 peaceful solutions for very violent problems on this planet. And not only in this country, became an inspiration for many such movements across the world, particularly the civil liberties movement in America, which changed the paradigm of what is North America. In many ways, what is North America today is Mahatma's making. Well, when we say, when we utter the word peace, people think in terms of war and peace, conflict, whether it's in a battlefield or on the streets of a nation or within the minds and hearts of people, it's about the same. It's just that what happens in the battlefield. And the ugly things that happen on the street are a consequence of what happens in human mind. Today we have gotten to this situation in the world, where we are always trying to fix the consequence without fixing the cause. Well, consequences need to be managed, of course. But the important thing is to fix the cause, which is you and me. The world is very peaceful place. If you and me were not here, yes or no? If you and me were not here on this planet, it is a very peaceful place. People think they have to create peace. No, you can only create conflict. You can create violence. You cannot create peace. If you don't mess with anything, it's peaceful. If you don't do anything, it's peaceful. So peace is not an idea. Peace is not a philosophy. Peace is not a consequence of human action. If human beings know how to minimize their action, there is peace. Right now, human beings are in a compulsive state of action. They have to do something not because it's needed, simply because they have to do it. They just have to do it because they can't sit in one place. So essentially, all the violence that you see, conflict that you see on the planet is a consequence of human inability to just remain still by themselves. Man is ill only because he does not know how to be still. If you knew how to sit still, where would violence be in the world? So twentieth century saw some horrid levels of violence. Well, there has been violence on this planet forever, but twentieth century got more organized than ever before. In the form of World War I and II, the most horrific situations happened. In early twentieth century, they declared blood moves the wheels of history. But by the time we came to mid-twentieth century, Mahatma created a movement where it's not the blood which is the spirit which moves the wheels of history. This is a significant change that instead of blood moving the wheels of history, human spirit moves the wheels of history. He's a phenomenal sign of phenomenal significance. In many ways, I would say it is only after Mahatma's moment. Democracies on the planet have become true democracies reasonably at least. Till then, every democracy, though people elected them, people themselves wanted to lynch some other nation. Always. Democratically elected governments ruling nations were the ones who lynched half the world, including us. It's out of that that Mahatma was born and what was supposed to be the source of democracy, what is being paraded as the source of democracy. Maybe they were good to their people. I don't know about that, but they were not good to anybody else on the planet. So it's very important we understand that because we normally identify Mahatma as a freedom struggle leader. Freedom struggle means it is naturally a fight against somebody, but it was not a fight against somebody. That is the most significant thing. The most significant thing of this movement is it is not a fight against somebody. To create a movement without an enemy is very difficult. I've been talking to people around me and when they asked me, how does this work, I said, see, you need to understand if you want to create a massive movement in the world, you need to point out for all the problems she is responsible, we need to fix her, then everything is okay. If you create an enemy, you can gather people without creating an enemy to gather a huge number of people. Though not everybody in the country might have grasped this, this is what he was trying to do. This is what we are trying to do today also. Without creating an enemy, without blaming anybody for anything, how to create a movement, because these moments will change the consciousness of humanity. This is not just about fixing a problem. The immediate problems are there, which need to be fixed of course, but the most fundamental thing that needs to happen is to transform human consciousness from being exclusive to inclusive. So in many ways the freedom struggle is a kind of a downgrade of what Mahatma was trying to do because he was not just struggling for India's freedom, it was about liberating the human being from our own struggles within ourselves, the violence that we carry within ourselves as human beings, the conflicts that people go through. So if you look at it from that dimension, this is yoga. Yoga means union. Union means instead of being an individual human being, you opened up the boundaries of your individuality. You obliterated the boundaries of your individuality in such a way that if you sit here, you're not in conflict with anything. Well, this can be expounded in so many ways, but to put it in a certain perspective, which is absolutely unprajudiced perspective is you must ask the plants and animals around you, they know who the hell you are. Yes, children, but children are also prejudiced. Plants are animals, they just know who you are. In the sense, people ask me, Satguru, how do I know that I have come to some level of balance within myself? I say we should put you through the cobra test because you can go in the forest, a live cobra that is there, a wild one, you just go pick it up, it will simply come in your hands without any effort because it's reading your chemistry. If you show little agitation, it'll go for you. If you don't show any agitation, it'll simply come in your hands. Even full grown, even king cobras, you can just pick them up, they'll simply come because they're feeling your chemistry. If you show a little bit of agitation, they'll go for you. Otherwise, they simply are okay with you because they don't see you as danger. So animals, plants, even insects, they know who you are, things that you don't know about yourself. People ask me how I survived in the jungles when I was by myself. I just survived on hunting