 Planet has always been working with us. Sure. It's a we the idiots who are not working with the channel. Today you're making even the smoking hemp legal. You could own the weed instead of smoking it. By recommendation, we must make sure children below fourteen years of age wear only natural fiber in this country. So, you are a yogi, a humanitarian, an educator, a teacher, a super fantastic human. How did you get to sustainability in the fashion industry? That's a question that I have to start. I'm not in fashion. I'm just with life. And human beings inevitably have to wear clothes. They better wear it sensibly, that's all. Sometimes I wish we wouldn't have to wear clothes and we would avoid that. Sometimes I wish we wouldn't have to wear clothes, we would avoid. Oh, not in this weather, you better wear. You're right. So how did you come to sustainability through the fashion industry? And I know that you work a lot with organic textiles and the importance of that. So why is that so important to you? So if you know something about India's history, India in the past has been the largest exporter of textiles in the world. Eighty-five percent of the world's textile exports were from India about 250 years ago, which was systematically destroyed by the occupying forces of the day, which left the society various levels of impoverishment, which still continues. So over forty percent of India's population at one time was engaged in textile and related work. Between 1800 to 1860, India's export, textile exports came down by ninety-eight percent because this is thanks to East India Company, okay? I remember reading or seeing in one of your videos that it was at one time one of the richest countries in the world. Yes, everybody wanted to go there. Even Mr. Columbus wanted to get there and got here and his mistake, we're all here today. So because it was the largest economy and spices and textiles were the main things. So in sixty years' time, the exports came down by ninety-eight percent. So the economy was left in shambles and for survival over 1.5 million people died, we were lack of livelihood. And the rest scrambled into agriculture. So this is why even today India has, when the English left, when India attained its independence in 1947, ninety percent of the population was in agriculture. That is not traditional farmers, they all desperately got into farming because their textile industry was completely, systematically ruined. So even today this farm sector has not come to stability, even now in the election one of the biggest issues is farm distress. Because in the last ten years over three hundred thousand farmers have committed suicide. The problem is if they grow less food, the crop is bad, then they suffer because they don't have enough produce. If the produce is good, the prices will collapse. There is no system because in India now in urban areas it's becoming, otherwise in India nobody will buy processed food by nature. For us, vegetables has to be today plucked. If it's in a store, we don't go and buy it. Now slowly they are being, you know, what to say? A retrained or influenced by Western culture. Yes, now I'm trying to use the right word, being domesticated. Domesticated. Otherwise, you know, when we are growing up my father refuses to have a refrigerator at home. He said if you get this you will all start eating old food. So no refrigerator at home, everything has to be fresh. So that's how the culture was, because of this there is no cold storage systems, there is no marketing facility. So if you grow more you lose, if you grow less you lose. If thirty percent, my vision is to make thirty percent of India's farming into natural fiber. And what will that do, what would that do with that vision? That means one thing is it's a non-perishable item. You can sell it at any time of the year, it's not like you have to sell it on the spot. That will make a huge difference for the India's farmer. And for the weavers, India has over 136 distinct weaves. No culture on the planet has produced such a variety of weaves, but a whole lot of them, about sixty-seven of them are on the verge of extinction. Can you elaborate a little bit about the importance of weaving and the importance of weavers and why there are so many? Most people don't understand what is weaving. Gilti. When I was seventeen years of age and I did not show much interest in my education, my family, my larger family was involved in silk weaving. So my father said, why don't you go and explore this, go and see if you can do some industry or business like that. So I went to see, I thought, when I was seventeen I thought I was super smart. It took me some time to realize, it takes life to realize how dumb you are, okay? So I'm thinking I'm super smart and I just go sit there and this totally, I'm sure he's illiterate, he's never been to school. He's like there must be, I don't know how many threads, there must be some 10,000, 12,000 threads coming. The guy is just moving like this, like this, she's doing this magic and the cloth keeps happening and somewhere one flower comes up here, one flower comes up there. Perfect geometry, it never goes wrong. There's no computer, there's no nothing, it's all in his head. I just looked at it, trying to figure out what he is doing. The smart me couldn't figure a damn thing. I sat there for a few days, then I thought this guy's got something in his head that all your stupid education is never going to get you there. It's a different level of computing, he's simply doing magic with his hands. So 136 varieties, we evolved over a few millennia. Unfortunately, in a matter of fifty years we're destroying it completely. Many of these weavers are last generation because their children have already become software engineers, maybe in San Francisco already. So these old people are doing something, one little weaving something, a few people, a handful of people doing. If that goes, it will completely disappear. I was going to say my question is why, what is the importance of cultural prejudice? These skills, these skills are pride of humanity. What human hand can do is unbelievable. Today we're enjoying the power of the machine, all right? But what human hands can do should not be lost and what we have done, what we took thousands of years to evolve should not be lost in a generation simply