 Through the mystic eye, eminent personalities, from various walks of life, in conversation with Sadguru. This week's episode features Justice Jasti Chalameshwar in conversation with Sadguru, as they explore the pressing issue of corruption and reviving the national spirit in India. Mr. Chalameshwar served as the additional judge of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh. In 2007, he became the Chief Justice of Guwahati High Court and was later transferred as the Chief Justice of Kerala High Court. In October 2011, he was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court of India. I suppose so long as human beings being what they are and the society is what it is, there are suddenly bound to be certain things which are right and certain conduct which is right, certain conduct which is not right. I don't think anybody would contribute to the proposition that corruption is right from any point of view. Somebody who is sitting in a public office making money using his office. Let me tell you, see you are calling it corruption. I have had the unfortunate privilege of sometimes moving closely with the people whom you consider corrupt. And you will be amazed. You will be amazed and initially it was shocking to me but when I really looked through them, I see the reasoning, they don't think they are corrupt. I'll tell you, they don't think they are corrupt. They just say everybody would do the same thing, I got the opportunity, they don't have the opportunity. So they are only complaining that they don't have the opportunity. So what is corruption, what is not corruption itself is not defined. I am not trying to give a escape route for all these people who are doing horrible things to the nation. So the only thing that can fix this country in terms of corruption is, we need people who have a huge passion for this nation, okay? So right now we need somebody who is capable and who has great passion for this nation. That is the only way it is not all problems will be fixed. That is the only way we start moving towards a solution. Right now we are heading for a big problem because what holds a nation together, everybody must understand, if you want to run a nation, whatever the nation, you must understand what is it that binds the people. There is some passion because nation is just an idea. It is not a reality, let's understand this. Nation is just an idea. What is it that binds all the people as one nation? That idea and that passion has to be constantly strengthened. If you constantly keep weakening it and then try to hold the nation together, you will not succeed. This is the time, this generation of people have this responsibility that if we do not change the trajectory of this nation, the way it's going right now, there will be no one India in another fifty years time. It may not take fifty years. How does this generation do it? See, how is not one aspect alone, there are many aspects to it. See, it's all right people wear imported watches, imported clothes, but they shouldn't import their brains and hearts from somewhere else. It's very important. And that is happening in the form of our education, in the way we are culturing ourselves. There is nothing wrong with anything that comes from outside the country. We must take the best that comes from everywhere from the world. That is the nature of any evolving, growing society. But at the same time, what holds us together as a nation should not be sacrificed. If you sacrifice that, you won't be able to hold it together. People will not stay together. You know, you can't hold three, four brothers together. Unless you bind them emotionally and create a passion towards something, you can't bind them together. If the parents did not take care of that, you can't hold them together. They'll go away somewhere. If they live far away, they won't fight. If they come close, they will be in your court. You must understand what holds the nation together. The basic thing that held this nation together was always that in this nation, we did not believe this nor that. Only thing is we knew we have to become free. Liberation was the highest goal. If you keep it that way, if you manage to activate this back in the society, you will see people will stay together. Otherwise, every group will form its own belief systems and they will all go separate. You can't keep them together. At the very birth of this nation, we broke into three pieces. Every hundred years we may come to it or less if we do not take care of us, few fundamentals. And what measures are to be taken to create that atmosphere where people walk towards that goal? It's best that what you're strong on, you build on that. You don't try to build an America and United States of America and India, it's never going to work. You build an India in India, a strong powerful India you can build. The North American people are there the way they are because they came there for a different reason and they came together for that reason and that reason is working for them. Here it's not like that. This is a completely different reality. You're trying to superimpose another reality upon yourself, that will not work. This is not against anything. This is not for anything. I'm speaking English language, I'm entire. So I'm not against anything for that matter. But I'm for that which works, I'm against all those things which do not work. Why do you want to invest time and life and people's lives in things that do not work? We clearly know. From my experience of working with the village, being in the villages, I clearly know at least fifty to fifty-five percent of the people, their existence is like cattle, not like human beings, the quality of life. Okay? They're somehow managing so we think they're okay. So they're somehow managing, that is not life. After sixty-seventy years, two generations of people, their lives are gone and if still we can't find basic solutions, that means we're doing something wrong, isn't it? And why do you think it didn't work for sixty-seven years? Because your analysis and understanding of it is essentially because of this. We are trying to transform people from being Indian to being English. Do you understand? English language is the only thing we should have picked up because that's a passport to the world. I'm saying what we pick up, if you go shopping, what you pick up from a shop is by choice. If you pick up compulsively or you buy whatever they're selling, it's a stupid thing. So the idea of Madhma Gandhi and the rest of the clan fighting for freedom and getting the British out was so that we could choose what we want to do with our lives. We did not choose because we were lethargic or we were just overwhelmed or we were just... our idea of superiority was, you know, misplaced. We somewhere thought anybody who conquers must be superior. We just try to implement that system as it is, including the judiciary, everything as it is. See, I'm not talking about traditional values. I'm not talking about India being an isolated nation doing its own thing. No. As I said earlier, if you go shopping, you must choose what you want. You must not take whatever the salesman is pushing on you. Something is 50% discount, so you don't buy it. You buy something that you need, isn't it? So even from the rest of the world, the same thing. You pick up what is going to be good for us. You don't pick up something that they're peddling to us. So what they don't need, they would like to peddle to you. You should have the sense not to take it in. You must take in what we need and what will work for us. English language works for us or we picked it up. Maybe we didn't pick it up. It was thrust upon us. It doesn't matter. But somehow it worked out for us. Everything else you must see from a simple thing to anything. I will say, you know, there's a classic example. The tribal school close to the ashram where we've been working. First, I went there about fifteen years ago. Do see, we thought we will, you know, participate in the school in some way and I wanted to see how the children are. I went there and all these kids, there's just about eleven, twelve kids in the school and they're all wearing ties. The ties are worn here, like a necklace, okay? Long string and tie here. So I said, first thing is, remove these damn ties. Why are these children hanging these ties here just in walking around? It's not a necklace. But the kids don't know what's the difference. Something you have to wear like this, they know only. This one they're wearing. In Tamil Nadu, if you wear tie in the summer, it's as good as a nose, you know. I'm saying from something so simple, what food to eat, what is comfortable in tropical weather, what is the best thing to eat, what is the best thing to wear is something that we have to look at, isn't it? You just don't have to imitate somebody simply because they managed to conquer you. They did not conquer you because they were superior people. They had gunpowder and you didn't. That's all.