 Let me guess, I'm sure you came with a Royal Enfield. No way. What do you have there? I have a 1600 GT. You walk too fast for me, I'm out of breath. Where would you rate us? Your somewhere around 7-8. Who has a 10? 10 is in those places where there is nobody. It is the quality of the soil in the mountains, which is making it look the way it is. We are all big train lovers. I would prefer a motorcycle to a train. If there is no element of danger, I can't live. Do you have a favourite type? Like cruisers? No, I would normally ride adventure motorcycles. I'm going to take you with my Harley for one day. It's the first time you've been to Geneva? No, I've been here many times. Always short trips? Longer trips? Always short trips. One day in, one day out. Ah, it's a pity. Have you been to other parts in Switzerland? I've been to Davos of course. Of course, yeah. Zürich, that's about it. Okay. So, what's your impression of this trip in Switzerland so far? Well, all the events have gone very well. We had an event with the Economic Forum. We had UN events. We had an event with the Indian Permanent Mission here for the UN. So, five events in a day. So, everything went well. Excellent. I'm glad we have good weather, but you don't seem to get to see the place so well. It's a tough agenda, it seems, right? That is part of my life. Wherever I go, I travel all over the world everywhere, only one day in and one day out. All right. So, you never really get to enjoy the place? I enjoy it just for one day. Just for one day. It's a short place. I heard you've been to Lavaux yesterday, right? To this lake area. Oh, yeah. On the way up here, we went there. It's a UNESCO World Heritage. The Templon Pass. That is a fantastic terrain. You've done it all by bike. Yeah. I'm sure you came with a Royal Enfield. No way. No way. It's such a beautiful machinery, don't you think? No. It's not trustworthy enough. It may be reliable, but no, it doesn't have the necessary power. What do you have then? I have a 1600 GT. Oh, nice. Well, this is water, but we're here to talk about soil, not water. I thought, you know what, when I first time, the first time I heard about your initiative, I thought it is actually brilliant. I mean, the climate change and all this is a very important topic, and everyone focuses on the air, obviously, on the temperature, obviously. And on water. But it seems that the earth, the soil has not really been an issue. Oh, it's the most serious issue. For some reason, everybody's been avoiding it. If temperature is the issue, well, in this country you may not understand. If you come to a tropical country, you stand in the hot sun for an hour, then go under the tree shade, you will understand what's climate change right there. Well, we see it with sometimes with the glaciers and with the snowfall, but you're right, I mean, of course, it's at this comfort, but it's not an existing threat, that's probably a difference. So, this is something that we are not attending to in the last thousand years. Photosynthesis, which is the basis of our life here, because before photosynthesis started, somewhere around a billion years ago they say, the earth's oxygen, I mean the atmospheric oxygen content was only a shade over one percent. Today it is twenty-one percent. Only because of that we are all here, all this complex life has happened. But in thousand years time, the drop in photosynthesis is around eighty-five percent. That's massive. And you just look at the world, everywhere either the land is plowed or paved, the land needs to have some kind of green cover, either a crop or grass or bush or weeds or trees or whatever. Green leaf is photosynthesis. That is it's capturing carbon, making carbon sugars, passing it on to the other creatures in the soil and at the same time breaking carbon dioxide and making, you know, releasing oxygen for us. What we inhale, they exhale. What we exhale, they inhale. So one half of your lungs is hanging up there on the tree. Not this tree. There is no leaf right now. Not yet. A couple of weeks they will be. That's an interesting thing. You know, initially before I was actually a farm boy. You walk too fast for me out of breath. What I was just going to say, my father has a small farm, a tiny farm. But it was always interesting because he told me when we did the field that the key is the machines, the tractors who are basically, the earth becomes more and more compact and then it obviously impacts the growth. But what you're saying makes total sense. If you drive heavy machinery, where the tires go, they crush the soil structure and make it compact, which squeezes everything out of it. Because only when the soil contains moisture, other life can thrive. If you squeeze it down and crush it, then other life cannot thrive. Not only that, when we plow the land, we are plowing with the machinery, we are plowing anywhere between twelve to fourteen inches. But most of the life that is responsible for our existence here is within twelve to fifteen inches or maximum eighteen inches. That is being seriously damaged when you open it up and leave it open to the sun. So bringing back green cover, cover crops... What do you tell the farmers? I mean usually they plow it in order to mix it, to mix old used mineral earth with new ones. So what's then the alternative to plowing? If they plant cover crops when the bricks are there for