because we've become callous and we think we're practical. There's nothing practical about this. What we're doing right now is the most impractical thing. It's not even practical for the planet, nor for our health and well-being. So a more practical thing would be definitely to go back to natural fiber. Natural fiber, variety of natural fiber that's available does such tremendous things to your body. Today there is substantial medical studies to show what kind of damage polyfiber is causing to your system. And various diseases and allergies are being attributed to this, particularly a growing child should never use synthetic fiber, must be natural fiber. So we're trying to bring this forth, the reason why we're getting involved with the American designers is we want them to push this and well this part of the world, people can afford to buy what they want. At least fifty percent of your clothing to start with must be natural fiber. Children below twelve or fourteen years of age should not touch synthetic fiber. They must be natural clothing. So we want to push this into the schools. If schools can promote that everybody should wear natural fiber from an early age, if they know the comfort and the pleasure of being in natural clothing, they will not go to synthetic clothing later on. Absolutely. Very good points. I've got a question, you know, I've been reading, watching a lot of your videos and reading up on you and you talk a lot about connection. How does that, how does natural fibers and in the lack of wearing or wearing, how does, how does that relate to connection? Are we becoming more disconnected from the world because we are not even using natural fibers in our everyday lives anymore or what are your thoughts on that? See, you have seen synthetic fiber has a certain static, you know? If you take a substance like Turlean or Polista, if you just rub it, there is static. Constant static around your body, is it a good thing to do to yourself? You want, see in the yogic system, how we understand life is the dynamism of the same energy is called life. Inertia of the same energy is called death. So you have lot of static around you is not going to make you dynamic. In many ways it's going to cripple you. This may be subtle, your ability to perceive may be crippled, but you don't understand because you think by consulting the Google lady you know the universe. Information is being misunderstood as intelligence, which is a very serious flaw. And if one has to keep one's intelligence and perception at a certain level of sharpness, all this matters. How you eat, how you sit, how you stand, what you wear, what is in contact with your body, everything matters. If you want to somehow live and go away, then it's whatever you do is fine. But once you come as a human being, that is the significance. Though we do the same things that every other animal does, we want to do it in a certain way so that we stand apart from every other creature on this planet. It's only in the way we do it, it's not in what we do. We eat, they eat, they reproduce, we reproduce, we sleep, we they sleep, we die, they die. All right? Everything is simple. Yeah, exactly. It is just that the way we do it sets us apart. So the way we do it has to change means you must be sensitive to how you keep your body. In this clothing is an important part. Why do you think people are falling away from that? Why do you think people are falling into the trap of that? See, people are not deciding anything, commercial forces are deciding everything. People are not deciding the industry. One important thing about fashion for peace is we want people to decide what commercial forces should manufacture, but right now commercial forces are deciding what people should want. It's a power of advertising and marketing. Marketing, yeah. Yes. No, people should decide what we want and that is what commercial forces should provide for them. Right now commercial forces are deciding what you should drink, what you should eat, what you should wear, how you should live, everything. It's not good. Commerce is there for human well-being, not the way… not the other way round. So is there… is there… do you see a way where people and planet can profit together, businesses and planet can be working together in order to make a better world? Or how do you… how do you… Planet has always been working with us. Sure. Yeah. It's a way the idiots who are not working with the planet, all right? They're very… I should agree with you on that one, yeah. The very body that you carry is a piece of this planet. Most people don't get this till you bury them. But even when they bury, we are making sure they don't get it because today they're burying them in what? Aluminum… aluminum coffins. Yeah, coffins, yeah. So even when you bury, they cannot realize I'm part of the planet. You're in a box. Planet has always been working with us. Otherwise we can't exist here for a moment. Our existence is not possible if the planet does not work with us. Are we responding? Unfortunately, not very well. That brings me to a good… a question I have about the fashion industry and their response. You know, obviously that it's one of the most destructive industries on the planet, but… Very largest polluter on the planet. It is quite a large polluter. It's huge. Number three, still on the podium. Yeah. Yeah, it's just astronomical. It's unbelievable. But they have the power to… the communication power that they have is unbelievable. How do you feel about where the fashion industry is going? Like where it's at right now? Where it's going? Where it needs to be in relation to what needs to get done? I mean, I kind of feel like there's a bit of a crisis that's happening and people haven't really woken up to that yet. Do you feel like the fashion industry can help push that along faster? See, this is one industry which can change its direction at will because fashion is always trying to shift this way and that way nobody wants to repeat anything. So, this is one… to change how you make your cars takes a lot of effort. To change how you make your clothes. If a few iconic designers and those who display these designs, if they change their minds, everything could change in a matter of few years. So, it is the easiest industry to change, if you ask me, because they like change. Without