 We are all waiting for Sadhguru right now. We are very thrilled. So, before they ask the seven hundred questions, I would like to just explain myself a bit. Why we are doing this youth and truth? It's a very common thing for me, thousands of people have asked me this question. When they go through programs or they spend some time with our variety of exposure with Isha, one question that keeps coming back to me is, oh, Sadhguru, where were you when I was twenty-five? If I had met you when I was twenty, I would have done this, that, but now you came when I'm sixty, these kind of questions have come to me in thousands. So, I thought I will step out and meet all those people who are below twenty-five years of age and that's why I'm here, that's why this youth and truth. Because what we call as youth, youth must understand this. In terms of our life, our life is just a certain combination of time and energy. Time is slipping away for all of us at the same pace. Energy-wise, when you're youthful, you're at the peak of your energy. You may not understand what I'm saying, you just have to pay attention to other people, not me, I'm younger than you. Other people who are of a certain age, you will see they don't have the same energy as you have because it is only in that face of life, which we call as youth, where you have the maximum amount of energy. When this energy is there, because life is energy, when this energy is there, if only if there was clarity and balance, phenomenal things would have happened. The biggest problem with youth is always that there is too much energy, not enough clarity and balance. So we thought in some way if we can contribute to bringing clarity and balance to the youth of this nation and then we are taking it globally after we go through India, I think we could have a fantastic generation because if the next generation after us is not in some way better than us, I think it's a wasted generation. At least one notch better than us, you must be. And the next generation that comes must be better than you, only then human civilization has some sense, otherwise there is no sense. So, it is in this endeavor, but do not think any particular question is too frivolous or irreverent or something, you can ask whatever you want. So, before we proceed to the questions, we would like to introduce ourselves. Yes, ma'am. So, I'm Kavya. I'm studying my fourth year architecture in School of Architecture and Planning. Good evening, everyone. I'm Swatika. I'm doing my third year in School of Architecture and Planning. At the end of this, she is going to mimic me. Good evening, everyone. I'm Akash, studying fourth year B industrial engineering, CEG. Proceeding to the questions. No, no, no, no. I haven't done all this because I'm not interested in it. But I'm in charge of the examinations. I'm sitting here, and some people are answering me like this. Are you copying the questions? No, sir. Do you remember me? Yes, sir. Conflict. As a teacher, we have a strong bond with each other. Now, if we get some kind of response in society, we get rid of that conflict. But is this the only way? There is no other way other than conflict. There is a good way to get rid of the conflict. Yes, sir. Shall I speak in Tamil? It's a bit difficult to understand my Tamil. Because I'm a very high-standard Tamil. I don't know how to write. So, I'm a bit more of a standard. If we fight, can we just sit in peace? Can we sit without eating anything? Can we get married? Can we get a bus? Can we get a bet? It's all about fighting, isn't it? What are you talking about? Now, let's take the government itself. We don't like doing anything. When they say, it affects a lot, it affects no one in a good way. That's the kind of struggle I'm talking about. Okay. This is our… There are many kinds of darkness in the society. There are many kinds of darkness to be revealed in the right way. If we don't do that darkness, it's legal, you know. Even through courts, there is a chance to go. But what we do is, we don't give any attention to anyone. If someone is going to the court, if someone has a vested interest, they are going to the court. We don't give any attention to ordinary people. They are thinking of something. When we go to the court and get the judgment, then we will fight on the road. This is not right, isn't it? What does it mean that we don't like when we get the judgment in the court? We do it when the law is very strict. That's not right. We have to keep something important in our society in mind. If something is not right, then there are many kinds of darkness to be revealed in the right way. First of all, what is the problem? We are not here. In our gallery, we don't give any attention to how to act in the right way. Some people think that it's a big job to vote for the next five years. Many people won't vote for it. They think it's a big job. It's not like that. We have a chance to get beaten up in many situations. But if we were to be careful about what is good for our society and what is bad for our society, then we can take that lesson. Without taking anything, we go to the Supreme Court and protest on the road. This is not right, isn't it? So, what is the difference between the rule of the Supreme Court and the public? When there is nothing that can be done by the public? What I want to understand is that there are no conditions for the public. Not just my condition. I may have some condition. You may also have it. But what should be the condition for the public? To see this condition, we elect. We elect whoever we want. We have made that system a little loose. For this, we are doing something like this. We are like that, aren't we? We are the people, we are the people in this country. People are the people, aren't we? What is not right in the country is us, aren't we? We are, aren't we? But we don't want to take that responsibility. That's why we show our hands. We show our hands. These are all in our hands. We don't take them in our hands. To give responsibility to someone else, and then to have the right to be in my hands, this is not going to happen. Whoever has responsibility is their responsibility. Is that so? Is life like that? Whether it is at home, in college, or in country, this is how it is going to happen. Whoever is taking responsibility is their responsibility. If I don't take responsibility, then what I want is the right to be in my hands. That's how life doesn't happen. Life is not like that. When Tamil parwalaya? At no university promotes a lot of sports. I'm also a sports person, a chess player. Whenever I play a game against a stranger, a person I don't know, I tend to bring out my full potential and play without worrying about the outcome of the game. But when I play against someone known to me, it becomes very hard to bring out that potential. What should I do to overcome this? Known to you means a known competitor or a friend? A known person. A friend. You don't have to win against a friend, it's okay. And anyway, if you're playing about a serious competition against an opponent, you must understand, the more familiar you are about his ways of doing things or her ways of doing things, the more enabled you are to defeat that person. So, an opponent should never be a stranger. Today all sports people are spending hundreds of hours watching videos of their opponents. This happened in the year 98-99. Andrea Garcia and Boris Becker played three games. All Boris Becker beat Andrea Garcia because he had such a... You know, he was called Boom Boom because Boris Becker was called Boom Boom because of the service. His serves were so powerful, there was no game. Every time he will serve, serve and finish the game. Nobody returns the ball. So Andrea Garcia went back and studied hundreds of hours of Boris Becker's serves. Then he figured it out. Then in the next three years, he played eleven games with him and beat him on ten of them. And I'll tell you what happened. After Boris Becker