 Jnanam Sukadham Maranam Kar Mila Smaran Khaal Vashadha Sakalam Karu Samayad De Pathe Akilam Kar Good evening. Good evening everyone. So I'd like to say what a pleasure it is to be with you again. I caught you in India. Yes, we caught each other in India and before that had the opportunity years ago to have a dialogue at the synagogue and it is remarkable everything you have done in the interim as it was everything you had done before I was listening to the to the parade of influentials and all I want to say is it's much more impressive to be among the most influential people in India because they're only about 15 Jews but there are a billion a billion Indians so to be among the 50 most influential people in India really is an achievement worth noting what strikes me and the first thing that I want to ask you about before I get into specifics is the enormous range of the things that you are both passionate about and influence that go from even though all the source may be internal but they're very much about the world about the environment about human flourishing about poverty about all the what we think of as social causes and therefore in some sense external but primarily of course your life is about the internal life so can you tell us how it is first that you have such a range and second is there anything that you say no to well I have no many passions my passion is very one-pointed my passion is for life and everything related to life till now have not done anything not related to life so it's very unifocus just life when you handle life there are many aspects different people are in engaged with life in different ways so inevitably you get engaged with all that do I say no to anything of time and resource makes me say no to many things unfortunately I would not like to say no to anything but time and resources make you say no to many things that you would like to do what would you like to do my thing is just this we as a generation of people in many ways or in every way we are the most empowered generation ever well just 100 years ago with the same capabilities like all the ladies are focusing their phones on me if they had just this one thing 100 years ago people would think you're superhuman yes or no hello if you had the same phone 100 years ago you could claim that I'm a superhuman being you could claim your the messenger or himself people would have believed because that is how empowered we are so when there is such an empowerment my intention is this is our time on this planet we must mix this the best time ever because we are empowered like no other generation before our survival is better organized than ever before if we don't make this happen I think it's a crime just to avoid the crime doing whatever I can we spoke about the fact earlier that that same empowerment is not only an empowerment for good that the same force of technology enables people to have a tremendous destructive force and it is that sort of a vector between the two that you spend your life trying to edge towards the empowerment for good but I wonder if you think of technology when you imagine it and speak about it as more a force for good than evil or a double-edged sword it is definitely a double-edged sword more than saying it's a double-edged sword it depends on in whose hands it is it's a tremendous empowerment but depending on who is holding it right now accordingly it'll have its consequences so who should hold it is a question I feel the most important thing to be done on the planet right now is to move people from compulsive behavior to a conscious behavior if only they were conscious well a whole lot of these things will just vanish tomorrow morning it's just that they're compulsive about everything their thoughts their beliefs their emotions their ideologies are all compulsive because of this compulsiveness they will do things that you cannot imagine human beings can do to each other so if I have the impulse to check my phone as you're saying that you're supposed to switch it off well so I think that this is a wonderful place to actually start a spiritual dialogue is the issue of compulsive behavior because there are compulsions that rule our everyday life in small ways I know people that wash their hands hundreds of times a day or check their what's their profession what's their profession it is irrelevant but their profession is compulsions know of no external reasons they just are or they or they check their phones all the time and and I wonder if you see that behavior as in microcosm the same kind of behavior that causes people in larger ways to do truly bad things in the world does is compulsion of through line from small to bad the sick compulsiveness is a certain security when human being seek security they will seek familiar terrain when you seek familiar terrain you want to go around on the same place that's compulsiveness the moment you seek security in your life you will become compulsive there's no other way most of the people I know are pretty insecure though the people who are here are seeking you out I think in part because you are essentially different from that which they know and so there is also this desire and people to find the new and the different and the thing which makes them a little bit off balance so that they can grow no yes that see within a human being there are two fundamental forces of nature working one dimension of nature is instinctive self-preservation which will always seek security you want to build walls of security around yourself the walls that you build for self preservation before you know what's happening to you they become the walls of self imprisonment so in search of security people try to create certainty certainty is only possible in death life is never certain the moment they seek certainty without knowing why their face becomes grave that's a good word you know it's a pose for the grave so a whole lot of people if you just go out on the streets well most of the people are well-to-do even those who are homeless are reasonably well nourished compared to the rest of the world pretty well nourished I would say so people are driving their dream cars with a grave face like it's the end of the world when you look at them you think maybe tomorrow is damnation day or something because their face speaks like it's what is going to end that's the kind of expression they have on their face why this is happening is these two dimensions are not against each other that is there is one dimension which is seeking self-preservation there's another dimension within you which has a longing to expand it doesn't matter