecoming. Even physically, if we look at it, the soil that you're walking upon and the body that you carry as mine are the same thing, isn't it? Will we get it now and transform ourselves or one day shall we get it from the maggots and become good manure? This is a choice we have. If we get it now, our life could transform. We could walk more with much more sensitivity on this planet. Otherwise, we still make good manure. I'm saying it's not necessarily wasted.

[Sean Ryan]

I guess what I'm asking is how.

[Show Host/Announcer]

How would you.

[Sean Ryan]

How would somebody know that. That they have become one with everything?

[Sadhguru]

See, even if you don't have eyes, sun comes up, you know, isn't tells you in so many ways. There is no question of missing it. Okay, but it's not an achievement. It's just that. Let me see. Right now we are sitting here. Suppose this was not a building. We were sitting outside in the. In the land. If we simply sat here, sat there, sat there, sat there, sat there, we would become part of the earth, isn't it? So did you achieve something becoming part of the earth or soil?

[Sean Ryan]

It just happened.

[Sadhguru]

That's where you came from. That's where you went back. Homecoming it is.

[Sean Ryan]

Okay?

[Sadhguru]

Not a. You reach somewhere. No, you just fell back into the lap of creation as you should be. Whether you like it or not, that's where you are anyway. So this is why we say this is a realization. This is not an achievement, this is not an attainment. A realization means what? Something was always here, but you didn't see it. Today. You saw it, you realized. Means that. That you were stupid. What was hanging right in front of your eyes, you did not see today. You saw. This doesn't mean you achieved something. You realized.

[Sean Ryan]

I want to ask something, and maybe you know what I'm talking about. Maybe. Maybe you don't. Maybe I'm crazy, But I have been trying some. I wouldn't necessarily call it meditation, but

[Sadhguru]

maybe

[Sean Ryan]

I'm trying to experience some type of a calmness, some type of a peace.

[Show Host/Announcer]

And

[Sean Ryan]

so, as you say, we live. This isn't where I live, but we're out in the woods. I also live out in the wild. But we live out in the woods. And

[Sadhguru]

when you went to South America.

[Sean Ryan]

No, but I've actually never even talked about this. I've never told anybody this because it sounds probably stupid, but I really started paying attention to depth perception and trying to view the world and more of a three dimensional, I don't know, experience, you know?

[Sadhguru]

So world is three dimensional, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Say that again.

[Sadhguru]

The world is already three dimensional.

[Sean Ryan]

Yes, but sometimes I don't see it that way. Sometimes when I'm not paying attention, when I'm in a rush, when I'm thinking about other things, I don't. Yes, it's three dimensional. It is, but it appears maybe two dimensional, one dimensional.

[Sadhguru]

How do you see the moon? Most people see it as a plate.

[Sean Ryan]

That's kind of what I'm getting at. And so what I really pay attention to are the trees, the branches, the leaves, how far apart they are from each other. The depth perception in between trees, then the. The depth perception in between the trees and me. And it's also like I lose a sense of self. Not completely, but maybe 75% of the way there. And I've only able to achieve losing my sense of self through certain psychedelics, like experiencing an ego death. But for whatever reason, and this is kind of a new thing for me that I've discovered is when I really pay attention to my depth perception and the distance in between objects and nature. And particularly it brings a. I've already described it. Do you know what I'm talking about?

[Sadhguru]

I must tell you this. For me, if I look at anything, if I see you, I don't see initially when I see you, the first thing I see is the geometry of your body. Similarly, if I see a tree, if I see anything, first thing I see is the geometry of what it is. For me, the deepest experience is always of the physical stuff, is always geometry. I drive it. I drive into my garage at 35, 40 kilometers per hour and then stop 2 inches away from the wall. Very important for me. People say, sadhguru, you come in so fast. Suppose you can't break in time. You will be in the bedroom. I said that day I'll stop driving. Because in my mind it's just the whole shape and size of the garage, how it is. Everything is figured out. I don't think I'll make a mistake unless I've lost my faculties, because I don't hit any bottles. I don't lose my faculties. They're full on. Why I'm saying this is what you're saying is important in this inner engineering book. There is a simple method I've given people. Just watch. Make the tap drip like one drop every few seconds kind of thing. Make it drip pleasant. Just watch how it takes shape, how it drops, how it splashes on the ground and spreads. Just watch. Simply watch. What will I get? Nothing. Because the greatest thing in human experience or human faculty is attention. Conscious attention. If you pay conscious attention to the simplest things, fantastic things will happen. It's not about the phenomena that you're watching. It's not about the water drops, it's not about the breath, it's not about the trees, it's not about the pers, you know, the structure of the trees. It is the keenness of attention. If you develop that keenness of attention, if there is sufficient attention, every door in the universe has to open to you. It's that attention which is missing today. People are carrying their lack of attention as a qualification. I have attention deficiency is a qualification. This happened. You heard of Andrew Carnegie? Andrew Carnegie?

[Sean Ryan]

Mm.

[Sadhguru]

The Carnegie guy who became very successful in late 1900s and early 20th century. Those days he started making lot of money, more money than anybody else was making for those times. Not like today. Everybody's talking trillion dollars. Not that kind, but big money. So US government became suspicious that he is doing something hanky panking. How is he making so much money? So they had a investigation by the congressman. They checked everything, everything was proper. Nothing is not doing any crime. Then they asked, how do you make so much money? He said, see, I can keep my mind absolutely focused on something for five minutes at a stretch. Can any of you do that? They thought this is a joke. Why? What makes you think we cannot focus on five minutes? We can do it. He set up an experiment. Most people could not hold it for 10 seconds. Then he said, you guys should not be running United States because it's in the attention. In yoga we call this pragna. That means you hold your attention in such a way, slowly you become conscious. If you hold your attention on something, it doesn't matter what you understand, doesn't matter what. You can hold it on this microphone, you can hold it on that bottle. You can just stare at nothing but attention, conscious attention. If you stay that way, slowly the very cosmos will open up for you. Because your consciousness opened up once your consciousness opened up. See, the boundary of your body is framed by your memory. See why? That's your body. This is my body. This is one kind of memory. That's another kind of memory, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