retired, they met in Germany. There's something called the Oktoberfest in Germany, they were there. And at that time they were together and Andrea Garcia thought, okay, anyway, he's retired. Now I can tell him, because this bothered Boris Becker big time, nobody can beat him, but this guy's getting at him. So he told him, see, I observed your videos continuously and I figured out that whenever you're serving the ball towards the boundary line, Boris Becker, if you know, when he's serving, his tongue sticks out a little bit. When he throws the ball up and comes down, his tongue sticks out. He said, whenever you're serving towards the boundary line, your tongue goes to the left. When you're serving straight, it comes out straight. I observed this, the moment your tongue sticks out to the boundary line, I was already there every time taking the ball. So Boris Becker literally fell off his chair, he couldn't believe this. And he said, any number of times I went home after the matches and I told my wife, he seems to be reading my mind. But you've been reading my tongue, it's almost poking. So your opponent should be never unfamiliar to you. You must make him familiar. You must know him better than he knows himself, it's most important. Satguru, nowadays there is a small gap between parents and youngsters. Small gap? Then you're a very good girl, you must be a very good girl. That's a small gap, otherwise big gap. Hello, small gap, big gap. So, we share everything with parents, no matter how much we care about them, we share only the things we care about. At the same time, they are so caring, we tell them that we're hiding this from them, and we have a guilty feeling. So what can be done to bridge this gap between parents and youngsters? Oh, it's a popular question. See, are you doing something criminally wrong? Is something you must look at? Otherwise, as young people, you're doing something which you think is absolute secret, but parents did this thirty-five, forty years ago. They did. They were also thinking they are the first generation doing these things. So, one thing is, this is something I've been constantly telling the parents, see, stop being a parent. Nobody needs a parent after eight, ten years of age. After that, people need a friend. Your parents should have become the closest friend in your life, because when you have confusions and troubles, you want to go to the friend, not to your boss. So unfortunately, generation after generation, generation after generation, they make the same mistake that the moment they have children, because they have children when they don't know what the hell is happening with themselves, first of all. So they are also terribly confused just like you. Because they're confused, the only way is act forceful like a boss. And with this, the relationship becomes far away. Though it's not that there's no love, there is love, but there's no relationship. There's a strange relationship. There's a lot of love, but no relationship. Because relationship needs a… See, love can happen within your heart. Love can happen because somebody is yours. But relationship won't happen without responsibility and inclusiveness. You have to include somebody. Otherwise, a relationship will not happen. So unfortunately, a whole lot of people fail to do this. But if they don't know, aren't you mature enough to do that? Why don't you do it? Reach out and make friends with them. Yes, initially they'll be surprised, but then they will love it. Yes, they will. Believe me, at least in India, for most parents, they don't know why the hell they're living after the thirty-five, forty years of age. The only reason why they're living is for their children. For most of them it's so. They don't have a life of their own. Their whole life is we're living for our children. So when it is like that, I think if they don't know how to make friends with you, you break the ice and make friends with them and tell them now, let's see. Whatever you want to tell them. Sadhguru, in my school and college days, I've seen that a lot of highly intelligent people, they tend to keep to themselves. They tend to not do the normal things that people do to be happy. Like they don't go out, they don't chill, they don't party. They tend to just be concentrated in their work. But are intelligence and happiness tied in any way? See, there are many kinds of pleasures in life. There are physical pleasures, there are biological pleasures, there are intellectual pleasures, there are pleasures of deeper intelligence, there are pleasures of emotion, there are pleasures, enormous pleasures of consciousness. So someone who is enjoying the pleasure of their intellect or intelligence, for them what you think is chill in a pub or whatever doesn't make sense to them because they're enjoying something else. Once you have come here as a human being, your biology is not the front end of your life. Maybe when you're eighteen, twenty you think so, but you will see it is not so. For every other creature, their biology is the most dominant part of their life. Once you come as a human being, there is an enormous intellect, there are other dimensions of intelligence, emotion, consciousness. So some people can only enjoy what's physical, some people have intellectual pleasures, some have other dimensions of pleasures. So just because they're not doing what you think is fun, this doesn't mean they're not having fun, it doesn't mean you're playing chess. Somebody else thinks it's nonsense. A whole lot of people think I'm sure, moving pawns all your life. But you may be having a very intense level of pleasure in just moving a pawn in a brilliant way. Yes? So what kind of pleasure one is involved in may be different and it should be so if everybody is into the same thing, that's a dumb society. Satguru, we are a generation of attention seekers. Are you? I think most of us would agree with this. So expressing our happiness, our sadness, the details of what we did today, the food we ate, the people whom we met and posting them on WhatsApp, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, etc, etc. So this expression, particularly our problems and the state of us being sad, rather than seeking a solution, speaking to a friend, we tend to post it and then tell the whole world out loud that we are sad. So is this expression of us on social media wrong and also the attention, is this expression of us on social media and the attention seeking wrong? It's not about right and wrong, it is just that at this stage in your life, today you say something good or bad, doesn't matter. We don't even want to judge it's good or bad, something private. But you must understand this, particularly with digital media, the damn thing stays for your lifetime, okay? If you wipe it off your Facebook, somebody else will be storing it. Somewhere and this man come and confront you somewhere when it is not necessary after twenty years in your life. Yes? So today what you are may be embarrassing for you after ten years time. So well, this social media is a phenomenal tool in our life. Never before this was possible that human beings could communicate like this. But what are we communicating? I think little more thought is needed. You take a selfie with your ice cream and do this and do that. