 Welcome, Satguruji. It gives me immense pleasure on behalf of the entire IIT Kanpur community to welcome you here. Thank you so much for taking your time out coming here. Ever since the campus has received news of your arrival, we've received thousands of questions. We've been flooded with questions and we've spent quite some time deciding on selecting questions which cover the most ground. To begin with, so there have been, saved the soil volunteers, we've seen them around campus for the past few days. We just saw an incredible video of the entire campaign and the fact that you're traveling 30,000 kilometers on the motorcycle across continents, through European winters, through Middle Eastern summers, I imagine it must be quite strenuous. I saw this video where there are people surrounding you and they're trying to touch your feet and risky as well. So the question that came up was in this era where there are avenues for mobilizing the youth through social media, through the internet, what is the significance of you physically taking a motorcycle, taking this risk and riding 30,000 kilometers? Namaskaram. Well, last 30 years I've been talking about soil in its variety of ways. I have spoken to ministries, heads of state, various responsible people, youth, everybody says, Sadhguru, this is fantastic, Sadhguru, this is great what you're saying, what you're doing, and then they go to sleep. So I've been looking at what to do to wake up these people because they are capable of sleeping through a war, yes? Because especially in India, since 1947 whatever wars have happened, because of the efficiency of our forces, wars have remained only on the borders. But I've been talking to many people, they believe wars are fought only on borders. No, war has kept at the border because of the efficiency of our forces. If they are not good, it will be here in Kanpur. Hello? So people have become like this, they are able to sleep through just about anything. Is sleep a crime? Hello? Is sleep a crime? No, sleep is not crime. But if you sleep through your life you will be a disaster, and disasters are worse than crimes usually. Crime affects a few people, disaster wipes out civilizations. So right now we are facing that kind of a disaster, a possible disaster if we don't do the right things. And if we walk into it, many of us will not walk out of it for sure. So it's extremely important that we mitigate the disaster. We turn back before we enter that disastrous space. So as I said, thirty years have been talking about it, demonstrating it in so many ways with large-scale projects. All you get is silly questions. Even now you're talking about thirty thousand kilometers. How much carbon monoxide does your vehicle produce? This is a question they get. And they're going in the tuk-tuk-tuk auto rickshaw that produces eight to ten times more carbon dioxide than my motorcycle, which is Euro six. All right? I'm saying this is the kind of silly conversations that will go on. So I thought I had to do something to wake them up. Can I walk thirty thousand kilometers? I will die for sure. If I cycle, most probably I'll die. Motorcycle, I could die, but I didn't. I could have. Then they don't understand. The people are even talking about, you're riding a luxurious motorcycle. The idiot has no idea what is two wheels. There is no luxury on a motorcycle. It's backbreaking, all right? But they think it is luxurious motorcycle. Like this, why I'm saying this is I'm not concerned about these things. But unfortunately, this is the level of understanding people have. How do you wake them up? So if I drive a car, they won't wake up. If I fly around, they won't wake up. So I thought motorcycle is dangerous enough. It could kill me, but it didn't. So it's okay. So I had to choose that kind of a means which is dangerous because I don't hold any office. I'm not a minister. I'm not a chief minister. I'm not a prime minister. I don't wear any military uniform or anything to have any kind of authority over anybody. The only thing is millions of people, they love and respect the hold for me. I thought I will challenge that by risking my life because I put my life out there and they saw videos where it could be really risky. They haven't seen everything. It'll come out slowly because they have people have no time to edit. They've been simply shooting things. When they see that they will realize that this was not a joke. This was not some joyride. This is this event right now in IIT Kanpur is my 532nd event in from March 21st. I want you to imagine how many hours of work that is when I'm riding almost all the time. I'm talking to media, interviews, social media, influencers, all kinds of things. And when you're talking a serious subject and riding, trying to get to the next event all the time is not a joyride and it's terribly risky. So the idea of risking my life was at least that should wake them up. Unfortunately, it has till today over 2.5 billion people have spoken about soil since 21st of March, which has never happened in the history of this world. It's not happened 2.5 billion people talking about soil. When I started in London the day before I started, a lady journalist was interviewing me and said, Satguru, why soil? Who will ever support you? Why are you choosing something so unromantic? At least fix the sky, you know? Do something. Not soil. Who will ever be inspired by soil? Well, people have been inspired by soil and 2.5 billion people have responded. Seventy-four nations are on board. Remaining nations are all looking at the policy. And in India, we have signed MOUs with all the states that we have passed through, Gujarat, Rajasthan, UP and of course with the prime minister, the central government is moving in that direction. So right now I have no doubt that the world will move in this direction. Right now the concern is only the pace. At what pace will they move? So for the pace, this is why we're still continuing the journey. To keep the pace up, all of you should keep your voices up. If you keep your voices up, then the governments will put some gas into it, otherwise it will, you know, it'll stall down here and there. So we need to keep the pace up, but at least we've shifted the direction. Otherwise, I want you to know this in the last two-and-a-half years, I've been talking to various agricultural ministries. Eighty-five percent of the nations on the planet still address soil as an inert substance, not as a living system. But now this one thing has happened with the COP15, when I address this, that now nations are beginning to recognize soil as the largest living system, not just on this planet in the known universe. This is the largest living system. Phenomenal things are happening beneath your feet. Who you and me are is a consequence of what is happening in the first fifteen to eighteen inches, not just because of the food that we eat, even in evolutionary terms it is so. Just to put this in context, according to scientists, they predict somewhere around a billion years ago, for the first time one smart algae or a fungi discovered how to cook their food by using the perpetual energy of the sun. Once that phenomena started, today we call that phenomena as photosynthesis, once that started, only then the oxygen content in the atmosphere started improving. Before photosynthesis, the oxygen level in the atmosphere was a shade over one percent. Today it is twenty-one percent. You and me are alive because of that. You and me happened because of that. Complex life on this planet happened because of the increase in oxygen content in the atmosphere. So our very existence here, our evolution here has happened only because of what is happening in the first fifteen to eighteen inches of top soil. And unfortunately we have come to a place where nearly fifty percent of the top soil is gone. If there is no human footprint on the planet, if there are no human beings at all, then it would take six hundred to eight hundred years to form one inch of top soil. But with the human footprint, with the level of activity we are performing right now, one inch of top soil would take thirteen thousand years to form. Should we not take care of this? I think someone risking his own life for the better