 Mind is very simple for me because if you take away your attention, it just dies. California may be beautiful, but people can be in hell, isn't it? Within themselves, in their experience, in their homes, in their situations, they can create hell for themselves. Everybody must do a little bit of engineering within themselves to see that being peaceful and joyful is not a challenge. Once this happens, your intelligence will function in a completely different way. Namaskaram, everybody. Hi, Sagar Guru. Thank you for sitting down here. So I want to jump right in, and there's a quote from Yogananda. He says, you can control a mad elephant, you can walk in water and live in fire, but control of the mind is better and more difficult. And I've certainly found that for myself. I spend so much time wrestling with my mind, I hardly have the energy to dance with life. Why is it so hard for us to manage our mind as people? I have no such problem because I lost it long time ago. When you don't have it, you don't have to control it, you know? Because it's a very, very impaired notion that people think intelligence is somewhere here. This is a living cosmos. It's an intelligent cosmos. We are just tiny, one tiny product, minuscule product. And now we think we have so much intelligence, and we have to control it, manipulate it, use it. I have no such issues. I gave it up long time ago. Yeah, so mad elephant I wouldn't want to control because I've seen them, what they can do. Mind is very simple for me because if you take away your attention, it just dies. If you keep your attention and try to control it, that's crazy. So why is human mind an issue? Your mind is just an antenna, not the source of intelligence. Intelligence is everywhere. Unfortunately, people who are deprived of basic ease in their life have described the source of creation or they say God is peace. Those who are deprived of love in their life, they say God is love. Those who have fallen in their lives, they say God is compassion. But if you're none of these, but you understand the idea of God has entered human mind only because before you and me came, there was so much creation. We even know we didn't make it. So when we cannot figure who made all this, somebody makes up a simple story. There is one big man sitting up there who makes all this. Well today women are arguing, why can't it be a woman? This argument is going on everywhere, different things. I must tell you this, in some of the southern churches these arguments going on, why can't God be a woman? As you know, a couple of elections ago you tried to settle it. You know what happened? Last election, why a couple? And there are arguments like this, you heard of Idi Amin, the Uganda man. Idi Amin declared, God is black. I also agree with him. Because if a white man can have a white God, why can't a black man have a black God? What's the problem? But you know, white people, black people, they have not seen God because there's only messengers and sons came to these parts of the world. In India we know God is brown because Indians believe God landed in India himself. Not his son, not his messenger himself, nine times. Nine times he came to India. So Indians, especially Indians who are living outside the country are very proud of this. God came to our land himself, nine times. So I keep reminding them that is because God wouldn't trust anybody with Indians. He wanted to do the job hands-on. So he himself came nine times and failed. Failure is obvious. Nine or ten times you can debate, but failure is obvious. What I'm saying is, the idea of God or a certain source which could be in some human form or animal form or whatever has essentially come because you've not paid attention to the creation. The ideas come only because you have no explanation for the creation. But if you pay enough attention, we don't know God loves you or not. We don't know whether God is peaceful or not. We don't know whether God is compassionate or not. But if you pay attention to this flower or this leaf or a blade of grass, you can see whoever created this is brilliant. Simply no question. Everywhere you see, every atom you see, it's intelligence, intelligence, intelligence. But nobody said God is intelligence. That's a biggest mistake we've made. We said all kinds of things, whatever we need, we say God is wealth, if you are poor. If you are hungry, you say God is food. If you have a backache, you'll say God is health. Everybody, whatever they're deprived of, they will make it into that. Leave all these things. Just take one piece of creation, take an ant and pay attention to him. You will see it's the most brilliant creation. But we never said God is intelligence. So this is a living intelligence, everything here is very cosmos. In this, where do I think I'm intelligent? If you find access to the intelligence there is, you can function in a phenomenal way. But within this bone box, if you think everything that needs to be there is in this, then all you will do is suffer your intelligence. Now you think a mad elephant is easier to handle than your mind. So you must be madder than the mad elephant. I don't know who said that. But for me, my body, my mind is never a problem. It always cooperates because that's what it's supposed to do. My body and my mind should take instructions from me, only then it's a useful instrument. If it's start doing its own things, then it's a nuisance. And this is what is happening to most people, that their mind is the biggest nuisance in the world. They would be better off without a brain. Yes. If you remove half the brain, everybody is going about struggling to be peaceful. You take away half their brain, they will sit here peacefully, very peacefully. So is that the goal I'm asking? There is a possibility that is, if you do not harness that possibility, it becomes a major problem. And you