the crop, that would take care of it and if you create enough humus, the organisms will take care of it. All the organisms will turn things around. They are everyday doing a trillions of them. They are just constantly working to turn things around. Root system will do that. Root system will percolate into everything and allow things to move. Worms and other things will do that. Life there will do it. We are in a rush so we try to do it ourselves and damage everything. Now let me ask you something. I mean, you know we are the tourism organization of Switzerland. We are obviously caring very much about it. We have, as I would say, in sustainable DNA. We are recycling and taking care of our landscape and our nature for a long time. Obviously not enough, but we are trying to do our best. Now we have always focused also, as I mentioned before, on temperature. We focused on air and water. Better the tourism department focus on temperature. If this becomes a hard place, who will come to Switzerland? Exactly. After all, Switzerland alone will obviously not solve it. But it's a good point for the tourism industry. Now what I'm trying to say is what leverages, what tools does the tourism industry have to protect the soil, to focus on the soil? Because this is actually a muscle we have not been training very well in lately. That's the whole thing. We are trying to handle everything with the keyhole vision. Tourism is separate, agriculture is separate, this is separate, that is separate. The land, the atmosphere, water, everything happens as one. And if you keep all those things together well, then people will come because it's pleasant. People are coming here because they love Switzerland. They're coming here because it's pleasant to their eyes, pleasant to their skin, pleasant to their experience. That's why they're coming. So that pleasantness… Because of the Bollywood movies. If you must maintain that pleasantness, if that pleasantness is kept, people will keep coming. That's what sustainability is. If this becomes not so pleasant, why will people come? Exactly. Exactly. That's what you're trying to… You know, it's sometimes obviously it's a… So I'm saying that can't be handled like a compartment. That's a overall well-being of the atmosphere, which involves soil very much. It's a main thing, main piece. Of course, if you handle soil, water, air, other things will be taken care of. And above all, the cultural aspects, like we went to that vineyard. Now, that place is under heritage, which is good on one level. At the same time, it's so sad. What is a natural part of this country has now to be protected like an archive? Well, you can use it. You can actually go and experience it. That's the whole key. It's not a museum. We're not putting a bubble over it. But I think it raises awareness. That's definitely a good thing. No, no. I'm not against it. I said it's really good. But at the same time, that's how the whole country should have been. Right? An entire… Not just in this country. Everywhere it's happening. Good things are all becoming archival. Right. We need to see how to make it normal, you know? Do you think a good way to raise awareness of the importance of soil would be the local products? I mean, things that grow locally. I mean, now you've just been at the vineyard. So, the wine in that example or plants locally grown products could raise the awareness. It's definitely an attraction. But today tourists also have become like this. They come to Switzerland and they want to eat pizza. They come to Switzerland and they will go to McDonald's, all right? So… Less and less, luckily we realize. Less and less. Because the culinary experience becomes more and more important. So it's very important that the local experience becomes strong enough and in some way internationally enough so that this kind of standard stuff that is available everywhere doesn't take over. So keeping the local stuff constantly, you know, in our eyes to see that it's being delivered properly, that people have… people's local experience should not be become tough or hard to bear, you know? It should become very pleasant and wonderful. And if need… needs to be slightly curated for international audience, it has to be done. Not about being fanatical about what's local. I think that's very key, especially in tourism, right? Yes. Because after all it's your rare weeks, huh? If the flavor of local thing is there, local flavor is there but with an international appeal, that's when tourism will succeed. I think Switzerland has done quite well that way. But I would say like that heritage… heritage place where we went, as I was riding through the Simplon Valley and also… what is that, Wallace? Ballet? Ballet. Yeah. These are spectacular places. You must ensure that, you know, this has happened. Why I'm saying this with concern is in India, in hill stations this happened. What was… when we were growing up, what was a spectacular place? Just one more house, one more house, one more hotel, one more hotel and after that, the whole hill is full of hotels. All right. All right. So I know it'll bring in more money, but you will destroy the place and that won't last very long. I don't know if you already have a policy, but definitely some policy has to be evolved. How much we will build forever. Right. We do have policies on governmental level, obviously. What's allowed, what's