Datasets:

keshavG

/

bert-base-uncased-bert_mask_complete_word

like 0

data/Complete Blog JSON/article-Wisdom-a7d5171f-58d1-4f75-b7b4-cb781326214b.json

Krishna, Jesus and the Path of Devotion Answering a question based on a previous talk about Krishna and dharma, Sadhguru explains how the path offered by Jesus is the path of devotion, and how many yogis in India, including Krishna, have offered this path too. Q: When the meek person came to Krishna and explained how he perceived his dharma, that he took anything that came his way in total acceptance, Krishna said that his dharma is that of a coward, and he let him pass. Whereas Jesus says, Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. So what is the difference between the two? Sadhguru: It is always very important that one perceives the kind of situation and the kind of social realities someone lived in and why they spoke the way they spoke. There is one aspect of the teaching which is of an eternal nature whoever speaks it, speaks in the same terms. But there is another aspect of the teaching which is relevant to the people who are sitting there at that moment. That relevance keeps changing from generation to generation. Not only from generation to generation, but even within the generation from society to society, from group of people to group of people, from person to person, it is a different reality. If we want to understand this aspect, we have to bring some kind of alignment to the social realities that Krishna lived in, the social realities that Jesus lived in, and the social realities that you live in right now. Jesus sort of substantiated this aspect of being meek by saying, If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. He was talking to his closest disciples before sending them out to spread his message. He said, When you go out with this new message, if people come and slap you on one cheek, show the other. But that is not the teaching for all of you. Can you live by those guidelines? Genuinely, how many of you are capable of this in your life? You are not capable of that. Krishna lived in totally different conditions, and he spoke differently to different people. If you look at what Krishna spoke about bhakti or devotion, you would think it is very contradictory to this aspect . Another thing we need to understand is, Jesus was hugely restricted by the situation in which he existed. He had no real freedom of speech. He mostly lived like a fugitive. Here and there, he spoke to small groups of people. If he had said one more word, his life would have been finished, and it happened that way. The moment he picked up a little momentum, you know what they did to him. Krishna was a kingmaker. His friends were kings and emperors. He could call upon large armies to fulfill his purpose. So he was placed in a completely different situation. When it comes to approaching the eternal, Jesus was just talking about the yoga of devotion, because that is his way. He was talking about one dimension of approaching the Ultimate. He was just saying, Follow me. This is devotion. Krishna also said the same things. He said, I am the way. Jesus said something like, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one goes to the Father except through me. But he went further somewhere else and said, I and the Father are one. In that part of the world, uttering such a thing was total sacrilege. If anybody claims I and the Father are one, it means, I am God. Such a claim immediately brought death penalty in that part of the world. But here in India, any number of yogis have said it, and people treated them and worshipped them as gods because they experienced the Divine in them. When Krishna said, I am the Ultimate Divine, people were not surprised or shocked. It was not a sacrilege because that was very much a part of peoples knowing. They were very happy he had come when they were alive. Any number of yogis have said this. Well-known ones and very minor ones. When I say minor, I mean it in terms of social acknowledgement. They were great people within themselves, but socially, in the world, they were very small. Those people have been worshipped as gods. But for Jesus, it was totally out of place in that culture. Him saying, Me and My Father are one brought him death. With Krishna too, any number of times, people tried to kill him, but they tried to kill him not for his utterances; they tried to kill him for political and military reasons because he was involved in those affairs. Nobody ever tried to kill him because of the teaching he gave.

data/SGYT/SGYT_OOpjH8iinaA_How-Much-Of-You-Is-Sense-How-Much-Is-Nonsense-Vinita-Bali-With-Sadhguru_03-Jun-2015.docx

Yeah, I learnt a simple process, which says that you know, whenever doubt arises in our life, you know, doubt the doubt and whenever trust arises, trust the trust. My question is now that the ultimate, which next step we are saying, the ultimate as the final step, I would like to ask is dissolution or what we call moksha, hmm? That is one area, which you know, I don’t know how to take a, you know, step forward. I don’t know whether I… my question is clear? You want to dissolve ? Okay. That is the ultimate you know process. You need a barrel of sulphuric acid . Please, sit down. Okay, can we have s… No, we will answer that question. Should we take one or two other questions, if you are okay with that? But you won’t get this kind of a question . Okay, we won’t get this. All right , all right. The reason why the so-called spiritual process has fallen upon ridicule in the world is well, there may be few entrepreneurs who do their own things, leave them. I’m not going into that. But the reason why spiritual process has become ridiculous on the planet is because people try to do the highest things on the street side, without the necessary committed atmosphere, without the necessary focus, simply talk about mukti, moksha. You know, in the previous generation, everybody talked about mukti, moksha, just about anywhere, sitting, standing. Whenever life became mi… miserable, they want moksha, when it’s going well, they forget about moksha . Their idea of moksha itself is convoluted. So this is important. With all due respect to everybody who has spoken about these things, maybe those things were spoken in a certain atmosphere to a certain individual towards a certain purpose. I think it’s quite irresponsible first of all to print that in a book and just everybody reads it, without knowing the context of what it is, without having gon… gone through the journey that person who asked that question is go… gone through. The question doesn’t have depth. Answers we can give any number. All you will do is you’ll pick up more words from today evening and it’s not going to do anything. If you are serious about it, if you’re really serious about it, if you’re serious about your journey, leave all this. First of all, get rid of all the jargon, all the spiritual jargon. Just come to this much. How much of you is sense, how much of you is nonsense? Sit down, unprejudiced just make an evaluation, just an accountant’s job, okay? How much of you is… let me use the right, appropriate word… sense and how much of you is nonsense. Every day, sieve it out, you will see it’s not an easy job. And ask some of you… two friends of yours and two people who don’t like you , also to assess you. You know, you need a outside opinion, isn’t it? Second opinion is always good. You will see it’s a great cleansing process. Instead of talking mukti, moksha, dissolution, shushupthi, something else, something else – these are all words. Anybody can pick up Sanskrit words, what is the point? Let’s take… All the scriptures, all the teachings, all the philosophies, all the great things that people have spoken about, all of them are worth nothing, compared to a single existential te… step that you took inward. If you take one step, it is worth more than all the scriptures in the universe put together . END

data/IFYT/IFYT_6McloUQiFwE_Wagah-BSF-Supports-Rally-For-Rivers_30-Sep-2017.docx

The history of the subcontinent, whether it is north India, south India, east or west, I see it as a civilization that has arisen along the rivers. Well, that may be a global phenomenon, but it's particularly true of India and it is indeed very sad to see that our rivers, many of them have very sacred status, has really shrunk, many of them have almost dried and this is good neither for the topography, neither for the climate, nor for the people who are living on either side. To that extent, I feel as a citizen of India, extremely obliged to Sadhguru ji, that he has picked up this issue as a mission. I read in that invitation card, it is not an agitation, it is not a protest, but it is an awakening that he wants to come… you know across the country. I think it is indeed a very noble cause. Many of us live for our life. His mission is a mission for generations to come. To that extent, it is extremely laudable and I say, all of us salute him for various initiatives but I on behalf of the Border Security Force, on my behalf of my DG, on behalf of all my Jawans this thing, I express my deepest gratitude. All of us want it to happen, but few take the initiative. He has taken the initiative and when a great people take the initiative, things become little easier than if ordinary people were involved in it. So my heartfelt gratitude and thanks to Sadhguru ji and I wish him all the success and we all want to be part of this not only till the mission stays, but for all times to come. A way of life. Thank you. END

data/IFYT/IFYT_3F1ckmazJ7c_Yaksha-2013-Interview-With-Abhisek-Lahiri_04-Mar-2013.docx

It is really an unbelievable place. I mean, I had heard about Isha Foundation before but never really got the chance to come here and the infrastructure and the ashram is absolutely beyond any description. My father is a very renounced Sarod artist Pandit Alok Lahiri and as I was born in a musical family, so music was… I mean already in my blood. And Sorad specially because I like the sound and the tone and quality and also because of the fact that my father is a Sorad player, that’s why. First the most important thing is we have to learn classical music. Without the knowledge of classical music nobody will be able to play any kind of music. We have to learn directly from your guru and it takes time and you have to have patience, you have to give lot of time, devotion, dedication. And until and unless you do that, you are not going to, I mean learn it properly. So, for me music is everything. I practice music and that is how I play. And I am looking forward to the concert tonight and I hope that it will be wonderful and I will be able to play my hundred percent. END

data/SGYT/SGYT_bUeXLK-McIE_Addressing-The-Biggest-Challenge-Before-Humanity-Alexander-Ludwig-Gustaf-Skarsgard-Sadhguru_27-May-2022.docx