In terms of genetics, this, that, that, whatever. Eight different forms of memory, that's one body of memory. This is another body of memory. Memory. If I touch something within myself which doesn't have any memory, but which is conscious, now what happens? Who I am becomes bff. Everything. Well, one simple way of saying that is it's yoga. But it's also prajna. That means you became conscious, fully conscious. See, how conscious one is is a question of varying degrees from person to person, isn't it? You woke up in the morning. When you are sleeping, you are unconscious, kind of still you're conscious, little one. Poke. You'll wake up. But reasonably unconscious. You woke up little goggy, you're somewhat conscious. After some time later, you're much more conscious. Then you got up and went out in the sunlight, you really much more conscious. So I'm saying consciousness has different voltages to it. So essentially it's this. People are trying to be conscious. Don't do that. What is needed is a higher voltage. You know, there is a dimmer on the light. What is it? You're controlling the voltage. If you. Let's say there are two lights lighting us up now. One, I switched off. You disappeared. In my perception, you are still very much there. But I switched off that light. Light is only upon me. I think only I am sitting in the room. But I turned on that light. Suddenly you are there, isn't it? You are always there. But in my perception, only now you are there. I turned up the light much more. Now so many things are there in this room. This is just like that. Don't try to be conscious. Just turn up the voltage. In yoga, there are many, many systems, different systems for different people. How to turn up your voltage. You turn up your voltage, naturally, you will see life in much more vivid clarity. Right now, you're trying to do it the other way around. You're trying to do that. Watch it. And slowly, voltage may go up. It's possible, but it's a more difficult path. But if you turn up the voltage, it simply happens.

[Show Host/Announcer]

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[Sean Ryan]

running a company that nobody wants to do.

[Show Host/Announcer]

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[Sean Ryan]

how can you control the voltage?

[Sadhguru]

You can turn it up.

[Sean Ryan]

How?

[Sadhguru]

You've been in the army, sometimes you're a little like this. Something needed. Don't you turn up your voltage? Listen.

[Sean Ryan]

It's adrenaline.

[Sadhguru]

We are talking. Suddenly talking about chemistry. Now we will have to talk about chemistry. Okay? Because you must understand the chemistry for painful experiences and the chemistry for pleasurable experiences. The fundamental chemistry is same. The chemistry for fearful experiences, chemistry for exciting experiences. Fundamental chemistry is same. It's the context of your framework of your mind which makes this pleasure or pain, stress or excitement, agni or ecstasy. This is determined not by the chemistry. Chemistry is just the same. It pitches up. When it pitches up, if you are in the right framework of mind, then this becomes pleasure. If the wrong framework of mind, it becomes pain. Same things when they are done to people. Sometimes it causes pleasure. Your friend came and tickled you. It feels like pleasure. Somebody that you don't like came and tickled you. Unpleasant, isn't it? Because it's the frame of your context. So it's the context that you need to change, not the content of your life. Content doesn't decide the quality of your life. It's the context. So changing that context is the most important thing. Every human experience has a chemical basis. What you call a space has one chemistry. Misery has another chemistry. Joy is another chemistry. All these have chemical basis to it. Why are we creating wrong chemistry? We are creating wrong chemistry because we are doing so many things unconsciously. We can do experiments. You can do it by yourself also. See, if you just hold your hands like this. Hold it like this comfortably. Place it on your thighs. Sit with your spine reasonably erect. Otherwise you cannot notice it. I will tell you what happens. We could make it like an experiment, but I'll tell you. You just do it. If you hold it like this and take a deep inhalation and exhalation, you will see maximum expansion and contraction happens in the lower lobe of the lung. If you just turn this around and breathe, you will see it'll happen more in the middle and upper lobe, less in the lower lobe. Just try that and see.

[Sean Ryan]

Mm.

[Sadhguru]

Is it so? So just. If you turn your hands like this. The very way you breathe is changing. It's not just the breath. The very way your life energies function is altering itself just because you turn your hands like this. How many times in a day are you doing this?

[Sean Ryan]

A lot.

[Sadhguru]

I see you are sitting quite still compared to a lot of people. Okay, maybe it's your training and needing to be in a certain way, but today young people are whatever. They talk. They're talking like this. So you do this, this, this, this, and you expect yourself to be peaceful. The nature of this world is such, unless you do the right things, right things will not happen to you. It's as simple as that. The moment I say this, people will say I did the right things. But you know what that guy did? That's what is wrong with you. What that guy did is determining who you are. That's the wrong thing you're doing, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes, it is.

[Sadhguru]

Unless you do the right things, right things will not happen here. So yoga is the science of understanding how to hold your body, how to breathe, how to sit, how to do everything so that you move into a higher possibility. That nobody determines what happens here except you. What happens in the world. Everybody has a share.

[Sean Ryan]

You know, we talked a lot about consciousness. What do you think happens when we die?

[Sadhguru]

What?

[Sean Ryan]

What do you think happens when we die?

[Sadhguru]

The usual thing I would tell people is you can know certain things only by experience. Are you ready? Will you know? See, the simple thing is this. The question that you're asking is beyond this body. What? Right?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

But why are you asking that question in the context of when you lose the body, when you have the body, why don't you look beyond this body? What? Because right now all your faculties are in place. Your intelligence is in place. This is the time to look at it, isn't it? If I tell you what happens after death, I will tell you. After death, your soul will come out and Go through this microphone. This is a tube. It'll go up and go there. I'm telling a ridiculous story. But if I tell you a nicely packaged story, maybe you will believe me. Or maybe you will disbelieve me. Only two choices you have. Yes. If I talk about something that is not in your experience, what is your choice? Believe me or disbelieve me. If you believe me, you have a nice fairy tale to tell. If you disbelieve me, you have a nasty story to tell about me. Both will not get you any closer to the truth than the way you are right now, isn't it? So the important thing is this. Is it true that you gathered this body over a period of time?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes, it's true.

