 all this front row, usually in cinema theaters there used to be front row fans, cool-throw, paisa and all that, don't do that, huh? Speaker- Namaskaram Sadhguruji, thank you so much for coming here today. Ever since we heard that you would be coming to our campus, all of us have been eagerly waiting for this day. Sadhguru- Thank you. Speaker- We've had registrations pouring in like over a thousand people, as you can see, and over the last few weeks we've also had lots of questions pouring in from students. So today, the three of us, on behalf of our student body, we would like to ask you some of the questions that they wanted to have answered during this session. So… Mohinish- Hello, Sadhguruji, Namaskaram. My name is Mohinish. I'm a final year mechanical engineering student here at SSN. Sadhguru- Namaskaram Sadhguruji, my name is Tejas, and I'm a computer science student in my final year. Shruti- My name is Shruti. I'm a final year from Electrical and Electronics Engineering. So without any further ado, let's dive into the questions. So coming to the first question, a significant population in our world identifies as religious. And they do so for a number of reasons. Some of them state it's for peace or a way of life or some direction. And they bring up their children with religion. They sort of imbibe values and principles using religion as a channel. But on the other hand, we have some people whose values are so deeply entrenched in religion that religion ends up becoming the first priority and humanity ends up becoming the second. And we see examples of this, for example, when people oppose inter-religion marriages or religious riots or in extreme cases terrorism. So why not live in a world without religion? Why not teach our children and the future generations values and principles without introducing religion? Shruti- I see the question is popular. We need to understand this. A human being has many dimensions to himself or herself. In these various dimensions of who we are, I will not go into all aspects of it. One fundamental dimension is doesn't matter where you are in your life, you want to be something more. Right now you will be thinking, if I just pass my examinations, that's good enough. But the moment you pass, you know it's meaningless, you want to find a job. The moment you find a job, you know that's meaningless, you want something else, it just goes on like this. Doesn't matter where you are, you want to be something more. So to address this longing for a human being to continuously expand, people have found various kinds of solutions. These solutions over a period of time have gotten concocted into all kinds of philosophies, ideologies, belief systems and become variety of what you may say as religion. But essentially it is this longing that people want to expand. They don't know how and each one finds their own way. Now today's way is your idea of expansion is how many followers you got on the Facebook or Instagram. You have thousand, you want ten thousand, you have ten thousand, you want a million. Well, that's your way, that's your religion right now. You need to understand this. Well, maybe in another fifty-hundred years there may be FB religion. I'm saying if it gathers enough following, it becomes that. It is for this reason in this culture we created a mechanism, which unfortunately today there are some issues but I want you to look back and see. In this culture, because people need an icon to look up to, to aspire for has the highest quality in their life. For this we created what is called as Deity. I want you to look at this with an open mind, not with the narrative that's going on in Chennai, okay? They created idols and deities. You must understand this, there were, there are approximately thirty-three million gods and goddesses in this country and this happened when our population was that much. That means each person had its own deity. See if you have one deity, you have one deity, you have one deity. There's no quarrel, isn't it? If you three together have one deity and I have another one, now there's a fight. I have my own, you have your own, she has her own, he has her own. What's the problem? Hello? So we call this ishta devata. That is, you can create your own god. This is the only and only culture on the planet, which has been conscious that god is our making for our needs. According to the needs that we have. We want money, we have one kind of god. We want peace, we have another kind of god. We have, we want security, we have another kind of god. For every need, we created a form. One thing is it may be on one level is just a psychological process. On another level, there is a science to this that we created certain energy forms which would function in a certain way. If I say this, unless I go into the entire science of it, there will be many gaps and there will be many questions which pop up. But the moment this gets endorsed by the western world, questions disappear in most educated people's minds unfortunately. Hello? It must get endorsed by the western society, then suddenly it's perfect. Nobody asks any question. So let me endorse it. A man from Tamil Nadu named Ramanujam, you heard of him? Ramanujam? Yeah. Did not get any PhD in mathematics, did not go to any big college, just simply started pouring mathematics. If he was here, by now he would have vanished. You would not have heard of him, please notice. He went to England, ah, that's a thing. He went to England and there they were flabbergasted. How does this mathematics come from wave? Well, a whole lot of things he himself could not explain. But what he… the mathematics that he wrote down in his notebooks in 1908 got endorsed somewhere in 1994 or 96 saying that that these… this math that he's talking about is the backbone for proving that there are black holes. I want you to understand in 1908 there was no concept of black hole in the scientific community. Normally the way science proceeds is a concept, then a theory, then the math. But this man just poured out math for which there is no concept, there is no theory, there is no idea of that in anybody's mind, but he writes the mathematics for that. Sitting on his deathbed, he poured mathematics. People asked, where is this coming from? In his words, he said, my Devi bleeds mathematics. This is what he said because he is a worshipper of a certain deity. She's his window to the existence. So this is what deities are if they are properly created. People keep asking me, Sadguru, where is all this knowledge coming from? You just have to open a window. What kind of window you find is up to you? But this is what energy forms were. Today in some gross logic, very basic logic, people are trying to deny everything. Just because there is a certain amount of dogma gotten mixed up with this, certain amount of blind belief systems mixed up with this, now you're trying to throw the entire thing out. This will be the dumbest thing to do because the strength of this culture, the intellectual development of this culture and the achievements of this culture essentially depended on this, that we learn to open windows into cosmic space and no knowledge, not by book, not by learning, simply by sheer perception. So this is how the culture grew. You need to understand this, this is a godless culture. There is no the god in this culture. All the people you worship, your Rama, Krishna, Shiva, all these people are people who worked this geography at one time. You cannot say they did not work because they're still… Rama is still having real estate issues. And all of them, they did not fall from the sky, they did not appear somewhere. No, they were normal birth for their mothers, they grew up, they went to the trials and tribulations of life. More drama than what happens in your lives, all kinds of struggles. But the reason why we worship him is not… worship them is not because they were perfect human beings, they had all the troubles. But whatever the trouble, doesn't matter what life threw at them, their way of being was not disturbed, they were above it. And this is all you can do in your life. What life throws at you is not your choice, it'll throw all kinds of things at you. What you make out of it is one-hundred percent your choice. If you choose this, we will worship you in this country because you're free, because the only and only value we have in this culture, which this generation is forgetting, if you just talk to your mother, grandmother, for sitting down, standing up they'll say mukti moksha. Because the highest value is liberation, highest value is not god, highest value is not heaven. Highest value is liberation to become free from the process of life. To live here in such a way that life can do what it wants, but I will do what I wish consciously. It doesn't matter what life does, I will do only what I want. This is freedom, this is the only thing we value, this is the only thing we bow down to. This is not a religion, this is an empowerment of life. But various other places they invented and they said there's one god up there and he will manage everything for you. Well, do one thing, you leave your examination, engineering examination to your god, let me see how he handles it. So am I talking about atheism? No, I want you to understand what is considered theism and what is considered as atheism are not two different things. Both of them believe something that they do not know. One believes there is god, another believes there is no god. Why are you not… why are you so stupid and arrogant? Why can't you say you don't know, the fact is you do not know, isn't it? Hello? Why is it… why is it though so difficult for a human being to say I do not know? I do not know is the greatest possibility in your life. The moment you say I do not know, the longing to know, wanting to know, seeking to know and the possibility of knowing becomes reality in your life. Everything you do not know you believe, you become dead when you are alive. Yes, if you believe something, the… the advantage of believing something is you get confidence. Confidence without clarity is the greatest disaster that is happening on this planet right now. Hmm? When there is no clarity, there must be hesitation. Hello? Yes or no? Confidence is not a substitute for clarity. Unfortunately, religions in the world, even all the other kinds of philosophies, I believe in myself, not