don't know how to harness it. Because you do not know whether it's a horse or an elephant or a cow or a deer. When you do not know the nature of something, how do you deal with it? Suppose right now here there's a cup sitting here. In my mind, I think this cup is three feet in diameter. Now I will try to lift it like this. How much ever I do, this cup will not come in my hands. Now I think this cup is a serious problem. Because first of all, I have no perception what the cup is. Right now that's all the human problem is. They have no understanding of what their mind is. They're trying to analyze the content. Content is what you picked up, isn't it? Content is what you picked up in terms of life's experiences. This content is of no use. You can distance yourself from it very effortlessly. The problem is the nature of the mind. How does it function? What is the basis of its existence? If you do not comprehend the nature of the mind, well it feels like a mad elephant, why not? And you believe you can handle a mad elephant? Then you've not seen one, I've seen one. Oh, you don't want to be anywhere there. When an elephant goes mad, when it goes amok, oh, you don't want to be there anywhere in one kilometer. And most of us don't want to be anywhere near our own minds because our minds do act like that. And I think one of the great lessons I heard you talking about yesterday is the ability to observe the mind. As you said, if you don't understand the mind, how can you use it as the tool that it is? But the distance that's necessary to actually observe it, is that what you credit your ability to let go of the challenging aspects of the mind? The willingness to give some separation and observe your own mind? Say, right now I see you are a well-exercised man, all right? You have strength in your arm. Is it a problem? No. Does it punch you once in a while? Not usually. It does, but does it ever punch you, you're right, arm? It doesn't. So it's not a problem. So all this strength is not a problem because it doesn't punch you. Similarly, whatever is the nature of the mind, this is also one more dimension like your arm. Your arm is here to do this, that and that. Your mind is here to do that, that and that. But now it punches you. So there must be something wrong with the relationship, isn't it? Yes. That's what we need to look at. Nothing wrong with the mind. We're not holding it right. When I say holding it right, if I ask you a simple question, would you like your mind to be sharp or blunt? Sharp. Sharp. So now I will give you a very sharp knife, very sharp one. I must tell you this, we were trekking in Tibet. So I'm staying in a tent and I'm doing some work, I'm writing something. Somebody else there is cutting an apple with one of those, you know, those new porcelain knives. So another person who is there in the tent says, be careful, it's a very sharp knife. This irritates me because I call something a knife, only if it's sharp. If it's a child, if you're five, seven, eight-year-old child, yes. This is a grown-up man. You don't tell him it's a sharp knife. Then I just look at it and then I continue my work. Again another two minutes, again they say, be careful, it's a very sharp knife. I said, come on, leave him alone. He's a grown-up man, he doesn't know knife is sharp. What is the problem? Is it such a complicated instrument, he cannot handle it. He said, no, Sadhguru, it's a very sharp knife. I said, God damn it, I call something a knife, only if it's sharp. If it's not sharp, throw the damn thing, it's not a knife. And then I continue to work and this person whispers to that person, be careful, it's very sharp. Another two minutes, that guy cuts his hand, I give up. So I'm saying, you want your mind to be sharp. So if I give you a sharp instrument, you must know how to hold it, isn't it? Got to know where the handle is. If you do not know which is the handle, which is the blade, if you hold the blade tight, of course it'll hurt. This is the only problem with the mind, you're holding it from the wrong end. So for those of us, I've studied the mind, I've gone through many practices, I've tried to figure out where the handle is and usually a lot of times I can hold the handle, but sometimes I find myself and there's blood in my hand because I'm holding the blade. Before I even realized that I grabbed the blade, I wake up in the morning and I feel anxiety in my chest because I feel like I must do something more and there's something more I need to do and I'm just burning with this anxiety and I know that's just my mind. It doesn't help me, but still I can't find the handle again. What is the advice you give people like me who are trying their best to find the handle of their own mind but keep finding the blade? They're trying their best through what means. They're using their mind to find their mind. It is like you hire the local crook as a police man. I think a lot of times it's happened in LA. You handle... you hire the local criminal as the police in charge. Oh, you will see crime will happen smoothly without any problems, isn't it? So that's all that's happening for most people, crime is happening smoothly to a point where doctors are telling them anxiety is normal. It happens to everybody. I'm also anxious, I'm also popping pills, you also pop pills. Otherwise they will make, you know, hallucinogenic drugs legal because it helps. See, if you fall asleep, it helps, isn't it? If you get intoxicated, it helps. I'm saying the further advancement of that is if you fall dead, it helps. That's why they say rest in peace because they know that the guy never rested all his life. So where is the handle? See, we are looking at this with a certain limitation. Right now, there is something called an intellect. That is the thing that you want it to be sharp because it's a survival instrument. Without your