[Sadhguru]

Is it true that you gathered this mind also over a period of time?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

The content. The content of this body and the content of this mind you gathered slowly over a period of time. Whatever you gather, you can say it belongs to me. You cannot say, it's me, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

I don't know.

[Sadhguru]

If I say this is my cup, all right? Maybe one day they'll take it away. Hello?

[Sean Ryan]

Yep.

[Sadhguru]

One day. Anyway, we'll leave it and go. But I'm stupid. I say, this is my cup. All right? You'll bear with me. But if I say this is me, then you know I am a case. This you're doing. Every day. Food appears on your plate, and you say, this is my food. You eat it and then you say it's me. Crazy or no?

[Sean Ryan]

No.

[Sadhguru]

Why?

[Sean Ryan]

Because, I mean, if you consume something, it absorbs into you.

[Sadhguru]

All right. But what you're carrying here is something that you gathered from the earth, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

And one day you'll give it back. So it's yours for now. But not you. Hello?

[Sean Ryan]

Yep. Okay.

[Sadhguru]

So your body belongs to you. I appreciate that. For now. One day, maggots will dispute that. I will not start that now. It belongs to you. It's fine with me. Your mind, or the content of your mind, belongs to you. Fine with me. But what belongs to you is not you. The moment I say my body, that means there is me and my body separately, isn't it? My cup, my body, my hand, my leg. Yes or no, dears? So beyond this, there is you, which has not come into experience. So you want to explore that after you lose the body. After you lose the body, you would have lost all your faculties. How the hell will you explore that? This is the time, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Mm. That makes sense.

[Sadhguru]

Right now, I Asked you a simple question. If you close your eyes, are you still there? See, you're there. Eyes closed. You can't see the world, but you're still there, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

So if you're still there, should you not look at what is this relationship between you and your body that's made you feel like this? See, if you really love somebody, you feel like they're part of you. Wonderful. But you know they are not you. That is also wonderful with your body. You don't know that that is a problem.

[Show Host/Announcer]

So what do you consider you?

[Sadhguru]

What do you mean, what do I consider?

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, what do you consider to be you? If your experiences are not you, what is you? What are you comprised of?

[Sadhguru]

I just read a poem too.

[Sean Ryan]

You did?

[Sadhguru]

See, whatever we accumulate can only be ours. Can't be us. At certain moments of intimacy, we may feel somebody is me. But if you treat them too much like yourself, you will lose them. Yes. This also same. If you treat it with little distance, you can manage it and use it the way you want. There's a little distance between you and your body. You can use it the way you want. You can use your mind the way you want. Right now it's using you up. When I say it's using you up. What is the life that people are having? The needs of their body and their mind are occupying their entire life. Yes or no?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

Physical needs of food, sexuality, sleep, comfort, psychological things of emotion, this, that, whatever. Isn't that occupying their entire life?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

Tell me. Your body and your mind should be serving you. Or. Or you should spend your entire lifetime serving them.

[Sean Ryan]

I'd rather it serve me.

[Sadhguru]

They should serve you. Well, you've been in the forces where they have. If you don't get it, they will beat you into the place where your body should serve you. Not you serve the body. You're hungry, you don't eat. You're thirsty, you don't drink. You need this. You don't do this. You don't even bloody pee. All right. When you have to do something, you do. We are also like that. That's why I told you. If I sit here 12 hours, I will conduct a session like that only. No water, no going to the restroom, no nothing. Because we don't want to serve the body. We want to take care of the body. But we are not here to serve the body or the mind. These two things must serve me in my intention of what I want to do with my life, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

If that needs to happen, you need a little distance. So you ask me, what is the first step? Well, people can start with something not for you. For you, I would say you must start with a little bigger step called inner engineering. But for the people who are just watching for the first time, they can start with what is called as miracle of mind. It's a free app available on the App Store. It costs us lot of money to service this, but we are offering it free because I see if we don't take steps now, mental health is going to be in pandemic proportions already. Already they are saying the stats are showing. One in three teenage girls in America have gone through at least a few episodes of depression and medication. One in three, 33%, in my experience of teenage girls when we were of that age, is they're giggly and bubbly for no reason. They're not depressed. You can't depress them. That's how they used to be. Now they're getting depressed. Whatever the reasons, there are so many reasons. I don't want to go into the science of it. It's a complex process. But the most important thing is we must give them something that don't get into it. I was speaking to the. What The Surgeon General of United States. He tells me one in two Americans are feeling lonely. 50%. If you and me are sitting here, one of us is lonely. What the hell is happening with the other guy? Loneliness is the incubation period for psychological ailments. We must understand this. The moment you're sitting with people and you're feeling lonely, this means you're manufacturing a psychological ailment. It's going to come. How soon depends on the situations, how supportive they are or how against they are. You know, there's so many aspects to it, but the moment loneliness enters your life, you are walking towards it. You can avoid it with friendships and going out with friends, drinking, being together. You are only postponing it. It's coming. And that's growing at a pace where. Who says by 2035 it could be a major problem? They are saying by 2045 it is going to be extremely difficult to live on this planet. Well, because both physical and psychological problems will be so high. Today, America's health care is crossing $5.25 trillion. It's larger than India's economy for 330 million people. That doesn't speak well. And when I see the stats of suicides, of veterans, people who served the country. Huh? People who risked their life, held something about their own life, at least for those that period. See, a man who holds a man or a woman who holds something about their life, something else above their own life, I always bow down to them because there is a. That is a quality that can change things. You know, in anything. If somebody holds something above their own life, that is a potential man, most of the time misguided. He may become a terrorist or he may become whatever, an unnecessary adventure of war, whatever. But fundamentally, a human being who holds something above my own life. There is a potential there, which is an incredible potential. Will we harness it in the right direction or not? Is subject to realities.