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just a bit flaky. And tomorrow you may be embarrassed of your own flakiness. If you're not, it's okay. I'm not saying you should do it or should not do it. But little more judiciousness would stand by you through the length of your life because today what you do should not come and confront you much later. You should be able to. Sadhguru, when certain youngsters face problems or difficulties like failures, breakups, loss, etc. A few go for drugs or alcohol instead of solving the problem and finding solutions. So I want to know what is that one hope a person can cling on to even when he is fully shattered from within. So many broken hearts here who are clapping their hands. So when he is fully shattered, what can he do? The question is, do you want to allow yourself to be fully shattered? That's a question. And many things that don't work out in your early life, you will see later on, it is a great blessing. There are many ways to look at this. Let me tell you this. This happened in 1941. This is just when the Nazi movement was building up in Germany and in some parts of Europe. So one day in Austria, a bunch of German soldiers came, broke into the homes, the Jewish family, a rich family, they broke the home and took away the adults, took everything was robbed. And these two children, a twelve-year-old girl and a eight-year-old boy were taken away. They were taken to a railway station. This is the month of November end, December kind of time when it's becoming very cold. So they were kept in the railway station for three days because the trains did not come. Boys, little boys being boys, they started playing football. So they were playing football and then suddenly the train came. The train is not a passenger train, it's a cargo train, the goods train. So when the train came, the soldiers came and rushed everybody into the the wagons which are there. Everybody got in and the little boy and the girl also got in. But the little boy forgot to wear his shoes. He left his shoes outside and they pushed him into the wagon. So without shoes he came. His sister, a twelve-year-old girl, saw her kid brother coming without shoes and she got mad with him. She held him by the ear, boxed his ears, scolded him nicely, slapped him. He said, you idiot, already we are in enough trouble. Now you come without shoes because in Germany in winter no shoes means you may lose your feet. So she's angry about that. In the next station, the boys and girls were separated. After four years, after the war was over, she came out of the concentration camp to find seventeen members of her family, including her little brother, all had vanished. No records, no sign of them, they just evaporated. At that time, the only thing that bothered her was the last few things that she said to her little brother. She loves her brother but the last few things that she said to him for such terrible things, it rang in her mind and troubled her. These are the last things I told my brother and after that I'm now going to see him is gone. So she took a vow, if I speak to anybody in my life, I will speak in such a way, if this is my last word, I will not regret. This one thing transformed her life in such a way. She went on to United States, she died in 2006, she did some phenomenal work, built a hospital somewhere near Chicago, I think. She lived a fruitful life. I'm saying even if you put through the most horrible situations, either you can come out using that experience as a better human being or you can use the experience to become a horrible mess. So whenever something hurts you, there are two options. You can either become wounded or you can become wise, this is the choice. The more things hurt you early on in your life, the wiser you should have become, isn't it? But unfortunately, most people become wounded. This is simply because they just need an excuse to turn their own intelligence against themselves, that's all. Especially if the world around you turns against you, is it not very, very important that your intelligence stands up for you? We are not really satisfied by the government's administration. I think, I think most of us will agree with this. And so, for example, speaking of Chennai city, it has got a very beautiful landscape and but the city's sewage system and the waste management system, it's a problem. It's an issue that has to be addressed. It's the responsibility of the government to frame a system that works well. So it's our responsibility now when we become the future leaders. So what should we do that the present leaders lack and how can we improve from them and how can we be better leaders? I thought you asking me a politically loaded question and but you softened it up very nicely. Yeah, I'm not trying to be playing with words. That fundamentally we must understand that in many ways we only get the leaders we deserve. This may be hard to digest but that's the fact. I'm asking a simple question. How many of you ride a motorcycle or drive a car or something? Hello? Okay. Now, I'll tell you in Chennai city and in almost every Indian city, if there is no policemen standing there, 90% of the people will not stop at the red light. These are all essentially lawbreakers. If you make them into chief ministers or prime ministers or any kind of ministers, what do you think they will do? I'm just seeing in Coimbatore city, usually I come and land late in the night at the airport and I'm driving back at 9.30, 10, whatever. Still there is traffic, not at 2 a.m. I'm saying at 9 o'clock, 9.30, police have gone. Red lamp, I stop and somebody behind me honks badly. I don't understand why then that guy comes to the window and says like this, what's your problem? There's no policeman. Why are you stopped? Well, there is a red light. But unfortunately we are still in the hangover of pre-independence era that we still think this is somebody else's country. We don't understand this is our country. Hello? Is this our country? If this is our country, how do we want our country? We must decide, isn't it? Do we want a law abiding nation or do we want a lawless nation? We must decide we want a law abiding nation, why law? See, it feels like a revolution when you run through the red light, thrill. Feels like a revolution where there is no entry and you boom, you went through and you pass through. Everybody screamed at you but you went off, boom, feels like a revolution. But if everybody in the town does the revolution, we will pick you up at the morgue. Yes? Yes or no? Only you are breaking the law, it looks like a revolution. If all of us break it tomorrow morning, you know what will happen? So this maturity is yet to sink into the nation. We're still not owning this country as ours. We still... we're always pointing fingers at somebody. Yes, those who are in the administration are supposed to do their jobs, I'm not saying no. But who put them in that place? We put them in the place and we never asked a question. We never asked a question. So people who get elected know generally, the bunch of idiots, they just put out after that you don't have to bother about them. We are not showing that we are responsible citizens, that we want our country in a particular way and we will follow these things. That is not there yet. We need to build that. The younger generation needs to bring that forth that we have a certain regard and love for our nation and we want to live in a wonderful country. Everybody wants to escape to another country. Why? Because you messed up this nation and you want to go somewhere else and mess it up too? No. There is a certain pride in building our nation the way we want it, isn't it? Rather than running away to a country which has already been done well by somebody else, are we not ashamed? I'm not saying you should not go abroad, but I'm saying you should not be running away from this country. If you have something to learn, if you have something to contribute, you have something to do, you go to another country, that's not the problem. But you should not be running away from India, isn't it? You should not be running away from India because that means you're a shameless person. You mess up everything here and you go there? No. Let's make this into a great nation. Why not? We are supposed to be the youngest nation on the planet. Nearly fifty-two or fifty-three percent of the population is below thirty years of age, with so much energy, with such young people, which no nation has. Can't we transform this nation in the next five to ten years? Do you want to clean Chennai? I'll tell you. I'll tell you a story. About two years ago, Sujatha