A Did you see Vikings! My daughter insisted that I must see. G There might be a risk that governments will see this as a potential cop-out to deal with the carbon emissions. A This Sadhguru, this initiative that I've been looking at what you're doing is really incredible. What is blown my mind about what you're doing, it's something I had never even heard of before. This 'Save Soil' movement can not only be an ecological movement, but also it's a way of creating a more inclusive humanity. It's time from lab, we once again come back to the land because it's on the land that life happens. A Wow! You've blown my mind yet again! The highest number of suicides in America of all the professions, it is the farmers. A That is devastating. Instrumental music Namaskaram ! Oh, Floki and Bjorn, look at them ! Both of these together . A Oh, it's good to see you again. Wonderful talking to both of you. Please. G Likewise. It's an honor, a privilege, a delight. Both of you are stationed where? Like, in which part of America are you? G Right now, I'm in Los Angeles. Oh, okay. G Yeah, but normally, I'm in Sweden, in Stockholm, Sweden most of the time. That's where I'm based. Oh, okay. A Yeah, I'm in Atlanta, Georgia. I moved here because we're doing a new show at the moment. So, I'm here. So, I'm not far away from Tennessee. So, next time you're there I know. I'm there in July, let's catch up. A Oh, absolutely. Actually that's a perfect time because I'm done in July. So, that'd be great. I'd love that. You golf? You guys, anybody golfs? G I'm terrible at golfing. But I like riding around in the golf cart . A This Sadhguru, this initiative that I've been looking at what you're doing is really incredible. I'm so happy, you finally get to meet one of my best friends Gustaf because he is, I would say, even more passionate about this than I am, simply. Wonderful. A And I'm very passionate about the environment. It's just that he's just taking the initiative to really educate himself on everything he's doing. And we're both so fascinated about what you're doing. And we'd love to learn more about everything. That's wonderful, Gustaf. And, you know, it's great that young people like you are concerned about this because as a generation, if we don't do the right things now, we will live a life of regret. G Yeah. That's the way I look at it as well. We can't be ignorant to the information that we're getting. A What is blown my mind about what you're doing, just to because I want to share this with as many people as we can., it's something I had never even heard of before, which was a soil being an issue. That's something I think that's not talked about at all, and I would love to know in what ways we can help spread the word and how people can take the initiative to support this. See, what I see is, in the last eight months, I've been talking to various world leaders. People who are in the environmental work, many, many scientists across the world, top scientists in the world, and as I speak to them, what I see is, every one of them knows what is the problem and every one of them knows this needs to happen now; it's very important that this time it needs to happen. But I think everybody was waiting for one idiot who is willing to bell the cat, and here I am . G Yeah, we appreciate that, Sadhguru. You appreciate me being an idiot? Come on! A Yes. G Yes ! A You're the most wonderful G Someone needs to go first . But I join you in the idiocy. Definitely. So, somewhere in Europe, maybe on the ride, you can catch up with me. G Yeah, I hope so. Yeah, definitely. So, tell us a little bit Tell us a little bit about the ride. Well, it's starting on 21st of March. So, it's just another twenty-four days away from today. And we're riding through Europe, going to Holland, then to Berlin, and down south to Praha, Warsaw and down south further to Slovakia, Rome, Geneva, Paris and again looping through Borne because that's the UNCCD capital. We're partnering with UNCCD or the UN Agency to Combat Desertification G Great. We are partners with them. So, we spend a day or two with them and then go further. See, this is one thing when it comes to soil, this is one thing that all of us are connected to. In nationalities, we may be different, in race, we may be different, in religion, we may be different, ethnicities may be different, so many differences, but soil is one thing that all of us are connected to. I want to use this soil not only as an ecological movement but also as a way to connect people, something There is a common ground for all of us. Well, there are so many differences, there is so much emotion, there's so much anger, there's so much everything everywhere, but at least at least the things that we are that we hold as common factors, I think we need to highlight that in a big way. I feel the Save Soil movement can not only be an ecological movement, but also it's a way of creating a more inclusive humanity because everybody can connect to the soil. Nationalities are made up by us, race and religions are made by us, okay, as if we're something very different. But all of us come from the same soil. So, I would like to use the soil message as a way of creating a more inclusive humanity, which has always been our work fundamentally, you know . G That's lovely. And is it possible to then also draw the connection between soil and Earth, which are synonymous, and that the extension of this is also that we're all one species on one planet, which is the same it's also So, whether you use the word soil or Earth, it's not different. In most languages, it's a common word – soil and Earth. So I mean G Right. And so it's Earth is also the planet, it's also our home. So, it extends even to that global consciousness, doesn't it? Yes, yes. They cannot be separated. It is very obvious. Yeah. A Sadhguru, for those who aren't as aware of soil's connection to climate change, or what they can be doing to further educate themselves on this or to help in any way, could you speak a bit to that? Yes. See, everybody's talking about climate change, that narrative has picked up. It's a very good thing that that's happened in the last ten, fifteen years' time, but one needs to understand a healthy soil is one of the best carbon sinks in the world. It is the best actually. It is even better than the ocean if you take in terms of square feet or square meters. because the ocean has two-thirds of the surface, ocean is a bigger sink. But in terms of square footage, if you take a piece of ocean and a piece of land, the land or the soil is a much better carbon sink than even ocean surface. But at the same time, unhealthy soil, plowed and exposed soil is a source of emission of both carbon dioxide and methane, above all, which heats up the atmosphere almost eighty times more than carbon dioxide. So, the same thing can work as a carbon sink, as a way of capturing the carbon, or the same thing can exude, you know, gases which will enhance the climate change or global warming. And the cropland and the desert lands have the lowest level of carbon in education per hectare, you know? Crop lands and desert lands have the lowest carbon in their vegetation. Any other place if you take, water shed areas or forests, the level of carbon in that vegetation and in the soil is very, very high, but these lands have the lowest. Deserts are another It's another reality. We can't really go and fix the desert tomorrow morning. But the significance of agricultural land or crop lands is, this is the only piece of land on the planet which amounts to seventy percent of the land on the planet, is that land which is every day tended to by human beings. The land that we're tending to, if you cannot transform, how are you going to go and transform the desert or the ocean or even the rainforest? How are you going to do anything about it? This is a land where every day, there's a human hand on it. This is the land we should first turn it around, and it's possible to do it if we take the necessary steps. If you institute this in the policy of every nation, in eight to twelve years, a massive reversal of what is happening right now can be done. G What are some of those steps that would be implemented would have to be implemented? See, we have we've produced a soil document, a common document for the world, and also for every nation, based on its latitudinal positions, regions, where they are, and the soil types that exist – we have identified fourteen types of basic types of soil – and also the economic conditions of the region, and of course the agricultural traditions, because you cannot change agricultural traditions overnight, you will have to work with that. So considering all these, we've made a policy document for every nation, or in some cases, for every region. Right now, all the Caribbean nations are signing up with us, for we're signing MOUs with them with the soil policy document, how to implement. We will do similar things with most nations. Maybe the large nations may not want to sign because they have their own systems to do it, but it's okay as long as they do it. But smaller nations, we're trying to sign up and handhold them in that direction. When you ask specifically what… see there is one fundamental thing that we need to understand. when Alexander asked about, "What about climate change?" Essentially one important aspect of climate change is, the number amount of ppm per you know, in the in the air around us, on an average if it's 350, it is considered normal. But today, we've reached 410. This 410 means sixty ppm extra – ppm is a unit for the, you know, carbon dioxide or carbon molecules in the po carbon particles in the air. To bring this down, one important thing is to enhance photosynthesis on the planet. Whether it's a cover crop or whether it's a bush or it's a tree or grasses, whatever it is, always land should have photosynthesis going on. Photosynthesis is the magic, perpetual magic that is going on, using the perpetual energy of the sun. The very life that we are is manufactured from this, because before photosynthesis started on this planet – people say, scientists say approximately a billion years ago or whatever, whenever it started – before that, the oxygen levels in our atmosphere was less than two percent. Obviously, human beings and most mammals could not exist in that, but today, it is twenty-one percent where all of us are comfortable. So, this twenty-one percent of oxygen has happened mainly because of photosynthesis. So, right now if you look at, you know, human habitations, the lands that human beings have occupied, if you fly across the world, you will see the level of photosynthesis happening in every land that human beings have put their hands into, is minimal or nothing, you know? Large parts of the time, in the large you know, for months on end in the in a year, there is nothing happening. It's just plowed and left open, killing all the microbial activity. The first fifteen inches, twelve to fifteen inches of soil is responsible for eighty-seven percent of the life on the planet, including you and me. today, we're using machines where they are plowing almost like twelve to fourteen inches deep and leaving it open to the sun. This is like we peel off our skin and stand in the sun, you know, you will be screaming. That's exactly what the land is doing. Land is screaming, but nobody is hearing. So, the most important thing is always there must be a crop. If you have no yield crops coming, there must be a cover crop, all the time. So, one of the things that we've been pushing for is, for the governments to give some financial assistance to put cover crops. Just now, about ten days ago, United States announced one billion dollar fund to enhance the cover crop in various states in the country. Similarly, United Kingdom has announced a subsidy for cover crops. Now we're pushing the Indian government and every other government, at least in the seasons when you're not growing food on it, there must be a cover crop, enormous foliage. When time comes, you just put this back. That creates humus in the soil, and that humus is the basis of who we are. Because the word human itself comes from the word humus. A So essentially, we have to re-teach people everything that they know essentially about no, we just have to remind them because forty, fifty years ago, we knew what to do. Suddenly, we forgot, because from land we moved to lab. It's time from lab, we once again come back to the land because it's on the land that life happens. In the lab, you can experiment. It is Life happens only in the land. A And there's I was I was watching the YouTube video about this already. And is it there's something like we have eighty more harvests, or less? Different people are saying from sixty to eighty harvests, some people are more optimistic are saying eighty to hundred harvests. Eighty to hundred harvest means approximately forty-five to sixty years is max. But every responsible scientist is clearly pointing out by 2045, we'll be producing forty percent less food, but our population will be over nine billion. That's not a world we want to live in. A No, no. That's not a world where we want to leave our children and go. But this can be turned around. We are in a cusp of time right now. If we act now in the ten in the next ten to fifteen years or maximum twenty years, we can make a significant turnaround in the soil quality, and in turn the all the other aspects related to it. But if we will say let us say, we let it go for another thirty to forty years Because the loss of biodiversity per year on an average is around 27,000 species. I'll repeat that, 27,000 species, not organisms. That many species of microorganisms are going extinct. So, if you let this roll for another thirty to forty years, we will come to a place where if we do everything possible to turn it around, it will take 150 to 200 years, that's a disaster. G Wow! A For Sadhguru, first of all, thank you for taking this on. You know, this can't be easy for you to do. Video after video, trip after trip educating all these people on this, and it's incredible what you're doing. For everyday people, like Gustaf and I, what can we be doing as individuals to help? See, right now everybody wants to get their hands in the earth; right now because they're inspired by a video or something. That is not what we need. First thing we need to understand is, we should stop doing things for our satisfaction, and do something that is a solution. We're interested in a solution, not doing something for my personal satisfaction. This is an important step everybody must take. So, if we want a solution, it has to be enshrined in the policy of every nation. Why should it be enshrined in every policy of every nation? See right now, if you have hundred acres of land, you're doing a great job with the soil, you're taking very good care about it, but what is the guarantee that the next generation will do that? They may turn it into a desert. That's what we have done. In one or two generations, we've done that, right? So, it has to get instituted in the policy. If you want to understand what I'm saying, see for example, if you see the cities right now, in every city there is a building law. If you have 10,000 square feet of land, you can't build 10,000 square feet of building. You can build 6-7000, you have to allow space for yourself and your neighbor. But just go to the old cities and see, wherever there are really old cities, you will see there is no concept of a window. They've all just built side by side, attached to each other, just one door to enter, one door to get out. So, that is simply because there was no law. Today, you can have hundred acres of land, you can plow every inch of it, turn it into a desert in the next ten years, nobody to ask you, "Why are you doing this?" We must understand soil is not our property. Soil is not our property. It has come to us from previous generations. It's very important we hand it over to future generations in its living condition – as a living soil, not as dead material. G Yes. A Wow, wow. You've blown my mind yet again . When do you start? When do you start your trip to begin this process of I understand you're meeting with politicians, people all over, trying to institute this one step at a time, it's Your ride is something like 30,000 kilometers. So right now, I'm coming to United States on the fifth of fifth of March, I'm sorry. And I have some media interactions and stuff; I finish that, then I'm in Caribbean region for about four days,. And then by 15th, I'm in London; there are many events till 20th. 21st, I start to ride from London.. So, then we go to Holland and from there, Germany and that whole trip, as I said earlier. But on the way, I'm taking a two-day break and going to Ivory Coast because it is the UNCCD's COP15; 170 countries' representatives will be there. So, I will be addressing them and also handing over these soil policy document to each nation, and we have written separate sections for every nation. For every nation, we've made a separate book. So, we will be giving it to those nations or whoever the representatives of those nations. And from then again, I fly back to Riyadh and from there, I ride down to UAE, Muscat. And from Muscat, I'm taking the boat with my motorcycle, and a two day, two-and-a-half day trip to Indian coast. From there, I'm ag again I'm riding for another twenty-five days. A It sounds incredibly relaxing . I'm sixty-five, I hope I survive . A Wow! I thought before I'm too old and no good for anything, I must do this. Because as a generation, if we don't do this, this is not going to be good. I'm not a doomsayer, but I'm saying we're in a situation where if we act now, we can turn this around. This is our challenge, this is our responsibility, and this is also our privilege that we have the opportunity to turn around such a massive irregularity that we've created in the carbon chain. See, when you utter the word carbon today, a whole lot of people who're reading textbooks, if you say carbon, they think it's some kind of poison, because they think carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, whatever. But we are all carbon life. We're all carbon life. Every life that you see, whether it's a worm, insect, bird, animal, tree, you and me, we're all carbon life. Carbon is life. So, this is a carbon chai chain that is going on. If you break one link of the chain, the chain will fall apart. Right now, the soil is one link that we're breaking very badly. If you break this, the life chain that is going on right now could be broken or at least seriously damaged. G So, what about our dependence on fossil fuels? Because that is also a way of breaking the chain, isn't it? That we're taking carbon that has been stored in concentrated form in the ground for millennia, and we take that and we combust that and bring it out into the atmosphere, and that enhances tremendously and disrupts this whole cycle, doesn't it? It definitely does. Not that it is not there, it is very much there. But right now, the way we've structured the world, we can't stop that tomorrow morning, all right, it will take time. People can talk as much as they want, it may take another thirty to fifty years before we make a significant turnaround in that area. But the nature of the soil is such that if we're willing, if all of us are determined, if the governments make the policies, in the next anywhere between six to twelve years, we can make a significant turnaround. And soil accounts for forty percent of the climate change. A It's really fascinating to me, I think, when I start thinking about initiatives like this. One thing I've always loved about you, Sadhguru, is you're very optimistic but solution-based and I think that Because you're not you're not a doomsayer. But I also think that it's important for people to realize the importance of educating themselves and the responsibility they have to do that, you know, because just because we say that we can turn it around in sixteen years doesn't mean that it will be, if we do nothing about it. Yes. A And I think that's something that I'm learning along the way, just from speaking to you and actually speaking to Gustaf as well, and doing my own research. It's just like, how important it is for my generation and the younger generations to take it upon themselves as a moral obligation to our planet, to educate themselves as best they can on these scenarios. It's very important. But right now, the most important thing is, see, whether it is going to happen in the next eight, ten years or not is still a question mark, I'm not denying that. But if it gets instituted in the policy now See, as a part of this what we have done is, we've written to all the heads of state, ge the letters are in the process of being delivered. And we have written to 730 political parties on the planet because we're telling them in your election manifestos, you must make soil and ecology an important part of your election manifesto, depending on your nation, your economic condition, whatever, but you do this. Why this is so is, see, once it gets instituted in the policy ma policy of a nation, if they have money, they may start tomorrow; if they don't have money, they may do it slowly; if they're lazy, they will do it after five years, but it is bound to happen once it's in the policy. If it's not in the policy, it will be ad hoc, something here and there will be done, but the real thing will not happen. Now I'm talking about, like there are building laws in a urban area, we need agricultural laws where if you own agricultural land, minimum three to six percent organic content must be there. Initially, give them incentives, nudge them to do it. As things get worse, we have to make it mandatory. It's going to happen anyway, all right? When things get bad, when foo food production gets hit, it will happen. But the reverse that can happen is, as already some of the agencies UN agencies are speaking about is, to bridge the to bridge the food shortages that will inevitably come after 2030, they are talking about making GMO crops the only way to do cropping in most of the countries because they want to bridge that food crisis. When there is no food, eat some damn food, that is the philosophy. I agree with them. When there is no food, you have to eat something, that's fine. But that bridge will last only for twenty to twenty-five years. After that when we crash, that will be a real crash, that will be a very bad crash. So, the more sensible thing will be to enrich the soil. We're not advocating any particular kind of farming. It is for the farmer to decide what kind of farming he wants to do. But we're just asking, keep the soil alive for yourself and future generations. For this, you need three to six percent organic content; only then the soil will stay alive, otherwise soil will become sand. A Can I ask, Sadhguru, do you think most farmers – just out of curiosity – do you think or at least from the people you've spoken to, do you think they know that or do you think and are ignoring it? Or do you think that they're not even aware that soil needs three to six percent organic content in it to not I've lived on the farms in India. Every farmer knew this forty years ago, fifty years ago. There was simply no question, everybody knew this. Whether they understood three-six three percent, six percent or not, that's not the point. But if they took soil in their hand, they would always feel for the organic content, whether it's there or not. So they knew, and they always practice that. Because India is a land where we have had agricultural organized agriculture for over 12,000 years – probably the longest in the world. So 12,000 years, we maintained and managed our soil richness, but in forty to fifty years we've destroyed it, all right? Why this has happened is, somebody told them, "There is a better idea. All this, you know, picking up of dung and putting up bullshit this picking up dung and putting into the land is all bullshit. So, I will give you a magic powder, just throw it, everything will be fantastic." And it was, for some three to eight years' time, it worked in most lands. You threw the fertilizer and boom, everything came up like never before, all right? So, now they're paying the price after fifteen, twenty, twenty-five years of fertilizer usage. Now, the costs are simply going up to such a point that over 300,000 farmers in India have committed suicide in the last twenty years. Even in United States, people tell me that in the last twelve years, fifty percent fifty percent of the American farmers have not seen a dollar of profit, okay? And the highest numbers of the highest number of suicides in America of all the professions, it is the farmers. A That is devastating. So, the farmer always knew, but now he's forgotten because somebody to sell whatever they want to sell, has advised him. But at the same time, I'm not against fertilizer, I'm not against pesti pesticide, I'm not against anything. All I'm saying is, let's keep the soil as a living entity for ourselves and future generations – this is a must. G But isn't some of the means in order to do that, to decrease fertilizers and pesticides? See, it's the other way around. If you increase the organic content, the need for fertilizer and pesticide will come down by itself. So I'm saying, first increase the organic content. See, right now, suppose you take away all the fertilizer from the planet, your food production in the world will go down by fifty to sixty percent. Take away all the pesticides and fertilizers together, then your food production will go to something like twenty-five to thirty percent of what it is right now. So, let us not talk about that. You cannot remove those things right now. This is all fanciful things. You do your house garden in an organic way and you think you can do it that way. If you look at the cost of production and what's coming out of it, you will know it can't provide food for the world. We're talking about world's food produce. So, do not talk about impractical things. Increase the organic content. If you increase the organic content – for example, one thing I can say for sure is – if you increase the organic content to eight to ten percent in the soil, the irrigation requirement will come down to thirty percent of what is right now. So, seventy percent of the water you will save. If you raise the organic content to twelve to fifteen percent, your irrigation requirement will come down to ten to fifteen percent. That means if you were using hundred liters of water, fifteen liters of water will do the same job for you because organically rich soil retains soil. If people don't understand what I'm saying, ask them to walk into a rich, thick forest. And just with your hands, not with an implement, with your hand, with your fingers, you just dig three inches, you will see it is damp. That's what a crop needs, moisture. A So, organic content, when you say that, what are some examples of this organic content? You can't get it from the moon or mars. There is only two sources of organic content, either, you know, plant material or animal waste. These are the only two ways. You either need a, you know, a lot of plant material that like cover crops and other things that you put back into the soil, or you need trees where you can use the leaves to fertilize the soil, or you need animal waste. There is simply no other way. Right now, the problem is most farms don't have either trees or animals on them, you know, agricultural farms. They have to bring their organic material, buy somewhere and bring it - it will not work. It will simply not work that way because the costs are too high. You know, in the Southern India, I've been running this campaign for over twenty-four, twenty-five years now, that I went on campaigning for farmers to plant ten percent of their land as trees. Ten percent of land produces enough organic material for the remaining ninety percent, and your yield on the nin ninety percent is better than what the hundred percent was doing before. And the organti organic quantity is high, water tables have come up, and the nutritional value has gone up significantly. This is another important part. Right now see, most countries have put their COVID, you know, their deaths down, but in US still you're hitting about nearly 2,000 number per day, which is a disastrous number. Well, people can ascribe it to many things. One fundamental thing is, any rudimentary doctor – I'm not saying some virology expert or something, any simple doctor, basic education doctor – can clearly tell you, if you don't have enough vitamin A, vitamin B, B6, B12, C, E and foliate and iron and, you know, these things in your body, you become susceptible to respiratory infections. This is commonly known. Upper respiratory infections and lack of micronutrients are very directly connected. In United States, in 1920, let's say a vegetable For example, today everybody is going for salads, believing they're eating something healthy, all right? At least in California, another place I don't think these Atlanta people are still eating salads . A Well, I am . I'm just joking, okay? So, for example, lettuce is one of the, you now, important part of any salad anywhere these days, at least in the Western countries. What lettuce was offering you as nourishment in 1920, what it is offering to you now is only ten percent of what it was in 1920 – ten percent! Ninety percent nourishment is lost. If you ate one orange in 1920, in 2022 you have to eat eight oranges to get the same stuff. A That just pains me. Yesterday, I was at our school, all the little tiny tots were there and I said, "Can you eat eight oranges per day?" They said, "We can ! I said, "Okay!" They're not giving it to us. We can eat eight oranges per day," they're saying. A Well, I've been reading a few books about the nutrition content in food nowadays compared to how it was, it is just truly staggering. Sadhguru, I know you are so busy, and I just I can't thank you enough for your time. And it's always such a pleasure to see you. Thank you and yourself and all the others of your tribe, I'm not talking about the Vikings, I'm talking about all the actors. G The humans . A The boss of my tribe, my wife, is in the room already. So, she . So, make sure from March 21, for one hundred days, the whole world should talk about soil. This is what is important. It's not about supporting me. They don't have to support me. They must talk about soil. If they do this on the social media platforms, we will aggregate these numbers. If we move 3.5 billion people, which amounts to sixty percent of the world's electorate on the planet, then we can move the governments, we can give confidence to the governments that they can invest in this direction. Right now, the problem is people have not spoken. It's time the people speak. A So, March 21st. Yes. A For that month. For one hundred days from there. A hundred days from there. Okay. Yes. A So, hundred days from there. When I'm on the road for hundred days, every day say something about soil. A Yes, sir. G Can I just raise one concern, if I may? A Yes. G Do you feel like that there might be a risk that governments will see this as a potential cop out to deal with the carbon emissions? See, this is a concern that most activists have, and that is one reason why they've never brought soil into the picture. I was talking to environment ministers who have attended the COP26 in Glasgow, and they said, "Sadhguru, what is the matter? We were there for one whole week, we did not hear the word soil." Because you want to fix one industry, you leave a huge gap. In what way, in what way will enhancing the soil organic content will make oil companies, automobile companies escape that? Because that momentum has already happened. Most governments are committed, it's only a question of speed, all right? All governments in the world are already committed to changing or reducing their fossil fuel consumption in a big way. Everybody has committed to timelines. It is only a question of speed. G Yes, but they're not acting on those timelines though. no, that is G And during the pandemic, they gave 370 billion dollars in economical support to the fossil fuel industry. That is true. Gustaf, that is true. But you need to understand the economic conditions of different nations. Because they can't just turn around like that, it's not possible for them to do it. G Of course. Of course. So, there are many challenges, but everybody largely is committed to the direction of going free of fossil fuels in a certain amount of time. Speed is a question. What you're talking about is speed. So that speed, we must keep the pressure on them for speed. That we're we need not relax. Just because we enhance the ca organic content in the soil, we need not relax that. And the beautiful thing about soil is – enhancing the carbon organic carbon in the soil is – one thing is it's not against anybody, nobody will resist this. It's for everybody and its costs are very, very low. It is just the commitment that is needed. But shifting from fossil fuel to something else One thing is it's a question of technology, people are not sharing technology. They are advising everybody, but they are not sharing technology. They are advising everybody, they are not willing to compensate, you know, nations which are not able to do it in their period of time. They're not able to look at the per capita consumption of a given nation. We're talking standards which are not all right, okay? So naturally, some nations will resist, but every nation right now is committed to move in the direction. We must continuously inspire them, encourage them, support them, buttress them to see that they're able to fulfill that in a reasonable amount of time, not stretching it endlessly. But see now, a war breaks out, all right? We could have easily avoided this. I don't want to get into the politics of it, but I'm saying a war breaks out just after the pandemic, when nations are just beginning to recover, just beginning to have reasonable normal life, wa a war breaks out. Well, if all the wise men who're ruling the world got together, we could avoid this, right? Very easily. We're talking about fossil fuels. What do you fight a war with? With air, is it? With sunlight, are we fighting? Are we fighting a war with sunlight? A No, gas, oil, fossil fuels. Yes. Endless amount of that stuff and worse. Worse kind of poisons we're throwing all over the place. So, I'm saying I'm not saying that carbon fuels is not an issue. It's a serious issue, it's a significant issue. We should not let up on that. But that's not connected to this because this doesn't cost money, this is not against any industry or any lobby, this is for everybody. This we must do because this is the easier piece to do. And it accounts to thirty-six to forty percent of the problem. G Mhmm. Right. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. A Sadhguru, we're going to spread the word. And again, we're so grateful for you Aye, this is not this is not my planet, this is our planet, let's make it happen. A Absolutely. G Yeah, that's it. That's it. G For sure. I would definitely want to contribute in any way. And get your ge get your Viking tribe going, hmm. A Absolutely ! What other new work you're doing I have not seen ? Both of you. A Did you see Vikings! I saw. Because my daughter my daughter insisted that I must see. A That's Amazing! I've met Bjorn and Floki, I just have to meet, what, Lothbrok guy . A Yeah, exactly. We'll bring them on next time . Thank you. Thank you very much. A Right. So good to see you. G Yeah. Hope to meet you again, Sadhguru. It's been a pleasure. Namaskaram. G Namaskaram. A Namaskaram. See you later. Be safe. Sounds of Isha music – Soil Song Lalale Lale END

data/SGYT/SGYT_wsTlv9oyhT4_Piyush-Pandey-In-Conversation-With-Sadhguru-TRRAIN-Awards_08-Mar-2017.docx