who you are what you are you want to be something more and something more even if I make you the king of this planet still you will seek the stars and the galaxies this is the nature of the human being so there is one dimension of you which is seeking security there's another dimension of you which is seeking limitless expansion so these two things within the human intellect has become a conflicting process but existentially they are not conflicting because when we talk about preservation or self-preservation the only thing that needs to be preserved about any of you is your body because if you break it you can't recreate it so we must preserve this it's important but suppose today I trample on all your thoughts your emotions your ideas your beliefs your philosophies everything I break it right now what's your problem next moment you can create a whole set of everything but right now if I step on your thought or emotion the pain that you go through is much more than when I step on your foot isn't it that is because your identity has become so physical you have turned your thoughts and emotions everything like physical existence now everything in you wants to build a wall not just physical self preservation you wants to preserve your thought you want to preserve your emotion you could as well be in the grave I'm saying you'll be pretty well preserved you could have gone to Egypt you know some of them are preserved for a thousand years so preservation is only for the physicality we have to protect this body there is no other way but why should your thought emotion ideologies beliefs need to be protected every day if they're trampled down tomorrow you can come with a fresh set of everything isn't it so but no we have made such investments and but one and one of the ways and this goes back to the beginning of what you were saying about the grave one of the ways that you play with such ideas is through laughter that I think a grave guru would be a contradiction in terms in fact that the the Irish poet Yates said the worst thing about some men is when they're not drunk they're sober and if you are if you are too serious and you don't have that playful aspect I think it is harder to change the way you think and look at the world and and I don't I don't want to I don't want to to miss that part of the way you presented it because the lightness and the not lack of seriousness but lack of grave unhumour is part of the way I think that we expand ourselves and don't stay in one place laughter is not something that you develop as an attitude it's it's just that if you I'm sorry oh no I just think you're making my point it is just that if you look at life without any prejudice you can't help laughing at it the the second part is I think that you know when I when I speak to our high school students I always tell them that the indispensable quality to live a good life is courage because what you're describing actually takes a lot of courage it's not easy to be able to change your ideas it's not easy to be able to change the pattern of your life and you have to have a certain amount of courage to allow someone to trample on your ideas because fear is a very powerful motivator in that drive to self-preservation see we have given lots of significance to various psychological modes and moods that our intelligence takes we can call it fear we can call it courage we can call it love we can call it hate but it is just different shades that your mind takes at different times all this is only because it is in constant compulsive reaction to something around you in reaction if somebody is nice to you you fall in love with them if somebody is nasty to you you hate them like this in reaction so many things are happening this is a psychological and social phenomena this is not an existential reality love is not an existential reality it is it is what's happening within you with your emotion what is it give me an existential reality that doesn't happen within you well life is you're alive right now this is existential well it's pretty in you though the life right I mean I don't know the modes of life that the only the only thing that I have a problem within the way you said it is you said it's just the way your mind and it seems to me that let me put it that love is a profound reality in people's lives as is thought or learning or all these things that may seem transient but are in fact I think deeply rooted in the human experience let me come to that so it's like this if your body becomes pleasant we call this health you want it hello if it becomes very pleasant we call it pleasure you wanted I got a bigger yes for that then help if your mind becomes pleasant we call this peace if it becomes very pleasant we call it joy if your emotions become pleasant we call it love if it becomes very pleasant we call it compassion if your very life energies become pleasant we call this blissfulness if it becomes very pleasant we call it ecstasy if your surroundings become pleasant we call this success only for success only to make the surroundings pleasant there is a challenge because you need the cooperation of all the forces which are here but to make my body pleasant mind pleasant emotion pleasant and energies pleasant is 100% my business but right now what is entirely your business you're trying to handle it like a social phenomena so it looks so complicated than all the problems associated with it but actually you being peaceful you being loving you being joyful every human experience happens from within you whether it happens with external stimuli or it's on self-start this is the question what I'm asking you is you remember maybe you don't you're still a young man see that was pleasant so if you had a car in 1950s now you would pocket on the slope and in the morning you need two people to push the car later on in 60s crank start you know you need one more person to help you today everything is self-start you have a remote which starts your car these days now you're driving a car which doesn't even start it just goes so it's just upgradation of technology so I'm saying would you like your peacefulness your joyfulness your love your blissfulness your ecstasy be on self-start or push start this is something you have to make up your mind on so I'm gonna summarize back to you and you tell me if I understood what I heard you're trying to return people's almost ownership of their own states of being to inside themselves rather than assume that they have to come from the outside or rely on the outside for them to feel the way they feel this is part one is that correct I would just change