change there's no fashion. All the time some change needs to happen, that's their problem, how to change. Yeah, it survives on change, right? So, this is not thriving on status quo. It's not like a financial institution. It's not like some other steel or coal or some other industry which is very difficult to change. Fashion is the easiest thing to change after all if… because fashion is all… But the world or the people are not deciding the fashion. A few icons are deciding the fashion. If they change, what we thought was impossible kind of haircut, you know, when we were growing up, we want to have it long. Our fathers wanted to give us a jar head. We said, no way that machine will be used on my head. But today all the young kids have jar heads and they're going around, that's a fashion. So, that's because one football star or somebody does that, all right? So, this is not individual thinking. Fashion is led by certain people. If those people just wear natural fiber and say, this is it, I think the world will change very, very quickly. Do you think… do you think the fashion industry can survive? Like as we were talking a little bit before about how much they're pushing out, like fast fashion companies doing nearly a hundred and some collections a year and… Will the industry survive? Will the industry survive? Of course. It has survived for 10,000, 15,000 years. Fashion has always been there. Will a particular designer survive that you cannot say? That's the next episode. Okay. So, going back to the power of change, that's something that you're a huge advocate for. So, what can designers and what can fashion industry, excuse me, not could, what should they be doing now in order to implement those changes? What's the emergency? What's the biggest thing? See, the most important thing is right now, the way we're heading, it is said that today, on an average, each one of us have five times more clothing than our grandparents. By 2025, they say this will double. By 2030, they're saying this will become seven times over. So, the amount of clothing that we're going to manufacture in the next ten years is more than what we have manufactured in the last 200 years. The clothing that we have used in the last 200 years, we're going to use that in the next ten years. So, when this is the kind of consumption of fabric we're going to make, what kind of fabric is important? Today, it is said by 2025, 98% of the fabric, if we go as business as usual, 98% will be synthetic fiber, 95% will be polycop. So, the poly fiber, which is a petro product, is going to be the biggest thing. And it has entered our bodies, it's entered our water, soil, our food cycle, it's just in everything. They say an average American has 28 grams of plastic in his body. You're in New York, so you may have 32. This brings me to a question. I mean, it's astronomical because these facts are out there, and I'm wondering why are people not responding more in a bigger way? I think we have not pushed it strong enough. We have not shown the needed commitment. Most things in the world doesn't happen because for most people causes are a fashion statement. It's not a lifelong commitment. This needs to be pushed in a committed way. And as I said, especially our children below 14 years of age should not touch synthetic clothing, they must wear. This could even be made into a law. Yeah, absolutely. Children's clothing has to be natural fiber, this could be a law. This needs to be made. If not law, at least in schools, it can be a recommendation to start with. But at some point in the world, we have to make it a law. Below 14 years of age, like below 18, you're not supposed to sell cigarettes to somebody or alcohol to somebody. Similarly, below 14 years of age, you can't sell synthetic clothing to a child because you're poisoning a system. We should push for a legislation at some point. It may be bitterly, people may think this is too much, but first it should start with a recommendation and then become a law. Yeah, I mean, I think public health is a very important thing that we tend to forget about. With those shocking statistics I read recently in The Guardian about, I think it was in America, 96% of the water here is polluted with plastic microfiber. 27 tributaries going into the Great Lakes of serious content of poly fiber. It affects everything, our food supply, everything. So we are only thinking of human life. This is a serious mistake because this plastic fiber is seriously affecting the worms, insects, birds, animals. Well, we need to understand this. See, various studies are there to show this. They say if all the worms disappear today, all life on this planet will disappear in about 14 to 18 months. If all the insects disappear today, all life on this planet will disappear within two and a half to four years time. But if all of us disappear, planet will flourish. Yeah, we're the ones that are making the problem. We need to understand this that though we make very good manure, we need to understand our sense of self-importance, that life means just us. This is a very disastrous idea. So we must see if plastic is affecting our life so much, such a big creature. What about the insects, the worms, the microorganisms, all of them are being affected. If they're affected, there cannot be life on this planet. Planet can go on without us, but planet cannot go on without them. You know, we sit, we talk about this and it's such a, it is an astronomically large issue that we're having, that the globe is having. And I think to some people it's almost kind of this attitude of I don't want to, if I can't, if I can't solve it, I don't want to, and I can't, I can't think about, I don't want to deal with it, how, how do, how does the everyday person interact with tackling this problem? Like what can they do? See, when you can have a drug law, though a whole lot of people are saying it's a good thing, why don't you make it legal, everything, you have a drug law. Why? Because you understand it's bad for the people. They may like it, bad things. That goes for clothing too. Initially it's a recommendation, initially it is a campaign to bring awareness, after sometime it has to be a law. So you're suggesting that don't leave it to the choice of people? See, not as I said even the fashion that you do, whether it's your hairstyle or the clothes