[Sean Ryan]

What do you think about. I mean, since we're moving into. I mean, you brought up war.

[Sadhguru]

I'm sorry, since you brought up war,

[Sean Ryan]

what do you think the difference is with killing in war versus killing for a vengeance? Or is there a difference?

[Sadhguru]

Karma is not by action. Karma is by volition. See, let us say someone is sitting here,

[Sean Ryan]

who.

[Sadhguru]

He's sitting here and every day thinking, I want to kill my neighbor, I want to kill my neighbour, I want to somehow plan, poison him, do this, do that, but never does it. That's a very serious karma, because you are doing it a thousand times in your mind. Another plans out a murder and kills the neighbor. That is a little lesser karma. Another goes there as a friend, gets into an argument and kills him in the spur of the moment. Even the law treats it separate, differently. Right at the spur of the moment, you did something or you did it in a planned way. There is a difference. So in terms of what impact and effect it has within your system, the first one that I mentioned, you never committed the murder, but you did it in your mind a thousand times. That is a far deeper karma that affects your system much, much more. It poisons you much, much more. You planned and did it. That is a secondary level. But in a spur of the moment, you did it. That's another level. So it is not in the action, it is in the intention or the volition with which you approach life. So that is something you can fix. We may not be able to fix our actions because at certain moments life may demand different types of actions. Action has to be always relevant, has to be always relevant to the situations when we exist. You can't, because we're talking about battle and war. You can't go to battle and say, I'm a peaceful person, I will not shoot. Can't do that. But will you shoot because there is something to be done which is in the larger interest? Or will you shoot because you have pleasure in Shooting people? Or are you shooting because you have such anger and hatred against that person whom you don't even know most of the time? This volition will determine. So this volition you can change. Every soldier can change this, if at all. If it's necessary, I will do what is needed. But it's not for my pleasure. It's not for making that person suffer. It's not because I think his life is less valuable than mine. His life is as much valuable to him as it's mine is my to me, isn't it? Isn't it true?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes, it's true.

[Sadhguru]

Whoever he is. So always right. From ancient times, we always had that regard and respect. Soldiers maintained its regard and respect. Unfortunately, in recent times, some people are not doing that. Otherwise, an enemy who fought well and died, you respect him like your brother, because he is also trying to protect something that he's identified with. Unfortunately, we met the wrong time, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

I would definitely agree with that.

[Sadhguru]

That's a real soldier.

[Sean Ryan]

It's two people that are doing

[Sadhguru]

what's needed.

[Sean Ryan]

It's two people that are sacrifice, potentially sacrificing their life for what they believe and who does.

[Sadhguru]

They're doing what's needed in the given moment. It's not a question of right and wrong. Because all the whole scenery is not decided by them. They're not the ones who decide there should be a war or no war. But they can simply exercise their duty or take pleasure in killing another man, or do it with great anger and hatred, thinking he's a evil person. No, his life is as precious to him as my life is. But unfortunately, if I don't take his, he will take mine. That's all the choices there in that given moment. So you fix the volition. Action you cannot fix. Not just in battle, even in day to day life, you cannot fix in day to day life. It may not be about taking somebody's life, but in so many ways you can't fix, isn't it? But your volition and your intention, you can fix. This is why the identity of having a larger identity, a global, if not a cosmic, at least a global identity, if we have, we will do only to the extent it's necessary. We will never do excess. That's all. That's all we can do as human beings. That we did not do excess. We did whatever we did only to the extent necessary.

[Show Host/Announcer]

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[Sean Ryan]

so we got a quick

[Show Host/Announcer]

Polymarket question, so if you don't mind, I'm gonna ask this real quick here. Polymarket gives a 33% chance the FDA approves a psychedelic for medical use this year. Trump just signed an executive order to fast track it. The government is moving towards these substances for PTSD and depression. You've said they're unnecessary. How do you respond to that?

[Sean Ryan]

Momentum.

[Sadhguru]

See, what is trauma? We, we've already touched it in a different way, but essentially trauma means something is happening outside. Maybe the situation is not something that I would like to be in, but it's happening. It could be a civil situation or a in the forces. It could be. It could be within the family. Not always physical violence. It could be emotional. It could be something else. Something is happening that you don't like. See, why do we say there is a situation here that I don't like? Because it's not as per my desire. Yes, I desire the situation to be this way, but it's that way. So I don't like it. So what is desire? If you look at this, desire is an aspiration to expand. Whoever you are, you're desiring for something more, isn't it? Yes. See, the nature of desire is like this. When you were a child, you thought if you get that lollipop, your life is complete. Then with lollipop in your mouth, then you thought after everyday lollipop in your mouth, it was not good enough. You wanted the bicycle. Then you really believed if I got that bicycle, I'll be on top of the world. And it did feel like that. You got on the bicycle and rode. It felt fantastic. Then bicycle got older. Then you saw the neighborhood girl and you thought, if she's there with me, be too fantastic. That happened. That happened. This happened. That happened. So many things happened. All right. But still, you see, there is something more. Doesn't matter who you are. Still there is another desire. So the very nature of the desire is such. Always there will be one desire which is unfulfilled. At least one yes or no.

[Sean Ryan]

What's that?

[Sadhguru]

That next one. Whatever that is for different people is different. So the object, huh?

[Sean Ryan]

It never ends. There's always something more.