good and going through such a strenuous journey deserves a big round of applause from everyone. So my next question would be, the youth today is very aware about mental health and mental peace and also the problems related to it. But I think, especially seeing the students, when it comes to themselves, they kind of go into sort of denial. So I would quote an example. One of my friends, he was going through a very rough patch because of many academic reasons, personal and family issues as well. So some of my friends and I decided that let's just talk to him about it. And we did talk to him about it at length and in the end we just said, we think it will be better for you if you consult a specialist or a therapist. But the moment we said it, he lashed out and got very offended. So do you think there is a way for students like us to help other students face and deal with these problems without offending or hurting their feelings? Well, I think your problem is that you got admitted to your premier institution in the country, so you're suffering that. If you work at the place, there are so many who are willing to take it. If you, if you quit, there are so many people willing to take your place in India. But every one of you, there must be ten thousand students waiting to be in this institution. You shouldn't be complaining about any damn thing out here. So mental health, see, unfortunately in our country, it's become fashionable to pick up anything that comes from the West, good, bad, ugly. Doesn't matter what comes, we pick up everything from the West, particularly from United States of America. I think it's the influence of Hollywood and music and stuff like that, which is such a significant influence. I mean, today if you look at any of the city population, if you go to Mumbai or Delhi or even particularly Bangalore, if you only look below the knees of everybody, it looks like you're in California because everybody's in Denims, even here two of you are in Denims. This girl is still Indian. I'm not against Denims. I must tell you when I was a youth, I lived in Levi's only. Even Wrangler was considered too bad for us. We won't get into Wranglers, only Levi's. I lived like that. So I'm saying that is the level of influence it has on us. Simply see, what these Denims are is American workman's clothes, all right? But it has become the world's fashion, not just in India, just everywhere. Is it right or wrong? It's not for me to say it's. We were the ones who started in 60s, 70s. Now you're still continuing. I'm happy that our fashion is still kept up. Because it was very hard to get Levi's pens. It had to be smuggled into India. You had to go to some… buy some Burma Bazaar. You need a 32-inch, they have only forty-eight inches. You have to go and alter it for your size. All kinds of problems, okay? Today you have your own stuff. You're exactly what you want. And because of that, we would probably… you usually have only two pairs. And because we were riding all the time, the seat of the pant will get torn and the knee will get torn. So we put patches on it, leather patches on it, all kinds. But now you buy it torn, pre… pre-torn. But the thing continues. So this is not a commentary on fashion. But what I'm saying is we're unfortunately picking up various attitudes which are negative to life, mental illness. This is a very unpopular thing to say. Already I've been attacked for this continuously and trolled continuously. But I'll tell you the truth whether you like it or you don't like it. If you want to troll, you can troll. If you want to realize, you can realize. See, there is this. You know according to the genetic scientists, they say the difference… DNA difference between you and a chimpanzee is only 1.23 percent. 1.23 percent. Do you pass any subject in this institution? Hello? Teachers, professors, do you pass anybody for 1.23 percent? No. 1.23 percent is not much of a percentage, isn't it? But that is the DNA difference between you and a chimpanzee. So physiologically, that is how close we are to a chimpanzee. But in terms of intelligence and awareness, we're worlds apart from a chimpanzee and this is our problem. We have an intelligence for which there is no stable enough platform unless you work on it. Because there is no stable enough platform, your own intelligence freaks you every day in and day out. You can give it… it seems I was talking to some top psychiatrists in UK and they were saying there are seventy-two varieties of psych… psychological ailments. One of them happens to be compulsive nose-picking. I was surprised but it seems nose-picking is one of the psychological ailments. So there are seventy-two of them, you can choose which one you want. I don't know which one your friend chose but essentially your intelligence has turned against you. You understand what I'm saying? If your intelligence was working for you, would you torture yourself with your own intelligence? I'm asking. Your intelligence is here to make this wonderful. But right now your intelligence is working to make this horrible. Should we address this in a fundamental way or should we push a cat around this and say, give it all kinds of names and this and that? There are some people who are unfortunately pathological ill, that's a different matter. Most other psychological ailments, if you're willing, only if you're willing, if you're willing you can turn yourself around. But with both even physical and psychological ailments, lot of people like ailments because they get lot of attention when they are not very well. But what is the use of that attention? You can live without such attention, hello? See, this is developed from childhood. When you're a little boy, if you're happy and jumping all over the place, your parents will come and say, shut up, go to bed, read something. But if you're sitting when a coroner boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, they'll hug you, kiss you and boo, boo, boo, boo, what's happening to you, all this you got the best attention. So somewhere deep inside you think being miserable is better than being joyful. For this you pay a whole price. This develops from a very early age in most homes and evolves into various other things. Situations will come in our lives in a way that we can't imagine many times. If only situations that you expect comes, you are not doing anything worthwhile. If you're doing something worthwhile, so many situations that you don't know how to handle will come to you. Every time a situation comes that you are little challenged by that situation, if you are going to internally break down, well, this life is not going to go very far. It doesn't matter whether we go as far as somebody else or not. But we must find full expression to what this is. It's very important because every life is aspiring to find fullest expression. It's not just about human beings. Whether it's an ant or an insect or an elephant or a mango tree, they're all striving to become full-fledged whatever they are. The same is true with the human being. But unfortunately, because once again coming back to education, right from kindergarten school, they're telling you how you must be ahead of somebody else. It doesn't matter even if you're no good. You must be number one. If I must be number one, what should everybody else be? All must be below me. So my whole pleasure is everybody else is doing worse than me. This is sickness as far as I'm concerned. This is not well-being. So like this we have developed many things. Because of this human being suffering, the fragility of the mind and your own intelligence turning around and poking you, there are ways to turn this around. This land, this country, this culture is deeply invested in the inner well-being of the human being. And as today WHO is predicting a mental health illness or mental health pandemic… I'm sorry, mental health pandemic means… what a pandemic means is if any one person here has something, a virus, all of us could get it. That's a pandemic. Mental health pandemic means every one of us is capable of going cuckoo right now. This is not a good world we're creating because human being means you're the flower of evolution on this planet. You're the peak of the evolution, isn't