that you wear, except me I'm a unique creature. I'll agree with that. Otherwise everybody's idea of fashion is just imitating something, isn't it? So initially recommendation, awareness, everything. When there is sufficient awareness, you must make it a law. So there's this word term called influencers, have you heard of this word before? Okay. It's a new thing, kind of. So I'm wondering what are your, like this new technology, Instagram, people out there influencing, I don't know what everybody's influencing, they're influencing people to buy more, shop more. How do you see the power of influencers working in conjunction with saving the planet? How can that work? If you're talking about it with relation to fashion and clothing, influencers have a huge role because in a society like this, what that person that you call as an influencer wears, everybody wants to wear. Today it's already beginning to happen, particularly in California I think. The well-to-do, the truly affluent people are wearing crumpled cotton, linen, hemp, these kind of clothes. I'm talking about hemp as clothing. But people eat hemp, smell hemp, they do lots of... hemp is an amazing product, it's an amazing... No, but it's actually same species but they're of different kind, they're different families. The hemp that produces cannabis, which is used for medicine and recreational purpose is of one kind, the hemp that is used for fiber is of a different kind. This happened in sixties, United States government put a serious amount of pressure on the Indian government to ban hemp growth. India tried to explain, these are two different families, they're the same species but different families, it's not the same thing. They said nothing doing, you have to ban it. So Indian government banned hemp growth and destroyed the whole industry. But today you're making... even the smoking hemp legal, the weed has become legal. You could have owned the weed instead of smoking it. That's been a difficult one for people to digest but I'm all for it, you know. I said I think that's been a difficult one for people to really digest that. No, nothing to digest or undigest, it is just that if you allow commercial forces, in other 20 years maybe cocaine will be legal. A whole lot of people will start the campaign, cocaine should be legal. Is it wrong? I'm not looking at it morally. I'm only looking at it, anything that lowers human capability should be... society should push it away because it's very important in human life that you are able to do whatever simple things you do really well. This is very important for a human being, isn't it? Any simple thing that you do, the basic thing about the human being is you want to do it better than the way you did it yesterday. So this ability and this longing will go away if you use certain chemicals. You just... your idea of being stoned, see I'm always stoned, look at my eyes. No substance, just stoned from within, all right? This kind of stoning will enhance your competence. People's idea of being stoned is sitting like a dead chicken. Mm-hmm. I can show you another way of being stoned. I'd love to, yes. Well that actually then this comes to your inner engineering project, right? Can you tell us a little bit about that? Do we get stoned at your inner engineering? Oh yes, absolutely. I'm so excited. Can I come there too? Yes. It's for all life addicts, those who are interested in life, those who want to die can get intoxicated in such a way that all their faculties are taken away, they just fall asleep for twelve hours a day. If you want to sleep ten, twelve hours a day, you're clearly saying you don't like life, you like to die, right? Sleep is death. Sleep is death. So there's another way, this is the most sophisticated and complex chemical factory. If you are a good CEO, you would produce the kind of chemistry that you want. You can make your chemistry in such a way you're always blissed out. But if you're a lousy CEO, you produce anxiety, you produce this and that and then you have to put chemicals from outside, which give you some sense of relief, but they're taking away your competence. People say even in India there's a campaign that you must make marijuana legal. I said, it's fine. In a college I'm speaking in a university, I said, why is it not legal, Sadhguru? Why don't you speak for this? I said, I have no issue. I want everything to be legal and I want sense to be compulsory. Because you think you can go to your college, it's… in India it's called… I smoked means it's a cigarette. I'm smoked up means it is this. So you want to smoke up and go to your classroom. As it is, most of you can't figure out what is written in the stupid textbook, all right? I can identify that one. You read it half a dozen times, you're still not getting it, smoked up. I can imagine. Anyway, forget about that. Today you want to fly. Your pilot is smoked up. You want to fly this airplane? No. Today you need a surgery. Your doctor is smoked up. You want the surgery? No. But you want to go to college smoked up. How come? So tell us a little bit more about the inner engineering program. See, I'm stoned out always. I can tone it up, bring it down as I feel. But my competence will not go down. The more I'm stoned, more competent I become because it's like a lubricant. Nothing bothers you. Every kind of people, every kind of activity, everything and you can do it joyfully because you're always blissed out. This kind of stoned is good. You stoned like a dead chicken. What is the point of that kind of stone? How much comes from that, I'm guessing. Not much comes from that one. Once you're on it, your sleep quota increases that itself is against life. This then brings me back to the idea that you talk about it with connection. Have people really lost connection? Have people have they become so disconnected from themselves that that's what they need? See, this whole idea that your thought and emotion is of paramount importance has made human beings think that their psychological structure is more important than the cosmos. The stupid way to exist. You... people have not understood that my thought and my emotion is my making. They think it's something else. Some other phenomena is happening. No phenomena is happening. Your thought and emotion is only happening from the little data that you have gathered. You