Good evening. Good evening, everyone. Good evening, Sadhguru. Pranam. So ladies and gentlemen, welcome to part two of Sadhu Aur Shaitaan . We did the part one two years back and I asked Pradeep Guha, the guy behind the advertising function, I said, “You want me to speak to Sadhguru? Why do you want to call this session ‘Sadhu Aur Shaitaan’?” But I think like Godfather One and Godfather Two, we must have done quite well that I have been invited again . I’m very privileged that despite the kind of lifestyle I lead, I always get an opportunity to spend one evening, a little bit of time, with Sadhguru. Maybe that prayer that he said was for me. Anyway, this is not a confession . So, my role today is to get him to share things with you and I… and my role is the same as yours as an audience. I would love to hear a lot about what he has to say. And I’ll… I’ll try and ask questions, which are relevant to life and have some relevance to your lives as retail professionals out here. And some of you are fantastic, your stories have been absolutely amazing today. So let me start off, Sadhguru, by asking you that you probably are the biggest multi-tasker that I have met in my life. You are into sharing wonderful things with people – millions of people – and you find the time to play golf and you ride the motorcycle like a champion, you’re on a helicopter, you do a lot of stuff in ecosystems with your Green Hands. I don’t know what all you do. How do you manage your time because…? That last thing was not a good thing . “I don’t know what all you do” – not a good thing . No, that… that is a sense of amazement . And there are people, who are very busy people, and so we believe we are very busy people. We would like to know as to how you manage your time and what is the kind of advice you would like to give us, so that life beyond work is a lot more meaningful? At least little more meaningful than what we lead, a little closer to the kind of meaningful life that you lead. Oh ! From what I observe from people, as I travel more and more, meet various kinds of people in business, academics, science and regular people all over the world, what I see is - most people, in the twenty-four hours that we have per day, they are more preoccupied than busy. That is, their own thoughts and their own emotions are such a big issue, that most of their time is spent dealing with that. They may be working but in their work, a lot of struggles are within themselves. If you are in any kind of sport or any creativity, you would know that a little struggle means your ball will go somewhere else, your ragam, talam will go somewhere else, your painting will go somewhere else, nothing will happen properly. Or in other words, what could happen very simply, unfortunately happens with lots of difficulty. This is mainly because they have been given a phenomenal gadget or a phenomenal machine, which is the human mechanism, above all a phenomenal dimension called the mind. They are trying to operate this phenomenal machine, or a gadget, or a computer, if you would like to call it, without reading the user’s manual. Every day, struggling with their own stuff. And it doesn’t get solved before they are twenty or something. Till their last day on their deathbed, they are still struggling with the same things – their thoughts and their emotions. If they learn to sort this out very early in their life, I’m sure they can work half the number of hours that they’re working and be a lot more productive than the way they are right now. My effort is to bring this possibility to people’s lives, that you can lie… live life with ease, not with struggle. One thing is, when we say work, it's - many young people, wonderful people, who are getting recognized for whatever wonderful things they have done, leaving them apart, but generally - work means always been… people have been taught that they must work hard. Nobody told them they must work joyfully. Nobody told them their work should be an expression of their joy or their love. They have to work hard. If you work hard, life will be tedious. How elis… else will it be? You will do something hard only because you don’t know how to do it. If you know how to do it, you would do… do it with ease . So without learning how to do something, if you try to do it, without investing enough time in perception, if life is all expression, then life becomes a big struggle. Most people are not doing anything except earning a living, maybe reproducing and dying one day - nothing more . They may believe they are doing many things but this is all they’re doing - eating, sleeping, reproducing, dying one day. That is such a big fuss. Every other creature is able to do this. From an earthworm, to an insect, to anything and anything, everybody is doing this. They all earn their own living. They eat, they sleep, they reproduce and they die. With one-millionth of our brain, they’re able to do it. With this big brain, human beings are struggling – not with the things that they’re doing, they’re struggling with the brain itself. Their own intelligence has become a serious problem. What is the biggest boon in our life, what is the greatest benefaction in our life, which is our intelligence, this has become a problem because they don’t know how to hold it, they don’t know how to use it. Constantly, it works against themselves. When I say it works against you, people may call all kinds of names, may use all kinds of words to describe this - they may call it stress, they may call it tension, they may call it misery, they may call it depression, they may call it anxiety, they may call it madness - essentially, it's your intelligence turned against you. Your intelligence is not working for you, it's working against you. So my fundamental work is this, that at least your body and your mind should work for you. Nobody else may work for you, it doesn’t matter . At least your body and in… your intelligence must work for you. If this one thing happens, you living blissfully, gracefully, effectively is a natural consequence. One of the other things, which… which I found very important to us as a society, as a country, which came up when Nagesh was speaking earlier, just before you came in, that in our society, there is a bias towards skill… against skill. We… We try and believe that a being a babu in a railway station is probably a better job than being a retail employee. And Nagesh said that some of the people think that the moment a girl’s father gets to know that the prospective boy works in a shop, he says, “Humko to ladki nahi milti hai” . There is a bias against skill and to… Because usually, the father believes he is supposed to catch a customer . So in… In re… Retail business means you have maximum contact with customers, so you’re supposed to find your bride. You shouldn’t bother your father . Yeah, they find a lot of … They always find… … These people find the girls but the girl’s father doesn’t want to give the girl to them, that’s the problem . I think that’s a huge need of the country at this point of time and I heard that the Principal Secretary of Skills of Maharashtra is here , people are here. I think there are two things that come to my mind – one is the way society looks at skills, in a bit derogatory fashion, and two is the self-respect of a skilled worker. I… I personally believe that if you are confident about yourself, the world will change itself. I would like you to comment on this because it's very relevant to some very hardworking people here that they get the respect in society and they learn to self-respect themselves in the years ahead of us. The world respecting you is the quality of the world around you. If they are that kind, they will respect you . But I know a lot has been said about this, but you respecting yourself I think is a little crazy. Respect is between two people. But I’m asking anybody here, isn’t respect between two people, that you respect somebody for who they are? “I respect myself” – you must be mad because these things… Like this is a big thing you know, in America, people are saying… all these days they used to say, “I believe in god”, now they say, “‘I believe in myself” . All these days they used to say, “I love you” to somebody. These days they have started, “I love myself.” See, to love, to believe, to respect, you need two. If you have become two within yourself, for sure you’re heading for madness because an individual means you’re not further divisible. If you become two within yourself, then you’re working towards madness. You’re working hard and you may succeed . If you really become two, then we say you’re schizophrenic, isn't it? So this has been worked in so many different ways – by religious people, by new-age philosophers, all kinds. “I love myself, I respect myself, I believe in myself, me and my ego, me and my soul” – all kinds of things. I’m asking you, all of you – within your body, are you one person or two people? Please made up… make up your mind right now. One or two? Hello? One. That means you’re healthy . If you are two, either you are schizophrenic or you’re possessed. You need either a psychiatrist or an exorcist , isn’t it ? So, this self-rec… respect business has to go because this will lead to all kinds of expectations. I respect myself. I think I’m a big guy, now I expect you also to treat me like that. When you don’t, I will become resentful, angry, all kinds of things. There is no need for me to respect myself. But if I respect somebody, it may not even be because of their quality. It is a… because of my quality, I respect somebody, isn't it? See, you looking up to something not necessarily mean that person is in a fantastic place. It is just that you’re in a place of learning, you’re in a place of moving upward in your life, so you’re looking up. You’re looking up to something means you’re moving upward. If you’re looking down upon something means you’re moving downward, isn't it? So, respect is between two people. I don’t see how it is applicable. “Within myself, I respect myself, I believe myself, I love myself” – these are all statements of the insane. But unfortunately, it's spread across the world, it's becoming the fashion of the day. I’m sorry . I’ll… I’ll make it a little more focused towards the people out here. I completely understand what you’re saying, but if somebody feels that he’s putting in a lot of effort and his efforts are not being recognized, how does that person motivate himself or herself to say, “I don’t really give a damn as to what other people think. I have to keep on doing what I’m doing. I have to excel myself every day”? What is the message that you would like to give people, who feel that sometimes their efforts do not get recognized to the level that they think they have put in? See, these are two extremes. “I don’t give a damn” is not going to work, especially if you’re in the retail . If you say, “I don’t give a damn”, you’re out of business. At the same time, thinking “my efforts are not giving the necessary result” - I think a whole lot of people feel this way. I’m saying, in your assessment, you may be doing great, but the world has to recognize too. Somebody else has to see value to what you’re doing, only then it’ll find recognition. If you feel it's valuable, you’re doing it, then don’t bother about other people’s recognition. But if what you’re doing is useful to them… let's understand this – not because what you’re doing is great, because what you’re doing is useful to them, they will say, “Oh, this is wonderful.” So, “I don’t give a damn” definitely doesn’t work. But whether other people recognize you or not, depending upon how useful it is at a given time to people. That depends what is the type of job we’ve taken up. Now… I must say this . Shall I ? See, today, wherever I go, people are saying things, “Oh, he is a yogi, he is a mystic.” They don’t know a damn thing about me being a yogi or a mystic, okay ? They don’t know what is a yogi, what is a mystic. Now, because it's internationally recognized, everybody is clapping their hands . I’ve been saying the same things for last thirty-five years. Nobody thought anything about it. Now, somewhere else in America, people are clapping their hands, here also they started clapping their hands, okay . It means nothing to me, all the recognition. Someday if people truly recognize what is being a yogi and they’re inspired to become that, that’s wonderful. Of course, there are many people, who are inspired by that . But today, because it's internationally recognized, everybody is saying, “This is… He is a great yogi.” They don’t know what a damn… what is damn yogi is about. They don’t know a damn thing about it. It is just that many people see it's useful to them, so there is recognition. Let's understand this – people are not recognizing the quality of who I am, they are recognizing the usefulness that I am to them. Only that part gets recognition. The quality of what I am, only a handful of people would recognize that. Rest will not even know what the hell it is and it's okay . I think that’s beautifully said and I think if I was to translate that into our language out here in this room… Hey, don’t use your language, hmm . My language of the kind that I can use in front of you . I would say that, keep at it as to what you’re doing. One day, people will see the use of that in their lives. And your time will come, like his time came when people started clapping. So all you retail professionals, don’t worry about what the world thinks, keep on doing what you’re doing. Am I right in saying that? Oh, that’s… that’s a deduction . I would say that if your… if your work is an expression of your joyfulness, whether recognition or no recognition, what does it matter? You’re finding an opportunity to express your joy. And if you look at your own lives and see – the moments where… where you’re in pursuit of your happiness, what is the quality of those moments, the moments when you’re expressing your joy, what is the quality of those moments, if you see, you will see whenever you’re expressing your happiness or joy, they are the best moments in your life. If your work is an expression of your joy, your working moments will be the best moments of your life. And the girls will come to you anyway. Anyway, as a customer at least, she will come because… because ladies do most of the shopping , they will anyway come. How you convert it is up to you . So the onus is on you guys. But most of the salespersons are girls these days . I know. They don’t have any such problem . Okay, now, little difficult one. For you or me ? We’ll figure that out. For me, it's always difficult speaking to you, so I’m trying to make it slightly difficult for you. Now this is about loyalties and beliefs. A… A lot of these people work in huge outlets. How do you handle loyalties and beliefs? A salesperson should have no loyalty to any product . He has no business. It's the customer’s business to be loyal to a product. A salesperson, why should he be loyal to any product? He should sell whatever sells well, right ? His… You’re trying to… No, no… His job is to sell things that are not selling well. No, the question is, are you trying to run a business or are you trying to propagate a philosophy? Most businesses today say that we don’t sell a product, we sell philosophies . Like certain soaps are not supposed to be soaps, they are a self-expression of people . I must tell you … When you’re a salesperson, it is not for you to judge which customer is smart, which customer is stupid, okay? Only you can be smart or stupid. Customer has the right – it's his money, he can choose to buy whatever the hell he wants. It's not your business to judge, “Oh, this is a stupid customer, this is a smart customer” - no. You’re smart or stupid is the only question. Customer is the king because it's his money. He can buy whatever the hell he wants. It's nobody’s business, it's his money . Today’s day and scenario, what is it that service…? As you said earlier, it is what the other person thinks of you, not what you think of yourself. What is it that you would like to share with the people out here about the role of service and equate it to the meaning of service in our lives? About this service business – see, we need to understand this. In our lives, we do many things. When we do many things, we find in certain areas of life, the more opportunity we get to do something, more privileged we feel. In certain other places, we think whatever little we do, we’re doing too much. When we… When do we feel that we’re doing too much for somebody? When we have no love for them of any kind. Our heart is barren, then if I lift a pin for you, I feel I’ve done too much for you already because I’ve done great service for you, taking… picking this up and giving it to you. But if I have love for you – not as love for you or love for somebody else, simply that… See, we need to understand this – certain pleasantness of your emotion is love. If you hold yourself in a certain pleasantness of emotion and you’re loving – not just to this or that, you’re just loving – then you will see you’re willing to do as much as you can do. Of course, there are limits to our physical ability to do things, but whatever I can do, I will do. In anybody’s life, this is all there is. In our lives, if we do not do what we cannot do, there is no problem. But in our lives, if we do not do what we can do, we are a disastrous life. So, first of all bringing ourselves to a place within ourselves that we ourselves will not be a restriction to our own ability to do things in the world – this is only possible when you have love for everything around you. Love is not about somebody, first of all. Love is the way you are. When you are loving… As you are happy, you can be loving. Pleasantness of the mind may be called joy. Pleasantness of the heart may be called love. So if you are loving, then doing whatever you can do in a given moment is natural. If you do that, will the customer stay with you? Of course. But this is not a trick. I was … We were conducting a program for the top twenty-five executives of Microsoft. There were twenty-five of them, two-day event and I have nine volunteers. Our volunteers are always on their toes, doing everything possible that they can do. And these people just look at them and say, “Sadhguru, where do you get such people?” You know, they are always looking for attrition . I say, “No, you don’t get such people, you got to make them.” “How do we make them?” I said, “You have to make them fall in love with you.” “How do we make them fall in love with us?” I said, “First you have to fall in love with them.” They said, “Oh, they don’t pay us for that” . So, in this context, if you work, now work will be a pain. On the surface, something else, your remunerations or recognitions may keep you going, but it will suck the life out of you. But if your work is an expression of who you are, if your work is an expression of your joy and your love in your life, you don’t have to worry about service. Service exists only where the heart is barren. If your heart is full for everything that comes in front of you, you will do your best. When you do your best, things will happen, both for him and for you. Above all, your life will get enriched with work. Activity will enrich you. Activily will not drain you. All of us in Isha Foundation … I have all driven them… I have driven all of them into this kind of madness. Every day is twenty hours a day, seven days of the week, three-hundred-and-sixty-five days. Today, a few thousand people have gotten into this state. All of them are on, seven days of the week. People think these people are… “What, are they possessed with something?” But joyfully, they’ll go around and do. See, it's not even twenty-four hours since I landed from United States. Already I have finished two events and come and I’m traveling to Delhi today evening. So, people ask, “Are you trying to kill yourself?” Anyway you’re going to die. Are you going to die of exhaustion or boredom ? I don’t want to die of boredom for sure. That’s decided. I may die of exhaustion but that’s okay. At least you’re doing what you really care to do. In your life, if you’re constantly creating what you care to create, then you find you don’t have to do any service. If I ask all of you – doesn’t matter retail or wholesale you are – for yourself and for everybody around you, what is it that you want to create? To create a peaceful you, a joyful you, a loving you is what you’re looking for, isn't it? You’re trying to achieve it in so many different ways. Pleasantness within yourself, is it not very important? Hello? Yes. You want to be a pleasant life. What is it that you want from your life? You want your experience of life to be as pleasant as possible. You may call it peace, you may call it joy, you may call it pleasure, you may call it health, you may call it love, you may call it ecstasy. It doesn’t matter what you call it, essentially, different levels of