intellect, you cannot survive in this world. And intellect functions only from the data that you receive from the five sense organs of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. Beyond that, it cannot function. If I wipe out all your memory right now, even if you have a sharp intellect, still you won't know nothing. You can't do nothing because your intellect is like your computer without data. Suppose no data on your computer, it may be a super computer, blank, that is the nature of your intellect. It only functions from its data, but it must be sharp. Now, is it okay? Can we go into this in detail? Yes, please. So in yoga, we look at human mind as sixteen parts. But today, considering the time, we'll make it into four segments. These are called buddhi, ahankara, manas and chitta. Buddhi means the intellect, ahankara means identity, manas means a silo of information. There are eight different forms of memory here. There is conscious memory, there is unconscious memory, there is articulate memory, there is inarticulate memory, there is genetic memory, there is evolutionary memory, there is elementary memory, like this various dimensions of memories are built into us. See, right now, there is evolutionary memory in you that you're a human being. And that's why the body has constructed itself like this. Suppose somewhere here, your DNA forgets, then this may become a buffalo. Yes, evolutionary memory, do what you want, you cannot confuse it, it is so on the thing. Ten generations ago, how your great-great-great-great grandfather looked like, do you remember? No. No. But his nose is sitting on your face. Yes. Your body absolutely remembers. A million years ago, how your forefathers were, even the texture of the skin it remembers. So, what you're calling as myself is a product of very complex memories of evolutionary, genetic, karmic, various types of memories. So, all these memories together are providing data for your intellect to function in a certain way to figure out how to use this memory for this situation, all right? But there is a dimension between this manas and buddhi, between the silo of memory and the sharp knife in the front that you call as your intellect. Between this, there is a hand that holds it, which is the identity. How you identify yourself, with what you identify yourself, that is how your intellect will interpret the memory. See, right now you get identified, let's say with your nation. Now for this nation, I'm willing to live, I'm willing to die, all right? Or you identified with your race. You're willing to die, I'm willing to kill, willing to whatever, you know? Whatever your identity is, your intelligence will function only that way. See, people won't understand when somebody thinks something is absolutely right and you think this is the dumbest thing because the identity is like that, isn't it? It's always telling stories. No, it is the identification. See, right from your childhood, the identification has been built of your gender, of your race, of your religion, of your nationality, of your ethnicity and individually so many other things that each individual will do to themselves, of their education, of their social status, of whatever else. Right now your teacher is saying, for the good of all, what disease is about, just because you say it, all are not going to be good, but within yourself, you want to make your identity with everybody. You want to make your identity as large as possible, that's the idea. We would like to make this identity cosmic, but we don't know where it is cosmos, so at least make it global. Because now, if your identity is like this, your memory, your intelligence, together we'll combine and try to address everything from a larger identity. Everything that you call as evil, everything that you call as crime, everything you call as corruption is essentially limited identification, isn't it? Yes. I'm fighting for my country and I'm willing to kill you. I don't know who the hell you are, but I'll kill you. This is the whole thing, isn't it? Because I'm identified with my country and what is my country? Somebody drew a map and told me this is your country, this is you, only this way you're you, otherwise you're not you. So I'm so strongly identified with my country, I'm willing to kill the whole world for the sake of my country or my community or my family or myself. If it's myself, people will say, see, he's a selfish man. If he's family in America, it's very appreciated. In India, it's seen as corruption. I will fight for my family in America, it's a good quality. I'll fight for my community is a good thing for somewhere else. I'll fight for my nation is largely good almost everywhere in the world. But if your identity is beyond all these limited identifications, then your intelligence will function in a completely different way. So this hand, which holds the knife and which is rooted in the memory, this is not taken care of in modern societies. We are all standing up and singing national anthems. Well, I started writing a global anthem almost ten years ago. I announced this in the economic forum and I said, we should do a global anthem. Why are why are children not learning a global anthem? Okay, they can sing their national anthem, but they must every every child in the school all over the world must sing a global anthem identifying with the planet, identifying with humanity and every other life on this planet. Because only then their intelligence will work for everybody's good. Otherwise at any cost I want to be good, I don't care what the hell happens to you. I will not because my identity is like this. Don't think they're good people, bad people. They're just identified with that. So there is good and bad is just depends on what we are identified with. And it's a good people who are always fighting, bad people don't fight so much. They