just... on our recycling process, there are permutations and combinations and you think this is creativity. This is just garbage recycle. Once you give so much importance to your thought process and your emotion, you are a psychological case because you have no taste of the world. You only have your own psychological mess going on endlessly and you think that's everything. Whether you think of God or a devil, it's you doing, right? It's you making. What kind of God appears in your mind? What kind of devil appears in your mind is also cultural thinking, isn't it? In India, we have a very colorful variety of gods and devils, not one. I'd like to know more about that. So you... I was reading a little bit too about your practice with yoga and how you were talking about how yoga has across many cultures been distilled into an athletic activity, but there's many benefits... Not distilled. Distorted. Distorted. Distorted. Internet athletic activity. I love yoga. I often ask if I'm doing it correctly, but I don't know if that's even a good question. No. Probably not. No. So lots to learn when I come to visit you in India. You can also learn here in America. Okay, great. I'm excited about that. But my question is, is how... I'm not going back and having you as a guest. I'm saying it's also available right here. Okay, okay, okay. But how does that... how can people connect through... like how does that practice of spirituality and yoga fit into this whole? See, the first of all, let's understand the word yoga. The word yoga means union, not body twisting and stretching and doing something. Physical aspect of yoga is a minuscule of yoga. Word yoga means union. What does union mean is, see, as you sit here, you're breathing. That means the life that you are and this planet and this atmosphere and the universe in some way is in transaction. It's not just by respiration. On all levels, even in the subatomic particle level, it's all in communication. So you cannot exist here by yourself. You only existing here is a part of the whole. It's a fantastic phenomena of which we don't know the beginning and the end. All right. But now you have become that kind of a psychological structure. You think you're all by your own. You are a unique and absolute entity and you're also eternal. The religions of the world, philosophies of the world and basic human psychological structure has created this impression. So now you have become an absolute entity by yourself. Your life is you versus the universe. This is a bad competition to get into, believe me. This is the silliest competition to get into you versus cosmos. What kind of competition is that? But this is how most human beings are going. No wonder they're anxious every moment of their life because in competition with the rest of creation, you have to be anxious. How else if you don't suffer, I would be disappointed. Yes, if you are in competition with the creation and you don't suffer, I would be very disappointed and surprised. How is that possible? You have to suffer. So yoga means consciously obliterating the boundaries that you have set up. Have you suffered? Have you suffered? Do I look like that? I mean not right now but I'm wondering like have you had a process of suffering? Not really. People think they can evolve only with suffering unfortunately. It's up to you whether you want to evolve joyfully or with pain. See life is like this. It's a brief happening, okay? You are like a pop-up on your computer screen. You pop out, you're there and you pop out again, pop up and pop out. But this brief amount of time, whether you want to keep this in a pleasant state of experience or in an unpleasant state of experience is up to you. Both the faculties are there with you. Right now whether you enjoy sitting here or you suffer sitting here is entirely your choice but a whole lot of people think there is a good reason for their suffering. Because they think they're eternal. They don't know they're mortal. Every moment of their life they're not conscious. This is a brief amount of time and it's getting over. As you sit here, your hourglass is getting empty. Most people are not conscious of this. They think they're immortal. I think a big industry has been created around that. Not one. Back to soil. I've got a question about that. Even they're refusing to get into soil. They're in the aluminum caskets. Soil is suffering right now. We only have 60 years left. It's a big question. What is 60 years? 60 years left of healthy soil on the planet as a statistic that I've been reading about. I'm not sure if that's entirely exactly accurate but I don't think we have an infinite source of healthy soil left. You don't have but if a lot of us die the planet, the soil becomes very healthy. Okay. So who's going to die? How do we choose? How all of us die? Okay. It's just a question of when. When and how I guess. I mean I guess that how doesn't really matter. It's when. It's only when. But it doesn't even really matter when because it just will. Right? We're just going to go. So who is who has to die? See this is the whole problem. Most people think other people die. You're going to die. You're going to die. Yeah. No, no. All of us die. Yeah. So if we make the very source of our bodies, which is the soil unhealthy and we hope that we will live well. Some people of course trying to escape to Mars. That's a different matter. People are trying. People are trying. Yeah, yeah, all the best. But even if you get there, what will you do there? To Mars. You'll do the same thing. Well, there's no soil. I don't, I don't. No, no. Even if you go to Mars or some other planet, you will destroy it also because this is what you know. Instead of learning to fix it here, you want to go elsewhere. Even if you go there, you will do the same thing. Is this not what we did wherever we went? See there were known parts of the world and unknown parts of the world. Let's say this North America was called New World at that time. It's a whole new world. Well, we came here and did the same things, right? Faster than anywhere else. Learning to fix it. So how are you collaborating? The most, most important thing is we are talking about sustainability of the marketplace. Okay. First of all, let's talk about most vital things in our life. Sustainability of living healthfully, peacefully, joyfully, lovingly. None