pleasantness. If you try to create outside pleasantness, that’s called success – if you succeed in having that. Otherwise, pleasantness in your experience of life. If your… If you create this for yourself, that if you sit here, you are hundred percent pleasant within you… When you are feeling wonderful, if I meet you – any one of you – I’m sure you are a wonderful human being. But when you are feeling nasty, when you’re feeling miserable, when you’re feeling frustrated, if I meet you, you could be a nasty human being. Yes or no? Is this not true for every human being? So instead of doing service and sacrifice and all kinds of terrible things in this life, if you keep this… this piece of life in a very pleasant condition, you will always be pleasant to everything and everybody around you. There is no effort in this. The only effort you have to do is to figure out within this , how to keep this pleasant – little sadhana to keep this one pleasant. If you keep this pleasant, every act, every thought, every emotion that you generate will naturally be pleasant. Yes or no? Yes or no? Yes. If I meet you when you’re very happy, are you not a wonderful, wonderful human being? Almost twenty-four s… percent of our time, resource and energy has been spent in the prisons, both in India and outside. If you look at this… the history sheets of these people – normally we’re working with long-term prisoners – they have done terrible things in their life. I know them very well now . If you let all of them out tomorrow morning, at least fifty percent of the people will do the same things again. They’re not by intention, many of them, by compulsion they’ll do the same things. But when they are with me, they are most wonderful people, okay. They are very exuberant, joyful, highly spirited, wonderful guys because I just keep them happy when they’re with me. This is true with every human being. Unfortunately, in this world, we’ve always been trying to produce good people, which is a serious mistake. Good people have done terrible things on this planet. The more good they think they are, more terrible things they have done to other people. But a joyful person very rarely does anything harmful to somebody else because it doesn’t occur to him. He is not trying to be good, he’s just feeling wonderful. Naturally, he will do wonderful things to people. We have to invest in producing joyful and sensible human beings on the planet, not good people, because the more good they are, the more they are in conflict with everything else. Please see, where is the conflict? The more good you think you are, the more fighting you are. We don’t need good people, we can send them to heaven. But on this planet we need joyful people , we need sensible people . That’s… That’s really wonderful. I think I would have asked you the last question from me about leadership, but I think that you answered a lot of things. If people read between the lines, you answered a lot of questions about leadership anyway. But if you would like, how do you inspire your people because they are the leaders of tomorrow. The more we… They’re already my leaders . The more we have, the better off we’ll be. Any tips that you would like to share with the people out here as to how… how a team is made from beyond being a great individual player? Even a Brian Lara couldn’t win for West Indies, you need eleven good people to win a match. So, anything that you would like to share? India, in my perception, is a…a tremendous talent pool. This is not… I’m not speaking this out of my nationalistic fervor . I’m not so identified with the political identity of a nation as such. But what I see is, having spoken to all kinds of people across the world – you know, I have spoken in large universities, scientific community, which have very keen minds, academics and others – but on an average, if you pick up a bunch of hundred people off the streets of Mumbai, or Bangalore, or Chennai, or somewhere, you will find generally they are of a higher intellect than what you can pick up anywhere in the world, believe me. I’m not saying this because I’m an Indian. Generally, natural intellect is very high but it is one of the most disorganized intellects. They have intelligence but organization has not happened, which essentially means lack of leadership. There has not been a… an inspiring leadership for a long time. We get leaders only when there is super crisis. We don’t get leaders to manage our well-being and enhance our well-being. Only when we’re in a real deep pit - like Mahatma Gandhi is born because we are in a total mess. Somebody else has occupied us and everything bad has been done to us, now one leader props up out of desperation. Otherwise to be a leader, naturally to stand up and be a leader, to create good things, to maintain good things and to enhance good things in the world, we… I… when I look back, I have not seen a leader like that for a long time in the history of this country. I think this is mainly… has many things to… many… there are many factors to this. I think one main factor is we have been an occupied nation for too long and somehow we have developed this attitude – “Don’t put your head up, somehow put it down and go home.” “Don’t confront problems, avoid problems” has been our attitude always. I think even today, mothers are teaching their children – “If there’s any problem on the street, just put your head down and come home. Don’t try to fix it, that’s not your problem.” Essentially, a leader means in some way you’re willing to confront problems. You’re lili… willing to seek out problems and possible problems and fix them before they happen. But that attitude has not been there, so we’ve not built leadership. And also, being an occupied nation, we did not build many layers of leadership. If a good leader comes up there, everybody will start worshipping him. A leader does not need worship. He needs many tiers of leadership for him to find traction and do something meaningful. If leadership has to find expression in the world, or in a nation, or in a state, or in an industry, or whatever, you need many tiers of leadership. But in our society, generally when a good leader comes up, we will see worship. Somebody will start building temples for him, somebody will start doing pooja for him, all these things start happening. We have to shift from this attitude. Looking up to a leader for inspiration is good but losing all sense about him is not good. So, what is needed in this country is to develop those diff… many tiers of leadership. This is in… somewhere in 2004, that someone was at our Yoga Center, a very prominent person in the country, and he asked me, “Sadhguru, this is great what you’re doing but what about the nation?” I said, “See, I have a list of 2000 people, who will make a difference for this country, if we impact them. Get me these two thousand people in the next four years. You will see a quiet change will happen in the nation.” I am not talking about Prime Ministers, Chief Ministers because generally their tenure is five years and they’re gone. But there’s another set of leaders in the society, who may be business leaders, who may be bureaucratic leaders and social leaders of various kinds, who have a solid twenty-five to thirty years to impact. Because if you’re thinking of any kind of serious impact, you have to think at least twenty-five years at a time, otherwise nothing significant can be done. So we’ve been trying to reach them and touch them. Now I can say about forty-two percent of these 2000 people across the country we have touched. They are bringing about a quiet silent revolution . Because in my perception, a revolution is not about “I want you to change.” This’s not a revolution, this is a problem. This is the basis of all problems – “I want you to change.” “I’m willing to change” – this is a revolution. To bring this forth in everybody – “Whatever is needed for the situation, I am willing to change myself and do my best in this given situation” – this is a revolution. This is the revolution we need in this country right now because everybody is stuck to their own mindsets, their own castes, their own creeds, their own whatever different kinds of things. Everybody is an activist for his own causes. There is no bloody cause, which is good enough in this world, except human well-being. There is no other cause which is worthy of human attention. If we don’t dedicate ourselves to that… If we dedicate ourselves to that, everyone in some way will become a leader. If your fundamental thing when you step out of your home, if your thing is, “Today, wherever possible, whichever way possible, I will impact as many people as possible…” What I’m saying is, let's say you come in touch with ten people. If ten people come your way today, you can either impact them positively, or negatively, or you can let it pass by. Whatever the nature of your job, whether you are just a salesperson, sales manager, whatever you are up there, even if you’re a beggar on the street – you know, br… beggar has the maximum number of clients per day – it doesn’t matter who you are, I have seen beggars who are positively impacting anybody, who comes to them. They’re saying the right things. I’m saying in every possible way, either you can positively impact somebody, negatively impact somebody or let it pass. So according to one’s capacity to do things, depending upon one’s intelligence, competence, capability and the position that we hold at a given moment, our impact may be small or big but we can impact. If we exercise this right, if we exercise this choice every moment of our life, wherever you are, you always impact whoever comes in touch with you, you will positively impact them in whatever way possible, you are a leader. How far you will go? Let us see the competence and then, you know… Suppose you are an IT engineer. You have information technology ideas 1000 years ago, all right? Maybe you would remain unemployed right through your life but you could still impact people . I’m saying the time also decides how impactful we are at a given time in history. But the important thing is that you take up this responsibility – whoever comes in front of you, you will in somehow make a positive impact on their life. If you start doing this, you are a leader. Whether… What capacity you function in depends on variety of things. That will anyway arrange itself over a period of time. Thank you. Pranam, Sadhguru. So, you’ve been saying this for a while and I’ve been listening to you for a long time – the “I” is more powerful than the iPhone. Yeah? And the iPhone in the box comes with a user’s manual. No, that depends whether you are using the iPhone or iPhone is using you up. Yeah, sure . Depending on that . And you’ve also said lot of times that, “You’ve not read the user’s manual.” So where is the human being’s user manual? Because the iPhone comes with the user manual in the book… in the box and how do you find our… my user manual or the human being’s user manual ? So, please don’t go and browse through the bookstores, it's not there . See, when you say “me” or “I” you may have many ideas about what is “me”. But essentially, whatever ideas and ideologies you might have developed around you, essentially you are a piece of life. Yes? Yes or no? None of you are saying anything? Yes. Are you life or are you something? Now I’m having doubts . Are you life? Yes. Show me that you’re life. Not like that , make some lively sounds . Okay, okay. Oh, that’s life. So you are life. You may be identified with many things, starting from your body. Because you’re identified your body, you’re a gender. Because you’re identified with your education, you become something else. You identify with your religion, you become something else. Like this, you go on multiplying your identities many different ways. That may be a social requirement. To function in the society, you take on something, that’s fine. But fundamentally, you’re life. If you want to know life, if you think the user’s manual is some scripture that you have… somebody has written, it can't be because what you’re seeking to know is the nature of this one . Because you are life, you don’t have to read another one, you have to pay attention to this one . Now, you pay attention to everything else, but not enough to this one . When I say “paying attention to this one”, this is not about standing in front of the mirror and paying attention to this - really paying attention to something fundamentally this because even your body you acquired from outside, isn't it? Hmm? It's the food that you have eaten. What you call as my mind… The content of your body and the content of your mind – this is the food that you have eaten, this is the impressions that you have taken in. But more fundamental than that, you still exist. So, if what you wo… what you want to know is life and you are life, all you have to do is delve deeper into your experience and the user’s manual is right there. And life is not something that you use, life is something that you allow it to blossom and flourish. You don’t have to use this life . There’s nothing like that. You just have to allow it to blossom to its fullest possibility. If it blossoms, then it will do the best possible things. See, every life on this planet – whether it is a worm, or an insect, or a bird, or a tree – every one of them is trying to become a full-fledged life, isn't it? A mango tree is not trying to become a coconut tree. I’m sorry to mention mangoes a little early in the season, hmm? But a mango tree is aspiring to become a full-fledged mango tree. But we know what is a full-fledged earthworm, we know what is a full-fledged grasshopper, we know what is a full-fledged tree, but we do not know what is a full-fledged human being, because whatever you become in your life, you will notice that you would want to be something more. If that something more happens, you want to be something more. If that something happens, you want to be something more. Yes or no? Yes. Wherever you are right now in your life, you still want to be something more. If you really look at this, you will see what you want is a limitless expansion. You are not looking for this much or that much, you are looking for an infinite expansion. If you are looking for an infinite expansion, how do you get there? You are looking for infinite expansion through physical means. This is never going to be fulfilled because physical means it has a defined boundary. The fundamentals of physicality is, it must have a physical boundary. If there is no boundary, you cannot call it physical anymore. Right now, there is something within you longing for an infinite expansion, but you’re trying to give it physical means. How you’re longing to find expansion… is finding expression is – if it finds a very basic physical expression, we call this sexuality. Something that is not you, you want to make that a part of yourself, that’s the effort. If it finds an emotional expression, we will call that love because something that is not you, you are trying to wrap it with your emotions and make it a part of yourself. If it finds a mental expression, it gets labeled as greed, ambition, conquest or simply shopping. Of course, you’re not against that . All these are the same effort that a human being is trying to be something more than what they are right now. But all of you have lived long enough to know more is not going to settle you, you want all of it. Even if I make you the king or queen of this planet, still you will look at the remaining galaxies. Yes or no? Because that’s the nature of the human being. This will not settle for this much and that much. If you want, you can go in installments. But approaching the infinite through installments, I think is a stupid way to go, because you can't count one, two, three, four, five and say one day infinite. You can only become endless counting. So, the manual is right here . Don’t believe me, don’t believe anything that anybody says, but pay attention to the life that you are. Not your thought, not your emotion, not your physical structure, but the fundamental life that you are – if you pay enough attention to that, everything you want to know about life is right here. You don’t have to listen to anybody’s discourses, you don’t have to read anybody’s scriptures, you don’t have to listen to anybody’s teachings because what you know about… what you need to know about life is yours fundamentally because you are life. If you were not life, then you will have to do graduation about life, then you have to do Masters about life, then you have to do research about life. But you are life. Are you? You’re not accepting this. Are you? Yes. Are you hundred percent life ? Yes. If you are life, no study needed about it. You just have to… You’re too identified with other things, accessories of life. You are so identified with accessories of life, what you are has not come into your perspective. You carry the accessories to the exe… extent you want, to the extent you need. Anything more if you carry, your life will become distorted and ugly. But fundamentally, your life, what is the quality of this life , have you allowed it to blossom or have you kept it constipated – that’s a question. If it blossoms, it… it reads it to you. Pranam Sadhguru, here. Oh, okay. Sir, I listened to what you’ve just said, that you are life and the manual is inside you. no, don’t listen to me. I’m asking you, are you life? Absolutely and I… I understand that and I… no, are you agreeing it… Are you agreeing with me or are you really life? I am life. Okay, then you’re fine because I don’t… I’m not used to talking to dead people, you see . The question here is, to get to the ultimate goal, the importance of a guru - in the real sense of the word – is that absolutely critical or can you find it on your own? To… If you want to walk an uncharted terrain, a terrain that you’re not familiar with, it's… it's good to take the help of a person, who’s already walked the terrain. It's just sensible, that’s all. Every year, we trek in the Himalayas. I have been trekking for over thirty-five… Almost forty years, I’ve been trekking in the Himalayas. Now for eleven, twelve years, I’ve been trekking in Tibet. But when I’m in the mountains, this illiterate mountain guy, one Sherpa or somebody, he simply says like this . Go like that. In my mind, I think maybe this is better. But he says this, I go that way. He says that, I go that way. It's because it's just sensible. Sometimes, I may know little better than him on a few things. But still it's better to follow him there because one mistake if you make, it’ll take days to correct that mistake and it's very expensive. Sometimes, it could be life . So when you’re walking an uncharted terrain, a terrain that you’re not familiar with, it is sensible to take guidance. This thing about, “Do I need a guru? Can't I do it myself?” Of course you can do it by yourself. It is just that to find something that is next door, you may go around the world and come back. This happened. Someone came looking for Isha Yoga Center, near Coimbatore. They came to a local village and they asked one village boy there, “How far is Isha Yoga Center?” The boy said, “Well, it's 24,996 miles.” They said, “What? That far?” He said, “Yeah, the way you’re going. If you turn around, it’s four miles” . So, you may be very qualified with something else. When it comes to a certain aspect of life, you talk to people, who have walked the terrain before you, that’s all it is. Because it's a completely uncharted terrain largely, because it's an inward terrain, you seek help. Otherwise, what is right here, you may take a lifetime. The intent is that you find it today or as quickly as possible and enjoy the fruit of that for the rest of your life. But most people think their spiritual seeking should happen at the end of their life. That’s unfortunate. Knowing this piece of life in its entirety, should it happen at the beginning of your life or the end of your life? Hmm? Beginning. Life should begin with spiritual process. Do not think spiritual process means looking up, looking down, going to the temple. No, this is not what it is, it's about turning inward. This is about knowing this piece of life absolutely. Even you… I mean, he was talking about the phone. Even if you have to use a simple gadget like a phone, the more you know about it, the better you can use it. Is it so? Is it so? Why is that not true with this ? This is all self-realization means. Let me put… make it very simple. If you know everything that you need to know about this , that means you’re self-realized. You know it in only parts, so you use it only in parts. If you know everything about this , you can use it in a phenomenal way. In a truly phenomenal way, you can use this . And this should happen at the earliest possible time in your life, not on your deathbed . Right. We’ll call it a day? Sadhguru, as always, thank you so much, Sir, from… on behalf of all of us here and pranam . END