is here, two years ago they declared Mysore city as the cleanest city in the country. Then people called me from Mysore and said, thirty-seven years ago you started clean India project in Mysore, which went on for over two-and-a-half, three years. Since then many things happened. At last it's worked after thirty-five, thirty-six years. Okay? So when we want something, this is how it is. When we want something big, this is how it is. It's not going to happen day after tomorrow. If we are committed, why will it not happen? It will happen. It can be done. You tell me, your Anna University, how many people are there? How many students? Hmm? Ten thousand including all the campuses. Okay. You give me five thousand people. You know what? Five thousand people just for twenty-five Sundays in a year. I will make Chennai clean for you. But getting that twenty-five Sundays from five thousand people, you will see how much trouble. Really? You and me start off with the broom. They'll go to the cinema Sunday afternoon. This is the problem with the country. We need to change this. This is what my whole work is to produce those committed people. When they stand up for something, they will stand up for life and make things happen. We need to build such people in this country. Sadhguru, adding to this, so the whole thing, I think I'm perceiving it as it's a responsibility, so the word responsibility, I think it's not yet instilled in our minds. So how to make everyone I mean, how to make everyone learn that we are responsible for our nation, we are responsible for our actions and whatever we are doing. So yeah, this is very fundamental. If we do not understand this one thing, then we are messed up. One reason why we are messed up is because one thing is, there are political activists who are always telling you somebody else, the chief minister, the prime minister, some other minister, some other bureaucrat, these people are responsible. And there are nice pious religious people, they all think that God is responsible. Both these people are unfixable. Essentially, the moment that we call as inner engineering is essentially about moving the world from religion to responsibility. From looking up to looking inward that if human beings do not explore the full depth and dimension of their potential, then human societies will not rise. This is a culture, this is a nation which has produced phenomenal human beings in the past, incredible human beings, geniuses, not one or two, in hundreds. But today we are struggling for various reasons. One fundamental thing is we've been an occupied nation for too long, we become subservient, we don't see that this is our country, we're responsible for this. We still think we can blame somebody, there's nobody to blame. It's our nation. There are no English people. If the English people were here, we could have said it's because of these people. They are gone. If we make a mess out of it, it's ours. If you make a fortune out of it, it's ours. People who are different in society who take the road not taken, they are berated by society and hated, they are not accepted by the normal people. These people end up achieving in their lives but they have to face a lot of problems along the way. Do we need a change at a societal level or an individual's level? See if you're different, if you think you're different, I look very different from all of you. If you think you're different, first thing you need to understand is you learn to respect other people. They are different from you. But you think they're all bunch of idiots and only you are brilliant. Now they will trouble you for sure and they should. Hello? The moment you are little different, you think you are the only brilliant guy here and everybody else is a idiot. So you think they will let it pass? They will make sure you pay the price and you should. So I'm saying especially if you think you're different, it's very important you learn to respect everybody else for what they are and learn some humility. Already you're a freak. When you're a freak, you must be a little... you know, see that's why I'm always. Is this the... is this the nap time in the university? No, usually in kindergarten, this time this hour is usually... I'm asking you guys. This girl is already heartbroken. See somebody can betray you or you can think they will betray you only because you have unrealistic expectations of them. Well, if they do what they want to do, why do you think they have betrayed you? They're doing what they want to do, you must respect it. If you say they beloved to me, I love them. If you love a person, should you let them do what they want to do or should they do what you want them to do? No, no, for most people love means you must do what I want. No, no, love means they can do what they want and we will love them, isn't it? No, no, you have this thing that if I love you, you must listen to me. No, no, if I love you, I want you to do what brings joy to you, isn't it? Isn't it the concept of your beloved? Then you should have been the mother because I'm not saying that it is never true that somebody maybe going off track and you try to do something for them. I'm not saying it's never true, but you don't take this position that somebody is wrong and you're going to fix them. They are doing what they want to do, isn't it? What they want to do right now may not be beneficial for them, possible. But you must look at it sincerely. Are you complaining because it's not beneficial for them or you're complaining because it's not beneficial for you? Most of the time it's this, genuinely look at it. It's not beneficial for you, but it's good for them, please let them do it. But they are damaging themselves. Yes, then you have a right to intervene and try to do your best. But not always, not always can you enter somebody's life and do something for them. If I have to enter your life and do something for you, I have to earn it, isn't it? I have to earn a relationship where I can intervene in your life. If you don't earn that, you cannot intervene. So if you're unable to intervene, you must just understand you have not earned that closeness. So, Sadhguru, we collected questions from social media too and the popular ones are big, they'll be displayed, the audience can read it, I'll read it out for you, Sadhguru. So, the first question, it was asked by Sandhya. It means you're in a hurry, it means you're in a big rush. Well, you must understand this. There are many aspects to this. These terminologies come from another time. Love as first sight is what you're talking about, right? Love as first sight was happening very commonly at one time when the opposite genders would not have seen each other on a daily basis. You only got to see the girl when she was… this is the English scene I'm talking about, when the girl got into the carriage with her parents and you just looking and she just looked at you like this, boom, thunderbolt. Now she's walking with you, talking with you, studying with you, now it'll take time and it's good it takes time. More time it takes, the better it is. So, these kind of terminologies come from another time when there was no exposure between genders. The first girl you saw, boom. So, you may be drawn to a certain person, that is a different thing. But these things are essentially lack of exposure. If you have sufficient exposure, you will see, you will look at somebody carefully and you don't go boom like that. It'll take your time and it's good. It's good that you take your time to form proper, strong relationships that last. And see, you make a relationship in life because somewhere you think two is better than one, isn't it? Two may be better than one for you, but you may be a nuisance in the relationship. Yes. So, before you form any relationship of some gravity in your life, first thing is just look at this one. Is this one good enough for everything in the world? Because youth is a time when you must build this