all the time and normally the bees are smart enough because their main predator is the bear, the sloth bear, which weighs about 65 to 70 kilograms or up to 90 very big ones but largely about that much. And they build it on a branch where it's difficult for them to get that kind of weight. So I was weighing about the same like a sloth bear. So I took out my motorcycle's petrol tube which is just 15 to 18 inches in length. And put it into the beehive and drink. One cavity is over, I'll put it into another one and drink. They think I'm just one of them because if you show mildest agitation, they will go for you. These bees in the western gods, if they bite you in the face, eight, ten of them, if they bite you in the face, you will die of suffocation. In case you open your mouth and one of them bit inside your mouth, one will do, you will die of suffocation. But they never ever bit me because if you keep yourself, if you make yourself absolutely peaceful within yourself, do you believe you will have to manage violence on the planet? Hello? Is it needed? So in a way, in his own way, he was talking this language that it is about you, keeping yourself in a certain way, that from reaction you become a conscious response. This doesn't mean you're placid, this doesn't mean you simply sit and don't do anything. You're super active in the world, but you are a conscious response to everything, you are never a reaction to the external situations. This is all a human being has to do to bring humanity to this, that you are a conscious response in your life, not a compulsive reaction. If this one thing we do in this world, we don't have to manage wars, we don't have to do this and that, because today our idea of peace is deterrent. I have a nuclear bomb, you have a nuclear bomb. If you bomb me, I'm going to bomb you. This is our idea of peace. While you can achieve peace in many different ways, this happened, is it okay? Can I tell you a joke? Hello? You're becoming serious, that's why. Serious people naturally become violent. Seriousness is violence against life. This happened at one time, Shankar and Pillai was a very abusive husband, verbally abusing her, sometimes physically abusing her, but the wife was always absolutely peaceful, no reaction to anything. One day he was in a excessively abusive mood and he abused her in every possible way, but she was just not reacting to anything. Then he looked at her and asked, how do you manage this? I am always abusing you, but you don't say one thing back, you're just peaceful, how do you do this? She said, I clean the toilet. Said, what? You clean the toilet? What does that do to you? I know a month ago I physically did things to you which I should not have done, but even then you were peaceful. Yes, I clean the toilet. What do you mean clean the toilet? How does it bring peace to you? She said, I use you to brush. So you can bring peace in so many ways, but is that the way to do it? So it's important in today's world, people have tried to settle themselves into some peaceful condition through belief systems, through philosophies, through ideologies, through various kinds of efforts, but what we need to understand is what we call as peace or what we call as turbulence within us are both having a certain kind of chemical background to it. There's a chemistry to it. That's why I said, you can trust the cobras and the bees, any venomous creature, if you can take it and it doesn't bite you, it doesn't attack you, this means you're very peaceful because it is only reading your chemistry. By your chemistry it knows your intent. So if you create a chemistry of peacefulness within you, then you don't have to think peace is the last thing that you do in your life because right now people are talking like peace is the highest goal in their life. The ultimate goal in their life is to be peaceful. Peace is not an ultimate goal, it is the most fundamental must in our life. If you want to enjoy your dinner tonight, even if you're not ecstatic, at least you must be peaceful. Hello? Is it the last thing that you do or it should it be the first thing that you do in your life? If you want to enjoy a walk on the beach, you must be at least peaceful even if you're not blissed out. Now people are handling peace in so many different ways. How to become peaceful, you must have a glass of wine if it doesn't work. Of course, you must smoke something. If it doesn't work, you must clear pop something. Well, don't laugh at it. They are going to be the majority, they will vote it as legal shortly. Yes? Yes, it'll become legal when everybody wants it. Yes or no? Hello? You don't think so? Already wherever universities I'm going, they're all asking, Sathguru, why don't you, you're good at doing all these moments. Why don't you start a moment to make Marijuana legal? I said in India it was always legal. But we were sensible enough to not pick it up in a big way and smoke. Somebody, a few people did, we didn't care about it. Now that all of you want to do it, so I asked, do you want to smoke? It's called smoke up, not just smoke. Do you want to smoke up and come to the university? They say, yeah, why not? Then I say, do something. I'll book you up on a small airplane to fly and you find the pilot comes smoked up. You want to fly with him? I say, you're not getting it. Let's say you have a major surgery to be done on you. The surgeon comes smoked up. Do you want a surgery? He said, no. So you understand that it lowers your faculties. Tell me, do you enhance your life by lowering your faculties or by heightening your faculties? Which way is it? Can anybody enhance their life by lowering their faculties? You can only enhance your life by heightening your faculties. But today in the world it is spreading that by lowering your faculties you can be peaceful and wonderful. All right? So it is very important piece, not the goal. How you get there also is equally important. Mathma, Venton, stressing, freedom is not the only thing. How you get there is also important, which riled a lot of people of the times. So how you get there is equally important. It's very easy to be peaceful if you get drunk and sleep through the weekend. You are peaceful because the world is free of you. World is also peaceful. To be actively engaged and be peaceful is important. To be actively, intensely