 The most important thing is religion becomes just purely a personal pursuit, never a national goal or a global goal. I have never abused anybody, but people want to kill me, death threats keep coming. Those who believe they are going to send you to heaven, they did the worst things. As a Pakistani who's studying with Indians here in, you know, we live in harm... Outside that region, they do wonderfully well together. Of course, this is what my question is that we are divided by border, but we share a lot of things. We share poverty, we share hunger, any miseries you name and, you know, both sides of the countries are going through it. We have people who go to sleep hungry, school children who don't go to school. How do you think this... the youth, because the majority of Indian population is youth and so is Pakistan? How can you think that we can come together and really alleviate the miseries and work together for a better future? Well, that's a dicey question. You must understand this. A nation is not some God-given stuff, okay? Only when you identify or make a nation on a religious basis, you may believe so. Otherwise, we know we made it. We write a constitution, not a God-given document. We wrote it, subject to amendments, subject to changes, as it is required for the well-being of the people. So, what is a nation today in the world is, still we've not come to that place where we can all embrace each other and live as one nation the entire planet. I wish someday we will get there, but you see, you're already break-sitting. See, what... what Europe has done in the last fifteen, twenty years is a truly phenomenal, fantastic achievement. After World War I, World War II, nobody ever thought the Germans and the French and the Italians and the English could come together. Nobody imagined. Could you have imagined this in 1945? I'm asking you. No, but you achieved this European Union. It's not a small thing. Don't think it's just an economic arrangement. It's a huge evolution in human consciousness. Yes or no? Yes. But now you're break-sitting. You can say whatever. People have voted for it. All right? People have chosen because for some economic reason or some other fear of immigration or whatever. All right? I'm not trying to blame anybody for that, but I'm saying, similarly, this India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, this whole region including Sri Lanka, Nepal, everything was like one nation. Though politically we were different nations, there were times when we were over two hundred different political entities, but still we were one nation in culture, in many different ways, in our transactions together. But whatever reason, there's no point doing historical post-modern and blame this person, that person, this situation, that situation. It's happened. Somebody drew lines without considering the geography of the land. Simply across rivers, across villages, across mountains, simply somebody drew lines, the kind of lines that you cannot defend, the kind of lines that needs constant engagement to keep it safe between the two nations. And above all, see one thing that we need to bring, if you, if young people, all of you and all of you, if you are interested in the future of this world, we've still not come to that place where people can just live out of their consciousness, living their religion, their heaven and stuff and all that. But we must do this much in your generation. The coming generation must do this much. Religion should be a personal pursuit for people. Those who wish to, they pursue personally their own stuff. But this ambitious way of approaching that, my religion should conquer the world, must go. This is one achievement you must do in the next twenty-five years, otherwise with the kind of technological advancements we have, we will have a massive disaster on this planet, isn't it? The days of the sword are over. The days of the sword are over. Now if we continue with the same attitude, we will have a supermassive disaster which will not benefit anybody for that matter, okay? Will not benefit the planet, will not benefit any creature on this planet, everybody will be hurt because of this. I'm saying one thing all of you are getting educated in premier institutions, one thing you must carry home wherever you go, whatever religious background you come from, make everybody understand your religion is your personal pursuit, do whatever you want, all right? You look up, you look down, you look whichever way you want, it's up to you, all right? Don't tell me where to look. Yes? Don't tell me where to look. Don't force somebody else that this is the way or that is the way. If this one thing goes away, India-Pakistan will settle because culturally there's so much engagement, okay? I would say there was a South Asia conference in Dubai which I recently attended, but just at that time there was a terror attack in India and we had to insist that all Pakistanis drop out of the conference and it happened, unfortunately. I was looking forward to that engagement, but they had to drop out because this thing happened. What this is looking for is, we're all pushing for this, that South Asia region, which means India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Myanmar, these... geographically one thing, we're looking at something like EU. Politically you can still be different, you