just still maybe cause one murder here, there, but they make their money and they sit somewhere and enjoy their life. Bad people, criminals I'm saying. Good people, it is a good Indian who is willing to fight with a good Pakistani. It's a good Christian finding fighting with a good Muslim. It's a good American fighting with almost anybody. Just everybody's fighting because they're good. But good something identified with a limited something and you're good with that. Isn't that the basis of all the conflict? My religion versus your religion, my nation versus your nation, my community versus your community, my race versus your race endlessly it's gone on. The whole problem of everything is limited identity. I'm telling you extreme versions of this is Adolf Hitler, all right? Extreme versions is Adolf Hitler. But just look around and see there are a whole lot of them around you. But only thing is they're not as powerful as him fortunately. Yes or no? Yes. Limited identity means naturally you are going to do something else to somebody else because your identification is like that. So in India as part of the yogic culture, this was the thing in the past, not anymore. Zero to twelve years of age, a child should just eat well, play, sleep well. That's all, no teaching. A twelve education begins before he starts his education because education is seen as a huge empowerment. Before he starts education, he must shift his identity to a global or cosmic identity. First thing is Aham Brahmasmi. That means I am everything, not this or that. I am everything in the universe is me. Without taking that step, without that initiation, there is no education because education is empowerment. See today tell me, are educated people causing more damage to this planet or uneducated people causing more damage to this planet? Educated. Educated people because they're empowered, isn't it? Empowered but their identifications are limited. They have no identity with other creatures on this planet. So they're just obliterating them all together and they don't even think they're doing anything wrong, all right? They don't think they're doing anything wrong because they're doing good things. So that is how identity is and that's how important it is. And we've just not taken care of that in modern societies. The whole world would be radically different if people were taught that story about their identity from early on. But unfortunately, as you said, we're not taught that story and many of us have to find it on our own. We have to, through our own spiritual practice, experience that feeling where it is not me in that tree, it is us. And we're both the same, although articulated and expressed and manifested differently. But ultimately, you get to this sense of unicity, this felt sense. And then you can forget it, but at least somewhere you know it. Somewhere I know that we're all the same person living a different life. Somewhere I know that I'm made up of those plants and those animals and the sky and that water and the same thing that feeds the grass. I know it. Sometimes I forget, but at least I know it. So how if people haven't experienced it for themselves, how can they find that felt sense of unicity, that felt sense of connection to everything? See, definitely in California, you've heard the word yoga, yoga. The word yoga does not mean twisting and turning and looking like a leftover noodle, you know? Yoga means union. What are you trying to unite? It is not that you're trying to unite anything. It is anyway one. It is only a realization. This is why we use the word realization. Realization is not an achievement. Realization is not some kind of an attainment. Realization is not an invention. Realization is just that something that was something that was always here, you missed it all the time. Suddenly you saw it one day. It's like one day you saw you have two hands. How fun is that? And suddenly you have two hands. You realize but you never saw all your life that you had two hands. So realization is not about going somewhere. It's about seeing what is there. Why is it that we're not seeing? Essentially, simply because people do not know the distinction between what is their psychological drama and what is the existential reality. See, your psychological reality is something that you're cooking up all the time. Existentially what is there is there. When you do not know the distinction, what are you making up in your mind and what is the reality? When you start enjoying or suffering your psychological reality, then the trouble begins because now you started drama and you forget it's a drama. Now you become so much a part of the drama. You suffer in the drama, you do this, you do that, you cry, you laugh. This is what is the problem. Your misunderstanding, your thought and emotion as life. When people say, my life is good or my life is bad, what they mean is their thoughts and emotions are either right now pleasant or unpleasant. That's all they're saying. Existentially there are situations. Some time ago, no virus, now virus, all right? Some time ago, maybe economy was up there, now it's down here, whatever, that's not the issue. That's not the issue. The real issue is your thoughts and emotion are playing out in a certain way. That makes it a good day or a bad day or a good life or a bad life, isn't it? Essentially people are misunderstanding their own thoughts and emotions as life and reacting to that. Now there is no time for union because you have become a separate cubicle of your own. You're a small bubble who always feel threatened and oppressed by such a large existence because you just sit here and really think about this. And this tiny mud ball of a planet, you're sitting here, huh? You're a strong man. But if you look at it in this cosmos, you are a microbe, not even a microbe. Perspective. So if you look like this