it? Hello? You're on top of the world, but you're not experiencing life as top of the world. You feel crushed by your own intelligence. If you had the brain of an earthworm, you would be peaceful for sure. Hello? And you would and you would be eco-friendly too. Now your problem is your intelligence. To give you this much cerebral capability, it took millions of years of evolution. Now you're complaining about it. No, you must learn to handle it, not complain about it. This is the greatest thing we have. This incredible sense of memory, fantastic sense of imagination, we can think about ten different things at the same time. This is the capacity that we need to enjoy because this is not just come like that. It is millions of years of R&D. Hello? Yes or no? Now you're saying, if I had half a brain I would be fine. That is true. If you remove half your brain right now, you will be peaceful. It is unfortunately true. You know everywhere today even so-called spiritual leaders are going about saying, peace of mind is ultimate goal of life. I'm asking you, like you talked about your friend, if today you want to enjoy your dinner, even if you're not ecstatic, at least you must be peaceful, isn't it? If you want to take a walk in the evening, even if you're not bursting with joy, at least you must be peaceful. If you want to enjoy the company of whoever is sitting next to you, even if you're not dripping love, at least you must be peaceful, yes or no? So I'm asking you, is peace a most fundamental requirement or is it the ultimate goal of life? So when you talk about mental illnesses, you've lost this fundamental peace that you cannot sit here with ease. Something is going on within you. Well it might have come to such a level of compulsion, you believe that you didn't cause it. It is like you throw a pebble and now it's become an avalanche. You can't believe you did it. But everything that happens within you, everything, your thought, your emotion, your chemistry, your health, your well-being, everything that happens within you is your fundamental responsibility. Hello? What happens around you, there may be many forces. What happens within you is hundred percent yours, isn't it? If you don't see that, you will never fix it. If you do not understand the way I am right now is entirely my responsibility. This is what… this is why this culture is significant because this is a… this may be a little shocking for people and again people will get me into controversies, which I don't want right now with safe soil going on. But what can I do? What can I do? See this is a godless country, you must understand this. This is the only nation and only culture on the planet. There is no one man sitting up there and managing your life. If this is a culture where we always told you, your life is your karma. Karma, karma means action. Your action, you're doing physical action, psychological action, emotional action, energy action, you're doing something and you're doing something wrong. If wrong results are coming, you're doing something wrong, maybe you're not aware of it. If you have… if somebody is saying nose picking is a ailment, maybe your nose will bleed one day because of excessive picking. Hello? So if you say this is an ailment, well, anything can be an ailment. You can make anything into a sickness. Eating can be a disorder. Eating disorders are there, right? Somebody eats too much, somebody doesn't eat, somebody eats and pukes, all kinds of things. You're supposed to say, all this is right, you know this everybody has a right to be sick. Of course you have right to be sick, you have right to die. I know that. But life is about being healthy, exuberant, full-fledged, taking this life to its fullest possibility. That's what the life is longing for. What opinions you create in the society is different. But every life human or otherwise is longing to be full-fledged, isn't it so? Hmm? Life wants fullness. Life doesn't want ailments. Ailments today we are making them normal. This is going to be lot of trouble for me once it goes out. But I'm telling you because you're young people, it's very, very important that your intelligence never turns against you. Once your intelligence turns against you, no force in the universe can help you, nothing can do anything to you. Because once your thought, your emotion, your own intelligence, your own chemistry turns against you, there's really nothing to do. Thank you so much for such an insightful answer. So my next question to you is one that I believe might resonate with a lot of first-year undergraduates. And first-year students usually copy answers but not questions. So moving on to the question. This was a question that was asked by a lot of people in the feedback that was received. So a lot of us, we've spent almost two years, we've led a secluded life with minimal socializing while preparing for the exam. And now when we come to college, everybody expects us to effortlessly socialize and network and that is supposed to be the norm because that is important in order to move on in life. But if there is a person who is introverted and reserved and it is not his or her natural personality trait to mingle with people and he or she, for him it is a major leap out of the comfort zone to, you know, socialize. So should such a person make conscious efforts to network and socialize or is it okay to be comfortable in one's own skin and be at peace with oneself and be happy with the personality that you possess? To use the personnel, the word personality three times in this question. The word personality comes from the source word persona. Persona means in the Greek drama they would have a mask which is held with a handle like this. Now let's say you're playing Ramayana. You're only Rama, you're only Sita, you're only Hanuman, you're only anything because there are no so many actors. There's just three of you but playing twenty-five roles. So you have a Rama mask, you hold that and talk like Rama. You have a Hanuman mask, hold that and talk like Hanuman. So this was the Greek drama. So these masks was called persona. So holding it on your face and playing that role and then keeping it down is perfectly fine. But if you held it on and it got stuck to your face and you became Hanuman, you can worship him but that you don't want to be Hanuman, isn't it? Hello? So if Hanuman mask got stuck to your face, then you don't like it. Right now that's what you're saying. I have my own personality. I want you to understand your personality is created by you. Whether you crafted it unconsciously or consciously is the only question. Maybe parts of it is conscious, parts of it is unconscious for most human beings. But how much of it is conscious will determine how much freedom you have, of which way you wish to be. So do not first assume that personality is some God-given thing and it's stuck to you. You can change your persona whichever way you want. Whichever way you want. I announced beforehand, three years later I'm going to change my personality, beware all of you who know me very well, be careful because when I change my persona, don't think I've lost it. I'm going to change it. Don't lose it. Hang on tight because when I change you will think something has gone wrong and fall off. I want them two, three years ahead of time. In spite of that some people fall off because they think suddenly something has gone wrong. So if you look at my life, I've changed my personality many times significantly because the activity was different and I was pushing myself into a different level of activity. I needed a different persona and I crafted a new persona and became that. Now am I doing pretty well as a motorcyclist? For thirty-two years I had never ridden a motorcycle. You know way back when I was young I did. For about four, four and a half years I literally lived on a motorcycle but after that I never got onto a motorcycle, not even think of one. Now suddenly when we were doing this Kavya recalling in Rally for Rivers somebody brought a motorcycle and said, Sadhguru, you must ride. I thought, can I ride this damn thing after thirty-two years? Can I really ride a motorcycle? Then I went and sat on it, then I realized I haven't lost a day. So since then I've been