one. Don't be in a rush to live. Don't be in a rush to live when you have to grow. In Tamil Nadu, in southern India, there is a certain wisdom among the farmers, mango farmers especially. If you plant a mango sapling, within twelve, fourteen months when the season comes, it'll flower. But you will see, farmer will go judiciously plucking off all the flowers. Because if you allow it to fruit, it will come out with one or two fruits in the very first season. But if you do that, that particular tree will never grow to full size. So, first three years all flowers are taken off. Only when the tree has become strong enough, you allow it to come out with a fruit. So, there is a time to grow and there is a time to live. Too early if you try to live, then you will see growth will not happen because growth happens at a certain time, very easily. Later on it, not that it cannot happen, it'll become more difficult because life will engage you in many different ways. So, when you're young, when you're studying, this is the time to grow on all levels physically, mentally, emotionally, energy wise, you must maximize yourself. Then you'll try to live. If you try to live too early, you will not become of much substance. If you are not of much substance, the person that you hold relationships with, if they grow well, they will look at you and wonder, why did I get trapped with this one? Yes? I didn't know questions were so popular. See, with all due respect to all the religious people. See, religion essentially means belief in something. Whenever somebody says, I'm a religious person, they refer to themselves as believers. Yes? Believers. Believe means what? Means you do not know something, but you're not willing to admit, I do not know. So you believe it. I'm saying, if you do not know something, why don't you just say, I do not know. Hello? Is it okay? I do not know something. I say, I do not know because I do not know is a tremendous possibility. Only when you say, I do not know, the longing to know, the seeking to know and the possibility of knowing becomes a living reality in your life. Everything I do not know, I believe. This has led to a whole lot of things. One thing it does is, it brings you confidence. I believe means it brings you confidence, but confidence without clarity is a disaster. This is a disaster that is unfolding in the world in many different levels. People who don't know a damn thing, who can't see what's in front of them, they are super confident. It's dangerous. If you cannot see, at least you must be hesitant, isn't it? Hello? If you cannot see, you must at least be hesitant. But you cannot see, but you're confident. This is what belief gives you, confidence without clarity. How do you arrive at your belief? In many ways. Can I tell you a joke? Is it okay? It's a serious question. Are you okay? You're looking so serious, I'm scared of you. This happened in New York City. I ate your old boy, came home from school in the afternoon. At home, he had a very progressive mother. Obviously she was single. He came home and asked, mama, is God man or a woman? See, this is a big debate in America. Is God a man or a woman is a very big debate in America. You know, in the last election, they tried to settle it and you know what happened. The mother thought being a progressive woman, she thought through this all this gender politics that are going on in the country. And after much thinking, she said both. Then the boy went into deep thought. After some time, he came back and asked mama, is God black or white? You know, in the previous election, they tried to settle this issue because racial politics is a very big thing. She thought through all the racial politics that are going on in the country. After much, much thinking, she said both. Then the boy went into profound thought. After much thinking, he came back and asked, mama, is God straight or gay? She thought through all the politics concerned with that aspect of life and she said both. Then the boy jumped in joy. I got it. I got it. It's Michael Jackson. I don't know how you arrived at yours. You must understand, this is a godless culture. In this culture, we always told you your life is your karma. Yes or no? You forgotten? In this culture, we always told you your life is your karma. This means your life is your making. There's nobody managing you from there. Your life is entirely your karma. You're tall, you're short, you're capable, you're incapable, you can do something, you cannot do something. We say your karma. We've been telling you forever, your life is entirely your making. But this we have turned it into something else and now we are also start looking up. Uparwala, you're all engineering students. You tell me, is this planet round or flat? Really? It's round? Some of you are saying no, this girl. Is it a round planet I'm asking you? Yes. Is it spinning? So you're not even on the north pole, you're at this Chennai. Here if you look up and the planet is spinning, you're inevitably looking up in the wrong direction. Hello? You don't even know which is up. In this cosmos, do you know which is up and which is down? Hello? Is it somewhere marked this side up? Can you ever figure out which side is up in this cosmos? No? Then you're looking up at what? When you do not even know what is up, how do you know who is up? Does it mean to say I created the universe? No. Obviously before you and me came, everything was here, isn't it? So now you must at least say, I really don't know. The problem is somebody is a theist, somebody is an atheist. They are not different people, just different clothing, same nonsense. One person believes what he does not know in a positive way. Another person believes what he does not know in a negative way. Both of them are believers of something that they do not know, isn't it? What is the problem with the human being that you cannot admit I do not know? It's so wonderful of you, so human of you to say I do not know, isn't it? If you do not know, if you realize that you truly do not know, your intelligence will be always alert, it never sleeps. Always, every moment of your life, even in your sleep it'll stay awake. If you realize I truly do not know, this believing has made you just eat pangalana, you know? Just become lethargic. The world has become lethargic. When I say lethargic, not physically, intelligence has become lethargic because they believe something. Everybody believes some nonsense. Can we be straight enough? The youth of this nation, I'm asking you, the youth of this nation, are we straight enough to say what I know, I know, what I do not know, I do not know? Is this okay with you? The youth of India, I'm asking you. Participant – Guru, this question is from Kunal Kalwany. From yogis of ancient times to popular movies like Interstellar, there have been stories and some seemingly real instances about time travel. Is time travel really possible? If yes, how can I make myself capable of time travel? You want to go back to the past or future? He didn't tell you. See, these things have been misunderstood very badly because science and mysticism is coming to you from Hollywood movies, unfortunately. In this culture, we've had people whom we refer to as Trikala Gnanis. There are three dimensions of experience in your life. There is something called as past, which is a bank of memory within you. There is something called as present, which is a living experience right now. There is something called as future, which is the power of our imagination. So your life experience is happening between memory, present experience and imagination. The problem with most people is these three things are not clearly distinguished in most human beings. This is why something that happened ten years ago, you can still suffer, isn't it? Huh? Something that may happen day after tomorrow, you already suffer. What happened ten years ago or even ten days ago, does it exist right now? Does it exist right now? You talking