data/Complete Blog JSON/article-Wisdom-85426cd5-928f-426b-aeff-65243171dcfb.json

An Ideal Education System In this musing, Sadhguru responds to an educator who wonders how to handle moments in the classroom when her experience clashes with the conventional education curriculum. Q: As a life science teacher, I have responsibility for the way that students think about how life works. When my experience of yoga conflicts with conventional science, I do my best to tread lightly and consider the fullness of the moment. I would be grateful for your insight on these moments of tension and the power that we have as teachers to shape the thinking of others. Sadhguru: You should not shape the thinking of others because if you successfully shape usually you cannot succeed but if you succeed in shaping the thought process of another person, that means you produced a carbon copy of yourself. That is not the intention of education. The greatest thing that you can do when it comes to life sciences is, in every class that you handle, make sure that you say, I dont know at least thrice. Let the children learn that they do not know, because ignorance is and will always be a much bigger possibility than knowledge. In the yogic culture, we always train people to identify with their ignorance because knowledge is a very limited thing, but ignorance is a limitless possibility. Let children be in touch with that which is limitless, not the limitedness of the teacher or the textbook.

data/Forest Flower/From the City of Toronto to the Foot of Velliangiri - sharing experiences - FF Sep 2013.txt

From the City of Toronto to the Foot of Velliangiri A Greenwood College School Student Shares Her Ashram Experience On 23 July, a group of 11 students and 2 teachers from the Greenwood College School visited the Isha Yoga Center amidst a busy schedule of volunteering at a nearby rural school. They had the opportunity to tour the temple area, to participate in a Nadha Aradhana, to take dips in the respective Theerthakunds, and to be initiated into Isha Kriya. Before they parted, the teachers expressed that next year, they would surely allocate a larger piece of time to visit the Yoga Center. Here is what Sophia Weinrib from Greenwood College School had to say about their visit (excerpted from a ): Today we took a trip to an oasis that was located in the foothills of the mountains surrounding Coimbatore. Deep within the jungle is the Isha ashram. Surrounded by deep jungle it looked as though it was right out of a dream with the peaceful buildings and temples that were built out of stone. The backdrop was jaw-dropping with the majestic mountains looming above, as the rainclouds flowed over the ridge and spilled into the valley beneath. The surrounding scenery set the tone for the enlightening experience that we had at the ashram. As we stepped inside the grounds and removed our shoes, there was a new energy that filled the air. We started our journey by paying a visit to the feminine deity, which is called Linga Bhairavi. As we entered, we were engulfed with the sounds of chanting in Sanskrit. We got our first glimpse of what meditation was like and how just sitting in a certain space can change your state of mind and cause one to be more relaxed and at peace. Our next stop was at the Theerthakund. This is a bath that is filled with holy water that is meant for purifying the body. In the middle of the tub, there is an energy form made of solidified mercury. The girls entered the female bath temple. We got put in special robes and walked down to the pool that was underground. The water was cool but once again filled us with a certain energy that was overwhelming. The experience was once-in-a-lifetime and the feeling of being in the water was so exhilarating that I think we will never feel that way again. Our next stop was going to the encircled in a large dome. We participated in a process that involved singing bowls, singers, and drums, which enabled the mind to be fully relaxed and in the moment. The experience was enlightening. Even when I do an hour of yoga, I have never been in a state of mind like I was while meditating in front of the deity [Dhyanalinga]. This continued when we participated in a meditation [Isha Kriya], where we were taught that we are not our body, and we are not even our mind. This removes us from the two types of suffering, which are physical and mental. The overall experience was amazing and I don’t think anything will ever compare. I left with the feeling of extreme relaxation and peace. I think that everyone was grateful to have a chance to experience the ashram and another part of the Indian culture.

data/Complete Blog JSON/article-Wisdom-2dddebe5-2acd-4438-86bf-7c3e19aeca7a.json

Sleep and Restfulness During a session of the Jaipur Literature Festival , Sanjoy Roy, the managing director behind this word-renowned festival, asks Sadhguru a question about sleep and the tendency to obsess about it. Sadhguru speaks about sleep, restfulness, his personal sleep quota, and ways to optimize the engine that is our body. Sanjoy Roy: In your book Inner Engineering: A Yogis Guide to Joy, you talk about sleep, our obsession with the need to sleep, and so many other things we get obsessed with. Sadhguru: The body does not need sleep it needs restfulness. In most peoples experience, sleep is the deepest form of restfulness they know, so they talk about sleep. But essentially, the body is not asking for sleep, it is looking for restfulness. When you perform lots of activity, a residue of physical stress will build up in the body. So at some point, the body wants to fall asleep. There are so-called experts who are promoting sleep. I think there is no need to promote sleep people fall asleep when they are tired. But people are talking in terms of putting everyone to sleep for eight to ten hours a day. Suppose you live for a hundred years if you followed the prescription of sleeping eight hours a day, eventually, you would have slept for over thirty-three years. The aspect of restfulness has not been understood by people. Just try this simple thing today check your pulse before and after food. Now if you learn Isha Kriya, a very simple practice that will just take you twelve minutes a day, if you do it for four to six weeks, and you check your pulse again before and after food, you will see it will be lower. This means you are going at lower RPM. If you keep driving your car at RPM, it will wear out faster than when you drive it at RPM. Similarly, if you are constantly going at a high pulse rate, you work yourself into the ground, and then you try to compensate for it with more sleep. If you bring restfulness, you bring ease into your system. Once you sit here with absolute ease, the amount of residual stress that builds up in your physical body is very minimal. Almost twenty-seven years, I managed with two-and-a-half to three hours of sleep, on an average. These days, I am getting a little lazy and sleep four to four-and-a-half hours! There is no need to fix how many hours to sleep. When you feel sufficiently relaxed, you must come awake. If the body and mind is kept in a certain level of alertness and awareness, you will see once it is well-rested, it is eager to come to life.

data/IFYT/IFYT_EZMB2WJ26eE_Sadhguru-Learns-To-Fly-A-Helicopter_11-May-2011.docx

__ Keeping the engine happy . Un-happy engine can be un-happy end . Because when we were hovering it would be hard, harder. One, It’s a tiny little dragon fly off a cracked . It's like sitting in a dragon fly and going and it does pretty well. You know dragonflies fly all the way from India to Africa and back again every year. So they quite efficient fliers, and this doing quite good too. END

data/SGYT/SGYT_hyT-6qiubd0_Save-Soil-Our-Very-Body-Conscious-Planet_05-Dec-2021.docx

Imagine the country you live in being hit by less and less fertile soil, making crop growing increasingly difficult. Sandstorm conditions prevail in the Indian capital and now there are fears of early desertification on the region. Desertification and erosion are both concerns. Soil is the habitat upon which zillions of lives thrive. Because of that thriving life, everything grows. We eat food, other animals grow, everything happens because soil is rich. Once there is no richness in soil, then you have forsaken the planet in many ways. We talk of carbon, we talk of emissions, we talk of pollution at various levels; before all that, we need to address the most important concern. Because there is a misunderstanding in the world, there is a campaign to project civic issues as environmental issues. Right now if plastic bags are floating around in New York City, this is not an ecological issue, this is a civic issue. If our rivers are polluted, this can be fixed in one or two years if you set up the necessary purification plants and enforce the law. These are civic issues which can be fixed with a little bit of law enforcement and awareness. But the real issue is soil. Instrumental music The United Nations agencies with enough scientific data, they are clearly saying that we have soil agricultural soil for another eighty to hundred crops on the planet. This is forty-five to sixty years, is what we have agricultural soil. We are calling this as soil extinction. You’ve heard of dinosaurs going extinct, you've heard of dodos going extinct, but this is soil extinction is what we are looking at. The real problem is soil extinction because in the last thirty years, eighty percent of the biomass insects have disappeared from the planet. Eighty percent! This is a suicide, you know, this is a real suicide. So in forty-five years time or fifty years time, there will be serious food crisis on the planet, it's inevitable. When food crisis comes, well, whoever has the biggest guns will come and take the food. And the chaos and the suffering that we will create for populations around the world is unimaginable. Don't think only the poor people will die, they will kill the rich and rich will die. So this is not to paint a dark picture, this is a reality which has happened many times in our history. And once again it is being predicted by top scientists in the world. So what are we going to do? Why is soil going away? Where is it going away? See, what is sand becomes soil if you add organic content to it. What is soil becomes sand if you take away all the organic content from it. If you go into a rainforest, the organic content in the soil will be over seventy percent. In normal agricultural soil the minimum organic content that has to be there to call soil, "soil," is three to six percent. Three percent is the most minimum. But today, for example in India, sixty-two percent of India’s soil, the organic content is 0.5% or below that. So literally we are on the verge of desertification. This is across the world, this is not in one country. In United States, the way the land has been used in terms of herbicides, weedicides, pesticides Well, we need to understand nearly eighty-two to eighty-six percent of biodiversity is within the first twelve inches of top soil. When we plough with machines, like tractors plough to a depth of nine to twelve inches and leave it open, this means we are destroying the biodiversity completely. What biodiversity means is, it’s the humus in the soil. The word human comes from the word humus, that means this is actually living soil. So, it's very, very important that soil becomes the focus, because if you put one-third to forty percent of the land, especially in the tropical world under tree shade, your climate change could be easily reversed. Land is getting hot, simply because it is ploughed or it is paved. Land has to go under vegetation, whatever kind -- natural grasses, bushes, trees, whatever -- because all these are serving the ecological activity. And we must also understand, soil is a very significant carbon sink, and soil is the largest water soak on the planet, and soil is the basis of all life. This thirty-six to thirty-nine inches of topsoil on an average around the planet, is the basis of eighty-seven percent of life on this planet. To keep the biodiversity alive is the most important thing that we need to do right now. Unless we start now, this will not happen. As a part of this we are unfolding a movement called Conscious Planet, to bring maximum number of people. Right now it looks like climate change, ecology, all these are playground for the rich and elite. No, this must change. Individual human beings should become conscious about the danger that we are facing. Ecological issues must become election issues and political parties must give significance to ecological issues in their manifestos. Governments must be elected for their concern for ecological issues. This needs to happen. Instrumental music So we are seeing how to bring about a policy recommendation for 192 countries. The rally is starting on 21st of March which is the equinox day in London. And from London, it’s a single lone motorcycle riding through twenty-four countries, 30,000 kms reaching the Cauvery basin,where we are on-ground working in a river basin, which is 83,000 sq km and 5.20 million farmers work here. The very body that we carry is soil; without soil being rich and well, this body and every other life cannot be well. So in terms of ecology, in terms of climate change, the most important thing is - that we need to have a conscious approach as to how we manage our soil, how we rejuvenate our soil, how we revitalize our soil. This conscious approach and creating a conscious planet is what is most important. Without involving large mass of people, this will not become a reality. Because we are democratic nations, unless people say, this is what they want, that is not going to happen. So let's create a conscious planet. Let us make it happen!!! Instrumental music END

data/SGYT/SGYT_W4ldaReKOgc_Lets-Make-A-Heaven-On-Earth-Sadhguru-Spot-Of-13-Feb-2019_13-Feb-2019.docx

Just stay loyal to that one thing that your wonderfulness is not compromised for any damn thing. I am committed that before I go I’ll destroy all the heavens, is it okay? The most significant thing about the generation that is, “Next,” is the teachers. If you just keep your humanity “On,” I’ll step into your life every moment. There are millions of people following us, do you think there is some sort of responsibility towards us on… like how to go about it? All you have to do is just be loyal to that one thing that you're always wonderful, that’s all! Rest of it will naturally happen – according to your intelligence and capability what has to happen will happen. You just be absolute loyalty to your own wonderfulness. There was a man called Shankaran Pillai who was running a pet shop, and someone came and they wanted to buy a dog. There was a reasonably grown up dog, a golden retriever. He said, “I would like to take that dog. How much is it?” He said, “25,000 rupees.” He said, “Come on, for full-grown dog, 25,000, why?” He said, “He’s too wonderful.” He said, “Yes, it’s a wonderful dog, but 25,000!” “That’s the price.” So he paid the money, he took petted the dog, the dog was very friendly. When he was just about to leave, he asked, “But is this l dog loyal?” Shankaran Pillai said, “Absolutely loyal! I sold him twelve times, within hours he’s back” . So no matter what is happening, just stay loyal to one thing, that your wonderfulness is not compromised for any damn thing. It’s important. Just this idea that there is a better place than this to live elsewhere is a criminal idea. It’s because of that we have made a mess out of this world because we think somewhere else we're going to be okay. Those who are not okay here are not going to be okay anywhere. So I'm committed that before I go I will destroy all the heavens. Is it okay? Hmm? The good food that is promised , the rivers of wine that flow and the virgins . All that. Is that okay? I’m asking you. You okay ? This is the time to turn this world into a paradise, hmm? Not go to paradise, to turn this world into a paradise . If all of us are willing, we can make this the best time ever in the history of humanity, we have all the tools. If you make up your mind, we will turn even Siberia into paradise, summer paradise. Usually we thought if you go to Siberia, you don’t come back . We’ve been thinking of a kind of a road trip through Central Asia. Tell me which other countries to do. Wild, no road kind of countries. No roads, no speed limits, that kind of country, tell me . And I want all of you to remember the significance of the roles that you have taken. A nation is built by many people – we need engineers, we need doctors, we need politicians, we need various kinds of people. Among all these people, the most significant thing about the generation that is next, is the teachers . And everything that you do today will blossom probably after your life is over. And this is the significance of human nature that we are not looking at, “We did this today, this today, it has to come back to me.” It's not a business transaction that you're planting seeds, which will blossom well after your time but that is the greatest thing about being a teacher. What's the best path to spirituality, as students what can we do to be spiritual? See, the general understanding is spiritual means you have to go somewhere, in some other direction than the way you're going right now. No. Spiritual process is not a direction. It is a certain aesthetic. It's a certain quality. You can do the same things in different ways, isn’t it so? You want to eat food, you can eat with both your hands , or you sit down and eat properly. There are many ways to eat. So spiritual process does not mean you have to do something different. Because changing the content of your life is very easy, and it doesn't make any difference, it is about changing the context of your life that makes a difference. So changing the context needs attention on all levels of life. If you do everything that you're doing with, let us say, ten X level of attention, we can say you're definitely moving towards spiritual process. Sadhana prepares the system for a life which is profound and spectacular. If this is good, everything that comes is great. Whatever comes our way is fantastic, because this is in a good place. This is what sadhana means – that you make your body, mind, and energy into a powerful tool. And you are human, that means you have erased your boundaries. If you just keep your humanity on, I will step in… I’ll step into your life every moment, but you must keep your humanity on. Humanity means just this – if at all in your life, if you set some boundary temporarily, that is because of the nature of the situation in which you are. But this boundary that you set outside should never happen within you. Outside sometimes we have to do it. If you do that one thing, my one foot is always in your life. That means the throttle is on , and it’s heavy ! You okay? Yes! Instrumental Music… END

data/SGYT/SGYT_GGtrzC7ixaE_How-Hardships-Can-Make-You-Stronger-Sadhguru_26-Feb-2022.docx

This is the fundamental thing that every human being has to do. Little distance will completely change the way you look at things. Suddenly the activity of the mind is a great entertainment. Suddenly you find, you can use your body and use your mind whichever way you want, it is never going to rule you again. Instrumental music How can I use hardship as a opportunity to choose growth? How to use hardship as a opportunity? When we say hardship, life can be only physically hard. Mentally hard happens because of you. But physically hard can happen because of terrain, because of situations, because of variety of things. So, physical hardship may involve some pain. So, physical hardship people who go through physical hardship always come out stronger. Is that so? Hmm? Always. Your very training is a fact . Probably a training to be a soldier is harder than fighting a battle , except for the risk involved. In terms of hardship, training looks like purposeless hardship, always. This is true for a soldier; this is true for a yogi. Early in the morning, 4 o'clock, get up and do yoga. Mind will ask, "You idiot, why are you up, everybody is sleeping ?" Yes? Even for the yogi, this problem is there. Mind will ask, "You idiot, what are you getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning, and what are you doing? Everybody is sleeping, they wake up and drink coffee at 7 o'clock. What are you doing ?" But because you put your body voluntarily through that hardship, it gets you to a place where nobody else can get. Hmm? Isn't it? So, hardship is a physical hardship is a tremendous possibility, because you can the nature of physi human body is such that only with use, it gets better. If you do it willingly, hardship will be joyful. If you do it unwillingly, it's the most terrible thing. So, the question is only of willingness and unwillingness. As I said, in the very beginning, that was not to make a joke out of your terrain realities in which you live. What do you think is hard duty, If you want to give a punishment probably in the forces put him at 20,000 altitude . But people who go mountaineering and other things, climbing to 20,000, they think it's fantastic! Isn't it? So, what is the difference? The difference is only mindset. Somebody is doing it willingly. Somebody thinks they're being forced to do it. That's all the difference is. See, this is all life is. Wherever we are, anything we're doing, any given moment of our life, If we do it willingly, it's like heaven. If we do it unwillingly, it's our hell, isn't it? Anything, Just anything. Do you like gulab jamun? no, I'm asking this officer. Do you like gulab jamun? So, right now, I'm going to get a lot of gulab jamuns, and I'm going to put it in your mouth more and more and more gulab jamuns. That can become the worst experience of your life, isn't it? When you want to eat gulab jamun, you take it in your hands willingly and you ate it, It was so nice. When you don't want it, if somebody forces it down your throat, it's terrible. So, the difference is only in willingness and unwillingness. This is the fundamental thing that every human being has to do. See right now whatever we do, maybe if I had a choice, I would do something else. But right now, I'm doing this, let's say, whatever I'm doing, if you do it willingly, even that thing that you don't like becomes a wonderful process. If you do it unwillingly, then you will see, it becomes a terrible process. "But I don't like this. Why should I do it willingly?" Okay, it's if your choice is to suffer, please do it. If you don't like it, you don't do it tomorrow. But today when you're doing it, you do it willingly. If you do it willingly, even that thing that you think you do not like, even that becomes a great pleasure and becomes a process of growth for you. So, definitely physical hardship can be used in a big way to bring balance and well-being to yourself. Psychological hardships are entirely your making. Nobody else is doing that to you. Only you can do that to you, isn't it? To stop that, you as I said, this Isha Kriya is something all of you should do. Because this will give you a distance, little distance. Little distance will completely change the way you look at things. It's like this, you see the traffic jam; traffic is jammed, you're stuck in it. Everybody is cursing each other and getting angry, and in Delhi also they kill each other. Traffic jams, people kill each other, you know? Suppose, you're flying in a airplane or a helicopter, and look down, traffic jam looks really nice, you know ? Have you ever noticed this ? it looks quite nice! Simply because there's a little distance. The same thing with your body and your mind. If you create a little distance when I say distance, you must understand this – what your body you gathered, your mind you gathered, it is possible to create a distance. If you create a little distance, suddenly the activity of the mind is a great entertainment. No positive, no negative, nothing, it's a great entertainment! It's only negative, positive, when you're stuck in it. Once you're little out of it, suddenly you find, you can use your body and use your mind whichever way you want. It is never going to rule you again. So, physical hardship definitely can be harnessed. It can be a great opportunity for a human being to build themselves into a deep level of strength and well-being. Mental hardship is your making, you must stop that. Instrumental music END

data/SGYT/SGYT_Zz8uQbnhyjg_Why-Are-Wealthy-Societies-Suffering-The-Most-With-Sadhguru-In-Challenging-Times_23-Apr-2020.docx