one word in that question it's not a state of being me being peaceful is not my state of being me being loving is not my state of being me being joyful is not made up my state of being it's just my thought and emotion playing pleasantly it's like today the weather is great similarly my inner climate is doing great right now this is not a state of being we must understand this this being word is being used everywhere as if it's a quantity people say this being that being being is not some kind of a quantity it's like I'm speaking this is an activity this is in motion only if I speak there is speaking only if I walk there is walking only if I be there is being well you be huh you be right I can and so I'm not I'm not fully persuaded yet by that distinction but nonetheless what is interesting in part is that you you do actually spend an enormous amount of time and energy though trying to make the external world more pleasant for people the best example is the river project which is a remarkable accomplishment and and enormously ambitious and all about making the external world better so just ensuring that tomorrow our children have water to drink is it very ambitious it is today I mean you wouldn't think so but well the scale the scale of work that is there there is a scale because there's a scale of disaster unleashed by people but otherwise to look at it simply ensuring that there is water for your children to drink is it very ambitious or is it very natural people have become so unnatural that they don't care tomorrow's generation whether they have water to drink or not so I think it's very natural it's very human for you to respond to these things but the essence of work is not in that these are unfortunate needs of our times in which we exist if I was here a hundred years ago I wouldn't be talking about rivers for sure so rivers are not my project unfortunately I see a disaster unfolding so something has to be done about it when I just stepped out if this is a 30-day journey where I drove 9,300 kilometers personally myself and we had 142 events in this 30 days and 182 media interviews and 162 million people responded the largest ever moment on the planet 162 million people responded to this and we change the policy the government policy towards rivers has been changed in India because of this rally for rivers yeah I think that deserves yes but the important thing is this why that many people responded people were asking me so the guru you got the whole nation together all the opposition parties all political rivals everybody came together for this one thing I said see when I look at it everybody knew this needs to happen but they need a fool to bell the cat they found me how is your message your your essential message about life and how to change your life and how to improve your life different in different places do you go to Beverly Hills and see a different need then you see in a tribal village in India no not at all they would like to think they're different but they're not they just complicate simple things if I go to a tribal village directly those ladies will just come and tell me what's their problem if I come to Beverly Hills they go round and round and round take three days to tell me what's the problem welcome to my hood and and how do you because because I think that this is actually something that that all of us do struggle with this compulsiveness this inability to let go of things that we know on some level we should be able to let go of how do you advise us or help us to let go of those things that we know are almost haunting us sometimes let us understand the fundamentals of compulsiveness where it comes from see everything that's physical in this universe from a single atom to the cosmic nature of things everything that's physical is naturally in cyclical motion in atom things going around in the cosmos it's going around solar system is going around our own bodies are cycles we are born out of the cycles of our mother's bodies so the moment you're identified with the physicality of who you are you are cyclical in nature what is cyclical is compulsive what is cyclical has taken a compulsive pattern it has to do the same things again and again you try as hard as you want it will not go you will give up one and hang on to another I hope with the Jewish rabbi a joke is allowed Jewish rabbi actually a joke is mandatory yes okay that's a good this happened it once happened that Sancton and Pillai was working in an office and his office colleague asked for a lift a woman a young woman so he took her in the car and he was driving and suddenly he became like an octopus that his limbs were all over her so she pushed him away and said you fool I thought you're a decent fellow what are you trying to do he said I'm sorry I gave up smoking if you try to beat compulsiveness with force you will switch from one cycle to another cycle another cycle to another cycle keeps happening fundamental thing is this you are so strongly identified with your own physical nature inevitably you will be cyclical do whatever you want so this is why what spiritual means is that your experience of life becomes something within you becomes larger than your physicality physicality includes your thought and emotion this is yes no I mean you're what I was going to say two things first of all I think when people talk about whether they're religious or not religious I actually don't believe that's the distinction the distinction between people are materialists and non-materialists that is those who believe that non-material things are real and spiritual realities are real and the reason that I bring this up in part is because I know that one of the things we had talked about addressing is the question of mysticism and it seems to me that both our traditions share a belief that the world that you can see and touch and feel is not all there is and just now as I understood you you were appealing to the non-physical parts of ourselves as a sort of antidote to the over reliance on the physical part of cyclical compulsiveness see it's not a question of I was just say yes to one of my questions tell me tell me right you got it right rabbi I'm working here yes but yes but the thing is it's it's not something that we have to believe in see none of us were born like this as we are we came like this we became like this this is just accumulation of the food that we've eaten or it's just a piece of the planet most people don't get this point till you bury them even that in Los Angeles I feel is difficult because I heard they are being buried in a concrete vault so even in burial