terms with me or no? Hello? Does it exist right now? What may happen day after tomorrow, does it exist right now? No. So if you suffer something that does not exist, should we call you sane or insane? Hey, it's a question, don't clap. It's a disgrace. If you're suffering something that does not exist, is it sanity or insanity? How many people that you know including yourself are insane like this? They suffer things which don't exist. Nearly 99.99, isn't it? Happening all the time? So these are all idiots who are doing time travel. Time in the yogic sciences, modern physics always grapples with these two dimensions, time and space or space and time, that's how they refer to it. In yoga, we see, we call this kala. The word kala even in Tamil means time. But kala also means emptiness. So we're using the same word for time and space. We just have a distinction called kala and maha kala. There is time which is caused by revolutions of physical dimensions of life. When I say revolutions of physical dimensions, everything that's physical is in a circular moment. Whether it's an atom or it's a whole cosmos, everything is in circular moment. The planets, the universes, everything, everything that's physical essentially is in circular moment. So this is kala, the time that you know because of rotation of physical objects. If the planet spins once, we call it a day. If the moon goes around, we call it a month. If the planet goes around the sun, we call it a year. This is the only way you know time. So time that you know is only by cycles. There is a time which is beyond physical nature. Which is not because of circular motion of physical objects. This we call as maha kala. Maha kala includes the space also. Generally in modern physics, the general understanding is because there is space, because there is distance, there is time. You want to travel from point A to point B, you need time. But in the yogic sciences, from our experience we see it like this. Because there is time, there is a possibility of space. It's very beautifully put by Adiyogi, over fifteen thousand years ago. When these seven sages, his first disciples asked him, what is the nature of this cosmos? Where does it begin? Where does it end? How big is it? He laughed and he said, your cosmos, I can pack it into your mustard seed. Very efficient packing, isn't it? He said, this entire cosmos, I can pack it into your mustard seed because it is only a consequence of time. The space and the distance is only a consequence of time. So we call people trikala-gnanis and we also call people as akkala-gnanis. That means timeless people, people who are timeless. Timeless means what? You're sitting here right now. If I make you sit here for another six hours, no, it doesn't take that much for you. If I make you sit here for another two hours, sadguru, at least… at least water. Okay, drink water. Drink water means sadguru. That calls, okay, go and come. Another two hours, sadguru. Okay, we give you that. After that you don't ask permission. Your body cycles of time, isn't it? You don't have to look at the watch. If you observe your bladder, you know how much time. Yes or no? It's keeping time. So your sense of time right now is only because of your physical identity. If you can sit here without any sense of body, then you don't know time. You heard of people who sat for hours on end, days on end. I… this happened to me at a certain point when I was little older than you, I was twenty-five. I just sat in one place and suddenly I did not realize time. I thought it's ten, twenty minutes, about four-and-a-half hours had passed and I was like blowing with ecstasy. Then they started happening more often. If I just sat in one place and I think it's two minutes, hours, seven, eight hours, it just passed away. One day I sat down and I thought it's maybe twenty-five, thirty minutes. I was sitting in a rural space around Mysore and when I opened my eyes, the big crowd, India being what it is, the garlands around me, people are trying to molest my feet. Then I said, where the hell did you come from? Then they say, you've been sitting here for thirteen days. I thought it's only twenty-five, thirty minutes. Only when I tried to open my legs, I found my knees were locked up. It took lot of effort to straighten them. But in my experience, I thought it's only twenty-five, thirty minutes. But when I say this, this may be a little difficult to grasp, but have you noticed on a particular day you were very joyful, twenty-four hours went off like ten minutes? Is that so? Another day you're a little depressed. Twenty-four hours feels like a lifetime. Yes or no? Time is a very relative experience. People say, how long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you are. You go there and knock and they say, hey, just one minute, wait. One minute. A form to audience. Audience can ask your questions to Satgu. Hi, Satgu. I am Amitabh, research scholar, department of English CIG. So it's been one year since you came to Chennai and we were all active participants in the Lally for the reverse. So was it just an awareness, an environmental awareness drive or was it much more? And have things changed since then? This is… this was not planned, but I'm telling you. For rally for reverse, we were in Chennai on 10th September, 2017. Today is exactly one year. This was not planned. Somehow this felt like that. In one year, much more than we expected has happened. One thing is we have formed a very eminent board where a former chairperson of ISRO, the space research organization, is part of the rally for reverse now in the active board. There's a Supreme Court judge who's part of it. The CEO of the World Wildlife Fund is in the board and the expert on farmers producer organization who is known as the father of FPO's is with us and the foremost water expert in the country, he's with us. So we have a fantastic board right now. On the ground, what has happened is we presented this to the Prime Minister at the end of September 2017. I presented this document which is about seven and sixty pages of recommendations of different things that needs to be done with our rivers. We… I presented this to him around 6.15, 6.20 in the evening. At eleven o'clock next day morning, our office gets a call from the Prime Minister's office that they want a soft copy because Prime Minister's already formed a special group to address these issues. I thought this is quick for a government. Then I requested that this should not go to the environment ministry. This must go to the economic planning body called Neethi Ayog right now. Why I said this was in the environment ministry, there are any number of files like this, this will become one more file. The uniqueness of Rally for Rivers is that it's an economic policy with an ecological impact. Otherwise, normally how ecology is understood is ecological protest means twenty-five people will stand in the street corner and protest against something, against the dam, against the road, against something or something. The most important thing is that we wanted to marry economy and ecology that the way we do our economy need not be against our ecology. This is the fundamental of Rally for Rivers. And then the United Nations took it up. We became partners with United Nations economic… I mean ecological project. You must… I wish we had played that… Do we have that video, the two-minute video of Eric Solheim if it's possible? And it was adopted by them and we launched a decade of action. On March 22nd, we launched a decade of action with UN across the world. In all the tropical countries, this is decade of not talking or planning, decade of action with a huge budget behind it. So this work is going on in various countries because the recommendations we gave are relevant for all tropical nations. Some of the things that have been recommended are largely towards farming because most of the riverside lands are farmed in this country, except the upper