god anymore. I believe in myself. You trying to build confidence instead of sharpening your clarity, confidence is not a substitute for clarity. Confidence without clarity is the greatest disaster that human beings are unfolding on this planet. See, suppose I want to walk through you, but my vision is not clear. I must at least be hesitant and seek help, please. Can you help me? No, I'm confident. What will happen, I'll step on everybody's face. But that's what they're doing. Those who are confident without clarity are stepping on everybody's faces under super confident because they're going to heaven. Hello? See, those who believe that there is a heaven, in their mind if there is a heaven, they must proceed today, isn't it? The greatest crime that has been perpetrated upon the humanity is the idea of heaven. That there is a better place than this to live. This is the worst idea that has destroyed humanity. You are not eating well, you have no food. Don't worry and you go there. Lot of food. Your life is not good, don't worry when you go sit in God's lap. Everything is fantastic. No, I want you to know, either you can make this into heaven or you can make this into hell, it's in our hands. Are we going to turn this into heaven or hell? This is the only place. The idea that there is a better place is the disastrous idea. If there is a better place, please go now. Hello? Why are you staying here and talking about better place? Why are you asking me to go? Why don't you go? Hello? If genuinely you're dead sure there is a better place, you must go right now, isn't it? Now you want other people to go, what is this? So these kind of nonsensical ideas have been flown for too long. It's time to end it. But this is not atheism or theism, this is just being a sensible human being. What I know, I know, what I do not know, I do not know, what's the problem? Sadhguru, my question to you is, it feels like at every point of human history, for society there has always been this one challenge or one reckoning. For instance, for most of human history a society's main issue would have been to protect itself from outsiders. In my opinion right now, humanity's or society's issue is climate change or nuclear war. So it feels like solving this has been society's or the general consciousness's main purpose. My question is, suppose humanity makes it past this very tumultuous space we're in right now, what would we do if we reach an ideal society where everyone is peaceful and together? What would our end game be? What would we strive towards? Is it a deal between you and these guys? See look at it this way, because you can't really figure what all these people want. Look at yourself. Right now you're thinking you want to become an engineer. Let's say right now I make you an engineer this moment. Then you're thinking you need a job. I got your job. Then you're thinking you need a promotion. I got you. Then you think you need an award. I got you. Then you think you need wealth. I got you right now. Everything that you can dream of, I got you right now. What do you want now? Yeah, I can do that for you. I'm striving for a job right now. Yes. Now we're looking at the end game, right? You've got everything you wanted right now. Things that you can imagine, things that you cannot imagine right now. Everything you've got right now. What do you want right now? I wouldn't know what to do. Just look at it, huh? See when you say this, what it means is, all you want in your life, what you're seeking is struggle. To get a job, it must take three years. Then you'll feel, wow, I got a job. Look at all the people who have good jobs. Look at them walking on the street. Are they going blissfully, dripping ecstasy? Hello? Miserable guys, they're getting blood pressure, going to work. They're getting all kinds of ailments, they're freaking out. Yes? So what do you want? I don't know anymore. That's good. I do not know, I like that. Because actually you do not know. Everybody keeps fooling themselves at every step in their life, thinking, what I want is I want to become an engineer, I want to become an engineer. It'll keep you busy for five, seven years. Then I want job, job, it keeps you busy for another one or two years. Then I want this kind of job, that kind of job, that keeps you busy for another eight, ten years. I want that much money, that much wealth, that keeps you busy for another twenty-five years. I want this kind of girl, that kind of girl, that kind of boy, that keeps you busy for a few years. Then children will come, I want my child to become this, this, this. Well, we are preparing for your funeral. You need to understand, you need to understand just this. Right now you may be giving all kinds of context to your life. But essentially, what you call as my life right now is just a certain combination of time and energy. Yes? As you sit here, time is rolling away for all of us. Can you roll it back? You're an engineer? Can you roll it back? Yesterday was not fruitful, so I'll roll it back. Can you? It's rolling away for all of us. As we sit here, what is sticking away here is not the clock. What is sticking away is our life, isn't it? Since we came and sat here, you're half an hour closer to your grave. It doesn't matter how young you are, you are getting there, isn't it? Yes sir, no. So it's a certain amount of time. And that time nobody can manage because it rolls at the same pace for everybody. You do something, you don't do anything, you sleep, you're awake. You're happy, you're unhappy, do whatever the hell you want. It just keeps rolling mercilessly, isn't it? So there is energy that you call as life. This, you can pitch it at different levels. If you're like this, I'm talking about the classroom expression, you know. If you're like this, twenty-four hours feel like thousand years. But have you seen on a certain day, you're very happy. Twenty-four hours, poof, went off like a moment? Yes or no? So time is a very relative experience in individual subjective experiences. If you're joyful, if you live hundred years, it feels like a few moments, it's gone. Only miserable people will have a long life because if you're miserable, you will always feel life is too long that you will want to cut it short. But if you're joyful, the possibility that a human being holds, before you look around, it's over, really. But what possibility this carries, so what you need to manage is your energies. Because life is a certain amount of energy, it's not limitless, but it can be enhanced. If you function at one level of energy, what you do in ten years' time, if you function at a different level of energy, the same thing you can do in one year's time. So if both people live for hundred years, in terms of impact and profoundness of experience, one has lived for a thousand years, another has lived for hundred miserable years. So this is all you can do. You may think right now, engineer, this one, that one, these are all limited contexts you're setting for yourself. Fundamentally, as a life, it's just time and energy, isn't it? The question is what you make out of it. Do you want to make something out of it? There's no compulsion you have to make something out of it. When I say making something out of it is not a social phenomena I'm talking. What should you become in the society? That's not what I'm talking. Fundamentally, you have come here in terms of life is you want to experience life. Question is how profoundly? Right now, if people want to experience life, what are they experimenting with? They will experiment… not this, this. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know you guys. Or they'll experiment this or they'll experiment something else. What they will experiment is how to down your faculties. You know, United States has made marijuana legal in a few states. So when I went to a few colleges or universities, they're asking me, Sathguru, why don't you pitch? Someone like you must legalize marijuana for us. I said, no problem. We'll make marijuana legal, cocaine legal, meth legal. What's the problem? No problem. Only thing is, why is it that you want it to be legal so that you can smoke up and come to the college, right? It's fine. But let's say you want to fly a small airplane, the pilot comes smoked up. You want to fly with him? Because the guy is already flying without the airplane. Okay, you're not getting the point. You need a major surgery and the surgeon comes smoked up. You want the surgery? Oh no. Then you clearly understand this lowers your faculties. I want all of you to look at this. Do you believe you can enhance life by lowering your faculties? Hello? If you want to enhance this life, you must super enhance your faculties. That's the only and only way you can enhance this life. You cannot lower your faculties and think your life is getting enhanced. What kind of stupidity is that? Simply because it makes you a little like this. I can make you feel like this all the time. How's that? No substance. I am always like this only. Look at my eyes and stoned. Never touch a substance but fully stoned all the time. Because I want you to understand this, the greatest chemical factory on the planet is here. If you are a good manager of this, you can create any experience that you want from within and also heighten your faculties. If you're having an experience, even to experience that your faculty should be heightened, isn't it? Is this the greatest chemical factory on the planet? Most sophisticated? Do you agree with me? Are they chemical engineers? So I am asking, how are you managing your system? What have you done? We gave you such a sophisticated machine. Have you read the user's manual at least? No. Blindly do this and then you think pumping something is going to make this better? No. Believe me, the only and only way you can enhance this life is that your faculties are super bright. The way you see, the way you hear, the way you smell, the way you taste and the way you touch, if this is enhanced, is life enhanced in many ways? There are much more to it. But I'm saying from what you know from your experience, suppose you could see twice better than somebody who is sitting next to you, is your life enhanced? If you could taste better than other people, is life enhanced? If you could feel better, is it life enhanced? If you could hear better, is life enhanced? On this level, you understand