not allowed, what's to build, what's not to build. We have one on the tourism side. Of course it is a kind of keyhole, I totally admit, but it is the sector we can influence. I have zero power over agriculture, over other industrial areas. Tourism we have actually something to do, so we're trying to work on that. But now that you, I mean, you've traveled so far. Like if you compare the sustainability sense of Switzerland to other countries, where would you rate us? Do you think we are somewhere in the middle, on the top, below? Zero to ten, if we have to rate you, I would say you're somewhere around seven, eight. Seven, eight, all right. It's pretty good. Now I have to ask, who has a ten? Ten is in those places where there's nobody. All right, okay. That's great. Well, of course, we all know that. Once human beings are there, they have to build facility and facility and more facility. I've been in Swiss villages earlier with some families. And I think that way the Swiss people are willing to live with less to have their flavor of life, rather than simply blatantly going for more comfort and more comfort. Less comfort makes you fitter and better also. That's definitely the case. I can totally... That is very much there in the rural Switzerland, which I think is your trump card, you must keep it that way. As your young people travel to other countries, especially if they go to America and other places and come back, they will expect that kind of thing that they can drive into their bedroom. They don't want to climb three steps. No, I'd love to hear that writing. I mean, if you tell me in a spectrum for zero where everything goes wrong to ten where there's no human being, we are somewhere between seven and eight. You're pretty good. I think I'm already comfortable with, but of course this is not the end. We have actually a program. We have a program, we call it Swiss-Stainable. It's a merge of Switzerland and Sustainable, and it is not just the marketing line. It is actually, we want to... That should be the vision. It should be the vision. Of course, people need to know about it, but we want to have several thousand tourism providers who are going to follow that movement. And that movement means that to pay very, very much attention to that. And again, I have to say, I think the topic of soil has not really caught our attention so far. So I think your trip has already... You must bring it into your attention because it is the quality of the soil in the mountains, which is making it look the way it is. If that goes away, it won't look like that. Well, you have snow-capped mountains. That's a different thing. The snow-capped mountain looks beautiful only on top of the green slopes. It's just like that, it's bare and snow-capped. That won't look nice. So I'm saying to preserve the beauty of the place, which is your main draw, I think you're getting clear four times more tourists than your population. Yeah. You know, I've worked before, did this job, I was working, I was a tourism director in Alpine destinations. And only then I realized we do actually have a law in the Swiss Alps that the farmers are not allowed to cut the grass, the first grass until the mid of June, obviously for the reason of diversity, make sure that they're not putting too much pressure on the soil and they're being compensated for that. Because they say, hey, listen, if I cut it earlier, then I can have one or two more cuts and they're being compensated for that. So that's a... I was quite... I liked that idea. Just a visual pleasure of the tourists because they're more in number than the population. Yeah, of course. So I think bringing the population's cooperation into tourism is most important. See right now a certain segment of tourists are coming. Even low budget tourists, if they have to come, they must have home stays all over Switzerland. That culture has to develop, that people can come and safely stay with families, that you could certify them, you know, that these are the families you could stay with, like this. If half a million families register, you don't have to build more buildings. In the same buildings, more tourists will stay. See now tourism, let's say instead of three times, let's say six times your population start coming. You have to welcome them. But you must see how to avoid more building, more infrastructure, the existing infrastructure, how to manage them. We must see otherwise there's no end to hotels. People will want everything. So you think in that case, construction of infrastructure is one of the key components to... Yes, in a small nation like this, if you build too much, then see if you build a road. It's not just the road, all the surrounding areas also will go, you can't just keep it in a naturally beautiful and just have a highway. You'll have to build so much, you know, assisting infrastructure to make that road a successful place to travel with. You need hotels, you need restaurants, you need petrol stations, all kinds of things. So at some point in a country like this where its beauty is the main asset that it has, I think you must cap it. We do. I think so. You know, for example, we started doing that. It is extremely difficult or nearly impossible to re-neterize things. Once you have concrete somewhere, it's very, very difficult. But we have started now in Switzerland to develop more nature parks. For example, 