intellectually, you'll get terrified. Such a small creature in such a vast existence, where is my beginning, where is my end? What will happen to me? These are the fears. When these concerns and these struggles and this misunderstanding of what is real and what is not real has happened, this confusion has happened, union or yoga cannot happen. Well, anyway, the yoga that's happening in Los Angeles scares me. It scares me because, see, the yogic system is a certain science. It is not an art form that you can twist it, turn it, you can make it modern art, you can make it ancient art, it's not that kind. It is a science. It needs to be done in a certain way so that, see, it's like this. We can actually do a test and see if you want. If not now on the screen, you can do it at home and see. If you just hold your hands like this, facing down upon your thigh, you will see your breath will be one way. Keep your hair, all the fingers together. If you just turn it over, your breath will be different way. That is how subtle this machine is. This way, this way. The very way it functions, the energy's function is different. When it is so subtle, if you observe yourself in twenty-four hours' time, how much of this, this, this, this everybody is doing without knowing why they're doing what they're doing. They do all this and now they're expecting to be peaceful. Life doesn't work like that. If you do not understand how this functions and randomly you function, then you're always looking for a good deal in your life. Good deal in terms of relationships, good deal in terms of finances, good deal in terms of social relationships, good deal in terms of world around us. You can have as many good deals as you want. But if this is like this, you can go sit in heaven and still suffer, all right? I've been in the most beautiful place but I brought me to that beautiful place and the me that I brought to that beautiful place was in turmoil. And so the beautiful place didn't exist because I wasn't able to see it. I wasn't able to be there. Maybe intellectually I knew that I was in a beautiful place but I wasn't there in that place. And that's the challenge of being a human in this existence that hasn't been taught from an early age where the handle is, how to observe the self, how to understand the mind, how to use the intellect to our advantage, how to identify in a broader landscape than just the small self, that we're taught to identify with. But I understand and I have certain compassion for people like myself who find themselves in that situation, absolutely. But what I want to ask from there is the sense of preference, the thing that this feels good, this weather feels good, this type of relationship feels good, making money feels better than poverty. You'll have a desire, something that you're craving and then you'll have a fear, something that you're craving and then you'll have a fear, something that you're avoiding. And that seems to be a prison, the prison of preference. How do you, even if you're identifying broader than yourself, you still feel the things, it still feels hot or cold, you still feel love or not, you still have money or don't have money. How, when you're caught in that preference, the strong preference, how do you free yourself from the fear and the craving? That's why yesterday I was telling you, say, I'm always stoned. You must be always stoned. Not with the stuff that's available in the marketplace. Well, this is the biggest chemical factory. If you take charge of this, you will create the right kind of chemistry. If you had a choice how to be, either blissful or miserable, what's your choice for yourself? Blessful. Blissful. What you want for your neighbor may be debatable sometimes, all right? What you want for yourself is very clear. You want to be blissful. Why such a simple thing is happening, not happening? Well, I'm saying a simple thing because all human experience is generated from within. It doesn't come from outside. We know this, right? Our peacefulness, our turmoil, our joy, our misery, our agony, our ecstasy, everything is being created from inside. So the problem is, the seat of your experience, you never sat on that. You're like an outsider trying to create an experience from outside. You want to air-condition the place to feel good. You're feeling good. If you're conditioning there, we'll enjoy that also. Otherwise, we're anyway... This is the reason continuously we're talking about why you being joyful or blissful is very important. Because only when you're joyful by your own nature, the fear of suffering is not there. When there is no fear of suffering, you know about a week ago, there was a... Daily I have a quote, like a mystic quote going out. A week ago, one of the quotes said, if your body, mind and your very being is sweet and wonderful, even if you go to hell, you're fine. So big controversy around that in India, about going to hell and heaven and all that stuff. Hell means the worst possible place you can be, not somewhere up there or down there. People can be in hell in California, hello? California may be beautiful, but people can be in hell, isn't it? Within themselves, in their experience, in their homes, in their situations, they can create hell for themselves. So it doesn't matter where you are, fundamentally if you are not in pursuit of happiness, but your life is an expression of your joy, then all this will go down by itself. Now without fixing this, you try to do this, that, that, no. First and foremost thing is, you're peaceful and joyful by your own nature. Not because of something. Because today something worked out I am happy, no. I have started so many things that every day something will not work out for me. I have made sure my life never works. Something major is always going wrong somewhere, okay, some idiot is doing something somewhere and troubling