this, but there are many other dimensions of human faculties. If you enhance this, if you sit here, you will be blissed out, simply sitting here. You wouldn't want to touch any damn thing because just sitting here is the greatest experience of your life. So, about what is the end game? If you had everything, what would you want? If you had everything that you can ever dream of, everything is right here, what would you want? You must think, isn't it? I won't supply you with an answer. If you do not invest that much thought into your life, that means you're super short-sighted. Hello? This happened to Gautama the Buddha. You've heard of Gautama the Buddha? Because of some astrological prediction that his father heard that he may either become a great emperor or a great sage and he wanted him to become a great emperor, he protected this boy and put him in a separate palace where it's all luxury, everything that you can dream of, everything there. Got him married to a very pretty young woman, everything on. No, he should not see any suffering. But one day he just went out, he saw one old man and he asked, why is this guy like this? You know, his chauffeur, his chauffeur or his chariot driver said, oh everybody becomes like that after a certain time. He said, what me? I am a young prince. Will I become like that? Hey, yeah, everybody will become like that. It shook him. Then he saw a man who's suffering with some kind of disease, ailment. So why is that guy like that? Said it'll happen to a lot of people. Who it will hit, there is no prediction. Anybody can become ill. Most people think it happens to other people. No, it can happen to us. Hello? And then he saw a funeral, a dead body. So what is that? He said, that is inevitable. Everybody will die. Do you also know? You will also die? No, because most people believe other people die. No, intellectually they know, but they think they're forever. No, you must be conscious. You're mortal. Mortal means you have a limited amount of time and energy. If you're always conscious about this, how would you organize your time and energy? You decide if you're conscious about it. If you think you're a super human being, you're not going to die, other people will die, all the best. It'll come. You can realize this on your death bed and die. See, people may think this is extreme. But you must go and volunteer in a hospice or in a hospital ward where people die. And you must see, it's very important. Very, very important. Only then you become sensitive to life. Life becomes super valuable because you know it's a limited amount of time. If you watch this, unfortunately today in the world, over eighty percent of the people, when they… last moment when it comes, when they die, they're not fearful, they're not in pain, they're not in something else, they're just bewildered. A look of bewilderment comes because all their life, they just lived their thought and emotion, they never lived a life. This is important. You must understand there is a psychological reality in your head. And there is an existential reality which is life. Most people are mistaking their psychological reality to be existential. Your thought and emotion has become more significant than the cosmos, isn't it? Hello? Huh? What you think, what nonsense you think and feel, has it become more important than a universe or no? This means you are making your creation more significant than the larger creation. This means you must suffer. If you don't suffer, I'll be disappointed. Yes, I will be because if you live, if ignorance doesn't make you suffer, then what? Then what's the use of me? Because it takes a lot to come out of the trap. What is the use of somebody striving to come out of the trap of ignorance when people can live wonderfully in their ignorance? What is the point? What is the use of knowledge? What is the use of knowing? What is the use of enlightenment? What is the use of realization? If people can live absolutely blissfully in their ignorance, what is the point? When you're ignorant, you must suffer. And I want you to know the greatest evil right now on the planet is not evil, it's ignorance. Sadhguru, I have a personal question. Is there a girl called Mohini in this? Thankfully, no. So I consider myself very against littering. I… Littering, you know, throwing trash outside. So what I do is I generally take all my trash and I put it in my bag. At the end of the day, I go to the trash can and I dump it there. And it hurts me when I see someone else littering. In this case, I'm taking a selfless effort to make the world a better place. And that effort is made worthless because of one selfish person. And on a more personal note, I've always placed my friends and their needs in front of my own. And this leads to people trying to take advantage of me or trying to take me for granted. So my question is this. In this world, the way the world's going right now, is it better to be selfish or is it better to be selfless? I think these three people have made a deal. Every question we ask, please applaud. Okay. See, do you want your atmosphere surrounding… surrounding you clean? Yes. Then you're selfish. Where did selflessness come from? You're selfish. I want you selfish. I want you more selfish. And more and more selfish, limitlessly selfish. Right now the problem is your selfishness is constipated. Your selfishness should become like this, not just my surroundings. I want the whole damn planet clean and wonderful. That's really selfish. I'm like that. I am fully selfish. You're little selfish. Why are you conjuse… Why are you conjuse on your selfishness? It doesn't cost anything. Hello? Don't bring all this big thing about. Selfless and all this. Where is such a thing? You're doing something that matters to you. Hello? Do it. And your friends are littering. If they didn't litter, what would you pick up in your bag? Now don't get encouraged by this. The thing is… The thing is this, see we want something to happen. You want. For some reason you got this idea. Living in Chennai, you getting this idea is not a strange idea because when we were children, we came to Chennai for the first time in 1969. There was a expo, world expo, some industrial expo. So my father wanted to bring all his children to see this international expo because we had never seen anything like that in those days. It was not so common. It was one time happening, probably the first time happening. So we came and we landed in Chennai Central. We couldn't… We don't want to go into this expo. We don't want this city. We want to go back to Mysore. He said, no, no, no, expo you must see in this city. We know all four of her siblings. He said, we don't want this city, we want to go back. I still wonder how you guys live. Here you are outside, it's okay. Otherwise that whatever… What is that Buckingham Palace, you know? Bucking… I'm sorry, Buckingham… Whoever… What kind of man wants to put his name on that canal? What a stinker he must have been, I don't know. Can a city live like this? The mum… I don't know if you're living there all the time, you may not feel it. All of you have smelt it or no? Hey, how come nobody does anything? I made an elaborate plan and gave it to two successive governments in early 2000 saying that, you know, you give me this Buckingham canal, I will create a wonderful garden and purify this water and do everything. And I was like, no, no, no, we know what to do, we don't need you. I said, okay, but you cannot go in that part of the city simply. And once I stayed with some family right next to this damn canal, I was… you know, the programs, our programs used to be 13 days at that time. After three days I said, please, I cannot, I'm just suffocating in this damn smell. And the mosquitoes are not biting you anymore, they're trying to take you. Is anybody living in that area next to that damn canal? Is it little better today? I don't know. Is it little better? So I'm saying, how is it that a whole city full of people don't do anything about it for all kinds of silly things they'll come out and fight on the streets? Something that's affecting your life, your children's life, your health and your well-being and above all, the basic quality of your life. How come Chennai citizens never stand up and do anything? I appreciate this little… you carry a little plastic bag and gather other people's litter, I appreciate that, is it enough? I don't know. All of your engineers are going to be. Why don't you at least ten, fifteen of you form an alliance that you can take up this damn project after your engineering rings over, engineer something fantastic for this city? Why not? I'll pitch with you. Well, is it going to happen day after tomorrow? Immediately are they going to welcome you with red carpets and say, do it? No, that's not how life works. That's not how life works. You must understand this. In terms of my ability to do things, I've been the same for last 38 years, all right? But every door in the world was closed because I made it very important for myself that I will not go with a qualification anywhere. If you see the quality you open the door, otherwise we will see how to knock it down sometime later. Every door was closed in the world, every door. Nowhere they want you simply because the way I look and the color of my skin is not right. Yes, this is a serious problem, don't think it's a small problem. When you travel internationally, the color of your skin is such a huge problem, you know? Especially when you want to do some work, if you just want to find employment and do… serve them, they're okay. When you want to do something which is transformative, the color of your skin is such a huge barrier. And above all, I'm look like this, I'm as Indian as it can be, okay? Which is insulting for lots of people, including a whole lot of Indians unfortunately. But today you won't believe there is no place on the planet which is just waiting, they're willing to change. I'm talking about major international events, they're willing to change their annual events to my schedule. I'm not even able to take two percent of the invites that come to me. I'm not saying this to boast, but I'm saying it takes relentless work, you understand? So if you want something… if you want to really bring about major transformation in any field of life, what is needed is if you think this is the right thing to do, you need