riding because the pandemic also came and they said you must do social distancing. The best way was to ride fast enough so that nobody's around you. So I kept social distancing continuously riding across the world. So what I'm saying is your persona or your personality should not be a concrete block. It must be a malleable thing. You can make it according to the situations. If your personality doesn't fit into a given situation, unnecessarily it'll get a beating, isn't it? Hello? It will naturally get a beating. If you try to put a square rod into your round hole, it'll get a beating, isn't it? Similarly the other way round, so personality should be flexible. There is no such thing as this is my personality. You practice one thing, tomorrow morning be a different person. Okay? Till you come out, you wake up in the morning till you come out and meet other people. You be what? Well, who is your favorite film star? Man? Shahrukh Khan. Okay, from the time you wake up till you step out into the college, you be Shahrukh Khan in your room. Okay? Walk like him, talk like him, be that. Do all the funny things that he does. Okay? I'm saying you will see flexible personality is a joy to carry. But if you're stuck up personality, whatever kind it is, once it becomes like a fixed thing, personality becomes a straight jacket which will not allow you to move, which will take away your freedom without knowing what's happening. So let personality be something that you consciously carry. When situations demand a different personality, let's carry a different personality. There's nothing wrong with that. Shahrukh Khan, is it okay? So, Sadhguru, before I ask my next question, I'll try to relate it to two things you set up till now. So, you spoke about how this entire system of hierarchy is pathological where you say, I am first, everybody is below me. And you started off by reminding us that we're in this prestigious institution and we should not have much to complain about. But it often is the case that this hierarchy emerges most strongly in these prestigious institutions only because the mechanisms for filtration are that strong. So, this is a question I've gotten from a lot of people in the feedback we received. Is this realization they're getting after coming to IIT where whatever it appeared to them from the outside is not what they were expecting when they came in? They feel that they, so a lot of my friends, they go through this phase where they talk about how all their ambitions, ideas, ideals up till now have been borrowed from social conditioning, from their parents, etc. And my friend asked me this question and he summed it up this way. He said, I don't think there's anything I can call mine. And so, the question I think in brief what the question I'm trying to ask is, we have these cliches notions of a true calling of this authentic self. So, can you tell us what that would mean in a spiritual context and in the context of a youth today? See, this whole thing of calling, because now the calling in twenty-first century has been slightly tweaked by people because they feel a little embarrassed about the original calling. Calling essentially means God is calling and telling you what you should do. That's where the word comes from. I have a calling means, God is calling me and telling me become an engineer when he himself was not. So, this comes from a religious context where people say, I have a calling. Once again it's very foreign to in the Indian context, but we have taken it up because today we have come to a place there is nothing specific that we can say Indian it's gotten all mixed up. We are a kaleidoscope of many things. It's okay. So, this aspect of I came to IIT thinking something it's some hallowed space. It is not like that just ordinary people teaching some silly subject. We thought something, some that we thought the professors will come with a halo, but they don't even have hair. So, this kind of disappointments are there. So, I want you to understand this. See, if you were interested in engineering and you came here, you wouldn't feel this way. You were interested in a social stature and you came here. Now you naturally are disappointed. You should be. Actually, there should be an ejection system in the first year, is there? Those who come with social callings, they're all ejected. If you genuinely wanted to become an engineer, engineering is fascinating for you, then you would find many ways to make your stay in IIT very interesting and growing process for yourself. But you came here thinking if you come here, the whole world will bow down to you. Well, such a thing did not happen and I'm glad it's not happening because just because you entered an institution or you fell out of one, if the world starts bowing down, that world will not go very far. If you become a great engineer, people will bow down to you, that's a different matter. So, I think entering any place for wrong reasons always gives you this thing. This happens with an institution, this happens with a job, this happens with marriage. Hello? Because you got into those things for wrong reasons. Out of your love for somebody, if it happens, then it would be different. You thought by this you will get something else, then you will be disappointed. The same thing with this institution, this is not… This institution did not drop down from heaven or something, this is human beings built it. And offer reasonable standards, better than most other things that we built in the country. So, only if you want to become a good engineer, you really passionate about becoming an engineer, engineering has fascinated you. Then this would be a nice place. If engineering has not fascinated you, you're looking at social prestige and whatever else, I'm glad they're frustrating you. They should frustrate you even more, because for the wrong reasons we are doing things. So, about hierarchy, about filtration systems, see the question is not about who is superior to whom. But at the same time, competence is one thing that you cannot ignore in the world. You cannot ignore competence. The moment you ignore competence, then it's a downhill society. So, in any given place competence will be valued, competence will decide who sits where. I think we have to come to terms with it. But in the kindergarten school, you get 100, I get 99 and you're superior to me. This is a bad trend. But at this stage of your life, when you're trying to enter into a certain aspect of life, competence has to be identified. If competence is not identified and rewarded, then what is the point of life? It will be like that. This doesn't mean others have to be treated badly. Maybe there is somebody here who is in engineering college but they would have made a good chef. Maybe they would have made a good musician. They're just in the wrong place. They should volunteer in the kitchen and they may find they're calling. So I'm saying not everybody may have competence for a certain subject. But the problem of education is we have millions and millions of youth like you. We have to put them into something. We don't have million subjects. We only have that many subjects. So we put all these millions into those subjects. Whether it is you're enjoying it or it's painful for you, it doesn't matter we're putting you through the same extruder because that's all there is. We still have not been able to create that kind of education where each one will be nurtured according to their competence. There are only certain number of extruders. We have to push you through that. In an institution like this, there is little more room for manoeuvring compared to other institutions where it is simply one thing to do. But is this a perfect place? I don't think so. And I don't think this is any perfect place. You know this is not just here. Always people are coming. If people come to Isha Yoga Center for two days, people come and say, Sadhguru, this is like heaven. I said, don't ever say this. I don't know how that place is managed. Here we are taking a lot of pains to manage this well. I don't know how that place is managed because I see wherever they say it is a place of God, it is pretty badly managed all around the place. So I don't say this is heaven. This is