can do whatever damn religion you want, but economically if we come together, we were the most prosperous part of the world at one time. That is because we operated as one at that time in many different ways, but today there is no way everybody is trapped in their own little boundaries. So this is one thing we should push for. If you want to push for this, the most important thing is religion becomes just purely a personal pursuit, never a national goal or a global goal. It is actually a global goal right now. It should just be personal pursuit, never a global goal. If you do this one thing, India, Pakistan, all these nations and many other nations coming together will become a reality. Thank you, Sadhguru, for the wisdom. We would now open up the questions for the floor and if anyone, you can raise your hands. I would request you to please guide us more on the issue of whole interpretation of religion as you said, that it has to be a personal matter. Religion as a concept as I, you've mentioned before, it was a new concept for India and it's surrounding places earlier, but people drew lines on those religious and social cultural aspects as well which eventually led to conflicts. So how do you see inner engineering, yoga as the way of resolving that conflicts and turning towards the inner self and breaking the barriers of religion? Well, you want a prediction or you want a plan. Those who are incapable of making a plan and executing that plan always look forward to predictions. What prediction means is, you just hope it will happen. You are not willing to lend your life to make it happen. That's why I'm telling you, all of you young people should strive towards it. Of course, people will deride you, somebody wants to kill you. I have never abused anybody, but people want to kill me, death threats keep coming. What for? Simply because you ask questions for which they have no answers. I have never abused them. I have not abused their gods. I have not abused anything. I'm just asking questions. You went to heaven all right but without a body. So how are you going to eat food, good food and how are you going to do anything with these virgins? What are you going to do when I ask them? Why are they feeling so insulted? So this is one way for a long time, it's been like this for a couple of thousand years. One way to handle questions is kill the questioner. It's been an effective way till now, but no more. It's not going to work like that because today not just one person is going to ask questions, a billion people will ask questions. Yes? Once you raise a question, the whole world knows this is a question and everybody will ask the question. There was a time where only one person raised the question in a village or a town and you killed him and the question was over. Those days are over. So this is why you don't have to abuse anybody. But you must ask relevant questions, isn't it? Hello? Daring relevant questions, whatever matters in our lives, should we not ask questions at least even if you don't have answers? You don't have to abuse anybody, you don't have to deride anybody, but you must ask questions because if you ask three intelligent questions, ninety percent of the scriptures on the planet and all the three heavens will collapse right now. Last question. So I'm extremely impressed how you've said that religion shouldn't be a national goal. It should be something very personal and we should talk about the right thing. But as someone so many people look up to, don't you think you have a social responsibility to voice your concerns about some specific parties who are trying to spread religious extremism? Or because we can't please everyone, can we? So what are your thoughts on that? Because I told you, you just said that you don't endorse a political party and you don't want to influence anyone to vote for someone. But don't you think we should stand up against something which is wrong? I'm not against anything, that's what I want you to understand. I am for humanity. Human beings have come in variety of ways. It's okay with me because if all of them became like me, I wouldn't want to live in this world. They're all different. That's why at night look at them, how different they are, each one. That is why it is nice. But all the idiots are trying to make everybody like themselves. Just imagine in your home, if there's one more person just like you, could you live there? One is too much, isn't it? But they want a world full of their own kind. So I'm not against anybody. It's okay, everybody's saying what they're saying. As long as they don't get overly empowered, it's all right, they're expressing their opinions. Opinions are like catracks. The more you have them, the less you see. So I'm trying to bring clarity to them also. People say, Swadguru, you're seen with the celebrity, why did you sit with this person? You've seen with this politician, why did you sit with this person? I say, see, for the last 22 years I've been working in the prisons, both India and the United States. I'm constantly with murderers, rapists and all kinds of people. They're also okay with me because human beings do all these things. The question is only, will we as a generation create a situation where human beings can evolve into a higher possibility or do you want to shoot this one, hang that one, do that, do this, is