relentless application. You're not somebody who is going to get disappointed, frustrated, depressed with what other people do. They'll do what they do. What are they doing? They know what… they're doing what they know best. What do you know? That's what you must do, isn't it? So cleaning up this city is not such a big phenomena. It can be done. It can be done. Hello? If you get all the engineering colleges in this city together, you've got social media, right? Contact all of them and once a month, how many engineering students could be there in Chennai? At least one lakh? Okay, hundred thousand plus or maybe two hundred thousand? Two hundred thousand young people. Once a month, if you walk the streets of Chennai, in one year's time, Chennai will be clean. Do it. First three months you want me to walk with you, I will walk with you. I'm not an engineer though. So, Sadhguru, speaking of Chennai and change, all of us here are undergoing one of the biggest changes in our lives because up until now, we haven't really faced a shortage of a basic necessity. That is like a water or food or shelter. But now Chennai is facing one of the biggest water crises I think in history where they predict in 10 years the city is going to be dry and there won't be any water left. And the water crisis is something that you have been tackling with Cauvery calling. So as the youth of this generation and as engineers in particular, how can we fix this problem immediately so that, you know, we don't have to wait 10 years for the city to dry up. What can we do to solve it? Have you seen older Tamil movies or even Hindi movies where village women are carrying big pots on their head and walking water and the hero comes and sings a song and she also sings a song and romance happens there. She danced with the pot on her head. You've seen these things? Well, that is because the actress is carrying an empty pot. But the real woman in the village is carrying a pot which weighs fifteen to twenty kilograms on her head. Nobody sings to her and she cannot even open her mouth. She's shaking all this. Have you seen them? Hello? With twenty kilograms on her head, her neck and head, everything is shaking with stress. She's not going to sing a song, she's not going to fall in love with anybody on the street. She just wants to take the damn pot and put the water in the house because her children and her husband and family whatever for them. You thought it's romantic when a rural person carries a pot full of water on her head or on his head. But today that you have to carry a pot on your head, it's come, time has come. Now you think it's a crisis, wonderful to your humanity. Fantastic sense of humanity. I'm glad you're getting the point. Because water distress has been there in rural India for a very long time. I want you to understand this. Only when it comes to urban centers, now we're thinking it's a real crisis. No, most of the population is in rural India. The crisis has always been there, isn't it? In the last twenty-five, thirty years, there's been a serious crisis. Well, now it's come to Chennai, at least now you're at least willing to talk about it. I'm glad. So let me tell you this, what happened. I grew up around river Cauvery. I did not see Cauvery as some kind of a water source. How can I exploit it? How can I do agriculture? How can I build a dam? I didn't think about this. I was there like any other life, like a worm or an insect or a fish, which enjoyed the river for what it is and made a life out of it. My experience of the river was, I was a tiny little life and this was a massive life. I will come and go, but this flows for millions of years and continues to flow. But in the last twenty-five to the twenty-five years mostly, I've been watching this with great distress that slowly Cauvery is depleting, not only Cauvery, all rivers across India have depleted around forty percent. Rivers like Krishna have depleted over seventy percent. Narmada has depleted over sixty-five percent. Like this it goes. Especially in the last seven to eight years, for some reason I still don't have a good enough scientific reason for this, but the drop has been very sharp with Cauvery. It is estimated on an average most Indian rivers are depleting by six to eight percent per year. I want you to calculate how many more years for Cauvery. If you do not know this, a river which was perennial for millions of years, in the last I think twelve or fifteen years, nearly four to five-and-a-half months Cauvery is not touching the ocean. Recently about four, five days ago there was news that somewhere in Tamil Nadu, I don't remember the town, where Cauvery came and people are bowing down, they're doing puja, they're worshipping and welcoming Cauvery because she's coming after six, seven months, she was dry. This has happened only in the last twelve to fifteen years. Now, is it my emotion towards Cauvery? That's not the point. It's your bloody survival. People are this irresponsible. I'm talking about this. Some so-called very responsible persons they say, no, no, I'm not using Cauvery water. What are you made of? In Cauvery basin in the last ten years, forty-seven thousand one hundred and ninety-two farmers have committed suicide. In this Cauvery basin, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. What more do you want? I'm asking. What does it take to wake you up? Where is the humanity? I'm asking. In this country, in the last fifteen years, over three hundred thousand, three lakh farmers have committed suicide. We've had four wars, three with Pakistan, one with China. In all these four wars, on both sides, three hundred thousand people did not die. They did not. That many numbers did not die. Though we think a war is a great disaster, what is it that you need? You want people to hang in front of your home or in your bedroom, only then you will respond. What is it? So rivers are drying up. For example, I'm telling you, in Bangalore city, when I was into construction industry at that time, I got a contract in the majestic area. We just went to put some footing foundation for some building. We had contract only for the footing. Rest of the building was being built by somebody else. We went to put footing, concrete footings. We could not dig beyond five feet because water was like full on. We put in each pit, I'm talking about just five by five pits, in each put we put those days diesel engines, ten HP diesel engines, one one pit, two engines. We could not empty the water. We gave up because we did not know how to put concrete in totally wet conditions like that because it's full of water. Today in Bangalore city without twelve hundred feet, there is not a drop of water in the bore wells. There were over thousand lakes in Bangalore, three perennial rivers. Nobody knows where the rivers are anymore. It's all built up. Only eighty-three lakes are left out of which only seventeen lakes have fresh water. Rest is just sewage. What's our plan for the future generations? Well, I got a few years, I'm okay. Where are you guys going to live, I'm asking. You planning, I'm sure planning to go to some other country and ruin that one. This guy will come with a bag behind. I'm saying is this the way to conduct our lives? Is this the way to conduct our lives, I'm asking. This is not about ecological nonsense. This is about our life, isn't it? The way we're conducting our life. So Kaveri or Kaveri calling as it's called right now is an effort to revive Kaveri and also relieve farm distress. According to the studies, they are saying forty-four percent depletion in Kaveri. But in my experience of the river, see they are counting the entire flow of water in twelve months and they're saying it's forty-four percent less. But in my experience, suppose in September or October if you look at the river, in my experience it looks like it's only twenty-five to thirty percent of what it was fifty years ago. Because they are also counting the monsoon flows. See, we need to understand this. River, river, lake, pond, well are not sources of water. They are only destinations for water. The only and only and only source of water in this country is monsoon. I want this to sink into the young people because you're going to the cinema, you dress well, you don't want it to rain. No one learned to walk wet. What's the problem in Chennai? Hello? Because from your kindergarten they told you rain, rain, go away. Huh? You sang this song when you were very young? They made you. Without knowing why you sang, that is in London. Rain, rain, go away is in London. Here people, media is reporting excessive rains. I want all of you to take off this kind of stupid language. There is no excessive rain ever. Whatever rain comes, we were always able to hold it in this land because we had substantial vegetation. Now it feels like excess because we need to understand that the nature of how this happens, the cycle, I'm trying to make it very brief, so I may miss a few points. If you have questions, you can ask me. See, there is something called as transpiration. From the top of the tree cover, suppose there is a layer of tree cover, let's say there is a forest, between the trees and the cloud there is a transpiration. It's a kind of communication which makes the rain spread out. About thirty years ago in this country, monsoon was spread between an average of 100 to 140 days. Today the same volume of rain is coming but it's happening between 40 to 75 days. So usually cloudbursts used to happen in mountainous areas, that is high altitude mountainous areas where there is no vegetation or in desert areas. But today cloudburst is happening in Chennai, cloud bursting happening in Mumbai, sometimes in Bangalore, not yet so much in Bangalore but in northern Karnataka because it is almost a desert already. Forty-two percent of Tamil Nadu's agricultural land has been declared as fallow. What are you going to eat after twenty-five years, I want to know. You go and make a survey of the farm community. Not even two percent of the farmers want their children to go into farming. Maybe many of you are from farming families, are you? No? Not even two percent of them want their children to go into farming because it's slavery to go into farming. Why I'm saying it's slavery is on an average a Tamil Nadu farmer is earning thirty-six thousand seven hundred rupees per annum. A government employee at the