Isha Yoga Center. We are proud the way it is because we take enormous care to keep it the way it is. Even here, because we are a volunteer organization, you are here compulsively, right? We are a volunteer organization. Everybody is there by choice, but they'll come and say, Sadhguru, I can't work with this guy. He's horrible. Oh, she's terrible. I can't even look at her face like this every day. So I tell them, see in this world, there are only such horrible people everywhere. If what you're doing is very significant, if you realize what you're doing is significant, learn to work with all these horrible people. If you want to work with perfect human beings, you must go to heaven and today. Yes. So all of you should understand, if IIT Kanpur is turning out to be a bad place, it's a very good training place for you to enter the world. So, Sadhguru, as you said that since everybody has a very different, you know, skill set and there is no set course or job profile that would tailor fit that particular person. So what if, you know, driven by ambition, a person starts pursuing a particular course or job and then midway there is a certain setback and because all our life, we've been taught that we should persevere through challenges and reach to the end of the goal. But at certain point, that setback was supposed to be a cue for us to realize that maybe that goal is not for us. Maybe we are better fit for some other, you know, achievement or goal that we must pursue. But just because the thought, the concept of persevering through challenges. What is the best thing to do in life? Yeah, like how do we realize when is the right time to quit what we're doing and look for something new to do? Essentially, what's the best thing to do in life? Yeah. There is no best thing in life. Every damn thing is painful. It is just that. It is just that if you realize even a small thing that you do, if you put a larger vision to that, it'll become very significant. Once something is significant, there is a certain joy in fulfilling that. Is that the best thing? No. If you put your heart into something, it will become a great thing to do. But is that the best thing? No. Don't ever look for anything the best. Who is the best person? Who is... what is the best thing to do? What is the best thing to study? There is no the best thing. There is no such thing. Where you put your heart, it's a great thing. It's wonderful to be doing that. But is it the best thing? No. It is not the best thing. What is the best thing to do in this institution? What is the best thing to do? Cook is... to study is the best thing. To teach is the best thing. To cook food is the best thing. To clean the toilet is the best thing. Tell me which one is the best thing. If any one of those things are not done well, everybody suffers, isn't it? So if you put your heart and soul into what you're doing, it'll become a great thing for you to do. But if you start looking for what is the best thing, you will never find it. Can I tell you a joke because this is becoming serious? On a certain day, a lady entered a butcher shop and all these chicken were hanging, you know, upside down, dressed. See for the chicken, their feathers are their dress. We rip it off and say the chicken is dressed, for some reason. We take off their dress and we say they're dressed. All right. They're dead, of course, dead chicken hanging upside down. So the lady went, lifted one leg of the chicken and smelled like this and wrinkled her nose. Then another wing of the chicken wrinkled her nose like this, she was going from chicken to chicken. And it was having an impact on the other customers. So the butcher saw that it is having effect on the other customers, so he went and tapped her on the shoulder. She looked at him and said, what? He asked, ma'am, could you pass a test like that? So don't go on putting other people to test that you yourself cannot pass. Hey, what happened? Up there, you're not getting the jokes you're in heaven or what? You need to belong to the earth. Thank you, sir. You got the joke. So the next question is, this is a very popular question. Many variants of this question came in the form as well. And I think students not only in this college, but all over the colleges want to have an answer to this question, though it scares me to ask this. College students of our age do involve themselves in the consumption of marijuana, though it is illegal. But, and that doesn't seem to affect them that it is illegal. But if it is legalized, there have been more factual data available on its consumption, who is consuming it and what amounts, when, what frequency, what age, plus it would be a better revenue source for the government as well. And many states in the United States as well have legalized the consumption of marijuana. So do you think marijuana as a drug should be legalized in India? See, we can legalize everything. Why just marijuana? Because once we legalize marijuana, the cocaine fans will come and say, why not cocaine? There are others, there are those MDX people, they will ask for that. There are meth people who do it in their own room, they will ask for that. So why not legalize everything at once? What is the problem? No problem. It is just that, as I already mentioned, if you, if you pay attention, you would see an ant is striving all his life to be full-fledged ant. A mango tree is striving all its life to be a full-fledged mango tree. This is the nature of life. This is not a philosophy. The nature of life is every life is doing its best to be what best it can be, within its scope. But if you're talking about intoxication, it doesn't matter, I'm not even looking at whether it's legal or illegal, whatever it is, whether it's alcohol, marijuana, this one, that one. Legality is not the question, what is legal doesn't become right, what is illegal doesn't become wrong, okay? That's a different matter. So we're talking about essentially intoxication. So I was in Bangalore, a similar question was asked, they're all inviting me for under-25 conferences because they think I'm under-25 for some reason. So like it's an open-air meeting, over fifteen thousand students are there and strong smell of marijuana and openly in the center of the city, all right? And they're asking, Sadhguru, you have so much influence in the government, why don't you get marijuana legal? So let me tell you what I told them. See, right now, it's called, you also use the word smoke-up, smoke? It's the said terminology, I guess. Okay. Smoke means tobacco, smoke-up means marijuana, smoke down means what? Nothing, okay. See, do one thing. I will smoke up nicely. You sit with me on my motorcycle, I will hit 250 kilometers per hour. Are you okay? I don't think so. No. Because you understand my competence levels will go down the moment I'm smoked up. Yes? So don't call it smoke-up. Don't call it high, you get low. You can't see better, you can't handle things better, your competence goes down. See, tell me, will life get enhanced by enhancing one's competence, by enhancing one's… if I can see better than you, right now I can. I'm riding through the night, in the middle of the night with glasses on. People say, Shrutguru is not dangerous. Well, twenty… nearly twenty-four thousand kilometers I've survived. So I don't think it's dangerous. What do you think? In all kinds of terrain. Because I can see better than you. It's very difficult for people to understand this. Of course they'll say there's no science like that. It is fine. For you only if it's written in the textbook it is science and it's very unfortunate. Before the textbook there was science in the existence. So right now my vision is like that. I'm sixty-five, I should be wearing spectacles. You are. I am not. I'm wearing colored glasses and reading in the night. Because I'm really up but not smoked up. I'm really up. I can sleep for two, three hours a day at night and be active for twenty, twenty-two hours a day non-stop. Well, tell me which is high. I'm high or when you smoked up are you high. You're lowering your competence and you're saying I am high, which is an unfortunate reality. See it is like if you are cooking in your kitchen, salt is mocked as sugar, sugar is mocked as salt. You