you will still not know that you're part of the earth so this is something that you gathered anything that you gather at the most you can claim is yours you cannot claim it's me I can say this glass of water is my water of my glass of water but if I say this is me you knew you know that I'm a case you know for sure so if you said this is my body yes it is right now till we bury you but if you say this is me you're a case your only comfort is everybody around you is a case this is how it is in asylum the only nutcase is the doctor how do you shift that perspective though how do you learn to see yourself as continuous with everyone and everything see it's like this I'm agreeing with that very good very good see this is my body that's your body distinctly separate at least right now till both of us are buried till then this is my body that's your body very clear this is my mind and that's your mind very clear but there is no such thing as my life and your life there's no such thing this is like I'm sure at some stage in your life when you're in school at least you blew some so bubbles huh so that's my bubble this is your bubble poop it goes there is no such thing as this is my air and this is your air this is a living cosmos you captured some I captured some how significant a life you become when I say significance not how significant you are in the society or in the world it's not about that as a life you become significant because you have captured that much of life which overwhelms the puniness of your own mind and physical body within you the life that you've captured is a larger dimension than the body that you have gathered and the information that you've gathered in the form of your mind when the life that you are is bigger than your mind and your body and no teaching is needed you simply conscious about that that's all it's not that you believe that that's a living reality for you so my whole work is to bring people to a dimension of experience where the life that they are is larger than the mind that they are life that they are is larger than the body that they are so you don't have to give a teaching or us or a kind of a belief system naturally what is most dominant becomes you within you and the way that you bring people to that dimension of being or dimension of existence is as there is a science and technology for external well-being there is a whole science and technology for inner well-being the problem that happens in every tradition is over a period of time generation after generation it gathers moss so much frill it gathered nobody knows where the skirt is there is there's a there was a French Catholic writer Charles Pugway who said everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics and I think that in religious traditions that's exactly there's a great deal of truth to that so how do you scrape the barnacles off the boat or the moss off the tradition and identify that kernel which can actually expand people's sense of what is what they are a part of but what they are only a small part of I think I came with a huge advantage that I'm completely uneducated refused to be educated why I'm saying this is it is not easy to remain uneducated because from the moment you're born the moment somebody sees a child all the adults want to pounce upon the child wanting to teach something that's not worked in their life parents teachers every kind of people the moment they see a child they want to teach the child something it's very clear when you look at the child the exuberance and the joy that the child has and the adults are the way they are obviously it's not worked for them whatever they know but they want to teach it to the child so I refuse this one influence on me I just remained as I was uninfluenced by parents teachers society religion around me politics around me I kept myself away from that if you keep yourself away from identifying yourself with just about anything around you anything including your genetics your society religion politics economics whatever is happening around you if you're not identified with anything it is natural for human intelligence to find its way nobody has to teach anybody anything if you just make sure children don't get identified with you hello that you don't want that you want them identified with you because it's your legacy it's not a new life it's your legacy you want to live after your dead you want them to be just like you in so many different ways if you don't have this problem if you leave them alone just nurture them so that they're not influenced by anything you will see the world will be full of mystics I'm not persuaded first of all okay there there are three things that you said that I'm not completely persuaded of one is that you never learned anything the when you say you're uneducated you spoke a language you knew your neighborhood that you lived in you learned how to eat and what foods to make you learned lots of things from the people around you there's no way you could have survived had you not learned that's one way I'm not number two number two I want you to know that when I had a child I didn't want to teach her the ways that I was that didn't work for me I rather wanted to teach her the joy that I found in the world and the beauty and I teach her poetry and I teach her wonder and I think a lot of what I teach her expands her I'm sure I've taught her some things that she would say gee I wish I hadn't taught me that but but I really do believe that most parents want to teach their children not the things that didn't work for them but rather the things that they found in the world that are extraordinary and wonderful no I did not mean didn't work in that sense see the only thing about the adults or the parents is the only qualification you have is you landed here a few years earlier all right nothing else hello isn't that so you just came here a little early so what do you know you know a few survival tricks that the child does not know if you want to teach them business you want to teach them how to survive in the world find you know better than them of course but as life the reason why everybody loves a child is because child is a better life than the adult in every way just as life maybe he doesn't have your intellect maybe he's not accumulated the nonsense that you've accumulated maybe he does not know how to survive in the world but as a life he is far more exuberant and alive than you are that is why it doesn't matter whose child when you see a child you light up because it's life even even the gravest people get ignited all right you know so when I say teaching