Sadhguru chants Yoga Yogeshwaraya Sounds of Isha song performance… Namaskaram! Namaskaram all of you. Well, the virus continues to spread and also continues to reveal newer aspects of what it can do. Many, many things are coming out, which makes it far more complicated than what we thought was just a respiratory infection. Well, we still don't have a full picture what are we fighting. So the best way is not to meet him for some time. By the time we have to meet him, at least we must have a full picture, what it can do and what it cannot do. Because people are dying of cardiac arrest, people are dying of strokes, people are dying of fibrosis in the lungs, pneumonia and failure of immune system, variety of things – all instigated by the virus. So, the best thing that all of us can do right now is, don't meet him. Somewhere in the next few months we may have to meet him. But by then we may have a better picture of what we are meeting or confronting. Right now we don't have enough picture. And United States goes on, 43,000 deaths, I think over three-quarters-of-a-million infections. At the same time, a whole lot of people who believe virus is just a myth, it's just in your mind. It must be in their mind I can see that. Nearly 200,000 people dead across the world and you think it's in somebody's mind. Well, this is a serious situation, because people are coming out on the streets in United States, and saying, "I need a haircut. I can't stay at home anymore. I need a haircut." Well, unfortunately, it's not just in any one country, anywhere in the world, unfortunately we have seen this at all times in history, those who became affluent for two, three generations at a stretch became a terribly frivolous population. It looks like, only crisis, struggle keeps human beings reasonably focused on some things , so unfortunate. Well-being, most people don't know how to handle it. Sustained well-being is generally been a disaster for most civilizations in the world, not today, for always. This is what we need to change that, even if there is sustained well-being, we will still be well, we will not mess ourselves up. In many ways, at least certain parts of this culture demonstrated that in the past because material affluence was always woven with spiritual practices and spiritual awareness. Because of that, people remained stable. Only now it is changing in this generation, otherwise just twenty-five, thirty years ago, if you went to places where the richest people are meeting in this country, you would see, except the ladies, the men were always in whites, simple whites – top, bottom both white. Even today in Tamil Nadu, to some extent this is true – if you go to a wedding, outside you see ah, well, Bentleys, Mercedes' and BMW's all parked, and of course there are lot of two wheelers and TVS moped of course. If you go inside, at least the men's segment, you can't make out who came by Bentley, who came by TVS moped because both will be dressed the same way. You cannot make out. Tch, ladies by the weight of jewelry they're carrying on their neck, you can make out, maybe this is a rich person, this is a poor person. But among the men you just can't make out because everybody's in whites, the same starched white shirt and white dhoti. Because being wealthy is one thing, but flaunting it in somebody's face and making them feel less than yourself was considered obscene. Never eve anybody spoke about wealth when they meet. But these days things are changing rapidly, everywhere in the world and also in India. But for long periods of time, generations of people maintain enormous wealth but still because of their spiritual awareness, wealth did not distort them. This is very important. Because never before were we able to create wealth for as many people as it's possible today. In the past, the wealthy were very small number. Today the number of people who can afford many things, the number has increased well still unfortunately a lot of people are left out of it, that's a different matter but still more people have access to more money and more wealth and more aspects of life than ever before in the history of humanity. So at a time like this if our material development, material well-being and wealth is not woven with spiritual awareness, well, this will not work in our favor. Even here it's being very strongly demonstrated. Close by, within sixty kilometers there is a town called Tirupur. Of course right now they're in a little bit of a depression mode but otherwise, in this town even a regular labor, menial jobs, they're earning two to three times more than what they would earn in Coimbatore city, because this is a completely export-oriented town, and everybody has a company of their own. Hosiery town it is. There is wealth. So out of that, what is the consequence? One thing is some forty-two percent of the male population is diabetic, because of the wealth. Another thing is both men and women generally, ah they're trying to get into the shape of the planet . Yesterday was Earth Day, you know, so they're working in that direction. And about few years ago, about three or four years ago, we found that of all the alcohol – like this was at the Diwali time – of all the alcohol sold in Tamil Nadu, nearly seventy percent was consumed by this one town. Tch, so if you get wealthy you will either end up in the hospital or in the gutter. Yes. So if this is what wealth is going to do, definitely it's not a good thing. Wealth should bring well-being. Because from poverty to affluence, whether it is in the life of an individual person or a society or a nation, it is a struggle. There's lot of hard work. Many unpleasant things you have to go through to move from poverty to affluence, it doesn't just come easy. After getting there, all you do is end up in the hospital or in the gutter, what is the point of this? The entire struggle is meaningless. Now the next generation will not even seek success if this is what you display. It is very important that every generation must display that material well-being has brought them ease, well-being, health, intelligence, talent – above all, a beautiful way of living. If a generation does not display this, then the next generation will start going down. So in many ways this is happening in the world. I think, as in the last century, in the last hundred years, anything good or bad, the lead usually taken by United States of America. So, United States of America, the younger generation is displaying how all of us can be lost in a bottle or in a pill. People are dying, even now people are dying of overdoses and things like this. And one of the most ordered things in this what e-commerce is supposed to be all legalized drugs and intoxicants. Well, here we are fighting to see that people don't starve to death but now they're coming out protesting. Hundreds of them coming out protesting on the streets, "Who are you to ask us to stay home? Government has no power! We will exercise our First Amendment and Second Amendment, that we will do what we want to do. There are higher powers who will take care of us. We don't need doctors; we don't need scientists. All rubbish, this virus. There is a higher power which will take care of us. And we want to have a haircut” . Tch, hey you never had a haircut? Good, like me you are . So that's how frivolous it's becoming. If we don't do see certain things ahead of time, we end up in a disaster. So Shankaran Pillai was living in San Francisco and his friend asked, looked at a boat which was all smashed up and asked, "Isn't this your uncle's boat?" Said, "Yeah, it's my it was my uncle's boat." "What happened, what happened to your uncle?" Then, Shankaran Pillai asked "You know when you're approaching the Golden Gate Bridge, have you seen that big rock?" He said, "Yeah, I've seen that." "Well, he didn't see it” . You don't see certain things, it can be a disaster. So right now, it is paramount because we have no idea what this virus fellow is. So the only thing we can do is we don't meet him. Everybody strive not to meet him. That is the simplest thing we can do. Right now that's all we have done, by controlling human behavior we are managing it. We've not controlled the virus in any way. So everybody is lauding India for its leadership in handling virus with such a dense population, mainly because of very rigidly controlling human behavior. Tch, all of you last fifteen days surviving on just pumpkin and yam and some beans. No vegetables, no fruits. That's why not one of us have an issue. If everyday trucks move up and down, then things will happen. So when the relaxation happens on 3rd of May, the good news is it's going to be partial relaxation, I don't think we can afford to completely relax. Relaxation will be partial both geographically and also in terms of activity. Some things will be relaxed, some things will not be relaxed and some parts of the country will be relaxed, some parts of the country will not be relaxed. All those areas which have been marked as red zones right now, I don't think they can afford to relax that; if they relax that they will give it to all of us. So, here also, there are some people who are managed by uh from some other place. Those people are going berserk attacking the doctors, attacking the police. As you all of you know, a new ordinance has been brought in to deal with that but still it's happening. Tch it's incredible, in twenty-first century where most people have at least gone till maybe fifth standard and most other people have at least gone to tenth standard, who know some basics of some kind of science in their head. At a time like this when nearly 200,000 people fall dead in strange ways, still you can't convi convince the idiots that there is a genuine problem. Thanks to human intelligence. This question is from Siddharaj. "Namaskaram Sadhguru, Devi is a manifestation of divine. And you said many Devi temples all over the world were destroyed. I would like to know why was Devi not able to protect herself ?" Well, yes it was It is a fact that the worship of the divine in the feminine form was hugely prevalent in the present day Europe, Arabia, Central Asia – all these places, but it has managed to live only in this part of Asia still. In other places it's been violently uprooted. Well, maybe a better documented version of uprooting the divine feminine is, all of you have definitely heard of hmm, you know, witch hunting, tha that term is still being used today, if something, unfairly somebody is being hunted we say witch hunt. This comes from the term during the time of the crusades. It is estimated they burnt over six million women alive over a period of probably hundred-and-fifty years or two-hundred years, I'm not very sure about that. But over a period of time, those crusade period, when somebody was very ambitiously spreading their religion, this is what happened. These women who were burned like this and many were simply burned for various other reasons, but it was all just label somebody a witch, that's it, people will burn them down. Even today this practice is still there, unfortunately here and there. So who is a witch? In some way when a woman displays she's capable of doing something or knowing something beyond childbearing and cooking, she's a witch. Yes, that's how it was. So generally, the Devi temples, always pawned women who are capable of other things. Right now we're breeding a new culture of bairaginis and devisadhakas. The idea is to not just have red devils walking around in the ashram . The idea is slowly divinity walks around. It might they may take their time, but gradually to produce what you considered as divine which you enshrine must live, with legs. So, the divine feminine has been uprooted simply because the Abrahamic way of religious process is purely male-oriented, it's completely masculine. There is no room for feminine to be anywhere there. It's God and his Son. It's God and His messengers, all male messengers, never female, because they're not reliable, they may say something else, because they may know something else, that's the problem. So, because of this, in Arabia, in Europe, in Central Asia lot of destruction happened, but there is not a single village in entire India without a Devi temple. Tch, and when I went to Somnath temple, it was destroyed seventeen times over by a certain kind of warlord from Afghanistan. Seventeen times he makes this trip, which is over probably fourteen – fifteen hundred kilometers. He makes this trip just to destroy this temple. First time I can understand, because there was wealth, there was gold and stuff. All right, he looted it, destroyed it, burnt it down and went. Why come second time? Maybe little more wealth. But after that there was no wealth because people just put up small things. But he came seventeen times and destroyed. So I was inquiring, "What is it?" The thing was those three goddesses that they talk about in Arabia, the pre-Islamic era, one of those godded goddesses, one of the deities, some devotee carried it from there and established it in the Somnath temple as a consort of Shiva. So they wanted to destroy that goddess. So the guy makes a thirteen – fourteen hundred kilometer trip seventeen times on a horseback to destroy her. That is how important it is to destroy a woman in this world. That's how important it is. Because if you empower the feminine, then all the silly laws that you all the silly ideologies, laws of heaven and nonsense that you have create created, all that will collapse. I will not go into the mechanics of how it will collapse but think through this. Suppose you accepted a woman as a God. Suddenly, going somewhere and living well will go away, because that's not the nature of the feminine. It is always masculine. He wants to go somewhere and then live well, at least to another place in this country or another continent in this planet or another planet or another galaxy or another dimension called heaven, paradise, whatever you want to call it. This is a man's thing, he wants to go somewhere and then live well. He can't live well here, this is his problem. This is a huge masculine problem that he cannot live well here. If you look at the male and female, you will see the feminine always wants to settle down – wherever little comfort; settle down and live well. Man wants to climb the mountain and settle down on the other side, this side of the mountain is not okay for him . So, if you made a male God and a female God and they were together like Shiva-Parvati something, you will not want to go anywhere tch. Even Shiva settled down in Kashi because of Parvati . He is a wanderer but during the winter months after he got married he found she was finding it very difficult to be in high altitude in Himalayas. For her sake he came down to Kashi, but then he also started liking it so much. For a long time he did not go back. So, feminine always brings settling down; masculine wants to propel somewhere. That propelling, too much propelling – we need some propelling of course – too much propelling is causing enormous destruction in all levels of life. Tch today a whole lot of people have started philosophizing – only because we overdid our economy, virus has come to neutralize our economy. I'm not saying that. This is not the way to balance our economy or our activity, there are more sensible ways to do this. And one important way to do it is, empower the feminine. You will see, in many ways this propulsion will come down a little bit. Either you must be inward-oriented, then you can sit here or you're in some way bound to a woman then you will sit here. Otherwise, single man can't control him, he is all the time on . If you are inward-oriented, very effortlessly you will sit, otherwise, a woman can tie you down tch. In many ways the economy and the destruction of the planet has still not gone to that place where it's not irreversible simply because most men still need a woman. Very few men who can live without a woman. They are either ascetics, so no problem, or they are super-ambitious tyrants, they are a problem. Yes. So, has Devi been destroyed. Well, I'm telling you she's all over this country, in every village. There may be no temple for a male God in a village, but always there is a temple for a Devi. No Tamil Nadu village is without Mari, Mariamman. No Karnataka village is without Mari; here there she is Mari, here she is Mariamman, somewhere else she is Kali. She's good at taking on lots of names. So, why couldn't she take care of herself? This is the nature of a woman, that if it's getting too ugly she won't be there. She will go and settle where it's conducive. That's exactly what she has done. We must take care of her . Sadhguru chants Yoga Yogeshwaraya END

data/IFYT/IFYT_F0j6FAIQ_IA_Can-Life-Be-Studied-Sadhguru_27-May-2010.docx

Whatever you study, whatever you read, whether it is ethics or philosophy or physics or chemistry or medicine, it doesn’t matter what you study. They are pertaining to certain aspects of life. With that aspect, it is okay. But don’t ever study anything which claims to handle life itself. Do you understand? Never study anything that claims to handle life itself. The moment you study this, you will get totally twisted out. That is the whole problem. You are studying a certain discipline to understand a certain aspect of life, that’s okay. That is no way comes in your way. But you are trying to study life. Life cannot be studied, life has to be explored from within because you are life, isn’t it? You can’t study life because you are life and if you want to study life, why study some other life? Study this life. Because this is the most intimate life, isn’t it? Who is the closest person to you in your life? Yourself, isn’t it? Jack? Who is the closest person to you in your life? Yourself. So, in this person whatever is there, if you cannot know, can you know what is there in that person? No. So, if you start studying this person, you are a yogi. Undercover or cover blown, we don’t know . For more on Sadhguru, visit www.ishafoundation.org END