[Sadhguru]

I don't want to make a conclusive statement like that. I am saying the object of desire keeps changing. But the desiring process is the same thing. How you desired for the lollipop, how you desired for that neighborhood girl, how you desired for a career, how you desired for money, how you desired for wealth. Desire fundamentally is same, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

Only the object of desire is changing. But the fundamental desiring is the same process. You want to be something more. Now that from lollipop, you're slowly graduating to all this. Why all this? Sean, I will make you the king of this planet. Will you be fulfilled?

[Sean Ryan]

No.

[Sadhguru]

You want the moon, is it?

[Sean Ryan]

I don't think anybody would be fulfilled.

[Sadhguru]

No? No. Let's explore. We're not talking about you. We're exploring.

[Sean Ryan]

Okay.

[Sadhguru]

If I give you the moon, will you be satisfied?

[Sean Ryan]

No.

[Sadhguru]

No. Why not the whole solar system? I'll give you the whole solar system. You are the king of the solar system. Then you'll say, why not at least one galaxy? All right, we have one galaxy. Then you will say, what about the other galaxies? So there is something within you which does not like boundaries. Unknowingly, you're seeking yoga. I'm telling you, there's something within you which doesn't like boundaries. But desiring is a constipated expression of your consciousness. Something is aspiring, you know what's constipation? It happens little by little. That's a problem. So desiring is a constipated expression of the longing to expand limitlessly. If you want to expand limitlessly, can you do it physically?

[Sean Ryan]

No.

[Sadhguru]

See, you got it, man. You're a spiritual guy. The moment you see that I want to expand limitlessly, physical is not the way to do it. You are on the spiritual path. That's what spirituality means. You realized the limitations of being physical. But Your desire is way beyond your physical self. You're thinking it'll happen with property. You're thinking it'll happen with a billion dollars. You're thinking it'll happen with this and that. No, it doesn't happen. Look at the people who have it. It not happened to them.

[Sean Ryan]

Isn't has not happened to them.

[Sadhguru]

Yes. So desiring as a phenomena is the expression of your boundless consciousness to find its original nature. It wants to go home to that limitlessness. But you are giving it a constipated expression. Slowly, one by one. But life is a very limited process. We are all mortal. Mortality is not. Because I am talking about it. When we are born, we got a death sentence, isn't it? They don't tell us when. It could be today, it could be tomorrow, it could be hundred years later. We don't know. Hello? Yeah, but death sentence is confirmed both for you and me.

[Sean Ryan]

It's common.

[Sadhguru]

Confirmed or no? Say that again. Is death sentence confirmed both for you and me?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

It is only date and time. You do not know. So if you want to know the date and time of your death, you know how much yoga you have to do. This happened. There was a man called Shankaran Pillai. He went and met a few of his friends in the bar. They started drinking. After a few drinks, you know, usually men start bragging. Stories get taller and taller. This was a mystical day. Different. Different days are dedicated to different subjects. When people get drunk, they'll talk about how they drove their car or rode their motorcycle. How they shot something. This, this, this. If they are hunters, they talk about shooting. If they're drivers, they talk about driving. This is a little mystical gang. They were talking about all the mystical stuff. Everybody was talking about how they saw the ghosts and this happened. That happened. They pulled out a ghost out of a bottle and a genie came out of this and stuff. This guy was just knocking off drinks. He said, what? You don't have nothing to say? He said, well, my uncle knew the exact time and date of his death. I said, really? Was he a mystic? Was it so, you know, profound that he knew exact time and date of his death? How did he know this? He knocked off one more drink and said, well, the judge told him, You didn't get it, man. If you do certain actions, the judge will tell you exactly when and how you will die. That's not a good thing. So I'm saying trauma is because life is not going the way you're desiring. What you need to understand is desire is a Phenomena. What object we give is our choice. Whether you choose lollipop or a girl or a bunch of, you know, a vat of money or this or that is our choice, isn't, is our choice doesn't really exist because most human beings are socially cultivated. Everybody is having lollipop, you also want to have lollipop. Everybody is having money, you also want to have money, everybody is doing this, you also want to do that. So to rise above the identities that you hold and look at life, what is it that matters to me that intelligence is not being generally worked at? Our education systems unfortunately have not structured that way because if everybody looks at life intelligently, this may not be liked by you or by your community. If everybody starts looking at life intelligently, they may not serve an industry or a company or an army or something, they may start doing their own things, which is what America is supposed to be. Which is what the human life is supposed to be. That individual human beings should find a way to find the best possible expression for whatever aptitudes they have, isn't it? Yes, but doesn't matter what aptitude you have, you have to go sit in the school and learn. Four plus four is eight. Or chemistry, physics, mathematics, this, that for you, which you may have aptitude, you may not have aptitude. Whether you like it or not, you have to go through that. Because they're trying to produce a product so that you serve in a factory or in the army or in this place or that place, they don't want you to be an individual. I am not trying to be an anarchist, but I'm saying societies were built for the sake of individual well being. We built a family for individual well being, isn't it? So? Yes. We will rise our above our individual requirements to serve the family or the community or the nation. That's a different matter. But fundamentally it is the well being of life for which we build everything, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

That we forget. We forget that, that we are building all the systems for the well being of individual life. But systems. This is literally getting caught up in the process. We still, we built this building because we want to do something, but we don't know how to open the door and get out of this damn building. Then this is a prison, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes, it is.

[Sadhguru]

This is all that's happening right now. Because you don't like something. Why? Because it's not going according to the object of your desire. You could easily change the object according to your choice or according to the requirement of the situation. But that doesn't happen. So it creates unpleasantness. This unpleasantness, we call it as trauma. At that moment it happened, but now it repeats itself. Well, you are talking about people who have been in extreme situations. All right, because battle is the most extreme situation human beings can create. Famines and battles or the two most extreme situations human beings can create. Unfortunately, too many people are in both in the world today, with all this technology and stuff, with so much information and knowledge, we should have eliminated both. But both are very prevalent in the world. Battles and famines. So an unpleasant experience happened. Let's say something that we don't like is unpleasant. We don't like because we had a desire for this. But this is happening. Wrong thing is happening in our mind. Somebody else may be enjoying that situation, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

This is true.