children something that did not work in their life it is not that your survival tricks did not work obviously they worked for you that's what you want to teach because you're concerned about the child's survival all right you're concerned what will happen to him what this is the only thing see when people have children they only have moments of joy rest of the time it's only anxiety what will happen what will happen what will happen yes because it's all about survival so if you even I mean I'm trying to look at this comprehensively even if you if you just examine the prayers on the planet this says everything about the adults 95% of the prayers from the planet or just about dear God give me this give me that save me protect me does it sound like survival or divine expansion maybe even 5% is there 95% is only save me protect me give me this give me that isn't it this is all survival process outsourced well yeah I must I admit that you are the first person that that I know who preaches a desire to uneducate people and and I understand what you're saying that there is a pure life to a baby but I don't believe that that pure life fitness can exist in an adult the same way it doesn't a child I said the same way that it doesn't a child no you're a man in all seriousness you're a man who has political savvy you've written books you travel and speak there's a certain there is a certain sophistication to your lack of sophistication that I think is quite right that is seems to be pretty clear I'm not I'm not suggesting oh you're just like everybody else but but I also think that maybe you are overplaying the extent to which civilization civilization is a bad idea I think it's a usually a pretty good idea often no civilization is organization of human basic human intent just an organized structure but organization can also get suffocating for the growth no question of an individual life when you are five years of age let's say when all of you were five years of age how joyful exuberant and alive you were and how you are today though for all of you I can see life has worked out very well better than you would have imagined for many of you in spite of that compared to how you were five years of age and today how you are has it gone down or not so I want you to understand with age only physical agility can go down aliveness need not go down hello so are you trying to dine installments that's all I'm asking you it seems foolish to do it all at once so I thought I thought I would do it gradually over time but but what I would say is also I'm not sure that I would privilege aliveness over everything else because I might be less alive than I was when I was five years old but I wouldn't go back to being five because I have so much now that I did not have as a five-year-old and some of it like sad memories ways in which I've heard other people ways in which I've heard myself some of it is stuff that may diminish my life but I also think has made me wiser broader more empathetic more sympathetic deeper all of those things so I don't see this as a one-way street say essentially you are trying to what to say prescribe some amount of suffering for everybody so that they become wiser no I'm saying that it's I'm saying that a certain amount of suffering is inevitable and once it happens to you I'm not sure you wouldn't choose it but I'm not sure that once it happens when you look back on it you would say it didn't actually allow me in some ways to deepen myself I don't think that that's unfamiliar to your religious tradition certainly isn't to mind I was just about to clarify that when I said I came with an advantage I did not belong to any tradition as such I did not identify with any tradition nor they could put me into any tradition this is all I did I did not identify myself with anything just to tell you to what extent I was around maybe 12 12 years of age and you know in India our mothers and parents generally they're not given to everyday profess I love you this and that there is no verbal expression of love they live for us we know the question of whether the lovers are not doesn't arise because their lives are about us so it never occurs whether they love us don't love us such things don't even exist it is just their lives are dedicated to us so we know they live for us so when I am around 12 years of age some tender moment and not exactly I love you but in some way she expressed her affections towards me I'm in that mode at that time struggling you know that I I made sure that I don't belong anywhere but at the same time I'm extremely involved with everything so I just asked it was a natural question for me I asked her suppose I was born in the next house would you still feel this way about me she just teared up I didn't know what I said wrong I thought I just asked a question but it somehow she just teared up and went away and after 10 minutes she came back and she did something very strange she came and touched my feet and she was all in tears I didn't know what to say I said what did I do wrong I just asked a question but when I look back later on when things changed within myself I saw that she saw the point she got it in such a profound way because it is true that her affections are simply because I am her son not as a life not as a just another being if I was somebody else she wouldn't feel the same way when she realized that she just kind of you know an expansion is also cracking up you know the eggs shell has to crack for something new to come out so I just kept see if your intelligence is not aligned or associated or identified with anything it is natural for human intelligence to seek relentlessly seeking relentlessly means without any purpose see the difference between because you mentioned the word mysticism the difference between mysticism and other ways of doing things is everybody is trying to find something a scientist trying is trying to find something everybody somebody was walking the street right now is trying to find something of their own needs every human being every animal is trying to find something maybe food maybe shelter maybe whatever so if you have a torchlight if you have a what do you call this flashlight if you have a flashlight you have focused light you're trying to find something you only see this person or this person or this person what mysticism means is you blew your flashlight it became a flare you saw everything the way it is and after that you are never the same again some people in the group to hear you have have sent up some questions and I'd like to ask you some of the questions that were many of which touch on