data/Complete Blog JSON/article-Wisdom-d627aa04-d824-49e2-94d9-089ee0236b6c.json

How to Prepare for Death? Questioner: I have a question. A very dear friend of mine is in the final stages of cancer. Is there anything that can be done to help them go through this and get better? Sadhguru: I am not saying this with any disregard to your friend, but I want you to understand that people need to die. When and how is the only question. If death comes to us, we will do everything possible to save ourselves, but if it goes beyond that, let us learn to die gracefully. Fighting with it endlessly the way people are dying in western countries is really a horrible way to die. Even though they are -, they are staying in a hospital with pipes and needles all over them. It is okay if you die two years early, but it is more important to die peacefully and gracefully. Death is the last thing that you do in your life, so should you not do it gracefully? Death is the last thing that you do in your life, so should you not do it gracefully? We must learn to accept death as a part of our life. We are not wishing death, but when it comes, let us learn to go through it gracefully. What I see in the geriatric homes in United States is that many people are living beyond their death just because of medical support, and it is such a torture to themselves and to everyone. You should see the way they are being treated in some of the homes after some time the people who work there get irritated because these people do not understand anything, have forgotten everything and lost their senses as they have lived beyond their time. Without so much medical input, they would have died gracefully at a certain point. If someone's body is broken beyond redemption, let us learn to die gracefully. Let us make the person understand that it is okay, we are all in the queue. I am not trying to make fun of someone's illness but we should understand where one thing stops and the other thing begins. Question: But Sadhguru, what about the people around them who have to see them die? Sadhguru: This could be easily misunderstood because when someone loses someone who is dear to them, it feels like a piece of their life has been taken away and they go through various processes of grief, loss, and cherishing many things that they were. Not all of it can be articulated. But at the same time, we are not the first people to be born on this planet, nor are we going to be the first ones to die on this planet. In our lives, we do not know whether we are going to get educated, married, bear children or do many things in the world or not. But we know one thing for sure that we are going to die. Though it is such an obvious thing, we are not able to come to terms with it. Someone was asking me, Sadhguru, how do snakes die where do they die? Because we do not ever see a dead snake unless it is killed by someone. Particularly cobras, when they know they should die, they will withdraw, find one perch somewhere, go sit there and will not eat for over eighteen to twenty days. They will die there quietly. A slithering creature has that much awareness that it knows how long this body should be on and when it should go. Similarly, your life and every other life has this consciousness as to when it should exit this body. Either because we broke the body in some way or because the necessary intensity does not exist anymore in the body to sustain life. As long as it is here, we will do everything to preserve it and hold it and keep it with us because we cherish and value that life. But once it leaves, we must respect that, because that life has chosen to leave. When I say life, I am not referring to the person or the variety of thoughts and emotions and activities that person was involved in. You as a person never want to leave, because you want to be an endless psychological drama. But life wants to leave at a certain time. Whether you like it or not, life wants to leave because it does not want to be trapped in the physical form that you have gathered forever. It enjoys the physical form only for a certain length of time. After that, even if everything is well, many lives leave. You will see this particularly in India; Yogis will decide when to leave. When they are very healthy and well, they sit down and they leave. Other people think, Why? He was healthy, why should he leave? Do you want to get sick and die? Do you want to suffer in the hospital for three years, and then leave? That is not the only way to go. What purpose does it serve if you stretch a life which is about to exit now, for another three months will all kinds of life support? The last thing that you do in your life is death, so is it not very important that you do it gracefully? Is it also not important that other lives who are around us, when their time comes, we must facilitate that they must be able to leave gracefully? What purpose does it serve if you stretch a life which is about to exit now, for another three months will all kinds of life support? It just means that you are ignorant about the nature of life. You want to cling to something that you know, and you do not want to know anything that you do not know. You know this person, you have enjoyed their personality, but you have not touched the nature of their life because unless you touch the nature of your life, you cannot touch the nature of another life. So we do not have to talk about death or prepare for death. What we need to do is to experience what is beyond what you have accumulated as this body and mind. If you sit here right now and experience the life that you are beyond these accumulations, you will have absolutely no issue with any aspect of life, which includes death. We must understand that mortality is the fundamental reality of our existence. If you do not come to terms with this, you do not know any other aspect of life in reality, you know only the drama. Because this is the most fundamental nature of our existence that we are mortal. When we are born, it is declared that we are going to die. The only question is when. I bless you with a very long life, but when you die, you must die gracefully. Every creature in the world, except man, seems to know how to die gracefully. If you walk in a foresteven in one that is rich with wildlifeunless it is an animal that has been killed by a predator, you will not find a carcass just lying around like that. Why the forest, even in the cities, where the birds are mostly crows these days, you will not find a dead crow just like that. They all know when it is time to die, so they withdraw to a quiet place and gracefully die. It is only the human being who is oblivious of this and dies in a manner that is becoming increasingly graceless. When death comes, people who did not know how to live will definitely have problems with how to die. In many ways, old age can be a great blessing because the whole experience of life is behind you. When you are approaching death, it is an opportunity, because when energies have become feeble and they are progressing towards dropping the body, it is much easier to become aware of the nature of your existence. When you were a child, everything was beautiful, but you were eager to grow up because you wanted to experience life. When you became youthful, your intelligence got hijacked by your hormones. Whatever you did, knowingly or unknowingly, it just pushed you in that direction. Very few people are capable of raising their intelligence beyond the hormonal hijack and looking at life with clarity. All others are trapped in it. During youth, when the body is vibrant, it is very difficult to make yourself aware because you are so identified with your body that you do not see anything beyond that. ..in every step that you take, age is telling you, This is not forever. However, as you age, this recedes. As the body loses its vibrancy, you become more and more aware because you cannot identify with that body which is receding. When you come to old age, all the longings are over and the experience of a whole life is behind you. So once again, you are childlike, but you have the wisdom and experience of life. It can be a very fruitful and wonderful part of your life. If you take care of your rejuvenation process well, old age can be a miraculous part of your life. Unfortunately, most human beings suffer their old age simply because they do not take care of their rejuvenation process properly. In their old age, very few people can even smile. This is because the only thing that they knew in their life was the physical body. Once the body begins to recede, they become despondent. It might not have become diseased, no terrible cancer needs to have come, but in every step that you take, age is telling you, This is not forever. If you establish yourself in other dimensions of experience, the body becomes an easy thing to handle. Old age and even death can be a joyful experience. For this, you need to know when to leave and exit gracefully.

data/Complete Blog JSON/article-Wisdom-a7c5a88d-b799-4d9d-a191-1a3f08006f1a.json

The Truth About The Caste System & How We Can End It Virender Sehwag: Namaskaram Sadhguru! I want to know the truth about our Indian caste system. How can we ensure more inclusiveness and equality? Sadhguru: Namaskaram Viru. We must understand that this caste system essentially began as division of labor. Unfortunately, over a period of time, these divisions became discriminatory and people started working against each other. For a society to function, a certain number of people in the population must be skilled artisans, others should take care of business, some should take care of administration, and some others should take care of the education and spiritual process for the community. Like this, they made four basic divisions. We must also understand that in ancient times, there were no engineering schools and medical schools...Skills were transmitted from generation to generation by maintaining this caste system. We must also understand that in ancient times, there were no engineering schools and medical schools. If your father was a carpenter, you learned carpentry at home from your childhood and became a good carpenter. Skills were transmitted from generation to generation by maintaining this caste system. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, a goldsmith started thinking he is superior to a blacksmith. Though a blacksmiths work may be far more useful to society than a goldsmiths, somehow one thought he was superior to the other and over generations, this superiority got established. In trying to establish this superiority, all kinds of exploitative processes happened, and it came to a place where caste system has manifested itself almost like apartheid. Largely, transfer of skill does not happen through family anymore. The caste system is no longer relevant in that context. Terrible things have been done to people for a few hundred years. In many villages in India, the people who are considered to be lower caste whom you call Dalits still do not have even basic human rights. Though much has changed in the last twenty-five to thirty years, many horribly undesirable things still keep happening in our country. What is the way out of this? One thing is, skills can be transmitted in many different ways today. We have educational and technological institutions. Largely, transfer of skill does not happen through family anymore. The caste system is no longer relevant in that context. But the caste system is still functioning in the context of social security. People take care of their own clan and caste. They will always reach out to people in their caste who are in trouble. Until we establish a nationwide social security system for every citizen in this country, the caste system will continue to exist to some extent. It is very important that we bring a nationwide social security system and an education system which will transmit skills to everyone according to their aptitude. Just trying to abolish the caste system and work against it will not produce results. People are still clinging together to the system mainly because of the social security it provides. It is very important that we bring a nationwide social security system and an education system which will transmit skills to everyone according to their aptitude. When this happens, the relevance of the caste system will completely disappear. Once that happens, I think caste system will die a natural death.

data/Complete Blog JSON/article-Wisdom-2d39d914-c883-404a-b739-3ab65b032d96.json

Are Soulmates Real? How to Know If You Are With the Right Person? Sadhguru: The body needs a mate. If it is not well developed, maybe your mind needs a mate. If your emotions have not become all-inclusive, they need a mate. At least your soul should be free from hankering! The soul does not need a mate, nor was some person made perfectly for you. When people say soul they are referring to something beyond physicality. If there is something beyond the physical, would it need a mate? A mate means a companion. It could be physical, psychological, or emotional needs, or it could be for work, but a mate comes in only when there is some sense of incompleteness. Whatever it is that you are referring to as soul at least that one thing should be complete. There is this idea that there is a soulmate somewhere, that God made one more person just for you. But these days, every two years he keeps making one more person just for you. Obviously, God is making too many mistakes with you! There is no such thing. The soul does not need a mate, nor was some person made perfectly for you. If you think you are perfect and God has chosen you and made another perfect person somewhere else, you are heading for a disaster. Why do people seek a relationship? It could be for physical reasons; we call that sexuality, and it can be quite beautiful. It could be for mental reasons; we call that companionship, and it can be beautiful, too. It could be for emotional reasons; we call that love, and that has been legendarily extolled as the sweetest experience. Certainly, physical compatibility, companionship and love can make life wonderful, but if you are honest with yourself, you cannot deny the anxiety that follows such an arrangement. It is wise to be honest about the limitations and conditions within which a relationship operates. The advantage of being realistic is that when you are confronted by limitations tomorrow, you will find a mature way to deal with them. If you employ terms like soulmate, or proclaim that your relationship is made in heaven, disillusionment is inevitable. It is only when love becomes all-inclusive that you touch the boundless. And that is when you realize a simple truth: the soul does not need a mate. If you have too many romantic delusions, even if you are married to the most wonderful person, it will definitely crash because you cannot delude yourself forever. If you want to live sensibly and joyfully, it is important to remember that marriage is a human arrangement, not a celestial one. Marriage can be a very pleasant experience as long as you know it is not the ultimate. The success of these relationships will depend on the maturity and sensitivity with which we approach them. I am not being cynical about love. Love is one of the most beautiful qualities a human being is capable of. Many cultures have suppressed love; others have tried to export it to heaven. But love is of this planet, and it is deeply human. Why deny that? Love does not need an object. Love is simply a quality. If the person you love is not in your physical presence, you are still capable of loving them. If the people you love cease to exist, you still continue to love them. This means you are using people around you as mere stimuli to find expression for this innate quality. If you bring sufficient awareness to your discriminatory intellect, love is the only way you can be. Love is not about what you do. Love is the way you are. Love is simply life longing for itself. This longing is essentially to become all-inclusive and boundless. It is only when love becomes all-inclusive that you touch the boundless. And that is when you realize a simple truth: the soul does not need a mate. It never has. It is true that certain karmic connections may draw people towards each other. This does not mean that these will be ideal relationships. There is no right person on this planet. If you put your heart into something, something may become wonderful. Is it the right thing? There is no right thing. If you get into that kind of unrealistic mindset that you have found the right person, you will be soon disappointed. If you understand that you have your nonsense and they have their nonsense, we can adjust nonsense to nonsense and go on. Instead of trying to work on someone and fix them, if you work upon yourself and make yourself so wonderful that everyone wants to be with you, then there is a choice. We must understand that relationships are formed for various needs. When you are going to someone with so many needs, you are going as a beggar, and a beggar cannot choose. If you really want to make a choice in this world, the first and foremost thing is you bring yourself to a place where your experience of life is just pleasant by yourself. Now, let us see what gets drawn to this one. If you are really wonderful, things will happen in every way. The best will happen to you in terms of career, marriage and relationships because you made yourself like this. Instead of trying to work on someone and fix them, if you work upon yourself and make yourself so wonderful that everyone wants to be with you, then there is a choice. You are not going to find any perfect person. If you invest a deep sense of involvement, something wonderful may happen, not because the other person is fantastic. It does not matter even if you choose a fool. If you involve yourself, it can turn out very beautiful. You may have chosen the smartest person in the universe, but it could be a disaster. Do not think in terms of this made for each other, nonsense. Actually, you choose the opposite. But after a little bit of time, you slowly start expecting them to be just like you. This is a serious mistake. If there is one more person just like you at home, could you live there? You should be glad they are different. It is wonderful that no one is like you on this planet. Do not look for sameness. Take charge of your own wellbeing with Inner Engineering, now available online!

data/Complete Blog JSON/article-Wisdom-773062d4-630a-4ee1-8bc7-d2fc702f8ee4.json

From Vedic Sciences to Ultimate Perception Sadhguru says, the Vedic systems have always focused on raising human perception, not on raising human knowledge. Sadhguru: The Vedas are among the most ancient scriptures on this planet and yet the most comprehensive in content. The Vedas are not books and the content of the Vedas is not something that someone invented. It is not a moral code that somebody made up. Vedas are a series of discoveries both of the outward and the inward. It was the knowledge book of the past in Indian culture. It deals with various aspects like how to eat, how to build a bullock cart, how to build an airplane with solid fuels, how to deal with your neighbor, how to deal with the beings of the beyond and how to attain to your ultimate nature. The Vedas are not really books to be read, they are like a blueprint to the existence in many dimensions. Various aspects of the Vedas are just converting form into sound. That is all they are. If you feed any sound into an oscilloscope a sound measuring instrument depending upon the sounds vibration, frequency and amplitude, the oscilloscope will give out a certain form. Today, it is an established fact that every sound has a form attached to it. Similarly, every form has a sound attached to it. The form is called a yantra and the sound is referred to as a mantra. The technology of using this form and sound together is called tantra. This relationship between the various forms of existence and sound was mastered. Most of the Rig Veda, the Sama Veda and the Atharvana Veda is about this relationship converting the existence into a sound form so that you can let the existence reverberate within yourself by uttering certain sounds. By having mastery over the sound, you also have mastery over the form. This is the science of mantras which has unfortunately fallen into very bad misuse and misinterpretation. These sciences are subjective sciences, they cannot be studied by going to a college. It is because of this subjective quality that all kinds of misinterpretation and misuse has entered into this to such a point of ridiculousness that now, the whole thing is being wiped out as some kind of mumbo-jumbo. It needs a very deep sense of involvement and dedication. You have to wear your life out for it, otherwise it does not yield to you. It does not yield to you because you want to get a qualification or because you are seeking it as a profession. You have to give yourself to it. Only then it yields to you. Even something as fantastic as the Shiva Purana, which is full of science but expressed in beautiful story forms was also an educational science. Today, modern education scientists are telling us that if a child enters kindergarten and goes through twenty years of formal education let us say he comes out with a PhD a significant percent of his intelligence is irrevocably destroyed. That means he comes out as a knowledgeable idiot. The basic life sense is completely gone. A suggestion that has come forth from education scientists is that education should be made into a play, a song, and a story. This is what they did thousands of years ago. The highest aspects of science were expressed in story form. Unfortunately, over a period of time, people could not keep it going. They dropped the science and just carried the stories. Naturally, when stories move from generation to generation they will lose their structure and get exaggerated beyond limitations which has happened now. The Vedic systems have always focused on raising human perception, not on raising human knowledge. Today, our education is totally focused on information, not on perception. All the study, and trying to accumulate information will become meaningless as technology progresses. What is most crucial for effective and sensible functioning of a human being on this planet is that he has to enhance his perception. His ability to perceive should go beyond his present limitations. Only then he will function in a totally different way. Yoga has innumerable devices through which a person can go beyond his five senses, so that his perception raises beyond the physical. Only when perception raises beyond the physical, a true spiritual process begins. Spirituality will not happen because you read about it or accumulate knowledge about it. All the spirituality that you have gathered, if it is just memory recorded in your head, it is really of no consequence, because spirituality is an inner process.