[Sadhguru]

So trauma is because of the resistance that we have for something that we think we don't like. What we don't like is something other than what we desire is happening. But desire is essentially not about these objects that we desire or situations that we desire. Desire is a phenomena which wants to expand limitlessly. Even if I give you one galaxy, it's not enough. I must tell you this. I was here in United States just before I started the safe Soil journey. You know, I rode a motorcycle, a lone motorcycle from London to southern India. 30,000 kilometers in hundred days.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Sadhguru]

In 2022. I should have brought that book for you. I don't know if they have. So I'll send you that book. Just flip through that. This is people's experience. I just told my daughter, you know, so many people served me on the way. Just collect their experiences. What it is. Because it was so brisk. I'm riding 16 to 18 hours a day in this hundred days. I did 691 events along the way.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Sadhguru]

Apart from 691 events. Yes. On an average, nearly seven events per day. And riding. Wow. Even when I'm riding, I'm doing interviews. As I'm riding, you'll see for the first time ever in Indian national television, there's a man riding with a full faced helmet. And he's talking and giving interviews for hour long interviews on the national television. That's me. So I said take their experiences and put it in a book. Because all of them served. Because in every country that I went, different groups of people, different groups of people. Before I go there, they're ready with the events and works. I said collect the experiences. So I said, within one year, let's do it for the first Anniversary. It didn't happen. I said, what the hell happened? No, no, she's. I'm collecting. Collecting. She said, said, you lazy bum. What are you doing? One year over, two years over. She didn't do it. Three years now. Fourth year she published. Then I look at the book. It's 450 pages. I said, what is this? You don't know? There were thousand pages. I had to edit it down and bring it down to 450 pages. People sharing their experiences. I thought, it'll be some small booklet. Just do it quickly.

[Sean Ryan]

What is that book about? What is the book?

[Sadhguru]

Out book just got out on March 21st for the fourth anniversary.

[Sean Ryan]

Congratulations.

[Sadhguru]

I'll send you that one. I don't think they have it here. Probably.

[Sean Ryan]

Thank you.

[Sadhguru]

It's not a reading book. It's just people's experiences of these 100 days. So when this whole process is happening. Just before that I come to United States. We didn't do the campaign in US but I started in Caribbean, then went to London and from there I rode on. But I was activating the media. I did some podcasts and this and that to bring interest in the subject. Because soil was an unknown thing at that time. Today it has become the mainstream of cop, the COP meetings and everything in four years time. So I was one morning I'm sitting here and I see one young man running around like his tail is on fire. I said, hey, what are you up to man? He said, sadhguru, I just want to make $1 billion. I want to make $1 billion. I said, what? Only $1 billion. Tomorrow you come, I'll give you $1 billion. Really Sadhguru? You'll give me $1 billion? Yeah man, come tomorrow, I'll give you $1billion. Eight of his friends were sitting quietly. I said, see these eight guys who are sitting quietly here? I'll give them all $10 billion each. Oh, why? Why, Sadhguru? They get 10 billion, I get 1 billion. You idiot. Just now you said $1 billion is the ambition of your life. The moment they get 10 billion, you're becoming miserable. Neither they got nor you got just the idea. This is the nature of the desire. Your objective desire is just decided by the times and the societies in which you exist, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

If you were here 200 years ago, you wouldn't be thinking all this billion nonsense. You would be thinking just how to cross Mississippi. Maybe.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you have desires?

[Sadhguru]

Huh?

[Sean Ryan]

Do you have desires?

[Sadhguru]

A lot of them.

[Sean Ryan]

Are you able to control them?

[Sadhguru]

I create them. Why do I control them?

[Sean Ryan]

Well, that's what I meant.

[Sadhguru]

I create them. Your desires are anyway created by you either consciously or unconsciously is the only question, isn't it? Yes or no?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes. I guess what I'm asking is you. I think a lot of people let desires run their life.

[Sadhguru]

That's what I'm saying. The question is, do you drive your desires or desires drive you? Nothing drives me. I drive every aspect of my life to the extent that I want. Nothing drives me. I am not a waymo. You know what's a waymo?

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, I know what a waymo is.

[Sadhguru]

I am not a waymo driven by something. I drive and I think I drive well.

[Sean Ryan]

Appears that way.

[Sadhguru]

So about trauma, which is important and this post traumatic thing, which unfortunately is such a serious thing in United States. The numbers I saw, man, it's not good, not good to treat people who serve the country like this. Well, when I say treat, is the country treating them badly? I don't think so. Some $230 billion budget just for that one problem. Investing money is fine. It'll give some comfort. Not going to solve the problem. One important thing which I don't think will be taken, but I will make the suggestion anyway is don't try to send people into those situations and then try to solve it before they go. Why don't we spend a certain amount of time. I know you're training to be strong, you're trying to train. Training to be tough, to shoot straight and this and that. All those things are important for the soldier. Fine. I'm fine with that. Along with that. How to keep myself, how to be this must be thought. We have done thousands of Indian army personnel. We have put them through that. We have trained over 750. I'm sure, I'm not sure about the number, whether 750 or 7500. I'm not sure about that. That many trainers we have trained for the Indian Army.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Sadhguru]

They train. I don't know how many people they have trained internally. They won't give us that information. But we have trained so many trainers. Please, you must do this. What is the point of breaking up men who serve the country? They are saying on an average suicide could be suicides of this particular problem could be over 40 people per day. That's too. That's horrendous. I can't accept that number. It's not good for any group of people, particularly those who put their life in harm's way. All right.

[Sean Ryan]

I don't think they want to solve It. I don't think they want to solve it.