know what kind of cooking you will produce. That's what will happen to your life. At least you say, I want to be done. I smoke and sleep. I smoke and sit like this. All right? But don't say I am high. You're not high, you're low. If you don't… if your intent is to be low, go ahead. I'm… because I'm not somebody who looks at life in a moral terms. I'm looking at life in terms of life. Life wants to be high, isn't it? Life doesn't want to be low because it's a very brief amount of time. You are still all of you are young, you may not even think about it. But I'm telling you as you sit here with me, you're one hour closer to your grave. So am I, of course. Yes or no? Time is ticking away for all of us. If you're conscious that life is such a brief happening, do you want to be intoxicated or do you want to be invigorated? Which way is it? It's your choice. Legal, illegal doesn't matter. What is the choice of life? What is the natural choice of this life? It wants to be high in every possible way. To cover your incompetence, you want to call low as high. Now, suppose you want to go through… you need to go through a surgery. Now the surgeon comes smoked up. Shall we open you up? Well, he'll pull out your kidneys instead of liver because you won't know the difference. So I'm saying, people will say, oh, it's not like that they're revolving a whole science about marijuana. About how marijuana does this, marijuana does that. See, so does everything. In Telugu, there is a saying, this means for all… Telugu people, they love it. This means for all ailments, drink is an answer because everything goes away. I would say poison is an answer for every disease that you have. Because once you are dead, you will not have any ailment. This is the advantage of death. So I want you to know whether you sleep for eight hours a day, or you get drunk, or you get smoked up one way or the other. If you are not in an invigorated state of life, you're wasting your life. Even if you're simply overeating and sleeping, or you're marionna, or you're alcoholic, doesn't matter which way. If you sleep eight hours a day, one-third of your life you're going to sleep off, isn't it? Twenty-four hours is all you have. I'm seeing how to stay awake. I've spent almost twenty-five, twenty-six years with an average of two-and-a-half to three hours of sleep. These days getting little lazy and sleeping three-and-a-half, four, four-and-a-half hours at this stage in my life. But if you, apart from natural sleep, if you want to go into more intoxicating states where you don't know who you are and what you're doing, well, I'm not looking at this morally. I think it's wasted life because you must be alive. As alive as possible, not less alive. Anything that makes you less alive is anti-life, isn't it? So shall I do cocaine, Sadhguru? It makes me more alive. It's fine if you can produce your own. Not in your laboratory, not in your kitchen, but within your system, because this is the most complex and sophisticated chemical factory on the planet. Do you agree with me? The question is only, are you a great manager of this factory or are you a lousy manager? That's all the question is. If you were a great manager of this system, would you produce chemicals which will keep you blissed out or would you produce chemicals which keep you miserable, which way is it? So instead of taking charge of this, you're doing all kinds of mess, inefficiency, that's all I'm saying. I'm not against marijuana, but I'm against inefficient life because time is so brief. When time is so brief, we must do the best we can, isn't it? In our lives, if we do not do what we cannot do, there is no problem. But if we do not do what we can do, we are a disastrous life. And that is the… that disaster will unfold when you invest in intoxication, because if you want to be intoxicated, I'm not showing my eyes today, but if you look at my eyes, I'm always stoned. No substance, because this is the most sophisticated chemical factory. If you keep this well, you will always be like this. So, Sadhguru, one more question and then we'll open the floor to the audience. So, the next question was originally about vegetarianism, but I think we can relate it to global movements like safe soil or global warming, climate change. So the question essentially was in the modern discourse around vegetarianism, let's say, the way… the primary focus is on showing you the health benefits of becoming vegetarian or becoming vegan. The primary facade is of showing you the rational reasons for becoming vegan. Every other day, we see celebrities coming up and saying, okay, I've adopted a vegan, healthy lifestyle and then they'll do fitness. The question essentially is why is the spiritual compassion, love aspect of these movements put backstage? So, for instance, we saw the dance performance that happened before you and there was a poetry recitation in your voice and you were talking about the soil as your mother. And so that… the potency in that kind of… in projecting those problems as spiritual as essentially problems of the heart, that is found absent in large scale movement. So, since you've been involved with this movement for long, how potent do you think this kind… creating this kind of discourse where we imbibe this as spiritual values instead of just utilitarian rational… rationalization of spiritual values essentially. So, do you have anything to say on it? Now you're forcing me to reveal a strategy. For me, what I say depends on which part of the world I am, what kind of society I am in, what sort of people I am talking to at a given moment. Because for me, it should work. Hello? What is the point of doing something that doesn't work? It's what engineering means. To make everything work better, isn't it? Something is well engineered means it is working in the best possible way. That's why it's well engineered. If something is not working the way you want, you wouldn't call it well engineered. So, speech is also something that has to be engineered. For a given crowd, what is it that works best? The cause and the purpose doesn't change. It's the same purpose, but it has to be said in different ways. So, it depends which part of the world I am, who am I talking to in that given space? Accordingly, it has to be said. But what to the point that you are saying is very important and interesting. But at the same time, largely the world is not… large parts of the world is not ready for that point. They're still thinking what is healthy for me, how can I get the best out of this, best out of that, they're in that condition. So for them, you're talking that language. If you find more sensitive people, you definitely always talk about the other aspects. Right now, even ecologically, there are significant benefits of, you know, eating more sensibly. More than anything. As a human being, the simple thing that we have to look at is food is fuel, all right, for this body. You don't have to make a philosophy out of it. You don't have to make a religion out of it. You don't have to make something fanatical about it. Because a lot of so-called vegetarians, the new vegetarians, in this country, sixty percent plus people are anyway vegetarian, even the non-vegetarian people eat two pieces of meat once a week, okay? They're not really meat-eating people, they're not eating a slab of meat every day. I'm saying, along with their rise and so many other things, one little piece of meat they may be eating, it may be taking care of some protein, you know, nutritional requirement for them, that's not a big issue for me. It is just that meat-eating means in western countries, they eat a whole meal of meat, all right? Two pounder, that is nearly a kilogram of meat, just like that, not fully cooked. That's what a steak is, all right? It is barely cooked, people like it rare, that means it will be oozing blood and it's full slab of meat. Very few Indians can ever eat anything like that, they cannot. For them it has to be mixed with so many masalas and meat should taste like brinjal, you know, they have to make it like that. So this is not really a meat-eating country, there is not much to say about it. Slowly it is increasing because the nutritional value in the vegetarian meals is going down