of this is sustainable. None of those things you just listed are sustainable? Most be in most, for most people it's their peace, joy, love, nothing is sustainable. Walking in New York City, they're living in the best of comforts compared to anywhere in the world. Their peace and joy is just kindy. If you provoke them a little bit, they'll burst. On the street, do you think? They're all behaving in a civil way. This what civilization means, organizing civility. So it's all a sham. It's all fake. You poke them and see what'll happen. No, I'm going to stay up here with you. I'm not going down there. You... it's mildest provoc... smallest provocation, the worst will come out of them. Most people, not everybody, there are wonderful people, but larger population has become like this. In a affluent nation where there is a choice of food, choice of lifestyles, so many things available, this is the condition of the people. So when your well-being is not sustainable, when your joy is not sustainable, how do you make market sustainable? When your marriage is not sustainable, how do you make market sustainable? It's a mystery. Conversely, though... Market is much more complex than your marriage, I'm saying. What's that market is more complex than my marriage? It is far more a complex process than your marriage. Yes, yes, yes. If this is not sustainable, how will that be sustainable, I'm saying. How... but then conversely, we have the impoverished. I mean, we have... we live in New York City, we have a bubble and like... I personally know this because I can barely afford to live in New York City. I'm wondering like how does that work with the... we were just pointing out the people who are living civilly who have access to so much, but what about people who are underserved impoverished or marginalized? See, in a country like this, nobody need to be underserved. There is enough land, there's enough nature, but they like to live in the city no matter what it is and they have to drink their beer or whiskey in morning and evening and in the afternoon, of course. So that's a different thing. This is a different kind of poverty. poverty is there in other parts of the world where there's simply no room for livelihood or no way to get their food. That's a different matter. There are still parts of world like that where they're undernourished and everything. Here, I would say it's almost my choice. Wow, that's powerful. I know I'll become very unpopular for this, but if they wish, there is a way to earn their livelihood. They may not have choice of lifestyle, but choice of life is there. In many parts of the world, there's no choice of life either. Forget about life. That's true. That's true. How do you, with your programs in India and through craft and through fashion, how do you support underserved communities or marginalized communities? How do you support, how does that work together? See, we have brought in hundreds of tribal women. We have taught them skills with which they do all these products, variety of products. But at the same time, we don't want to become a manufacturing unit or an FMCG company or a textile company because we are essentially about transforming the inner nature of the human being. These other things we are doing more as samples for somebody else to take it up and do it large scale. We don't want to become a business company. But we have small businesses just to prove a point, just to show that this can be done this way as a model. So some people are taking it up and do it, but still it is not as large as it should be. Transformation, I love that word, means so many and it gives so much hope and so much inspiration. What is it going to take to transform the industry, transform, what is it's going to take to transform people's way of thinking about how they consume? When it comes to people, it's just willingness. Sounds simple, but seems difficult. See, suppose all the desperate actions that human beings are doing in this world is simply in pursuit of human well-being, isn't it? I don't know. I mean, I feel like vanity drives a lot of that. That is also well-being. Being vain is... See, that's the only way they have some pleasure. True. If they knew, like I'm sitting here, if they knew how to simply sit here blissed out, they would see what we should do, what we should not do, isn't it? Not in moral terms. In terms of sensible way of living, this is not a moral science class I'm saying, this is right, this is wrong. I'm not saying that. Question is what works and what doesn't work. Question is what works for every life. If you were joyful, have you noticed on a certain day when you're very joyful, you are such a wonderful human being to everybody around you. This is true with every human being. Another day you're frustrated, you're angry, you're miserable. You could be nasty and that's true with everybody. So we've always been trying to produce good people. This is the most serious mistake we've made. Wait, wait, wait. Yes, yes. Repeat that please. We've always... Sorry. We've always been trying to produce good people. We've always been trying to produce good people. Oh, okay. But miserable people. Instead, if we had seen how to produce a joyful human being, a joyful human being is an insurance in the world because there's no desperation. There's... Once you're joyful by your own nature, you're not a vested interest. You will simply do what's needed. You don't have to do anything in particular. Do you think the fashion industry lacks joy and that's why it's so screwed up? Not just... Not just fashion industry. Okay. Every industry, essentially human beings. And of course fashion industry lacks joy. I don't see joy, you know, I'm not a person who's been in too many of those events, but one or two events I've seen, people who are wearing these fancy clothes and walking on the tramp, I didn't see any joy in their face. What did you see? They're very tense and breaking up almost. Wearing the best clothes in the world, they're not... It's that pin-pop thing that you were talking about earlier, right? No, no, I'm saying life itself is a pop-up. No, before that you were talking about how if you pop the bubble and people and... No, no, they're in great states of distress and it looks like a whole lot of them are malnourished. I know, yeah. Really? I know. It's