riparian lands which may be catchment, most of the length of the river is farmed. So one important aspect is to make more food come from trees than from crops. This was the basic thing. So today we have gone into this mode. Some states have taken steps where they want to convert fifty percent of their farming activity into horticulture. Andhra Pradesh has taken the step. We've been part of that and in Maharashtra we are planting fifty crore trees along the river beds. In Karnataka, in the Kaveri catchment, which is important for Tamil Nadu, we are planting twenty-five crore trees with Karnataka government. And in six other states in the country, we have signed MOUs for which action is in the process. And eighty-four percent of river water in this country is used for agriculture. So how we use water for agriculture is an important thing. So one thing we came up with is integrated irrigation systems, micro irrigation systems. The biggest problem in India is there is no scale. That means farmers' holdings are very small, very inefficient ways of doing things. For every two acres, there is a borewell and a borewell and a borewell. Water that was stored for million years is being pumped out without any sense of responsibility because every farm is… you know, average holding is one hectare, two-and-a-quarter acres in this country. So everybody has a borewell. To what extent means in Coimbatore area, which is a rich agricultural land where we are, I just met a farmer who's twenty-seven years of age. He has three-and-a-half acres of land. I asked him what's your water source. He says he has dug nine borewells in three-and-a-half acres. Nine borewells means nearly one crore rupees. One crore rupees means in three-and-a-half acres, either someday he has to sell his land or run away from the village or hang from a tree. This is all the option is. There is no question of he earning one crore rupees paying interest and paying back the money. There is no such possibility in three-and-a-half acres. So we are driving our farming community in this direction. So we took up Avatmal. Have you heard of Avatmal? Maharashtra, anybody from Maharashtra? Avatmal? You heard of Avatmal? Where the Vagari River, fifty-four kilometer stretch of the river we've taken, Avatmal is the epicenter of farmer suicides. Now with Maharashtra government, we produced our volunteers. I must tell you this, young people like you, many of them quit their very lucrative jobs and when I gave a call, minimum three years you must come. The only qualification I asked from you is never ask what about me for three years. Over hundred-and-twenty people landed up from seventeen different states and they are with us. Last six, eight months we have trained them in various aspects of river revitalization and they prepared a detailed project report on the ground meeting every farmer in the area. Seven thousand six hundred families, every one of them have been met and I have promised Maharashtra government in two to three years time we will see Avatmal doesn't have a single suicide. This is by not by talking to them, not by giving them spiritual teaching, simply by enhancing their economic possibility. Very easily we can multiply their economy. Each farmer can earn five, three to five times more than what they're earning right now within three to four years time, maximum five years time. It is over a thousand crore project along with Maharashtra government now various other agencies are joining up and they have formed a special purpose vehicle to execute this project. The idea is to set up a large scale module where successfully farmers life can be transformed in a matter of three to five years. If modules like this come up in a few states, then it'll go like wildfire. Right now we are looking at creating one module in the south, one module in the north so that people can see there is economic success. Any amount of preaching and teaching is not going to work if we make an economics economically successful module which will also preserve our ecological wealth that we have in this country. That is the only way forward and we have done this in small scale in Tamil Nadu and various other places. But now we are going for a major model there in Maharashtra. We could be doing another model in Karnataka. Karnataka is one state which is experimented with micro irrigation in a big way and we got five thousand crores allotted for micro irrigation this year and government central government has promised every year they will allocate five thousand crores but the problem is this the scale is small if farmers put micro irrigation in their little farm it'll work for two years and then it'll all go bad it won't work. So we are looking how to take this investment off the farmer's hand industry will invest and farmers will only pay rent for the irrigation. One major revolution is possible in this that is right now farmers are going to the land every day one thing is to assert this is my land he owns it his father owned it his grandfather owned it but still every day he has to go there and prove that this is my land otherwise somebody will start plowing into his land. So one thing is to digitally survey everything and put it in format we want to bring ten to fifty thousand farmers together and make an integrated irrigation system if you do this the farmer need not go to the land every day another reason why he goes to the farm is just to turn on the pump 60 to 65 days if a farmer goes to his land effectively he can grow two crops in a year this means 300 days in a year 500 million people their hands will become free if their hands we've become free the amount of ancillary industry art music and variety of other things that you can do in this country will be phenomenal this is what we are driving towards with rally for rivers and also it's taken off very well with the united nations and they're taking this up you must see the way the rally for rivers document is appreciated in you and you won't believe this how they took it and how they embraced it the moment they saw it because they wanted a plan where it is not ecology versus economy it is economy and ecology together complementary to each other that's what is happening young people can stand up and volunteer for short periods of time in your vacations or whatever in this many areas where action is happening next year if things go right with the karnataka government the political instability if that thing goes well probably in the next monsoon we will be going for a major plantation in karnataka the kawari catchment area it'll be very nice if Tamil people young people from Tamil Nadu come there and volunteer and work in karnataka because the river belongs to the people who live along the river it doesn't matter what language we speak hi my name is abhirami and i'm pursuing pursuing my first year in bachelor's in computer science here at cg uh so my question is i actually all of us here have been through more than 15 years of education but i haven't found an application or use for many of the things i've learned so why do i find some of the things i learned pointless no that should not be happening in an engineering college i can understand that in a high school most of them are pointless but in a technical school that shouldn't be happening but the important thing is our education system i wouldn't say that so much about the technical schools like this but largely our education system was created just to provide clerks for her majesty service there was no imagination behind it obedience was the most important aspect of our education system this is why you have to just mug up a whole textbook and puke it there and that's what's supposed to be uh excellence in education i wouldn't say that about technical education i think it's different so right now uh we wrote a policy on textiles in india we wrote a policy on the rivers and agriculture right now we are busy writing a policy on education of my constant push