lowest level is earning one lakh eight thousand when he starts. Within five years it's two lakh sixteen thousand rupees is what he earns. In Puducherry prisons, a prisoner gets hundred and eighty rupees per day as wages for his work, a convict, all right? A semi-skilled one gets one sixty, an unskilled one gets one fifty rupees. But farmer is getting hundred rupees. Having his own land, growing with food, feeding all of us, he gets hundred rupees per day. That also is dicey. One year it comes, one year it doesn't come. People think he's hanging himself because of loans and this and that. Yes, that is the immediate reason. But the real reason is there is no fertile soil and there's not enough water. If there was a fertile soil and enough water, you think he doesn't know how to make something out of it? Nothing is growing because everything has been destroyed simply because there is no organic content in the soil. The only source of organic content for the soil is the leaves from the trees and animal waste. Eighty-seven percent of the green kava and kaveri basin has been removed in the last fifty years. So trees are gone. Animals are all traveling abroad. If you just… you know, I am trying to push for a law. If you own one hectare of land, agricultural land, you must have minimum four, five bovine animals. A whole lot of activists in Chennai, please you guys handle them. They're saying, oh, he's religious, he's trying to save cows. You idiots, how do you fertilize the soil? How… how are you going to put organic content into the soil? Are you going to bring it from moon? Such people should be sent to Mars. Because on this planet, the only way you can put back organic content into the soil is the leaves of the tree and the animal waste. Animals are not on the farm, trees are not on the farm. How will you put it back? Soil is going fellow forty-two percent of Tamil Nadu soil. I want you to understand this. This is a land where for twelve thousand years there's a history. We've formed the same land and we maintain the fertility of this soil for twelve thousand years and it supported us all these years. Our entire civilization is because of this Tamil civilization is essentially because of the fertile soil upon which we lived. In two generations, we made forty-two percent of the land fallow, unsuitable for agriculture. And no farmer wants to send his child into farming. In another twenty-five years, when this generation passes, what are we going to eat? What are we going to eat? I'm saying if nobody grows food. So right now, Kaveri calling is a plan to both relieve farm distress, enhance the soil quality and ensure water flows in Kaveri and the wells and everything. What is the plan? See, the only way is to put back green cover. Is it possible to grow forests? No. Because the population pressure is such, you cannot bring back forests into farmland. It's not going to work. Only twenty percent of the land of eighty-five thousand square kilometers of Kaveri basin is considered forest land. Out of this eight percent is very good forest. We don't have to touch it. Another four-five percent is medium level forest which can be enhanced. Another three-four percent is denuded forest which can also be put back because this land is in the hands of the government. Easily it can be revived. It's just a question of time. If the necessary determination is there in the government, we can do that and it will be done. But the remaining eighty percent is the issue. The problem is just this, very poor agricultural practices and farmer is not substantially educated about this use of fertilizer and this and that. So completely switched without knowing what he's doing and now the land doesn't grow anything. See, in ten years in just Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, forty-seven thousand six hundred farmers committing suicide. Is it a joke? Can we ignore this I'm asking you all of you young people, please? Can we ignore such a tragedy happening right around us? So we're talking about agroforestry. In Tamil Nadu we have converted sixty-nine thousand seven and sixty farmers into agroforestry. In five to seven years their incomes have gone up three hundred to eight hundred percent. So they're very happy and in that region the wells are recharged, the water tables have come up. So what we want to do right now is turn one-third of Kaveri basin into agroforestry because there's a huge market for that. One-third of Kaveri basin into agroforestry means we need to plant two hundred and forty-two crore trees. Not that you and me have to go and plant, we just have to support the farmer to do it. Now I can say this very proudly, yesterday we got this from both the governments, this is something we've been pitching for. When a farmer shifts from regular farming to agroforestry, he needs a little bit of financial support for the first four years till he goes into the first cropping. Fortunately, yesterday we got this both from Karnataka government and the Tamil Nadu government. Both of them, both the chief ministers have decided and they're going this way that the necessary support for the first four years in the form of subsidies and also the freedom to grow and cut whatever they grow. See right now the laws are such even if you grow a tree in your own farm, if you cut it, they can come and arrest you tomorrow morning. So who will grow a tree? Nobody wants to grow a tree because he cannot use it. Why will I want to grow something on my land that I cannot use? So now we want this last read. We… in the last term of the central government, we got eighteen species released nationally. But now in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka we are pushing for this and now they've agreed that 100% both the chief ministers have agreed that they will release all species for Tamil farmers and also Karnataka farmers that they can grow what they want and cut it the way they want. It's nobody's business. What a farmer does with his produce. Because sixty-five percent of the population, we are keeping them in this level of abject poverty and how do you think the nation will move forward? There is technology, there is business, there is industry, all this is wonderful. But nation means the real wealth is the richness of the soil and the water. If these two things are not there, there is no real nation. Forever we've been proud of our soil. Here we call this Tamil manna. Even today a farmer when he steps into his land, he will bow down to the soil. In other countries they call this dirt. Here we call this our mother because we know this very body is the soil. How healthy this soil is determines how healthy and strong we are and how well we are. I want you to understand the soil dynamics, what it is, the Indian soil especially. There is no scientific explanation for this but there is scientific data to say this. The number of species present in the Indian soil is the highest in the world for some reason. Nobody knows why but that's how it is. What scientists are saying now is if you take a spoonful of soil, a teaspoon full of soil, in this soil there could be anywhere between ten to fifty thousand species of microbes. In one teaspoon of soil there are more microbes than the number of human beings on this planet. That's how rich it is, that's how alive it is. But now we're killing it with just chemicals without necessary organic content. This is not my work. This is not the work of a single organization. This is a generational work. I want you to be part of this because this needs to happen. As a generation if we don't do this we have failed as a generation because this is far more serious than most people understand. If we don't fix this now, this really we're destroying the future of this nation. So what can Chennai people do for Kaveri calling? See farmers are on the, you know, they're willing. Right now in the last forty days our forty-five vehicles have covered over six thousand villages enrolling two point seven lakh farmers to agroforestry. Just educating them how to do it, what to do it, about two point seven lakh farmers have enrolled. Now with sustained work for last few years we've got both the governments to give subsidy and to clear the tree cutting loss for the farmers. So the farmers are on, the government is on. Now the challenge is to raise the saplings. Two hundred forty-two crore saplings. No government department is geared to raise this kind of volume. They will have to create a whole new department to do this. All that will take too much time it's not worth going that way. I'm asking the citizens of this country because one sapling, raising, because there are many species, some cost less, some cost more on an average, it costs forty-two rupees per sapling. I'm asking, can't the citizens of this nation stand up and raise the saplings? That you don't have to do it. We are training farmers to use this as a business, that they can raise the saplings and sell it back to us. We are training thousands of farmers to make this a business in the next two, three years time that they can raise the saplings and give it to us. We have started about thirty-three nurseries. We want to start somewhere around three hundred to three hundred and fifteen nurseries along the Cauvery basin to service all the farmers in the area. There are five million farmers in this region. All we are asking for the citizens is make this forty-two rupees. A beggar, if he positions himself in the right place, many beggars are earning over three point five lakhs per year. So a beggar in Chennai can easily plant or contribute one tree a week. Yes or no? If a beggar in Chennai can contribute one tree a week, what should rest of the citizens do? It's for you to decide. It's not for me to tell you, plant this many, plant that many. It's for you to decide. I'm telling you, this is far more serious than anybody understands, far more serious. If we don't act now, it'll not happen. I'm asking all of you, you said there are two lakh engineering students. If you take all the students in Tamil Nadu, there are a thing about twenty-five lakh students. You all have your phones, smartphones. Let me see how smart you are. Please use this damn thing and let me see you make the students in Tamil Nadu, twenty-five lakh students. At least once happening a month, forty-two rupees can't you do? All you have to do is miss one coffee. Anyway, let