sad to see that, but it is like... It's like by choice, spending a lot of money, people tear their clothes like that, spending a lot of money to be malnourished. People without food are malnourished, unfortunately. Still there are millions of people like that, that's a misfortune. But now by choice people are malnourished. Because they think that's a great way to be. See, I want you to understand to what extent fashion can go, how distorted and sick it can become is. In the Victorian England, it was fashionable to have tuberculosis. They called it consumption. So many people were lost to this because they refused to be treated, because it was fashionable to cough in public. Because if you coughed, if you looked weak and you coughed, you looked like an intellectual. If you were strong and well, you're not an intellect. You must do this, you're an intellectual. We lost many people, one great loss was John Keats. He died at twenty-four because he refused to be treated. Such a fashionable disease he had, he didn't want to be treated. So fashion can get that extreme too. Fashion can kill us. Yes. So it's time we do sensible fashion. That's really powerful. I've oftentimes gone to those events myself and wondered what was happening and kind of have just absorbed the energy and just thought that this is supposed to be a celebration of creativity, a celebration of design, a celebration. And it oftentimes does feel like that. A lot of anxiety, a lot of pressure, a lot of moving people, a lot of moving parts, and a lot of people that didn't have breakfast. It's challenging. But I definitely believe that those, I definitely believe that there is a power to the fashion industry that it can affect change. It can affect great change. I'm a firm believer in that because there's so many people that work in the fashion industry all over the world. Not just because of that. In some way, everybody looks up to it. Yeah? Yep. Knowingly or unknowingly. People are looking up to it. So when somebody looks up to you, you must see it as a tremendous privilege that if you just do the right things, the whole world will do the right things. What a fantastic privilege that is. You must make use of it. So what... Tell me about your rivers project. You have a project with preserving the rivers. Can you tell me a little bit about that? So Rally for Rivers has a moment when we started it is... It was a month-long event where this has been the largest ecological movement on the planet. 162 million people participated. Bravo, amazing. In 30 days, I drove 9,300 kilometers myself across from the tip of Southern India to Himalayas and 142 events. That's amazing. Okay. And you attended all of them? Yes, 142 events, live events. And 182 interviews. Wow. Media interviews. So practically 24 hours of the day. 24 hours a day. So that brings you joy doing that? I don't do anything for joy. I am joyful by nature. I do whatever is needed. Okay. So the idea of doing this was to see in a democratic country for leaders to take a decision on something which is long-term. Well, here elections are every four years, there is every five years. Generally, most decisions are made that things should happen within five years time for them to get the credit. Nobody's thinking 25 to 50 years time. Nobody wants to invest money in something which is long-term because they may not even be there. So to do something for which the credit won't come to you, people need to know that the leaders, the political leaders need to understand this is what people want. So that is why I went about creating that campaign. 162 million people when they stood up and said yes, then nobody could go back on that. Across political spectrum, 16 states. It is 16 states are ruled by six different parties, political parties. Never they agree upon anything. It's a tradition if these people say one thing, those people will say no, no matter what it is. I've experienced that before. So... How did you get everybody to come together? See, once they saw people the way they were responding, democratic leaders are slaves of numbers. Once they saw the numbers, the way we generated the numbers, then they knew they had to be a part of it. In all the 16 states, chief ministers participated, then I gave the Rally for Rivers recommendation policy to the prime minister. Within 24 hours, it was in the hands of the planning commission which is now called Niti Ayog. Within two months, the central body sent this recommendation to all the 28 states as the official recommendation. So some states are already proactive when they're on. Others are a little slow, but we are working with various... But one important thing is, the awareness in the country went up so high, even including the government, and now they have the policy recommendation in their hands. The question is only of time. Will we do it before it goes really bad, or will we do it now when it's pretty bad? So some states are already on the ground and active, proactive in action. Other states are reading it slowly. So what are your thoughts? How do you think that's going to all play out? See, the important thing is, we are saying all river basins in India must have minimum 30% or 33% green cover because Indian rivers are all forest fed rivers. They're not glacier fed rivers. Only 4% of the rivers are glacier fed. Rest are all forest fed. Without vegetation, these rivers cannot flow. So the depletion in the rivers, everybody is busy talking about pollution. I had to wake them up and tell them, see, some rivers are flowing only because of the sewage water. If you cut the sewage, there'll be no river. That's a fact. So I said cleaning up the river is not a big problem. If you make up our minds in three to four years time, we can eliminate the pollution. But river depletion, if you try to fix it now, it will take at least 20 to 25 years before it comes back, before it produces results. Maybe you and me won't be here. But if we don't do the right action, then there'll be no river left. Already so many small rivers have gone, totally gone. People have built homes in the riverbeds. And what's the result of that? When the river goes, the fish go, the people lives go, like what's the result of that? Per capita, 70 years ago, how much water we had, today we have 22% of that, okay? They're saying by 2030, we will have only 12% of