recently government announced that in future in the schools only fifty percent of the time in school should be focused towards academics rest should be focused towards sport art music craft and variety of things if you if you do not know this uh this was announced just about a month ago but announcement is fine but the schools are not equipped to shift our schools are made like this there is a whole lot of i always said as much as math and science there must be that much of music art variety of other things our schools have managed like this but that's a small number right now the we have convinced the government and government is announced central government is announced this but to implement it on the ground it is it's still far away because it needs infrastructure it needs human infrastructure it needs physical infrastructure training and various things which are yet to happen in this country it'll take time but at least that intention has come and we are seeing how schools academic part of the school for a whole lot of children should not be more than three to four hours a day max three and a half hours is all i'm thinking about rest of the time they must learn other things right now we have created a nation where if a farmer's son goes to the farm with his father father can be arrested for child labor yes really if you take your child to the farm and both of you are working on the land people can come and arrest you because you're doing child labor there is something very dangerous growing in the country we've looked at this we've kind of asked so many people today if you ask the farmers in the land are there people who your parents are from the farming community other children only one or two if you ask any farmer in the country how many of you want your children to go into farming it's just two to four percent so in another 25 years when this generation passes who is going to grow food in this country i want to know you may have technical knowledge you may do an MBA you may have various things do one thing go on the land and take out one crop let me see it's too complex we think farming is for the illiterate it is not so it is a very complex meticulous operation just because he doesn't have formal education it doesn't mean that it has no brains it doesn't mean he doesn't know something he knows something very vital because of which all of us are eating right now yes our stomachs are full but this nation has the danger this nation has the danger of not being able to grow its own food in the next 25 years so we are looking at how only a certain number of children need to go into academic education others need to learn other skills and variety of other things to do in the country for their own well-being not everybody's brains are made for academics they simply suffer their academic life a whole lot of them some of them have great joy in academics a whole lot of them suffer their academic thing and the examinations and studying how people are suffering i'm seeing these people should not be doing academics they should be learning some other skills where their aptitude is there is nobody to identify what is your aptitude what is it that you could do well with joy this needs to happen at an early time between the ages of 10 and 15 we must have a process in the education system where people can choose and above all it should be made you know right now the problem one reason why everybody wants to go to medicine or engineering is because there is a social prestige nonsense an electrician or a carpenter must have the same prestige that the doctor or an engineer has only then education will get leveled out above all a farmer must have a higher place in the society than any of us is feeding us i'm okay you you may run out of questions but i don't run out of answers so i'm okay good evening sir i'm kaushekaravind from college of engineering indi my question is if you look at the trending thing in Tamil Nadu movie stars stop movie stars they come directly to politics after prime time many people say they are coming but they are not coming but that is different when we see teenagers or common people in movies we admire them and we admire their different roles but should we support their political role should we encourage them to perform that role see as we are a democratic nation anybody can get into political life anybody can become a leader in this country this is the fundamental right in a democratic process now somebody may be well this has become you know it's very cliche to even say this now a tea seller can become a prime minister this is a fantastic thing that this is a fantastic thing that in a country somebody who sold tea on the railway station can grow to become a prime minister but we are not electing him because he made good tea we're electing him because we believe he can be a good leader the same goes for the actor also because he's a good actor you do not elect him if you think he's going to make a good leader yes nothing wrong with the acting profession as there's nothing wrong with tea selling or anything for that matter so what their background is it doesn't matter it's for you to take a judicious call whether these people will make good leaders or not but because you like them in a movie you make them into leaders in this country now that should not happen but if you believe they will make good leaders why not thank you sir guru for us for answering all our questions if you've progressed to have got answers from you and there's a lot of clarity that we have now it is the spark united in us will be carried on i'm sure and people will learn from this oh carrying a spark is no good if somebody gives you a spark you must burst into a flame only then it's worthwhile the spark isn't it if you carry just the spark what is the point anyway all of you i want you to understand one thing we are at a phenomenal time in terms of technology in terms of empowerment that human beings have never before humanity was as empowered as it is today yes or no never before but are we going to turn this empowerment into something phenomenal or are we going to waste it using it for ridiculous things the same technology and the possibilities above all in this country right now see the only nation which managed to push nearly one billion people from one level of living to another in fifty years time is china but they did it forcefully with a lot of blood and gore and pain lot of pain but they pushed one billion people from poverty to a better level of living never before in history of humanity such a large population was ever moved in such a short span of time but now in india we are sitting on the threshold where over five hundred million to six hundred million people can be moved from extreme states of poverty to a much higher way of living on all levels of life in the next ten to fifteen years time if you just do the right things without without guns without blood without torture just through the democratic process we can do it never before never ever before in the history of humanity something like this has happened so it's our privilege we are living at this time but the question is will we make it happen or will we will we just sit on the threshold and twiddle our thumbs this is where we are right now it's my wish and my blessing all of us should use this empowerment that we have into a phenomenal process that of all the generations which we have which have lived till now we have the possibility that people can look at us as the greatest generation ever till now at least till now maybe not in future we don't know who will come next but till now we have the possibility will we make it possible because always between possibility and reality there's a distance it takes commitment and courage to walk the distance i'm asking all of you do you have the commitment and courage to walk the distance make this into a great nation and a great contribution to the rest of the world thank you very much