me tell you, seventy percent of the coffee beans come from Kurg in this country. That's where Kaveri starts. From third of September, I'm riding personally with a group of people from Tala Kaveri to Thiruvarur on a motorcycle at this age, huh? Okay? With eight hundred and sixty-five events on the way, variety of events, ancillary unit event. See, if youth of this nation don't stand up for their own future, I don't think you can call them youth. They've become old when they're young. Yes? If you do not stand up for your own future, what is it? Don't think just an engineering degree is going to make your life. It doesn't matter what qualification you have, what wealth you have, unless you run away from the country, in this country, if we do not revive the soil and water sources in this country, you will not live well. You may have qualifications, you may have money, you may have wealth, you cannot live well, because you will have to carry a pot in Chennai. Please let's make this happen, huh? Will you? Twenty-five lakh students are there in Chennai. Please spend some time on your phone and activate them one tree a month for next three years if they do this. What we want is only two hundred and forty-two crores. If every citizen plants two trees, it's over, but there are a lot of irresponsible ones, littering ones, so you have to plant for them also. Yes? There are those people, what to do? We have to take care of them. Please let's make it happen, please. Thank you so much for your insight, Sadhguru. Now we'd like to ask you a few questions that we received on social media. The first question is from Vikram from Delhi. Vikram says, well, this is about the Kaviri calling. Shouldn't this be the government's job? Why should I pay forty-two rupees when I already pay taxes? I don't even live in New Chennai. Oh, that guy. Easy Vikram. Now you know who is Vikram. See, let me tell you, the young man has big hands. I want him to use them. So, this happened. Sriankaran Pillai checked into a Chennai hotel. At eleven-thirty in the night, he called the reception and screamed, I'm trapped in this room. Somebody help me, what is this? The receptionist asked, what do you mean trapped? It's your room, right? He said, yeah. What do you mean trapped? Well, I see three doors. If I open one, it's a bathroom. If I open the other, it's a closet. And the third one says, do not disturb. I'm trapped. That is the clap I heard just now. That's a trap. This is a democratic nation. This means this is our country. I put my vote, I don't know if Vikram put his vote or not. Probably on that day he was on a picnic. Or maybe he put, I put my vote, you do it. I'm sure if he's a engineering student, he's not paid any taxes yet. And he's claiming he's paying taxes. I want you to understand this. In this country, only some 3.2% of the population pays taxes, income tax. Do you know this? Only some 3.2% is paying income tax. Who carries the remaining 96% percent? Because the remaining 96% are either below the taxable limit or they're tax evaders. One of these, even if you take the tax evaders, it will only add up to another three, four percent. The remaining 90% is below the taxable limit. When you have a country at this level, where 90% are below the tax level, you think government can do everything? What do you think is the taxes they're collecting? They may be charging you 40%. But what do you think is the volume of tax that they're collecting for a nation of 1.4 billion people? And you want them to do everything with that. I'm not pitching for the government. I wanted the government to give subsidies to the farmers, which they have done. You think you have no responsibility for this nation. You think those handful of people who are elected will do everything? No. Well, this is coming. This is coming because you think they're corrupt. Yes, they are because they are your representatives. When I'm telling you, over 300,000 farmers have committed suicide. When you say, let somebody else do it, I think you're corrupt. Hello? When you have forsaken your humanity, I think you're corrupt. Corruption is not just accepting a bribe. You have forsaken your humanity, you are corrupt. Let me ask you a simple question. If there is no policeman on the street, how many vikrams will stop at the red light? Believe me, just like 9, 30, 10 o'clock I land in Coimbatore and I'm driving back to the yoga center. Red light, I stop. I hear from behind me, pee, pee, pee, pee. So what? I'm stopping at the red light. And then one TVS moped guy will come next to me and say, he's telling me there's no police man, you idiot, what are you stopping for? That's what he's telling me. So if you make this guy, the chief minister, the prime minister, whatever, what is he going to do? Hello? This is what he's going to do, isn't it? So don't think politicians are corrupt. Yes, they may be and they are probably, but the citizenry is super corrupt. If the greatest problem right now in the country is lack of integrity, not just among politicians, not just among people who hold office, general citizenry is corrupt. If citizenry was not corrupt, it would be very difficult for the politician to be corrupt, because he was just one of you day before yesterday, only now he got elected. The moment he gets elected, his whole clan goes, mama, you became minister, what are you giving me? Are they going and asking or not? Hello? If he doesn't give, mama, we supported you. Why are you not supporting our family? Are they asking or no? So corruption is not in one place, it is across the nation. Let me tell you this, a few years ago, almost 25 years ago, I was in Trichy talking in a high school, two fourteen-year-old boys. I was just asking them, okay, what would you like to do after this education? One guy said, I want to be Orkivo, fourteen-year-old boy. Then I say, why are you interested in the road traffic systems, you want to do something, what is your interest? He says, I'll get a lot of bribe. I thought this is the tragedy of the nation, a fourteen-year-old boy, still a child in some ways. Only thing he's thinking of is, he's thinking how he can get maximum bribe, fourteen years of age. So don't think just one point is corruption. Corruption is all across. We made this our culture. Young people must change this. It is very important you make this nation a law abiding nation more than anything else that you follow the law, convenient or inconvenient, you follow the law. This is important. You must set this culture about why should I do it? Well, if you're human, you should do it. If you're something else, I'll leave it to you. Because the distress is not something that the governments can handle, it's way beyond that. It's way beyond that. But the governments, you must understand this, this is not easy to do. We've been on sustained pressure on both these governments. And fortunately, yesterday was a fantastic day for Cauvery Calling because both the governments agreed that they will give the necessary subsidy. This is going to cost them a few hundred crores a year, but they're willing to do it. You're thinking why should I give forty rupees or forty-two rupees? Don't give. If you are… if you have that kind of a stone for a heart, don't do it. It's not necessary. We will do it. We will do it. So many other human beings still alive in this country and in the world. Right now I want to tell you, yesterday's count is eighty-seven thousand trees are being contributed per day right now. That is… that is… that is more than one tree per second. People are contributing, not just from India, from across the world. People are contributing because there is still humanity in the world. Thank you, Sadhguru. We would like to open the floor and receive questions from the audience. So if anyone from the audience has any questions, please raise your hands. I think we'll start at the center. Namaskaram, Sadhguruji. My name is Kartik. I'm from Hyderabad. So I'd finished my inner engineering program three years back through Aesha. So I felt really blissful. I'll be very honest. So I just wanted to ask you this question that many decades back when you were pursuing the path, the philosophical path to finding the solution, were you not even a little scared that you might have gone wrong? I was always wrong but I was not scared. When I say I was always wrong, from the age of four, four and a half years of age, all I had with me was a billion questions. I didn't have a single answer. Not did I find a single person who could answer one question to me. Whoever you asked at home or school or anywhere else, all they had was, they will quote, Krishna said this, Rama said this, this man said this, Mahatma Gandhi said this, like this, they will quote. I was not interested in quotes. I wanted a genuine answer for these billion questions I had. I had a cloud floating around me of questions. So when I saw that there are no answers or at least I'm not able to access anybody who has answers in this world, naturally see when you realize you don't know anything, you would pay immense attention to everything, isn't it so? See, suppose right now if I ask you to walk from here to there, effortlessly you will walk. Suppose we make this hall pitch dark and ask you to walk, you will become super alert, isn't it? If you don't know where your next step is, will you become super alert or no? That's all I became because I didn't know a damn thing in the world. I became super alert and observant. Smallest things I paid absolute attention. As I paid attention and paid attention and paid attention to everything, when I'm saying attention, I'm not paying attention to some divine force or god or something, I'm paying attention to an ant, a leaf, a pebble or just about anything, okay? As I paid attention, absolutely you must understand this. If your attention is keen enough and relentless, there is nothing in the universe which will not open. Everything has to open. This is what human being is. If your entire energy, your consciousness, your intelligence, everything is focused in your attention, just anything in the universe will open itself. So when I observed certain things, which are natural phenomena, I didn't think nature could be wrong. I have not propounded anything of my own. I have not invented anything. I have not created anything. I've just observed the way creation is made. That's all. If you think