themes that we have talked about we talked about death do you believe I know you don't like the word I do I will die that there is an afterlife oh okay I was thought I thought you're going to ask me whether I will die or not I will not God willing for a long time see the question is is there a life after death I think some things you know best only by experience but we've already gone through this it's very clear that we gathered this body it's very clear we gathered this impressions of the mind if we have to gather so much there must be something more fundamental whatever it is there something must be more fundamental than physical body and the mental structure so essentially the question that you're asking is not about what happens after death the question that you're asking is what is the nature of my existence is it not very important that you should know this here now when you're alive so if I tell you yes there is life after death if it is comfortable for you you believe me or you will disbelieve me if you believe me you will not get any closer to truth if you disbelieve me you will not getting any closer to truth all you will have is you will have a fancy story to tell sometimes pleasant story if you believe if you disbelieve a nasty story about me but nothing about your experience of life will change isn't it you can believe what I say you can disbelieve what I say so I've never put anybody into that obscenity that they have to believe me or disbelieve me all I'm doing is where your experience is stretching it to the next level of experience once you taste the next level I am hundred percent guaranteed you will want to taste the next and the next and the next I have no this thing about it today millions of people are following without without promise of something elsewhere no promise of anything all I'm saying is see generally you can gather people if you create an enemy if I say all your troubles is because of these people then I can gather all these people but this entire thing is about there is only one problem in your life that's yourself in spite of that people have gathered hats off to the people because that much sense has dawned on the planet and if you had that child before you and you could give them advice for life before they've been educated out of it what would you tell them I think the best thing is I tell you how raise my I raise my own girl so when she started traveling with me when she was three and a half months old me and her just two of us driving a car and traveling across the country with a little baby bundled up and one hand the thing and my right leg is always heavy in India we have no speed limits we are a free nation so this freedom is extended people drive on both sides of the street and whichever way they're testing my mystical powers some of them are busy testing their horoscopes you know somebody has told them you lived to be 80 the guy is testing it out today on the street whether it works or not all these things so I'm constantly in new homes and you know with various families wherever I go I'm crisscrossing India at that time driving an average of 125 to 150,000 kilometers per year this is the time I'm building Isha Foundation across the country so this girl grew up like this largely in the car in many homes so then I saw adults were so interested in teaching her something if the child they see the child ABC 1 2 3 Mary had a little lamb they will start I said nobody will teach her anything no ABC no 1 2 3 no Mary had a little lamb and they said this girl won't even know how many fingers she has I said I don't care whether she knows how many fingers she has or not as long as she knows how to use them she thinks this is a million what's my problem she knows how to use them and I don't care whether Mary had a lamb or not so I made this rule nobody teacher anything so this girl see this is a beautiful thing about children when you don't teach them anything they're just wanting to drink life by the time she's 18 months old she speaks three languages fluently because nobody's teaching her anything no ABC no nothing and by the time she's four four and a half years of age she I've actually checked this she remembers over 800 names of people adults and she thinks they're all her friends she just sits down and making phone calls after phone calls to all of them and having long conversations with them because she doesn't know that she's a child and they're adult she thinks they're all her friends so she grew up like this I wouldn't have sent her to school but my schedules went crazy so I put her to a school where there's very little of schooling so she's around 12 13 years of age something happened in the school that was disturbing for her she came home and she was a bit disturbed she came up to me and said you're teaching everybody so many things you're not telling me anything I said well I'm not known to do things unsolicited now that you've come let us see sit down here and I said this is all it's very simple don't look up to anybody she looked at me like this saying what about you kind of thing I said especially me if you look up to me you'll miss the whole point all you will do is maybe make a photograph of me and nail me to the wall you have to see me as I am if you see me as I am there is much for you if you look up to me you'll miss the whole point and don't look down on anybody don't look up to anybody don't look down on anybody this is all then you will see life just the way it is if you see life just the way it is you will navigate your way absolutely effortlessly at the age of 15 I took her out of school and she went into classical dance now she's a well-known dancer in India very no education that's a time when you know all her friends in school somebody's going to Harvard somebody's going to Stanford all this she said I want to do law in Harvard yes I said see just don't go by this I'll take you around a journey so I traveled I took her to Oxford Cambridge Harvard MIT West Virginia University Stanford University I said see this what you got just spend time and then I took her to this very traditional dance school and the way the children were she sat there and she wept I said what she said I'll join up here I said it's great because there the monthly fee was 162 rupees per month which is two dollars per month I said this is a great choice you made and you said you didn't learn anything I I asked you this actually earlier because I really want to understand and I don't understand the the conception of God that you have or gods that you have and we had talked about it before and I wonder if there's some