engaged with life and still be peaceful. For this you need to become conscious enough that your life is a conscious response to everything. Not a compulsive reaction. This needs to happen in the world. This is the moment that is needed in the world right now that we need to ensure that people know how to be peaceful and joyful and blissful by their own nature, not because of something. If it's because of something, whichever way life deprives you of things that you want at many points in your life, hello? It does or no? You're all well to do, but does it happen to you also or not through the day? Something will not happen the way you want. The more active you are, more things won't happen to you the way you open, the way you want. If you're just living within your four walls of your home comfortably, ninety percent happens your way, ten percent doesn't happen your way which irritates you. If you step out into the world and start doing many things, if your activity is spread across the world, then you will see ninety percent will not happen your way. Only ten percent happens your way. When only ten percent is happening your way, how to remain blissful is something you must learn. Hello? Yes or no? If this doesn't happen, inevitably you will become violent. You may not go and beat somebody or kill somebody, but if you have resentment, if you have anger, if you have hatred, this is violence. Whether you kill somebody or commit suicide, it is violence, isn't it? Hello? Whether I stab you or stab myself, it is still violence. In fact, if I try to stab you, you have some defense at least. If I stab myself, absolutely defenseless life, isn't it? This life, when I attack it, it is an absolutely defenseless life. Even a child has some defenses. This one has no defense against you. So stabbing need not be necessarily with a knife. The nature of a human being is such that if I ask you, do you want your intellect to be sharp or blunt? Sharp or blunt? Please choose. I'm going to bless you right now. You want it sharp. So it is a cutting instrument. If you have a sharp instrument in your hands, you must know how to hold it. Otherwise you'll hurt yourself every day. That is all violence is about. If you... if we remove half your brain, you will be quite peaceful. Yes or no? Hello? Because if you remove the possibilities, problems also will go away. To keep all the possibilities and to be not a problem, that is the important thing. If you take away all the possibilities, problems are also gone. If we take away half your brain, you are very peaceful, no trouble to anybody. So what is a greatest gift that we have? These millions of years of evolution rendered yourself to this place where you're capable of this level of cerebral activity, this has become the problem. You are... when you say, I am stressed, when you say I am angry, when you say I am irritated, what your complaining is, I want to be an earthworm. Why did I become a human being? You're complaining about the size of your brain and the activity possible. Yes, that's all you're complaining about. So when you complain about this, slowly, you know, when you aspire for something, it may come true. We have... have studies with the universities in America where they're showing generally for most human beings, after their 35 years of age, their brain is depleting. But we have recorded now with... with sizable samples that those who are doing a simple practice in their life, just a simple practice in their life, their brain, the neuronal regeneration is multiplying about 240 times higher than normal. So instead of brain depleting, brain is getting better as you age. That's what should happen, isn't it? Hello? Smart young people and old fools is not a good world. Yes. Because by the time you grasp what is what, by the time you figure out a few things just to rise about your childishness, your hormonal issues and a little bit of whatever financial stuff, by the time you're maybe 45-50. Hello? So when your wisdom begins to blossom, your brain begins to diminish, not a good way to live. Not at all a good way to live, isn't it? But that is happening to the entire world, unless we bring some dimension of life for which this culture and its roots are very, very invested in that. In many ways, Mahatma's whole movement had foundations in the spiritual principles of this nation and this culture. Otherwise, if it is not India, such an idea of non-violent movement to get freedom for a nation would not have happened. This is very clear. Without being born in India, that wouldn't have happened because this is everywhere in so many different ways. He picked it up and made it into a national movement, which is one and only movement till then. But since then, many other people have imitated similar things and they've managed to do it. In countries where gun is the law, even in those places they've managed to do it, which is fantastic. So this 150th year, a good way to remind ourselves because 150 years have gone by, not talking about Gandhi alone, but are you on the way in some way to become a Mahatma? Atma you have, are you somewhere moving towards becoming a Mahatma? At least a few steps, this is the question that all of us should answer within ourselves. So being just another being and being a Mahatma, what it means is, are you inclusive or exclusive? Inclusiveness, exclusiveness does not mean I have lots of friends and no friends. That's not what it means. If you sit here, you have no reaction towards anything. You are here, you're willing to respond to everything in the universe, but you have no reaction to anything. This means you're naturally inclusive, otherwise you're reacting to everything. It is not just about human beings. As I said, there are creatures in this world who are much smarter than you, they figure you out before you know what they are. Still human beings are busy asking who am I, but a cobra bee figures you out in no time who you are. Even trees, they're saying now there's a whole chemistry of the trees being studied, trees figure you out. Before you know who you are, you go sit under a tree and ask who am I, who am I. They know who you are. How is this? This is the intelligence of creation. To be a part of it is peace. To not be a part of it, thinking I am a creation by myself is a huge violent problem. Thank you very much.