[Sadhguru]

Why would you say that?

[Sean Ryan]

Because the issue is as old as time itself and we're still sitting with the same shit.

[Sadhguru]

Maybe they don't understand the problem. Maybe they think this is a natural consequence. Maybe they don't want to address it. Because then you will have to address whether this war itself is needed or not. All those issues are there.

[Sean Ryan]

I think it's up to us, the veterans, to solve it, you know.

[Sadhguru]

No, I'm saying the veterans could also

[Sean Ryan]

influence to the individual to solve it.

[Sadhguru]

No, that we can always do. But I am saying the young people who are going into the services, if we equip them with something, we don't have to create broken people.

[Sean Ryan]

I'm a hundred percent with you on that.

[Sadhguru]

If people are willing, we are willing to do that as a part of this. I told them to offer inner engineering programs for all veterans free of cost.

[Sean Ryan]

Say that again.

[Sadhguru]

For all the veterans who served the nation here, we've done that in India. Also for all the forces that the inner engineering program, which normally costs hundred and seventy five dollars for common people, will offer it free. Wow, it's online. They can do it in their homes and it'll do wonders.

[Sean Ryan]

How do they find that? Hmm? Where do they find this?

[Sadhguru]

Oh, in engineering. I'm sorry, they have some. I'll ask them to give you the link.

[Sean Ryan]

Okay, we'll put it in the description.

[Sadhguru]

Veterans, slash something. I'm sorry, I don't know. What's the thing.

[Sean Ryan]

It'll be in the description.

[Sadhguru]

We will offer that they should make use of it. See, the thing is, I am not thinking only soldiers should be free of this. See, our programs are mandatory in all the southern Indian prisons. I personally went there and taught programs at one time in the prisons. Now teachers have been teaching for over 25, 26 years. They become mandatory and the whole prison atmosphere has changed here also, I did those programs in Pennsylvania high security prison and Philadelphia and we tried in Tennessee also. But they were fantastic. The programs initially, I personally went there myself. I must tell you the experience in Philadelphia, life sentence is life sentence. That is, there's no remission and there's no death sentence. See, this is a jinx. You know, if you commit a crime, whatever it is, people commit crimes for various reasons, not always because of some evil stuff, for variety of reasons. It happens. Unfortunately, it happens. I must tell you about this particular guy. He, when he's just, just over 18, finished his high school just over 18 and he thought some fancy thing he thought he will do some shooting and rob a store. And he killed two, three people, I think. Two people, I think. So he got life sentence at the age of 18. He came there. I met him and he's 56, Strong, fit guy. They initially didn't want to have him because the prison guards felt we can't manage him in the program. Inside the classroom, one guard is standing with a rifle. I said, please don't stand inside. If it's a must, you stand outside. He says, no, no, no, he's very dangerous. It literally they're waiting one moment. If he does one mistake, they'll shoot that guy. I said, please don't do this. But they said, no, this guy, because he's. He's become so violent because now he kills another 10 people. There's no death sentence. Only thing is more life sentences. You know, in America I hear somebody is sentenced for 800 years. That means what? You'll make sure he lives for 800 years? Anyway, he'll die at a normal length of time, isn't it? So he's violent because there's no consequence. What will you do to me? At the most, you'll put me in the solitary. So most of the time he's solitary all the time. I think it's a five by eight kind of cell. So on the fourth or fifth day after he started the program, he broke down and cried. Big guy. Everybody, all the other prisoners, convicts, terrified because this guy is crying. Everybody's terrified of him. They give him separate time in the yard because he'll bash somebody up. Even in the odd time when he's. They walk and exercise separate time for him. And this guy is crying like a baby. Then he wanted to speak. I said, please speak. He said, in the last 30 years I have not been able to sit. When I, exhausted, I fall asleep. But I can't sit in one place and last four days I'm sitting here for three hours a day with you. This is the greatest miracle for me that he's sitting in one place. Otherwise he just walks up and down these eight feet. Up and down, up and down, up and down. When he's exhausted, he'll fall asleep. And you know, like this in India. See, the prison is a very organized place in the sense you wake up on time, somebody opens the doors for you, somebody closes it for you. Food comes bang on time, everything on time. Only thing is, if you enter the prison, I have never been into a prison and come out without tears in my eyes because there is pain in the Air, just the idea somebody is locking you up. Because in human consciousness the most important thing is freedom. People may not articulate it like that. They themselves may lock themselves in the room, but it's okay. But if somebody locks it from outside, suddenly it becomes another level of pain. So in India, they wrote over three to four thousand poems. Hardly educated people. Most of them are like, you know, never been to school or some basic school. One guy wrote a poem, he killed three people in the courthouse. So in India that is considered rarest of the rare. In India there is death sentence, but in the rarest of the rare cases only. So who defines that rarest? Of course, the judge. And then, you know, there's appeal and appeal and appeal right up to the president. But if nothing, usually they are on death sentence, but they stay there for 15, 20 years if they have a good lawyer, up to 25 years. So this guy has been on death sentence for more than eight or nine years. And I, I did a 10 day event for them inside the prison. You know, I, I just, it's so painful and so touching. So all these people. One thing is the prison psychologist told me that in the last hundred and thirty six years of the prison's history, not a single day there's been a day that somebody was not in the solitary. This solitary was created by the British when they were there. That is, it's a 5 by 5 box, steel box, 5 by 5 by 5 cube with a small hole like this. And rest of it is all steel, metal. And it's outside in the sun, it gets hot. That's where they are, solitary. Every day somebody gets into it because they'll do some mischief, something. After the program started, not a single person went into the solitary for months on end.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Sadhguru]