that. So we're drinking water in the bottle. By 2030, we may be having shower with a bottle. That's where we're going. And the groundwater is depleting. India is exploiting its groundwater like no other nation because rivers are drying up. I think we have probably the largest number of tube wells on the planet. I don't know how many millions have been hit. So now some states have brought laws. If you want to put a drill, if you want to put a tube well, you have to get government permission. You can't simply put wherever you want. So like this laws are coming because of the Raylifer rivers, because we made them, it was not just about rivers, it was about water. Because rivers have an emotional connect with people, we use rivers as a way to launch the rally. But it's about generally water bodies, both, you know, ponds, lakes, groundwater and rivers. These are all connected. Yeah. People think they're separate. No. No, groundwater and rivers are connected. It's a two-way transaction both ways. I'm curious about the mobilization of people and I'm curious about how to get people on board to that campaign. That's a lot of people. It's half of the United States population. That's a lot of people. My question is the mobilization of people. That's fascinating to me, because what I do with Global Fashion Exchange is about the mobilization of people and their passion to create a change. I've never been able to pinpoint what ignites people. So I'm curious to ask you if you know, I know that with what I do there is change that needs to happen and oftentimes this change from what we're looking at comes from consumers. So I've naturally kind of gravitated towards the consumer side. So my question is how have you, how did you activate that many people around? Now that you use the word consumer, I use the word effectively. I said everybody who consumes water must rally for rivers. Okay, there you go. Otherwise if you're not a water drinker, we leave you. I guess the question, that makes sense. I guess the question is, it comes because one thing that I'm constantly hit with is here especially in the United States is how is this going to benefit me? Like when we talk about sustainability in fashion and when we talk about slowing consumption down and clothing swaps and the ecological effects of the fashion industry, people are constantly so, they're so caught up in their own world that it's very difficult to pull them extra back. If I try to do rally for rivers and I'm running a major water bottling industry, then nobody would listen, all right? You need a trusting voice. People should understand this voice is not a vested interest. Otherwise they will not respond. If I'm running a major water bottling industry and I say rally for rivers, they'll say go to hell. So like H&M, for instance, when they've run their social activation campaigns or their campaigns around sustainable fashion, do you think that that's kind of similar? Can they do that? They can, but at the same time, see because this is a kind of industry where they can bring about a huge change. They should. I would say in India, major clothing industries are now going natural. So that's a very good thing because that will change the way the consumer looks at things, all right? So they should do it. But I'm saying mobilizing millions of people means there must be a trusting voice. There must be a voice of integrity. Otherwise it won't happen. And that won't... To earn that it doesn't happen overnight. It takes time. It does take time to foster that trust with people. How long did it take you? All my life. All your life. Can I ask you more of a personal question? Do you have family? Yeah. What is all this? Okay. So that is kind of a silly question, I guess. Well, I'm just curious about like how you surround yourself? With the planet, with that much. Okay, I'll stay away from that question. I just want to... I was just curious about... Why, you thought I'm in some kind of a bubble? No, well, kind of. The planet itself is in a bubble of this atmosphere. You're a mystic. Did you come from like another planet? Like how did this happen? I'm just kidding, I'm having fun. Well, it is... That happens when I'm entering the United States. They make me stand in that line which says resident alien. Isn't it awful? And I look around and see I'm the only one who fits the description. There's so many other people standing in the line though. I thought they're all aliens in disguise. Oh my gosh, there's so many aliens walking around. How... How... Okay, I've spent a lot of time with you. One of the big questions I want to know and hopefully that we can communicate to people watching this is what do we need to do? What do we need to do now? What's the most important thing? One thing is by recommendation we must make sure children below 14 years of age wear only natural fiber in this country. Okay, that's... First recommendation, in three years time we should work for a policy where children must wear. Nobody can manufacture clothing in synthetic material for children. Children's wear. When those children grow up, they will have enough sense. So first it's children not wearing synthetic clothing and then mandating. Hoping adults will have enough sense to do that by themselves. But for children it must be recommended in schools and everywhere. My dad used to say something funny to me when I was a kid because I would say, I hope, I hope, I hope. I need to say Patrick, hope is for suckers. So I think we need to mandate it across everything. I agree to do that. No, no, no. See, in a democratic country you can't do everything by law. You can only... On children's choices, you can mandate a law. In adults choices, you cannot mandate a law. So I'm not saying hope in that sense. Okay, okay. Hope is definitely for suckers. Hope is for suckers. Should have seen the look on my face when he said that to me the first time. I was like, what? Well, this has been a fascinating conversation with you. And one last question is, you have a yoga institute in India. Is that correct? Here also in Tennessee, we have a large center in India. You must come and see. I would love to come. It's a unique place. You must come and see. I would love it. I would love that. Thank you. That's a book. Thank you so much. This is so wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.