way that you can explain to us how you think or how you understand God God's the divine do you have a conception of that and if so what is it so when we say conception we are referring to concepts when we say concepts obviously they constructed in our minds whatever our concepts are probably you're referring to the 33 million gods and goddesses of India these 33 million happened when our population was 33 million since then because of Western influence and Western education we've become little shy of creating gods we must understand this in in in India in the northern part of India these terminologies have been lost because of invasions and the kind of beating that northern India has taken over a period of time but in southern India still a deity or a what you see the word God doesn't belong to India we don't have such a word actually there's no the God word anywhere we call them Bhagawan Bhagawan means a blessed being that's the highest word we kind of have there is no the God word anywhere so these deities are referred to as Yantras the word Yantra literally translates into a machine or an instrument so these are instruments to access different dimensions of life see we as human beings we are who we are today in this world one thing that's really worked for us is the tools that we created isn't it for example maybe many of you've seen I think there was an image of that in the video there is Jhiana Linga which is it which is called a temple it's called a yogic temple or a multi religious temple if I when I'm speaking if I refer to the Jhiana Linga as a tool some devotees get very hurt Sadhguru don't call it a tool it's more than our life I said that's fine if you think I'm offending you by calling the Jhiana Linga tool you do one thing you come to the yoga center I'll give you plumbing job three days you do it I won't give you any tools just with your bare hands you can use your teeth in three days time all your nails will be gone some of your teeth will be gone then if I give you a spanner will you worship it or no hello it's the tools it is the tools right now I'm speaking here it is the instrument called microphone which is really speaking to you otherwise if I spoke here these ten people would hear the people behind would poke them and what did he say what did he say they would say whatever the hell one they wanted to the person behind this is how it happened in ancient times because only these 10-15 people heard sit today a microphone why because we can speak to enhance speech we got microphone that is not good enough we made a telephone we have vision so we made a microscope we made a telescope because we can walk we made a bicycle we made a car we made an airplane we made all kinds of things if you were made like a tree rooted to one place would you have thought of a bicycle I'm asking now because every instrument or every machine that we have created is only an extension of our existing faculties we have not created anything absolutely new everything is just an extension of our existing faculties so the deities are like this they made for different purposes for every kind of purpose in life there is one dating so if you want money there's one dating if you want power there's another dating you want knowledge there's another dating you want love there's another dating you want to be fearless there's another dating like this for everything just to you know cap that you've heard of ramanujam have you know the mathematician there was a movie about him yeah I saw that movie here in Los Angeles I think you know ramanujam so the ramanujam is late 19th century and early 20th century 1911 or 1912 he died I think he was born very young yes he was born in Tamil Nadu where we are in the southern state he started pouring out mathematics he's a devotee of a particular female deity and he started pouring out books and books of mathematics no training of any kind so some English professor identified this and sent him to England Oxford right I think so so he just poured out mathematics to what extent means in 1910 he wrote mathematics or the mathematical structures for black holes describing black holes when there was no concept of black hole in the scientific community see in science first the concept then the theory then the math but he wrote the math when there was no theory when there was no concept he just wrote the math he was dying of tuberculosis he sat on his deathbed and simply poured out bookfuls of mathematics people asked where is this coming from he said my Devi my goddess bleeds mathematics these are his words because he's using that deity to open up a window to the existence I am a living example of that just opening up a window on suddenly everybody thinks you know everything you don't know a damn thing you just opened a window and you looked out and you're just talking whatever you see there so these deities came up like this to serve different purposes of human life different energy forms were created there is a whole science of consecration it's a very powerful science you must come and experience there is one here at the Tennessee Center if you come to India it will just blast you in the face you don't have to believe anything it is not by belief just the very energy there is like that because these are consecrated spaces created for specific purposes to teach yoga we consecrate one way to make other experiences happen this dhyanalingam means it's a meditative form without any instruction people will become meditative no instruction no previous experience they come and sit down thinking they will sit for five minutes they will simply sit for an hour two hours recently somebody came just before I came here in the month of March one man came from Himalayas he just sat down in the temple in the morning when six o'clock when the temple opens evening eight o'clock he was still sitting there he just didn't move so people got scared he may leave his body they came to me Sadguru this man has not opened his eyes since morning he just sat there over 12 hours he is not moved an inch he's simply sitting there then I knew who it is I said don't bother just go and whisper to him Sadguru will see you tomorrow morning he'll wake up so because the energy itself is meditative you don't have to know anything it makes you like that so this is a science that was explored profoundly and we created forms you won't believe there are tribes of thieves you know you heard of the Pindaris and others in India who are bandit tribes they have their own God gods and goddesses before they go on their theory they have their gods who will assist them in that they