creation can be wrong, then maybe everything that I say is wrong. Because what I'm saying is just what creation is always speaking. I'm just giving it a voice. I never thought in terms of is it right or wrong. I only saw it. This is how it's happening. That's all. How do you want to handle it? That's a choice. Something is happening here. How I want to handle it, how she wants to handle it, may be different. But what is happening, both of us should see it the same way, isn't it? How… what I want to do with it. See right now, I want to do everything possible. The foundation is pitching crores of rupees behind this whole Cauvery calling. It's people's money but we are pitching it on this. But somebody says, I don't want to do it. But it doesn't matter whether you want to do it or not want to do it, it's your choice. But you must see what's on the ground, isn't it? You must see the reality, the way it is. After that, how you handle it, how I handle it may be different. But if you want to whitewash it and see it some other way, then you're wrong. This is my understanding of life. Most important thing is unprejudiced. We must see this is what is happening. I want to do something. Somebody doesn't want to do anything. This is two different ways of handling the same thing. That freedom you have, you can choose to handle it whichever way you want. Now Buckingham… Buckingham canal is there. Every time I land in Chennai, I think this damn thing should be fixed. Living in Tamil Nadu, how come I have not fixed it? This bothers me. But you buy a clothesline clip and walk around. You must understand if you close your nose, that means you're inhaling… you're taking everything through your mouth which is worse. Hello? Yes or no? You're literally drinking it through the air. Yes or no? So some people think this is the best way to handle it. So how you handle a situation can be different from person to person. But we must see reality as it is, isn't it? Right now it's a fact. Soil is distressed. There's enough science about it. It's a fact. We're running out of water. That's a fact. And it's also a fact. The same volume of water is coming in the form of rain for the last hundred years. Nothing has changed. We… how we want to act or we want to run away from this country is different ways of handling it. So am I all right? I don't know. All I know is I'm just speaking what nature is speaking, what creation is speaking. If you think creation and creator are wrong, definitely I am also wrong. I don't mind being wrong. Vanakam Sadhguru, you said in one of your speeches that Shiva has entered your life and enslaved you. Why did it happen to you? Why not at this? The consciousness of truth that you have, that is because of the seeking that you did. But this thing, why did it happen? I think in some way I already touched this. See, just now for the previous question what we spoke is relevant to this. The most important thing is to see what is true. Not socially what is true. Socially different things are true for different people. Existentially what is true. Psychologically different things are true for different people. But existentially what is true we must see. In the sense the fact of the matter is do you know where you came from to this planet? Do you know? Either through your religion or through your science or through some philosophy, do you know for sure from where you came? Hello? Hello? Do you know where you will go after you die? No? Do you know where you are right now in the cosmos? Do you have a GPS to tell you in this cosmos this is where you are? Do you know, sir? Do you really know? You don't even know where the cosmos begins, where it ends. So how do you know where you are? Sitting on this little mud ball called planet, you and me sitting here and talking all this. Quite miraculous, isn't it? You don't know where you come from, you don't know where you will go. You did not exist probably thirty years ago most of you. Today you are here, you will not exist after hundred years. Many people like you and me have sat here like this talking all kinds of rubbish and they are nowhere to be seen. You don't know a damn thing about life. Yes or no? Hello? You may know life in Chennai, but you don't know a damn thing about this life. If you realize this and if you are conscious of this, what would you do? Any conclusion you make is just utterly stupid, isn't it? Hello? Whatever the conclusion, no God made me and I've come and I'll go back to God. Oh, please go back. If you're so bloody sure, no God is up there. But the planet is round and the damn thing is spinning. You're obviously looking up always in the wrong direction. You don't know a damn thing about anything. Please know this. If you realize this, you will become super open to everything, alert and open. If you just become this, alert and patient, this will happen to you. This is why symbolically, now don't think I'm spreading a religion for you because this is not a religious process, symbolically outside every Shiva temple they put a Nandi. Nandi is a symbolism of eternal waiting, alert and waiting. He never said, where the hell are you come? He simply waits. This is considered as the highest level of intelligence because you're alert and you're stable. Now things will happen to you. Everything that's real will touch you. But otherwise you're busy with your own creation. What you think you're thought, brilliant thought that some of you are having is just recycling of the limited data that you have gathered. Yes or no? Hello? There are many computer engineers here. Whatever thought that you are having is just recycling a very limited data that you have gathered. Yes or no? So the important thing in this is the yogic culture always identified with ignorance, not with knowledge. Because whatever we may know, if we have read the libraries on the planet, if you have one hundred PhDs, still what you know is a minuscule in this existence, isn't it? Hello? Hello? In this cosmos, it doesn't matter how much we know, if you are the most knowledgeable person on this planet, still what you know is just a tiny little minuscule. If you identify with this minuscule, you will become a minuscule because what you identify with you become, isn't it? You identify with India, you become an Indian. You identify with Hindu, you become Hindu, you identify with Islam, you become Muslim. Yes or no? What you identify with, you become that. If you identify with this little knowledge, you will become that. But our ignorance is boundless. Hello? So you identify with your ignorance, you identify with what you do not know. Now you are all the time one hundred percent open and alert to everything. If you just do that, everything will descend upon you. The next question please. Yeah, hi, I'm Sadhna. So I am interested in or I learned Karnataka music in my past time. Around the same time last year, 2018, there was a controversy that broke out about four Karnataka musicians, famous ones, who sang Krithis which were not related to Hinduism on Jesus Christ. The common folk believed that Karnataka music is sacred of Hindu origin and should remain so. My question is twofold. First, if Karnataka music is a Hindu art, should it remain so? And second, considering the fact that India as such, as a country, is an amalgamation of multiple diverse cultures. In fact, you kept mentioning culture when you answered the first question on religion. Considering the fact that India is an amalgamation of cultures which are invariably related to our faiths or religion, why do we draw the line between religion, culture and art? See, we need to understand this, which largely it's being forgotten. What you know as Karnataka music and also what you know as Hindustani music, which are the basic classical forms of music in this country, it is not that there was a form of music and then somebody sang about some god or something. It is because of devotees, because of somebody's overflowing devotion that music happened. So what you see as Karnataka music or even Hindustani music is a consequence of devotees overflowing. It is not a mathematical rendition that people are trying to make it out as it is. Yes, there is mathematics to it, but all that flowed out of people because of overflowing devotion towards something. If you look back, many musicians of the past refused to sing in front of kings because they sang only in temples, only for their deity because the entire compositions are made on the basis of this. Even today, though during the Mughal period, most musicians in the northern region in the UP, Bihar, that the Garanas all became, got converted to Islam, even today, all Hindustani musicians, all Islamic by religion today, but they only sing Shiva, nothing else. Because the compositions are made for that, it is an overflowing of devotion. This is not a question of your religion versus my religion. It is a certain form which has evolved in a certain way. So they want to keep it that way. If somebody wants to sing something else in their home, they can sing whatever they want, but in Chennai, the sabhas are all created in that context. So maybe some people feel sensitive about it, but I don't want you to look at this. See, the problem is right now in this culture, as I told you, I am saying at least five bovine animals should be there on one hectare of land to fertilize the land. Oh, he is a Gaurakshak. What nonsense, are you crazy? In this country, this certain people who think they are intellectual, I don't think they have much intellect, but they think they are intellectual, they have declared themselves intellectual for some reason. And they got some little bit of media, you know, purchase, they got some hold in this. And they are all the time trying to create vitiated debate about everything. You just look at the English channels in the country, everybody is throwing something at somebody. It doesn't matter what you say. It doesn't matter what you say, everybody is throwing something at somebody. What has happened? This is not the way to have a decent debate about something. Well, if you want to debate about these issues, they can be debated instead of abusing each other, but we must understand Karnataka music and Hindustani music is not singing devotion. It is because of the devotees, this music has come into existence. Having said that, rest of it can be looked at without imposing