me. But that will not decide the quality of how I am. That is why you can do everything that you can do. People say around me, Sadhguru, so many big projects, suppose it fails, what to do? I said if it fails, what to do? We'll die blissful failures. If it succeeds, other people will benefit. That's all. Anyway, I will die blissfully. If we do it well and it succeeds, immense benefit will happen to people. If you fail, well it didn't work, anyway it had not worked even before. But when it doesn't make a difference to you, what is success, what is failure for you? So the most important thing is this, first and foremost, everybody must do a little bit of engineering within themselves to see that being peaceful and joyful is not a challenge. Once this happens, your intelligence will function in a completely different way because right now it's in a survival mode. Always fearful if what will happen, what will happen? What will happen means what? Will I suffer? That's a question, isn't it? Once there's an assurance, whatever happens, this is how I will be. Other things are very simple. Yeah. When you find that and I haven't found it, so I don't know, but I've tasted it, but when you find that sense, that ability to control your internal environment rather than letting… Not to control, to liberate. To liberate. Yeah, good question. How can you control this? Right, right. To generate your own emotions through your inner knowing of self, inner expression of self. We'll go back to that thing that you said, a mad elephant. See, even somebody, let's say somebody's gone mentally in a certain state, you call them mad. When you call them mad, another expression for that is also he's lost his mind. Hmm? Yeah. If you lost your mind, for example, can I take you as an example? Of course. I can take myself because it's a more appropriate example. But suppose you lost your mind, how can you go mad if you don't have a mind? Right. It could be a good place. Yeah. If you consciously lost your mind, it's the best thing you can do. Yeah, surrendered it, surrendered it. Where I was originally going is when you have that sense of joy that you can bring forward from your own self, is it difficult to generate the motivation to go out and change your reality, change the reality for other people because you're so content in the self and is it then love for others that is the motivating factor? Is that ultimately what drives even you with all of your projects that help people? Because you're content either way, so you're not doing it for yourself. So what's the motivation? What is it that drives you and what is it that drives anybody that's found that joy within themselves? See, on a given day, let's say today morning or tomorrow morning, we'll take you. Tomorrow morning, you're feeling very depressed. Suppose you should not. I'm just saying, suppose tomorrow morning you're feeling very depressed, aren't you willing to go out and do a lot of things? I don't want to. You don't want to do anything. Tomorrow morning you woke up, you are in an unusual state of joy. You're willing to do anything, isn't it? Yes indeed. If I ask you to bend backwards and get me that rock, you will do that. Because you're joyfully, it doesn't matter, isn't it? When you're unhappy, oof. How difficult it is to make you do anything. When you're joyful, you will run and do everything, isn't it? So true. So why do you ask such a question? Everybody asks this question. I think it's nice. Because they are thinking joy means contentment. Contentment is containment. I have never spoken about contentment. Why should you be content? If you're conscious, where is the need to be content? What is needed I will do. If a lot is needed, I will do a lot. If little is needed, I'll do little. Nothing is needed, I'll do nothing. I think people correlate the state of being with non-doing, but that's the false correlation. The problem is too much vocabulary. Contentment, joy, ecstasy, this, this, this, this, you know? Not like that. From compulsiveness to consciousness, that's all. Right now, mind is in a compulsive state. In a compulsive reaction state, if it becomes a conscious response, it's over. Just little engineering. You must do in engineering, I'm telling you. I'm into it. I'm into it. When you find that state of bliss inside yourself and you find it more regularly, and you feel yourself feeling love for life, love for others, then there's a fear that can come up where you're now afraid of letting it go. You're afraid of dying because it's so good. Everything feels so good. You enjoy life so much that there's a fear of dying. Believe me, when you feel very good, you're just ready to die actually. When you feel really blissed out, you're just ready to die. It doesn't matter what age you are, where you are. I always keep telling people around me about what do you think? When should I die? Should I die on a mountain or the ocean or here or there? Where should I go? Sadhguru, I don't talk like this, Sadhguru. I say, why can't I plan my… When I see some place that's really good, I say that it's a good place to die. I will say, Sadhguru, why are you saying this? What's happening? Is your health okay? God damn it, everything is okay. I'm just thinking when to die, where to die. Because everything is so good, it's time to go. When it's bad, time to strive, isn't it? When everything is wonderful, it's like when the fruit is ripe, it'll fall. You don't have to think. You don't have to think it's… I'm so sweet, why should I fall down? It will fall by itself, that's how it is. That's very true. The Lakota have a saying, today is a good day to die. And that was to me a great reminder of living in such a way that life is so full for you, that anytime is a good day. I won't go by that saying, that saying they are telling their warriors. Because if the guy looks at his wife's