created that kind of energy for themselves this is like creating any other instrument you have a science and technology you can make a wonderful life-saving instruments out of it or you can make a gun out of it you can make anything out of it you could have made anything out of it so people made various deities for different purposes in their life but this thing about this is the God never existed in the country or in that culture this is why this is one culture which constantly thought people that your life is your karma you heard of that word that's become English word now karma means your action physical action mental action emotional action and energy action these four dimensions of activity you're constantly performing over 99% of it is unconscious see from the moment you got up today morning till this moment these four dimensions of activity your physical activity your mental activity your emotional and energy activity how much percentage of it are you performing consciously believe me it's way below one percent when 99% is unconscious life will be accidental when life is accidental anxiety is natural when anxiety becomes your way of existence now fear is the key you'll just about believe anything you're ready to believe anything you just trying to hold on to something that gives you some comfort some solace something to make you feel like you're standing safe so all these people are going to go home tonight what is it that they most either should take away or can do differently even before they get to visit you in Tennessee that you think is the indispensable piece of what you have to say to them at least as a beginning lesson for those who aren't further along the path there are two aspects to everything that I do one is there is a spiritual dimension which can be transmitted in many different ways there is a mystical dimension mysticism has no purpose mysticism is just pure exploration it has no purpose but this is the nature of human intelligence even if there's no purpose this intelligence wants to know this is the nature of human intelligence if you release people from their daily concerns and fears believe me every human being will want to know everything in the universe right now their day-to-day nonsense is keeping them busy their psychological and physiological drama is keeping them busy busy busy all the time if they had no concerns everybody would pay attention to everything and want to know everything mysticism has no utility it is simply like pure science you just want to know well your life becomes profound but it has no application as such how can I go out on the street and use my mysticism there's no such thing spiritual process has a certain use to your own emancipation your own liberation your own freedom that you achieve within yourself in that sense if you must take away because we're in America you must take away something when you die what will you take away I want to know hello as you said we'll find out when we get there I don't know so if you must take away tonight before you go to bed spend at least 1215 minutes reminding yourself you're neither this body nor this mind just lie down and just remind yourself this body is not really you do you know in about if you live for about 60 years you're on an average most human beings are eating anywhere between 1,100 to 1,400 tons of food so that means even what you think is my body is not this it's changing every day new input is happening and old things are going away so 1,400 tons you don't have carry that much of weight right now so obviously what you have as a body right now is just a transient amount of food and soil isn't it hello so what you think is mine also is not it it is just all the time changing so at least try this much what is my body is not me what I think is my mind is not me it is mine right now for use but it's not really me just if you're not able to do it just link it to your breath inhalation I'm not the body exhalation I'm not even the mind just lie down for 12 minutes and do it till the last moment till you fall asleep this is something you must notice most human beings when I say most I'm very generous with the percentage 99% 99% of the human beings never notice that moment when they're slipping from wakefulness to sleep they will simply go off like that if they're alert they cannot sleep but there is a way to sleep in an alert manner if you sleep like that one thing that will happen to you is your sleep quota if you're sleeping for eight hours it'll simply drop to three to four hours just straight away in synagogue I sometimes see people sleeping in an alert manner actually it's not that's not uncommon that comes with practice no that moment when you're passing from wakefulness to sleep if you can still be conscious that I am not the body and I'm not the mind believe me something remarkable will happen I I also I want to I want to acknowledge that it is my impulse and you said this is America so we have to have a take away it is my impulse to ask you always what to do and it is your way to talk not so much about the doing as it is about the larger perspective that you're trying to get to but it's hard sometimes for us to get there without something that we are comfortably concrete see what are the instruments to be that's what people are asking there is a difference between being and doing doing is related to our body or our thought process or our emotion or maybe even the energetically you can do certain things but being is not connected to any of these things because all these things you accumulate from outside so a dimension which is not physical in nature you don't do anything with it there's nothing to do with it it is just that if you in your awareness in your consciousness if what is you and what is not you there is a little space between you and your body between you and your mind if a little space arises suddenly this is the end of suffering in your life because you know only two kinds of suffering physical suffering and mental suffering do you know any other kind of suffering hello even if you're an expert in the field still you don't know any other kind of suffering isn't it physical and mental once there's a little space between you and the body and you and the mind this is the end of suffering only when there is no fear of suffering will you naturally want to walk full stride wanting to know every dimension of life when there is fear of suffering you walk half steps you only want to do what is safe and there is nothing safe in this world except dying life anything can happen and on that beautiful note we want to thank our guests