significantly because of soil nutrients going down. When you eat a vegetarian meal in India, we have sufficient variety to make vegetarian meals complete for a human being. But in the western countries it's hard to do that because their idea of vegetarian is eating lettuce, carrot and this and that, that won't give you everything that you need. You need legumes, you need lentils, you need various kind of pulses and you know, various types of cereals other than rice and wheat. All this is needed to make vegetarian diet a complete process for which temperate climates don't usually have that variety. Now they have because you can transport food from anywhere to anywhere, but in the past they did not have. Mostly in Europe and America till about thirty years ago, vegetarian means fried potato or mashed potato. This is really no other vegetable, that's how it was. Vegetarian meal means largely potato. Otherwise meat and potato was the way it went. It's only now all these things are available in super stores and everything. So they are going vegetarian now and they're very excited about it. It's nice that they're getting excited about it because that excitement has many ecological benefits for the world and other creatures. It is definitely for whatever purpose, see it doesn't matter for what purpose I did not cut your throat. It doesn't matter, I didn't cut your throat. That matters to you, isn't it? Hello? Whether I did it out of my spiritual well-being or I didn't see you, it doesn't matter. I didn't cut your throat, that matters to you as a life. So for all those lives, it doesn't matter for what reason these people did not cut them up because on a daily basis, about two hundred million animals are being slaughtered per day. So for whatever reason, if you did not eat today, today is Mahatma Gandhi's Jayanti, you did not eat. All the animals are saying, oof, Mahatma Gandhi, Zindabad. Today is Mahavir Jayanti, so you did not cut. Everybody is saying Mahavir Zindabad, not one or two, two hundred million creatures. So for an animal, for a life, it doesn't matter for what intentions you did. For you it makes a difference. Whether out of your own self-interest, what is healthy you did not do it or out of your love and compassion you did not do it, makes a difference for you. But for the animal you didn't cut it, that's all that matters. For what reason you did not, it doesn't matter. So this is definitely a more sensitive way of doing things, but is the world ready for such sensitivity? There are question marks. So we're done with the questions that we have, but I'll open the stage to the audience if they want to ask something or they have some questions. That hand by the projector. Microphone, microphone. Hello. First of all, Namaskaram sir. Where are you? Here. Here means where? Can you hold on a second? He said first, so we'll take his question first, then we'll go on to you. Only if you speak it works. Namaskaram sir. This is more of a special side at this juncture when I'm 32 years old. There are a lot of entrances with stopping from going inside or on the personal journey to go forward. So I really want to ask what stops us from being the fullest of life that we want to be. As I said earlier, it's an evolutionary issue. You have an intelligence for which you don't have a stable enough platform. If you do not create a stable platform, your intelligence itself will freak the hell out of you. You may become diagnosed as mentally ill or not, but whether diagnosis happens or not, suffering will happen. Some will get diagnosed, few will get diagnosed, most other nutcases are never diagnosed. They live around you, including you. Hello? Different kinds of problems. See, when I say different kinds of problems, it is not necessary you must be clinically depressed or you must be this or that. Your thoughts and emotions torture you. That means you're unwell. Right now, if your forefinger starts poking your eyes, something wrong with you or no. Hello? So if your thought and emotion keeps poking you inside, something wrong with you or no? Your only consolation is, but everybody is like this only. All my friends are like this only. Well, that's how it is in an asylum. Only the doctor is crazy. Everybody is okay. Yes or no? Everybody is like that only doesn't make it anything better because human suffering is human suffering. All of us are suffering, doesn't make it any better, isn't it? I'm asking you a simple basic question. If you know how to use your hands, obviously you will not poke your eyeballs out, isn't it? Hello? There's some crude example I'm giving you because life has given you so many examples and you missed it. If your hands are in reasonable control, even if they can't do some supersensitive activity, at least if they're not gorging your eyeballs out, we can say you're all right. Now if your thought and emotion is daily torturing you from inside for one reason or the other, doesn't matter what is the reason. No, no, Sadhguru, this problem, that problem, there's no problem. There are only situations in life. You don't know how to handle it, so it becomes a problem. Hello? That's all it is. So if your thought and emotion is taking the life out of you on a daily basis, is there something seriously wrong with you and maybe with everybody around you? Let's say there's a consolation. So you must fix that first. Before you fix anything, you must fix that. Your own fingers don't pull out your eyeballs. You must fix that first or no. Hello? Your own thought and emotion does not torture you. If somebody tries to torture us, then we will see what, how to deal with that. Somebody else is harmful to me. There are many ways to handle it. I am harmful to myself. How the hell to handle this if I don't fix it? So if you think you have to go inside, I don't know whatever that means, you want to go to the stomach or heart or where do you want to go? It's okay. No, because in our mythology so many, you know, mystics and others got into somebody's belly and expanded there, you know, you heard of all Shukracharyas and all that stuff. So we don't know where you want to go. But one important thing you need to understand is all your faculties of your hands, your feet, your eyeballs, your ears, your thought, your emotion, your memory, your imagination must work for you. Hello? Must work for your well-being. If that is not happening, then you must stop every damn thing that you're doing before you cause too much damage to yourself and the rest of the world. We'll come to the yoga center, we'll straighten you out. I think the next question was from the other part of the auditorium. Yes, yes. So I wanted to ask after, I'm a Y21 man, this is my first year. So after coming to the campus after one month, so actually the place I am from originally, I used to practice a spiritual things that you teach on YouTube and all other things like that, the Chakra but coming here, I start to lose it gradually. Like a time ago it was like, how should I continue it? And now Amitastu says that why should I continue it if someone is getting good marks or something more successful without doing these things? Why not? He was doing something with his wheels, is that what he was saying? Was he doing something with his wheels? He said something, Chakra she was doing? Yes sir, you said... No, no, no, I haven't never said anything like that. No sir, no. I never told you to do any wheel alignment. No sir, no. I didn't say it about wheels. So I mean spiritual processes which I forgot or should I continue and how in this environment there is no such motivation, so how to continue? Motivation means what? Everybody should come and clap every day when you're doing the practice. See, if something has worked for you, you would have kept it anyway. If you're doing it because you think it's something great, those things will fade away. If something is genuinely working for you, will you stop it? You won't stop it unless you get lost in some other kinds of habits and stuff. You will not stop things which are really working for you. So I don't know what wheel stuff you were doing. So one important thing we need to understand is spiritual process means it's a seeking. It is not about believing something. A religious