this your solution? Believe me, those people who thought they are bringing solutions forcefully always caused the worst kind of situations on the planet. Yes or no? Those who believed that they're bringing a solution forcefully, they did the worst things, isn't it so? Those who believed they were going to send you to heaven, they did the worst things. Those who believed forcefully they will level everybody and bring equality, they did the most horrendous things on the planet. We don't want to make the same mistake. I want you to understand, those mistakes are no more affordable with modern weaponry and modern technology. Those mistakes are no more possible on this planet. If we commit the mistake of what the... I'm not supposed to mention these names, what Mussolini said, Alf Hitler's, Joseph Stalin's and whatever the religious nutcases have done, if we attempt the same thing in twenty-first century, we'll finish the whole humanity. We cannot afford that anymore. So the only way for all of us to progress is that whatever I think of you, you act... we accept you for who you are right now and see how we can all be on the same page at least on a few things. We all want health, we want all... all of us want to live joyfully, peacefully. At least on these things we are on the same page. Well, you worship that god in the east, I worship this in the west, I... somebody worships something else, somebody else doesn't worship a damn thing. It's their choice. Let them do whatever. But the important thing is human needs, fundamental human needs are this. Once physical needs are taken care of, which fortunately for this generation like never before, though still there are complaints, there are segments of society unfortunately left out of that, still the largest number of human beings, their survival is better organized than ever before. Yes or no? It is so. Today if you have the money, you can go to the store and buy what you need for the next one year and not step out of your house and still manage. Believe me, if you were here hundred years ago or thousand years ago, if you want to start your day, you must take your bucket and walk a mile to River Thames to get your water. Most of you are not even fit to carry a bucket full of water for a mile anymore. Yes or no? So survival is better organized than ever before. Forever we've had problems of food, water, shelter, clothing. For the first time, all of you have five times more clothing than what your grandparents had. Yes or no? Huh? All of you have five times more clothing than what your grandparents had. You're also eating. Right now how to eat less is the big deal. This is the first generation which has to be worried about how much to eat. Always every generation of people when they sat down for a meal, they stuffed as much as they could into themselves because there was so much physical activity to do. If you see the last generations of people, how they ate, when they sat down for a meal, they would sit like this. You know, in India they'll sit on the floor, they'll eat and it's full and they'll eat little more and little more and little more because there is so much to do physically. If you don't eat like that, you'll run out of gas. Literally it's like gas, you know? Like filling the tank, you want to fill as much as you can. This is the first generation which has to be conscious of how much to consume because otherwise you'll become like a balloon because you're not doing anything. So everything is better organized than ever before. Survival is better than ever before. This is the time to transform human consciousness. To transform or to raise human consciousness, we are doing various levels of activity. One, you know, you must sit through this in many different ways. Otherwise you won't understand why we are doing variety of things for this purpose because all these things have to be done. If you don't know all the pawns, there is no game. I want all of you to participate in whichever way you can to raise human consciousness either by yourself or seek our help. We are doing many things across the world. Please be a part of it. The important thing is all human beings, if their focus is towards their will-being and everybody's well-being irrespective of who they are, he's a... he's a bad neighbor for me. But I want him to be well. All right? This is important. I don't have to say, no, you're a fantastic neighbor, you're not. But I want you well. No. I'm not making a national commentary. Please do not understand whether he's from what... from Pakistan or from Kerala, it means the same thing. I'm saying, see, I don't have to say fantastic things about you. Yes, you're a bad neighbor, but I want you well because I know if you are well, you will be fine with me. When you're not well, you will try to infect me with the same thing. It's very important, everybody around you are well. If you want to be well, isn't it so? This is why I'm saying, be absolutely selfish. It is just that, why selfishness and greed also you're stingy, hmm? Why in that also you're stingy? At least in that you can be generous, you can't give away things, all right? At least be absolutely selfish, no? What I want for myself, I want for everybody, hmm? Let's create an absolutely selfish world. That means what I want for myself, I want for everybody in the world. Let's make it happen. Thank you.