And the prison psychologist said the biggest problem is they don't, they cannot sleep. In the nights they're howling like wolves. Howling stopped, they started sleeping. Well. And this guy wrote a poem. He was on death row. Now he's been executed. He was on death row for nine years and still there appealing and appealing into one more court, one more court appeal. So he wrote a poem. He said, every day when the cell door closes in the evening, I thought, this is my grave. But now when the cell door closes, I close my eyes and this has become my Bodhi tree. You know what's a Bodhi tree? Where Buddha got, Buddha got enlightened under the tree. Gautama, the Buddha sat under the tree and he got enlightened. He's saying when the cell door closes it becomes my Bodhi tree. I close my eyes and meditate now. So I'm saying I'm talking about extreme situations. Prison is an extreme situation in so many ways. They may be safer than in the war zone, but this sense of I'm not free is the deepest suffering in a human being. People cannot understand this unless they see what happens there. I was in Kentucky prison and I was doing this program on 6th, 7th day, one black lady comes to me with one young boy, maybe 10 year old boy. And she holds my hand and says, guru, Guru, I want to talk to you. My husband, you know, he thinks you are Jesus. I said, please don't say this, I don't want to be crucified or anything, please don't say such things. I'm just an ordinary guy coming to help them. Then she said, you know, my husband, he has the heart of gold. But in a fit of anger, he killed somebody. Then he came out on, you know, some parole, he was outside, somebody said something, he killed another guy. I'm saying people get into these things not necessarily in a planned way, just one moment, something that they don't like, this is the way they react. If they had done this hundred years ago, 200 years ago or a thousand years ago, it would be quite normal in the tribe. Somebody irritated you, you killed that guy. People would say, oh, it's a good thing that guy irritated you, you killed him. But today he's locked up in the prison. I'm saying, so I am saying the consequences that we face are not always the same. Depending upon the times in which we exist, different things happen to us. How to process all this? Because we are still the same human beings, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Sadhguru]

Whether you were here,000 years ago or today or later, we are still the same in your human beings. So we have to look for what is the constant. See, the content of your mind is not what it would be if you were thousand years ago, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Definitely would not be the same.

[Sadhguru]

But the content of the body would be largely same. Maybe the fitness of the body would be in a different level, but general content of the body is same, chemistry is same, energies are same. That's what we should manage. But we are always trying to manage this surface which is just an impression of the times upon us. The human being needs to be taken care of. But we are trying to prune this on the surface. So this is what inner engineering is about. You change the very energies, you change the very chemistry of who you are. If you create a blissful chemistry. After that, what is trauma? There's no such thing. It will feel insulting for people who have been through that, but I am saying this with utmost respect for whatever they go through. But the most important and empowering thing is that you determine the nature of your experience. The world determines the nature of your experience. That means you will be unfit for the world in some way, isn't it? It is the. The choice is this. Shall I fix the whole world the way you want, or will you fix yourself in such a way that you are fit to live in this world?

[Sean Ryan]

That is a damn good way to look at things. That is a damn good way to look at things. Thank you.

[Sadhguru]

We must fix the chemistry. We must fix the energy. Thoughts and emotions are happening according to our times, isn't it? They're surface. If your chemistry is blissful, your energies are stable, then what is it? Outside world, you will handle it to the best of your ability. Can somebody do the best in the world? There's no such thing. Whichever way we do it, we can do it better, isn't it? Hello?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

But I must do my best. If what I cannot do does not happen in my life, it's all right. But if what I can do, if I do not do, I'm a disaster, isn't it?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Sadhguru]

This is all it is in our lives. If we do not do what we cannot do, that's not a problem in our lives. If we do not do what we can do, we are a disastrous life. I want to make sure nobody is that disaster. Everybody can do this much. That your experience of life, you determine outside. We will naturally do our best. If we are in a good state, we'll do our best. Our best may not be the best. It's okay. We're doing our best. I love that one day we miss golf. Then I'll show you what's my best to you.

[Sean Ryan]

All right. That sounds good. Well, I think that might be the perfect place to end this. Huh? I think that might be the perfect place to end this. Yes.

[Sadhguru]

We're building a golf course in Tennessee there.

[Sean Ryan]

You're building a golf course?

[Sadhguru]

Yes. It'll be playable by October, but we will open it sometime early spring. Next spring.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, I will come golf there.

[Sadhguru]

You have to.

[Sean Ryan]

Is it a McMon Mill? Is it a McMinnville?

[Sadhguru]

From McMon Mill? We are 18 miles, I think.

[Sean Ryan]

Okay. So close.

[Sadhguru]

It's a. It's a 7172. That means 7172 yards.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Sadhguru]

It's a long course. Beautiful Course.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, should we go smack some balls?

[Sadhguru]

Huh?

[Sean Ryan]

Should we go smack some balls?

[Sadhguru]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

All right.

[Sadhguru]

You don't have any clubs.

[Sean Ryan]

I think we got some. Is it? We'll check.

[Sadhguru]

We can if you're done with your questions. Well, Saguru, let me see if you something of. Oh, there's a poem on death. You want to.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, let's hear it.

[Sadhguru]

Life and death live in me at once. Never held one above the other. When one stands for life, I offer in closeness only death I deal in death of the limited will the deathless be? In death of the limited will the deathless be. How to tell the fools of my taintless evil.

[Sean Ryan]

Thank you.

[Sadhguru]

Because if you do not in some way destroy the limited nature of what you have constructed, the larger life will never come into you. Creation. And the source of creation is the most spectacular thing. It's way beyond anything we can imagine. I'm saying a simple thing. If you take a leaf, how it is made, you can. It's beyond your imagination. And it's a very source of life. Photosynthesis is the basis of all life on the planet. A simple life is doing that all the time, isn't it? A simple leaf is doing that all the time. But we think we are brilliant. That's why we are so stupid.

[Sean Ryan]

Vote of the day right there.

[Sadhguru]

Well, thank you, Sean.

[Sean Ryan]

Thank you. I learned a lot.

[Show Host/Announcer]

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