15% of our... OK, Switzerland is a tiny country, but 15% of our surface is a nature park. And I think that's quite... it's a start. It's a start. Some parts of Africa, like Kenya and other things, they've done this, which I'm sure... I don't know if it's explored here, I've not really traveled enough to say that. But I'm saying luxury tents are there, small tents but comfortable, bathrooms are there inside, no construction, it's just put up there. People, younger people want to experience the weather also. They don't want to be in, you know, 25 degrees centigrade all the time. They want to experience... Certainly comfort has to be done. Yeah. So, tents like that, which are not completely exposing you, it is safe and protects you, but at the same time gives you an experience of that, that would be less expensive ecologically, that would be less expensive in terms of destroying forest because everything that human beings demand, because we are not built in such a way we don't have a furry skin to just go and sleep in the mountains. We need care and protection. That protection becomes very expensive ecologically. Right. I have a technical question. You know, nowadays we kind of measure the impact of climate change in degrees, right? In... How much warmer does the earth get? Is there something like a measurement how you can determine the condition of the earth and if it's getting worse or better? How do you measure that? How do you make it visible? How do you put it in numbers or in pictures? See, if you have to put numbers on it, numbers don't reveal everything, okay? So, right now they're talking about 1.5 degree rise. How I see it is, if more and more land is exposed to the sun, both in terms of cloud land and paved land, once it goes to a certain point, after that it may snowball much faster than your calculations. Simply it may just go. Right now, I have seen this happening in Himalayas where I've been trekking since the age of nineteen, twenty-seven years every year I trek there. And I'd seen these mountains in all seasons, never were these mountains ever bare. Always snow-clad, even in peak summer. But now if you go, snow is there only for four, five, six months. Rest of the time it's just bare black peaks. Once it gets there, it'll move so fast after that. So, what do we do? Essentially what we do is, sun is the only source of heating that we have. And on a cold day we're glad he's out. On a hot day we don't want him. That's our issue. So, what is coming? Yes, that was our own layer, whatever was there. Fortunately that's one thing we have fixed to some extent. Now the next thing is, how much sunlight falls on the ground? How much sunlight falls on the green leaf? If it falls on the green leaf, carbon dioxide becomes carbon sugars and oxygen. If it falls on the ground, it multiplies the carbon emissions and methane emissions. So, how much land at a given time is exposed to sun? If we can measure this, anyway we have satellites all over the place. Today, how much land is exposed? How much is in the green cover? Tomorrow they plow, more may be there. Another day there's a crop, less may be exposed. So, if this measure is there, that we have let us say this many million square kilometers are today exposed to the sun, what season is it, what is the intensity of the sun? So, like this we could measure. If you do this, which right now nobody is looking at in that direction, I've spoken to a few people but they've all gotten into this carbon particle thing. I'm not saying it's not significant, that is also important. But if you measure how much land is exposed to sun on a given day, how much is covered on a given day, it would give you a picture where we are going. So, reforestation, planting is one of the... Not only reforestation, because that may be a limiting factor, because human populations are there, population pressure is there on the land. I'm saying we can do agriculture in such a way that most of the time the land is covered with some green leaf, which will be very good. Regenerative agriculture includes cover crops, you know, inter crops with trees and things like that, tree-based agriculture. We can do agriculture like that. Why I'm repeatedly talking about agriculture is, seventy-one percent of the world's land is under agriculture. Seventy-one. I was not aware of that. And above all, this is one piece of geography where human hand is tending to the land on a daily basis. Everybody talks about rainforest, they have not seen one, I know that. They talk about ocean, they have not lived on ocean, but agricultural land is that piece of geography where every day human hand is tending to it. If you can't fix that, how will you fix rainforest and ocean and something else? You just have to stay away from the rainforest. As far as possible from the ocean, it'll get fixed. It's a good point. A very good point. Very good point. Excellent. Very interesting. It's lovely to talk to you. It's nice and fresh. That's the moment where everybody loves the sun, right? One of the rare moments. What's your next station? Tomorrow morning I'm living for Fontainebleau. Is that it? How do you say it? Fontainebleau, yeah. That's just outside Paris. Yeah, I'm speaking at the university there and in the night I'm riding to Paris. It's a beautiful place. It's nice. You're driving again with your motorcycle? Motorcycle. Allo. Totally 30,000 