it on somebody. So, we'll have one last question. Vanakkam Sadguru, I'm Katya Aini. My question today is, in the world that we live in today, there exist a multitude of paths to traverse, both spiritually and religiously. For instance, in Hinduism there is both Veda and Vedanta. So, I can make a conscious choice as to what I would like to take up. So, but I'm confused and as a millennial, I am really doubting if a ritualistic approach is relevant today. So, do you believe that rituals are still hold and are relevant today? Well, you may be a millennial, but these choices you have only in this country, you better know that. If in many other countries in the world, if you say you have a choice of choosing, generally you will be dead. If you're not dead, you will be harassed in a thousand different ways. In this country you can choose, which is wonderful. Because we don't have a religious constitution which cannot be edited or amended. Here we have various books which can be amended, which can be debated, which can be something can be done about it. Coming to ritual, how rituals came into existence is like this. Do you brush your teeth every day in the morning? I'm just asking. You do. I don't do this. This means no. Yes. So, every day in the morning you brush your teeth. Some kind of a ritual, isn't it? In fact, people say morning rituals. They're not talking puja. They mean sit, shower and shave. So, anything that you do regularly, not necessarily by choice, but you decide to do it because you've decided, it's good for me, becomes a ritual in your life. This ritual of brushing your teeth came to you because your parents, maybe your mother insisted. When you were like this, she insisted, you must brush your teeth. You say, no, I want to eat. She said, no, no brushing, no breakfast. Are you thankful to your mother? She insisted on your ritual. Yes or no? Are you not? That time you were irritated. I want to eat. What's the problem? Why should I brush every day? But now you're glad that she brought this ritual into your life. It works, isn't it? At least for everybody else around you, it works. So similarly, rituals came for variety of reasons. If you are able to… you said there are multitude of spiritual paths. No, there's only one. If you say spiritual, you have to turn inward. There are no many inwards. There's only one. Hello? There's only one inward. Well, you may go like this, you may go like this, you may go like this, but there's only one inward. So when it comes to a spiritual path, there's only one. You have to turn inward. When it comes to religion, maybe there are choices. When it comes to rituals, yes, there are choices. So when people were not competent, everybody was not competent to simply sit like this and become meditative, then they thought them simple processes. I must tell you this. Many years ago, some institute, these days I don't subject myself to such indignities, because I can afford that. Many years ago, some institute, who thinks they are scientific? They said they… because I was obligated to them for something and they said, we want to study the gamma waves in your brain. I didn't know I had gamma waves. I know I have a working brain, but I didn't know I have gamma waves in my brain. They said, no, no, the gamma waves, we want to study that. I said, okay, what should I do? They said, you sit down here and they put fourteen electrodes into me and they said, you meditate. I said, I don't know how to meditate. They said, well, you're teaching everybody meditation. I said, I teach people meditation because they cannot sit still. I have to teach them so many methods to make them still. If you want me to sit still, I will sit absolutely still inside out. But you know, research is funded. Scientific research is always funded. They need a name. They need the category of meditation and gamma wave, whatever nonsense. But I am not going to give them such pleasure. I said, if you want me to sit and do nothing, I'll do nothing, but no meditation. Then after much discussion, probably they found a name for nothing. And I said, okay, you do nothing. I sat. After about fifteen, twenty minutes, you know that funny place in your elbow, where if you do the tongue, it'll go. They're taking a metal object and took, took, took, they're hitting that place. It's just leaving my palm numb. I thought, okay, it's part of their experiment and I simply sat there. Then they started doing my ankle, became very persistent and painful. Then I thought, why are they beating me up like this? Whatever I done wrong. When I opened my eyes, all of them are giving me a weird look. I said, why did I do something wrong? They said, according to our machines, you're dead. I said, this is a great diagnosis, you're making it. And then they among themselves, they spoke and say, obviously this guy speaking is not dead. So they said, maybe your brain is dead. I said, please, I don't like this second opinion. If you give me a death certificate, I don't mind being dead like this. But brain dead is not good for me. It'll affect my activity. Yes. Why I'm telling you this is, if you could handle everything internally, no problem with you. That's the best way to do it. Simply, this is yoga. If you know how to handle this whole machine, all levels of this machine, your body, your thought, your emotion, your energy, your life energy is everything. You know how to handle from within. No ritual for you. Never in my whole life have I ever prayed, you know? But I'm prayerful to anything. If I see a mountain, if I see a rock, if I see a tree, if I see a cow, if I see a man, woman, child, I'm prayerful. But I'm not praying. I've never prayed to any god for anything ever. So I'm not ritualistic in any sense because if I close my eyes, I can deal with everything that I need to deal with, with my life both internal and external. I want to fix this, I close my eyes. If I want to fix that, I close my eyes. If you do enough sadhana, you can become like this. It's not out of reach. It is available for every human being. They don't pay enough attention, that's hot. But if you don't know this, you want to become peaceful. You don't know how to sit still. Then what do I do? I'll teach you one mantra, okay? Say this, every day in the morning, twenty minutes, you say this, now you become peaceful. This is your ritual. If it's working for you, what is your problem? If it's not working, drop the damn thing, do something else. Every day in the morning, you took a swim. That became your ritual. You felt wonderful. Do the damn thing. Somebody is doing yoga as a ritual. Somebody is doing puja. Somebody is a tringamantra. Somebody is singing a song. If it is working for them, what the hell is anybody's problem? But what ritual I do, you must also do. There's no such thing. Something is working for me, I'm doing it. It's not necessary, you must do it. But if you ask me, suppose I'm… somebody who is doing every day in the morning Om Nam Shivaya, Om Nam Shivaya, it's working for me. If you come and ask me, I'm feeling freaked, what should I do? Hey, try this Om Nam Shivaya, it's working for me. If you like it, you also do it or you do something else. You do Dham Dhoom Das Push. But the thing is, it must work for you. That's an important thing. So rituals, rituals for fantastic devices created with certain wisdom. Over a period of time, they might have become corrupt in practice. Over a period of time, they might have become tools for exploitation for certain people. But don't throw the baby with the bathwater. We must be able to see what is corruption in this, eliminate the corruption and use the technique. Don't throw away everything that the civilization has learnt in thousands of years of living and think you will reinvent the wheel tomorrow. Everybody will be queuing up at a psychiatrist, just know that. The number of people who are queuing up with mental illnesses today is simply because there is no what we used to call as achara vichara. There is no debate about what is this life, why am I like this, what is the nature of my existence, no achara, no vichara. And no achara, there is no anything. See, if your mothers or fathers did not insist that you must have the ritual of brushing your teeth, what an unpleasant place this hall would be right now. Because out of your freedom, some of you would do or a whole lot of you would come here, decide, I will not brush, what is the problem? No, maybe no problem for you, everybody else suffers. If you open your mouth, if you stink, not necessarily because of not brushing, just because of your culture, the way you behave, the way you speak, the way you sit, the way you stand, if people around you suffer because of your behavior, which is happening everywhere, isn't it so? Especially for girls, isn't it so? If you get into a damn bus in the town, because all these things were thought as ritual, this is how you must approach. When we are growing up in our house, our sisters are there, you cannot even address them in single order. You always have to address them with a certain respect, even when they're little girls. When you grow up with this kind of ritual, now you learn how to treat every woman on the street. Otherwise look at the way people are behaving, most uncivilized. Uncivilized means what? The necessary rituals of culture are not there in those people, isn't it? So these can be various kind of rituals, social rituals, spiritual rituals, religious rituals, it doesn't matter. Is it working for you or not working for you? That should be the only question. So that concludes the session for today. Once again, Sath Guru, on behalf of Assassin, thank you so much for coming here today. It will be a great honor to have had you here today, and this has been a really enlightening experience. I'm sure as people leave this hall they'll be going with a lot more perspective and direction. So as we were speaking in the session before about the water crisis in Chennai, as students of Assassin and more to the point students of Amarnadu, the solving the water crisis and in particular the Cauvery Calling initiative is a cause that we would like to get behind and contribute to. So we've actually arranged for a special photograph in contribution to this cause. So we would love to have you join us for this photograph. Yes, definitely. You keeping the promise, twenty-five lakh saplings per month. Hello?