process means you believe something. Spiritual process means you seek. If you want to seek something, you become a genuine seeker only and only when you realize I do not know, isn't it? I know but I seek. Is it possible? You're a vested interest. You can only seek, genuinely seek when you realize you genuinely do not know. I do not know, is it tremendous possibility? So don't talk about things which are not in your experience because unfortunately everywhere in the world but particularly in India because we have had, you know, ten, fifteen, twenty thousand years of spiritual history and so much culture behind us, everybody likes to use spiritual jargon all over the place. Can you bring this much sincerity into your life, all of you? What I know, I know. What I do not know, I do not know. I don't have to deny what I do not know. I just don't know, that's all. Is it okay? Hello? So I think we are trying to just one more question. No, no, no. Only the professors are clapping. I'm worried about this. What I do not know, I do not know means only professors are clapping. All the students are sitting like this. There is something wrong here. We'll come to you. We'll come to you one second. See, in the yogic culture, always the culture insists that you must identify with your ignorance, not with your knowledge because even if you absorb all the libraries on the planet, in this limitless cosmos where we do not know where it begins, where it ends, what you know is a minuscule. Whatever you identify with, you generally become that. See, now you say I'm an Indian. How? Just identified with that, isn't it? Whatever race, religion, caste, creed, nationality, gender, everything is an identity. If you identify with something, you become that. If you identify with your knowledge, you will become a minuscule. But our ignorance is boundless, isn't it? If you identify with your ignorance, you will become boundless. So do not talk about anything which is not in your experience because whether it is God or soul or chakra or this or that, do not utter things that you do not know. I do not know is a tremendous doorway. If you destroy that doorway, you will only have imagination going on, hallucinations going on. Sadhguru, I am a teacher here and you know, we are told about the utopian Guru Shishaparampara of the past and what is happening today in the society is I'm, you know, I'm feeling more and more as if I'm a service provider. You know, it's like a 4G package of a mobile telephone, you know. I am, the society is only interested that the 4G should continue. What you are doing with that 4G, nobody is bothered. So it is exactly like that, you know. So as a teacher… You must be careful, 5G is already… 5G, yeah. I still have the older one. So anyway, so the idea is that, you know, as a teacher, you know, you feel pained to be branded as a service provider or at least we get a feeling more and more and everybody says, you know, that 50 years back it was like this, today it's degraded and we feel every day we are made to feel that we are service providers. So should we worry about it as a… I mean as a society, as a reflection of you know, somebody who is guiding the youth, I mean we connect in terms of, you know, on that platform where you are also guiding. So this pains me and this pains a lot of our community. I mean we keep talking but nobody dares to speak up, you know. So what is your reaction to this and how do we deal with it? See, if your intent is only to deliver a certain amount of information, you must be worried because your job will not exist for too long, the way it's been defined right now. For this one important thing is the basic mistake our education systems have done. The modern education systems which are largely of European origin, it may be done in so many styles but essentially our education system is European in origin, which is valuing information more than attention. We are misunderstanding a bunch of information as human attention. With information you can be smarter than the person who is sitting next to you. If you know ten things and he knows five things, you are smarter than him. But your phone may know twenty-five things. That's why you call him a smartphone. See, you call somebody smarter or you call somebody smart. Only if they are smarter than you, isn't it? The moment you say, I have a smart phone, you are admitting that your phone is smarter than you because your entire idea of intelligence has come down to information. Memory. Your examinations are all about memory. I don't know how IIT examinations are done but generally the school education is all about memory. My phone has a hundred times more memory than I can think of. All right? So does it become smarter than me? No, it has more information but today we have converted education in this direction that it's all about information. If it's all about information, human teachers should go out of vogue in the next ten years time. It doesn't mean anything to have that because information is more reliable when it's in its digital platforms. Human beings can always forge information not necessarily by intent. It can happen when you are saying ten things, one thing may get mixed up. So for delivering information you don't need a human being. For delivering inspiration you need a human being. For delivering insight you need a human being. For enhancing human attention you need a human being. If you switch to that role you will always be relevant. You will become more and more relevant as machines take over information business. And definitely machines should take over information business because it's just waste of time, waste of brain power just storing information in your head. I go around with a totally empty space in my head. I have no information anywhere in me. People ask me, Sadhguru, what are you doing? What are you thinking when you're riding? I'm not thinking a damn thing, I'm just riding. Most of the time I'm like this, I'm not thinking anything. Why should I be thinking something? Because thinking means you're just recycling the data that you already have. I am already bored with the past. Why will I be going on recirculating the same thing? When life is exploding in front of me in every possible way, life will explode in front of you only if you pay enough attention. If your attention is superficial, there is nothing interesting happening here. If your attention is keen, there are fantastic things happening all the time because that's the nature of creation. So this transition from human attention to information is a big downfall for human intelligence. It is important now that machines are taking over memory and information business, it's important that we gear human beings towards keener sense of attention because without attention, no door in the universe shall open for you ever. So that's all the questions we have had for today. It takes two engineers to make one microphone work. We went and stand by, so we had to switch it back on. It's okay, you're in the first years and so on. I'm just being mean, it's okay. I'm old enough to be horrible, right? Sadguruji, my love for you has no bounds, Sadguruji. I've been following you since ten, ten years. And Sadguruji, so November, Sadguruji, I've been sending proposal, I love you, Sadguruji. I have a shawl for you, I have a shawl for you. Accept it, Sadguruji. I will, but I almost fell off the chair. I fell off daily. You asked them, I fell off daily. I'm just, you are, I'm brahmasini, Sadguruji. I love you. Would you accept my shawl, Sadguruji? Yes ma'am, yes ma'am, I will take it. Thank you, Sadguruji. Indeed, we will do a part in the hashtag save soil movement, especially by raising our voice on social media with the hashtag save soil. As your, the girl already spoke about this, but I want you to know this and remember this, that this is not a one-days flirtation. This must become a lifelong love affair. This is not in resentment, this is not in anger, this is not a protest, this is not an agitation. This is an expression of our love and responsibility for the life that we are, the life that's around us and the life that should be beyond us. Thank you very much for having me here. My body, your body, everybody is just soil body.