kilometers. Seriously. I once had a Harley myself. Oh, Harley. A soft tail had had, yeah. Soft tail. They have now also an e-horly. Have you seen it or heard it? Yeah, yeah. Obviously it doesn't take it that far. When I was at this vineyard, Bastian, he had a e-horly. Oh, he did? He did. He did. He's a lovely person. He's a great guy. Oh, you had a conversation with him? We had a conversation. He sang one song for me. Oh, he did. Oh, wonderful. He's got a good voice. He's got a good voice. Yes. We actually did one for us last year because we have something called the Grand Tour of Switzerland. It's basically a road trip through Switzerland because I'm sure you're aware we're a tiny country but we have four languages, four cultures and we were always trying to look how can we combine it in a nice way. And we did have the trains. I don't know if you traveled by trains. I did once. We're all big train lovers. You have. You did. I did once, I think from somewhere when we came down from Daoism there to Zuri, there's a train ride. That's a beauty. On the left side there was a river flowing all along the way. Right, right. Traveling through the Swiss mountains on a train is just fabulous because you feel so protected. You know, you have the mountains out there. But I mean you have the same thing also in the north of... I would prefer a motorcycle to a train. You do. Because when you're out in the mountains nothing like a motorcycle. Has it always been your passion or is it something you have... No, early on... ...discovered later? Early on, very... when I was very young, I crisscrossed India on my motorcycle. Oh, really? But... But tell me, is it safe? Because I have to say, I mean, I told you, you know, I lived formers the year in Mumbai. If it's safe, why would I do it? And I felt not safe to be honest. You didn't get me. If it's safe, why would I do it? Oh! Okay. If there's... If there's no element of danger, I can't live. And you had always been locked? You had always... I rode for about... literally four and a half, five years. I lived on a motorcycle at one time. All right. After that thirty-two years, I never touched a motorcycle. Not even thought of one. But now, about five years ago, we were doing this rally for rivers. When I went to Bangalore, in that area everybody knows about my motorcycling past. So somebody brought one motorcycle and said, Sadhguru, why don't you ride? I said, over thirty years I've not even touched a motorcycle. How am I going to ride? Then I went and sat on it. I realized I haven't lost a day. It's like riding a bike. I haven't lost a day. Since then, I've been traveling everywhere on a motorcycle. Last five years. You have a favorite type? You have a favorite type? Like cruisers or... No, I normally ride adventure motorcycles. This is like a sports tourer, what I have. This is very long distances. Especially this is my motorcycle from United States. So there the roads are such. So that bike actually travels with you? Only for this. Oh, for this one here. Okay. But it's not the one you have in India which you flew over? No, this is from U.S. I brought. Oh yeah, okay. In U.S. we have a large center. Ah, right, okay. Do you notice any difference when you ride in Europe? Well obviously from England to Europe you hopefully notice one difference. I have no issue with right and left because I always go from India to United States and just when I get off in the airport I have to ride the right or drive. So I have no problem with that right or left. So next time you come here I really hope you have more time than just one day. I'm going to take you with my Harley for a one day trip. Don't make me ride a Harley. No, no, me or my Harley. Because we're going to take a one day trip. Just give me one day of your time or half a day and I'm going to show you a wonderful pass because we have the Gotthard Pass in the middle of Switzerland. Which is actually separating the north from the south. It's called the Gotthard. We have a long, long tunnel going through it. But we have a beautiful, windy, serpentine road. It's the classic. It's called the Tremella. Why would I like to do that on a Harley, man? No, not a Harley, on yours. I was just saying that I accompany with my Harley. Let's get an Africa twin or something. Yeah, that's a good choice too. That's a good choice too. Well, we're talking about soil but there we have a wonderful, it's called the Gédo. The French word for water jet. And I think I learned a lot about soil. I'm really happy that Switzerland Tourism learned a lot from this part. And we're definitely going to pay more attention to this. And I think this is going to bring us very much forward. Thank you so much, Sadhu Guru. Don't kill the nation with too much modernity. Keep it as it is. Because that's what will be most valuable in future. Everybody will be tired of gadgets and zoomie-zoomy cars and everything. People will want something where they can feel the soil, they can feel the land, they can feel the water. That's what will be valuable for the future because everywhere else everything will be there. If we go that way in the name of development, I think that will last for twenty-five, thirty years and after that it will go down. Sustainability, if you're talking. Swiss sustainability. So maintain this Swiss flavor. We'll do it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you. Wonderful.