data/SGYT/SGYT_mYqKjsrFmJA_Four-Paths-Of-Yoga-Sadhguru_20-Jun-2017.docx

There are four ways to become meditative. So you can use the body to reach your ultimate nature. This is called Karma yoga. If you use your intelligence to reach your ultimate nature, we call this Gnana Yoga. If you use your emotion to reach your ultimate nature we call this Bhakti Yoga, yoga of emotion or devotion. If you use or transform your inner energies to reach your ultimate nature, we call this Kriya Yoga. On a certain day these four yogis, all of them are taking a walk together. Usually they can never be together because they can never get along; because people who follow the path of intelligence or intellect, they have great disdain for others. They think everybody else is a nutcase. Devotional people, they have pity for all the other people. Tch, they're missing everything. Karma yogis, these are people of action. They think everybody is weaving all kinds of philosophies to hide their laziness. Kriya yogis have absolute disdain for everybody because after all the whole existence is energy, if you do not transform your energies, what? So these four people cannot get along. But today all of them taking a walk together. Suddenly a thunderstorm broke loose, big rain and wind. They started running, looking for shelter. The man of devotion said, “In this direction there's an ancient temple. Let's go there.” He knows the geography of temples so they all ran there. Then they saw a temple where the walls had collapsed long ago, just four columns and a roof. Underneath that in the center, there was a deity, an image of god. They all ran there, to the temple. Then the storm became more and more severe, it started lashing from every direction. To avoid this, they hugged the deity, all four of them hugged the deity. Not because they have fallen in love with god, just to escape the rain, and suddenly god appeared. In all their four minds the same question, “Oh why now? We did so much yoga, so much devotion, so much worship, you didn't come. Now we're just escaping the rain, why have you come?” God said, “I've been waiting. At last you four idiots got together” . So these four have to get together then you become meditative. Right now your mind is going in one direction, your body is going in other direction, your emotions are going somewhere else, your energies are a different matter altogether. If we can somehow align them for one moment, we will see there will be a different dimension happening within you. END

data/SGYT/SGYT_TD37CH3Dc-w_Our-Amazing-Earth-Sadhguru_22-Apr-2017.docx

This is a fantastic planet, has nurtured not one or two life forms, millions of life forms. The sheer variety of life - of animals, birds, plants, insects and worms - that we have on this planet is mind boggling. Our ability to gobble up the resources on the planet is too much. We exploited the land, we exploited the oceans. Our idea of life has become exploitation. From an atom to anything, we are seeing how to exploit. Every creature, we have killed. Everything needs to be protected. A fierce animal like tiger today needs protection because we have not found any other way, any other vehicle through which we can expand. We are naturally thinking exploiting the physical resource is the only way to expand. Right now, our very economies are built like this - it’s all about more, more and more. This means everybody has to buy more, everybody has to use more but where is that damn more. We are on a exploitative mode, not by choice by compulsiveness. The only and the only solution for this, is consciousness. When humanity begins to operate out of consciousness, then compulsiveness will not rule us. When compulsiveness does not rule us, we will do just what is needed, nothing more nothing less, we have to come to that place - otherwise if they give us another ten planets that we can live on, we will destroy all that in the next two centuries maybe. The only way, the only and only way, the ultimate solution is people start living consciously. It is good human beings who have forgotten that they are only an outcrop of this planet, human beings who have forgotten that they have just temporarily come out of the womb of this earth and one day, they will be sucked back into this earth, for them, 22nd of April is a reminder that you are a part of this earth. You have to think like the earth. If humanity has to live for a long time, you have to think like the earth, act like the earth and be the earth, because that is what you are. END

data/Complete Blog JSON/article-Wisdom-a8a8aa8c-3c53-4f04-9f5b-aec69fa817ca.json

Sadhguru On Ishas Social Projects Isha Gramotsavam, a celebration of rural life and rejuvenation is taking place on September , in Coimbatore. The festival showcases the essence of rural Tamil Nadu, through an elaborate display of rural art, drama, dance, music and food specialties. The event will also highlight the role of sports in rural life by featuring the final rounds of the inter-village sports tournament. In this article, Sadhguru looks at the many social initiatives of Isha Foundation and why they have been created. Sadhguru: We are doing the Isha Yoga programs on many different levels. of our work is in rural India in the villages; of the programs happen without any fee. But we are also focusing on empowering the economic, political and religious leadership. We are very concerned as to how people who hold responsible and powerful positions in the world are, because what kind of leaders we have will determine how the world runs and works. million beneficiaries villages covered million volunteers Over rural herbal gardens created Sadhguru: Left to myself I would like to only be a spiritual source to people because that is the thing I know best; but social realities cannot be ignored. If you want to talk spirituality, you have to first ensure that people are at least eating reasonably well and that there is some sense to their basic life format. If this basic work was done by society, the Guru would have the pleasure of just doing the spiritual part of the work. But when that basic work has not been done, unfortunately we will have to take up that work also. I am not some kind of a social reformer or something but when there is such an express human need around you, you cannot ignore it. Action for Rural Rejuvenation or ARR is an attempt to re-engineer social situations that have gone bad so that human beings can find a conducive atmosphere to blossom. The basic scope and aim of this outreach program is to make peoples life situations worthwhile so that they can find their full potential in whatever they are doing. This project is not just aimed at improving the economic conditions of people, though that is one of the major issues which needs to be handled. It is a way of raising the human spirit and inspiring a human being to stand up by himself. million saplings nurseries Recipient of Indira Gandhi Paryavaran Puraskar Sadhguru: Project GreenHands came about because in the year , certain experts made a prediction that by , of Tamil Nadu will be a desert. When I heard this, I didn't like it. This is a land which has nurtured us for thousands of years. So I spent the first six years from to planting trees in people's minds. That is the most difficult terrain to plant them. Then from onwards, we have been transplanting these plants from people's minds to the land. That has been a joyful process. A few million people have participated in this project Project GreenHands, which has become a great movement in Tamil Nadu. Everyone, including the administration and media are participating. Above all, the common Tamil people have stood up and what they have done is incredible. rural schools students Over children on full scholarships Computer-aided, English-medium education Free noon meals fortified with micronutrients Sadhguru: The Isha Vidhya schools are rural schools. In rural India, of the schooling is still conducted by the state government in the local language. Today, English has become the basic means to participate in the economic activity in the world; your ability to participate in the world essentially depends on whether you know English or not. Our goal is to start English-medium, computer-friendly schools where right from kindergarten, the children start on computers. These schools are for children whose parents are still daily-wage laborers. The only goal in our minds for these kids is to enable them to participate at a higher level of economic activity rather than being an unskilled laborer. We want the Isha Vidhya schools to also serve as model schools, and then generate teachers and adopt government schools. If you look at India as a nation, we neither have the land nor mountains nor forests nor rivers nor even a piece of sky for . billion people. The only thing we have is people. If we leave this population uneducated, unfocused, uninspired and unskilled, we are the biggest disaster waiting. But if these . billion people are educated, focused, balanced and inspired, we are a miracle. We want the Isha Vidhya schools to also serve as model schools, and then generate teachers and adopt government schools. So far, we have adopted government schools with over , children. But close to million children study in the government schools of Tamil Nadu. It only takes a small amount of intervention to get them inspired, educated, and skilled. With a little bit of involvement, a lot can be done. We are making these herculean efforts to put these initiatives together and make them happen with the idea that many other people would be inspired to do the same. We can provide the know-how and share our experience. This needs to happen country-wide. I hope many organizations and especially the corporate sector takes it up and makes it happen. Isha Home School is a residential school situated in the premises of the Isha Yoga Centre, at the foothills of the Velliangiri Mountains, near Coimbatore. Founded in by Sadhguru, Isha Home School offers a stimulating curriculum which encourages a childs natural curiosity and eagerness to learn. The school is affiliated to the ICSE Board for class X and to the ISC Board for the XIth and XIIth standards. Sadhguru: For any human being, education essentially means expanding your horizons, that you are enlarging the scope of your life. Every time you enlarge yourself, it is a joyful experience to get to know something is always a joyful experience. But why is it that dozens of children commit suicide, unable to bear the pressure of examinations? It is simply because of the way education is delivered. Today, education has become so suppressive. The whole education system as it is right now could in many ways be totally destructive to a human being. That does not mean you have to take away education. It just has to be delivered with a more human face to it. Somewhere an inspiration is needed, not just information. Children are not studying anything which is not life it is all life. But todays education is being taught in such a way that it is not life-relevant. I dont know how many students experience chemistry as a life-relevant subject. They dont, though chemistry is very relevant to our lives. We should make education very life-relevant. It must be an exploratory process where the child should feel like he is discovering things, and not as though something is being handed down to him all the time, which he is supposed to remember and write exams on. So we started the Isha Home School. It is called a Home School because it is run like a family. Children of different age groups study together, learn together and grow up together like a family, with very dedicated, highly qualified teachers, who at the same time have a beating heart and create an atmosphere where children grow up learning to live well. Making the children study is not a big thing. If you brush up their intelligence without too much suppression and if you create a thirst for knowing, you will see they will effortlessly pass examinations. Sadhguru: We are engineering a movement that we want to build up in the next few years in such a way that there should be no human being in Tamil Nadu who does not have at least some kind of a simple spiritual process. I have always had this desire but in the last few of years it's become so strong in me because I saw a few of my uncles and aunts dying. They lived well by any normal standards. They got married and everything worked out. Children came and they got educated and found the kind of jobs they are supposed to find. They got married and had their children; everything happened. They are in their and and everything that they wished in their life has happened, but one by one they are dying such a desolate death. Everything that they wished in their life has happened, still it's so barren that when that moment comes, they die so badly. Every human being should have at least one simple spiritual process in his life. If he had that, he would live well every day and he would die well. If you die badly, somewhere inside, every moment of your life you have been empty; every moment of your life you have suffered not knowing what to do with yourself and when the moment of death comes, family, business and all your social stature collapses and you die a miserable death. A miserable death does not happen just like that; you have earned it through your life; you lived a miserable life; maybe the world thought you lived wonderfully but you have lived a miserable life, no question about that. When I saw this, I saw the only thing thats missing is, they dont even have a simple spiritual process in their life. Every human being should have at least one simple spiritual process in his life. If he had that, he would live well every day and he would die well. If he knew how to simply bring this forth within himself on a daily basis, he would live differently within himself. It doesnt matter what the hell is happening with his job or his family, those things need to be managed according to individual skill, but how one lives within himself, what his experience of life is, we could raise it to a different level. So we want to build this spiritual movement where it is very simple, where anyone who comes at any time of the day or night gets initiated in half an hours time. He has something simple to hang on to in his life that he will live well and die well.

data/Complete Blog JSON/article-Wisdom-07b664ae-000c-43b3-9eb2-effb4ce6d24b.json

Indian Economy Not Ready for a Startup Epidemic + entrepreneurs looking to scale up their businesses participated in the sixth annual INSIGHT leadership workshop at Isha Yoga Center in Coimbatore from November -, . In an interview, Sadhguru talked about the Indian startup ecosystem, and the Rally for Rivers initiative and challenges ahead. Q: You drove over , km across states to create awareness for Rally for Rivers. What is the plan of action going forward? Sadhguru: The real rally for rivers begins now. The driving part was just the beginning. But it brought an unprecedented participation from people, with million participating in one movement in a months time in one way or the other. This shows the maturity of the people and polity across the spectrum of political parties. It makes Indias future very bright because when things really matter, we come together and make it happen. Since October , there have been many significant moments. We have formed a national board with five prominent members. We have had meetings with Niti Aayog, and the Prime Minister has constituted a body with which they are interfacing. If you look at the states, Maharashtra is proactive and is ahead of all states. Sudhir Mungantiwar, the minister of forest department and finance, has said they will plant crore trees in the Ganga basin, which is largely in Uttar Pradesh! This is the first time a state minister is consulting and participating in plantation in another state. This is the level of coherence and enthusiasm that this initiative has brought. We have also signed MoUs with various states. We need determination in terms of political leadership, both at the state and central government levels. We are seeing it already but we now need to translate that into action. Q: This is an ambitious initiative. What are the key challenges in the implementation? Sadhguru: The big challenge is to set up the necessary legal and enforcement structures as the exercise needs them to protect people who invest and those who own the land. The government is also looking at forming a legislative structure to accommodate various aspects. When we come to farmland, we are looking at how to encourage micro-irrigation systems. Generally, in my experience most micro irrigation systems in the country that rural farmers invest in, last only three to four years on an average. After that it fails. The farmer is not going to invest once again in it because he is no longer eligible for the subsidy. So micro-irrigation will work well only if it is outsourced to private agencies. If we go for micro irrigation, the land will be capable of holding water, erosion will be contained, and we are trying to make this organic, so fertilizer content will not flow into the river, because life in the river is hugely affected by fertilizers and chemicals going in. Q: INSIGHT is all about entrepreneurs trying to scale up. What are your views on the startup scenario in India? Sadhguru: I have met people who say they have set up startups. Or in other words, they are essentially looking at the business itself as a product, where you build a product or a machine and then sell it. That is definitely fine if it happens to a certain extent, but I think we are in an overdrive right now. Some people will call me conservative, but the Indian economy is not ready for a startup epidemic. I am saying this because there is no safety net right now for those who fail. In our country, when people fall, they fall really hard. Thats not the case in America. When someone falls, the economy is such that it supports them. India is in such a stage of economic development where we need solid businesses that last many years and will build teams, possibilities and experiences. If I run a business which involves , people, I am not just employing people, I am building their experience. Out of these , people, even if people go out and start their own businesses, that creates a tremendous ecosystem. I think startups are great, but right now there is no atmosphere of mentorship or of an ecosystem which supports startups. I am told there is a tremendous amount of money lost in food apps in Bangalore. Everyone started food apps but how many survived? Obviously some people invested and lost a lot of money. If it keeps going like this, people will slowly conclude that India is not the place to invest. Q: Your advice to young entrepreneurs? Sadhguru: People should look at building long-term businesses, not just selling a business. If an opportunity comes, its fine to sell it, but you should not start a business with the intention to sell, because Indias economy is still not mature enough for that. Right now, there is entrepreneurial enthusiasm, and if this has to be maintained, substantial success has to be demonstrated. Q: There have been some big policy changes in the past year that have also created some uncertainty in certain sections. Is the government on the right track? Sadhguru: If you allow me an analogy, it is like this government is trying to lay the foundation stone to make a new building. We want to become a developed economy and the right moves have been made in that direction. The fundamentals are right but the details are a bit unclear. It is our duty as a citizen of this nation to see these details are sorted out so that we dont get tangled up in the details. I feel the ministries looking at the major sectors in the country power, infrastructure, IT, telecom, agriculture etc. and above all the finance ministry and PMO must meet practitioners of these major sectors and listen to them and get their feedback on steps taken. This exercise should be done in right earnest, and then they can make up their minds on what to do, and how to do it. To sort out the detail, there is no better person than those who are involved in the situations. If this step is taken, then the big steps that have been taken should take proper shape.

data/Forest Flower/Thinking Out of the Box - Sadhguru at Pre Davos... - News _ Happenings - FF Mar 2009 - final.txt

Thinking Out of the Box – Sadhguru at Pre-Davos Conferences in Zurich The World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos traditionally brings together top business leaders, international political leaders, selected intellectuals and journalists to address the world’s most pressing issues. In view of the current economic crisis and the threat of global recession, the pressure on the leadership of the world to find solutions is high and advice from someone who has the necessary clarity precious. Not surprisingly, Sadhguru was showered with invitations to address meetings, conferences and sessions, even before this year’s Annual Meeting officially started. His trip to Switzerland started a day early with the Emerging Markets Investors Roundtable in Zurich that gathered about 150 CEOs, members of the investor’s community and thought leaders on their way to Davos. As a panelist on two sessions, Sadhguru shared the floor with eminent speakers such as N.K. Singh, Rajendra Pawar, Chairman of NIIT, India and François Barrault, CEO of BT Global Services. The main topic was, of course, the current global financial meltdown and the impact that it would have on the economies of developing countries. Amidst dire predictions for the future from the other panelists, Sadhguru brought the economic and financial issues back to their human dimension, pointing out that instead of looking at people as markets – whether emerging or developed – we need to look at them simply as people. This will bring about a more inclusive and expansive economy. He went on to explain, “The current crisis is an opportunity for re-evaluating and redefining economic growth according to more inclusive and ecological parameters which will expand human wellbeing to a wider base of people. If the economy is founded on a wider base, the whole structure is bound to have a more solid footing.” Amidst a sea of dark business suits, Sadhguru immediately found himself at the center of the participants’ attention. When seeing Sadhguru for the first time, one of the conference’s participants spontaneously remarked, “I don’t know who he is, but he is a wonderful man…he is so beautiful.” Later that day, Sadhguru was slated to address a symposium organized by the Swiss Indian Chamber of Commerce (SICC) on the theme of innovation. Swiss parliamentarian Doris Fiala who had been at Isha Yoga Center last April with a Swiss delegation of parliamentarians introduced Sadhguru to the members of the SICC. The evening started with an address by the newly appointed ambassador of Switzerland to India, Mr. Philippe Welti. Sadhguru opened his topic “Thinking Outside of the Box” by pointing out that whatever thought we generate, it essentially comes from the data that we consciously and unconsciously collect from outside. “The first condition to think outside of the box is to come out of the bone box” he said (pointing to his head). “Thought is essentially a projection into the future. Thinking outside of the box needs to be way beyond improvements of what we are doing right now. For that, cultivating the ability to see clearly is essential. “Just as we have moments of activity, we can also stop that activity. The same needs to be achieved with the mind, where one can simply decide when thoughts should be on and when they should be stopped. It is in these spaces in between thoughts that people can achieve maximum clarity of perception.” He concluded by saying that it is essential that everyone invests in developing clarity and that this is something everyone can achieve. In the discussion that ensued between the panelists, as some of the speakers asserted that one of the best triggers for innovative thinking was crisis, Sadhguru pointed out to the contrary. “Crisis will lead to reaction and the urge of self-preservation becomes dominant. In these kinds of situations, energies are focused on ensuring survival. It is possible that one can design enhanced means of survival but this is not innovative thinking. In times of crisis, we tend to go in survival mode and close the door to anything new. Moments of crisis will spur certain desperate measures which may feel like a certain improvement.” He continued to say, “True out of the box thinking requires a certain state of relaxation where one can simply see. A certain sense of relaxation and focus is needed because in moments where intensity and relaxation come at the same time, that is when your body, your mind and emotions function at their highest peak.” The audience and organizers were delighted by what they were hearing, and what the moderator referred to as thought-provoking remarks. The conference concluded on a lighter note when in response to a question about improving trade relations about India and Switzerland, Sadhguru jokingly suggested that if Switzerland shared their secret of making chocolate, then India would share the secrets of making chutney. As the otherwise gloomy mood among the participants brightened, an opportunity to step out to the box and move on to a new level of clarity opened up for them. Whether each individual will pursue this possibility or not will make all the difference now – in their own lives and for all those who are impacted by their decision-making.