face, looks at its child's face before going to war and he wants to come back after the battle, that guy is not going to be the frontline. He will be behind. So today is a good day to die. That guy will be the frontline. Don't say that to yourself. So that's a story, what you're saying is that's a story, that that's a story that they're telling themselves. But I think there is a beauty in being feeling so full that if it is the day… If it's coming from that, it's fantastic. But it's coming usually to inspire soldiers to be in the frontline. Otherwise every soldier will be in the last line. Right. And everybody goes to the last line means they will retreat. They will not go and fight. Correct, correct. What is it from your understanding you've gone past the normal dimensions of consciousness, what is your understanding of death? What happens when we die? Some things you know best only by experience. Are you ready? Not yet. Not yet. Well, see when you ask what happens after death, what you're essentially asking is what is the nature of my existence. If I lose this body, see you slowly acquired the body, that's a fact, isn't it? Hello? You're not born like this. Slowly acquired the body. So you know what you acquired, you will lose one day. So when I lose this body, what happens to me? That's a question. That means what? What is the nature of my existence? Right now I'm here with this body, but what is the nature of my existence? It's a question. Tell me this question is better answered now by your experience of how you are now or when you lost your faculties in the name of death. When all your faculties are intact, this must be looked at, isn't it? Not after you have lost it. Death means certain faculties are lost. So after you die, you know what is death, but what's the use? Because now you don't know what is life because you're in death. Right now you're in life, you do not know the other side. So this is like one side of the coin you know, another side of the coin you do not know. If the coin is lying on this table, you can see only one side. But if you flip it, it will give you in that spin, it'll give you a little bit of both. And that we can do for you, we can spin you a little bit so that you have a taste of both going with you. Life and death in one breath, it's like that. Actually, in the month of February, we published a book called Death. Titled as Death, The Inside Story. And the bottom line was a book for only those who shall die. You in the list? I am. But the problem is most people think they're immortal. That's their problem. That is the worst problem in the world. People are going about as if they're here forever. What is the meaning of unlimited wealth? For a person with limited time, I'm asking. Well, they get to think of themselves as better than other people. Suppose all the other people disappear, what do you do? So, only the only joy is that others are doing worse than you. I think that is a perversion, that's not a joy. I'm, see, right now I had a good meal. You've been hungry for five days and I feel really good. Compared to this guy, I'm really nice. This is sickness, this is not happiness. Isn't it? Yeah. So, that kind of things have been trained right from very early age that you enjoy what other people do not have. For this, you will pay a very, very big price. You will pay a big price. Most people who are in that condition, they do not know one moment of joy in their life, one moment of ease in their life, not even joy. That only thing, they laugh looking at other things. When they see that they have succeeded, they have accumulated something, they will laugh. Some pleasure is there, no joy. They don't know what is joy. They have some pleasures, they can buy pleasures. You can't buy joy, you can buy pleasures. Pleasure is only a shadow of joy. So, instead of meeting me, you met my shadow. What is the use, I'm asking? And you're seeing the tree, you see the shadow, yes, a tree shade is good, but a shadow is not the real thing. When you're here, you should know life because that's the only thing we have. The only and only thing you have is life. Everything else is your imagination. Right now, how much is your bank balance? How many homes do you have or how big is your home? How big is your car? This is all only in your memory. The only thing that's there when you sit on this chair is you're alive. That's the only real thing, isn't it? Rest is all in your memory. Suppose from here to your car park when you're walking, you lost your memory. You don't know which car to pick. Yes? You will see lots of these people. The question is not whether you lost your memory or not. I'm saying it's unreal. The real thing is the only and only real thing that you have is, that you have in your life is life. But life is not in people's experience. When people say, my life, you're supposed to understand, figure out what are they talking about. They may be talking about their wife. They may be talking about their friend. They may be talking about their car. They may be talking about their job, their career, their something and something. Because they think all these accessories are life. When you misunderstand your spare tire as your car, you know what you will do? You will have to roll it and run on the street. That's why everybody is exhausted and anxious. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. What is your understanding of the force that we call love? Because I feel like the word love is used to mean a lot of different things, but there's a deeper, perhaps truer meaning to love. And I would love to hear your take on what love really is. Now you will make me very unpopular in California. See, it's like this. There is a longing within a human being to be something more than what you are right now. If this longing finds a very basic physical expression, we call this sexuality. Sexuality is just that, at least for one moment, what you are not becomes a part of you. Somebody who is not you becomes a part of you for some time. Well, after that you know you are you, they are they. So this is one level of longing, which is fundamentally infused into our body because it has other functions of reproduction and you know perpetuating the rays and all this stuff. We are all here because somebody had it, otherwise we wouldn't exist. So when you try to do yoga physically, sexuality will happen. If this happens emotionally, if emotionally you try to include something or somebody which is not you as a part of yourself, then we call this love. If this happens mentally, we call this conquest, success, ambition or simply shopping. Why are people shopping? Do you think they need it? No, they want to make themselves little more than who they are. Even if you give them empty shopping bags, they will carry it because they want to feel like something more has come to their life today. Otherwise they'll feel lost. Food, same thing, you want to be something more. Eating for nourishment is one thing, but adding more food because you want to feel like more. So this longing to be more is fundamental to every human being, it is there. Physical expression will become sexuality, emotional expression will become love, mental expression will lead to all kinds of expressions in terms of conquest of various kinds. When you give it a conscious expression, it becomes yoga, union. The difference between yoga and sexuality and shopping and conquest and love is it's a successful process. All others give you a taste of something. All others are like, let's say you're living in a inside the wall, let's say you're in a prison, but they give you a trampoline. So you jumped and jumped and jumped, you got to look beyond the wall few times, maybe every day. But you come back again and hit the trampoline and again go up. Yoga is not as exciting as a trampoline, it's like a building a ladder. Slowly you build a ladder. Once you build a ladder, you're going to go across the wall. Maybe not as much fun as jumping on a trampoline, but trampoline gets you back all the time. Ladder is not like that, nothing romantic about it, but if you build it strong and climb across, you'll be the other side. When you talk about the union that you're looking to build is the union, the yoga, is it union with your universal self? Is it union with God? Is it union with everything? What is the union that is the purpose? You use three words for all of which there is too many assumptions. Your universal nature, your God and your what? Universal self, your divine nature, everything. Everything, okay, everything is another word. Divine nature, universal self, God, everything. Do you know the meaning of any one of these words or does anybody know the meaning of any one of these words? Does anybody know the meaning of what is everything? We just try. No, no, is it possible? No. Then why? Why are you using such an absurd word that nobody knows what it is? We just made it up. Everything, where is everything? Nobody knows what is everything, isn't it? Nobody knows what is the universe and the self. Well, nobody knows what is God also, but everybody talks about it. So I'm saying from generation to generation, we've been insincere. This is the first and most fundamental thing that every human being has to do is, what I know, I know. What I do not know, I do not know. Cutting out all this vocabulary from our mind, everything that we do not know, we know there is a tree. Is tree God's creation or not? You don't know. You know it comes from the earth. Did you make the earth? No. Who made the earth? She made it, he made it, you made it? No. Who made it? No. You don't know. If you come to this one thing that I do not know, genuinely, experientially, not intellectually, if you realize I do not know, realization is just one moment. I do not know is the most tremendous thing in your life, because when you see I do not know, the longing to know, the seeking to know, and the possibility of knowing becomes real. Otherwise, I know, I know, I know is a is a wall that you cannot cross. So the entire yogic system always identifies, not with our knowledge but with our ignorance. Because our knowledge we understand, how much ever we know, it is a tiny minuscule. It is a microscopic nonsense in this existence, what we know. But what I do not know is a boundless possibility. So when I become identified with what I do not know, I become a boundless possibility. If I get identified with what little I carry in my head, then I become that small. And from that small I am trying to enlarge myself like an amoeba, all the rest. Yeah, that's why it's sometimes referred to as the mystery. And then maybe that's a better a better word for the divine, the mystery. All right, you can use words, but I would say if you obliterate all the words, it's best because words give you a sense of that you know it. It's important within yourself. Well, when I talk to somebody, I may call this a tree. But if I simply sit here in the garden, I won't call it a tree. I will simply give my attention and my consciousness to it. So I experience it the way it is. The tree does not think it's a tree. It's a life like you. It does its own things. There is no experience of that. See, this happened to me, I must tell you this. I was studying English language in college. My English teacher came, a lady, till then we were learning all English poems, English poets and literature. First time we are being introduced to an American poet and that is what… I'm sorry, Robert Frost, here somewhere close by. So she introduced Robert Frost as a very wonderful poet, this, this, this. And then she started reading the poem, Woods are lowly, deep and dark. I said, stop. She said, why? I said, a man who calls a tree a wood, I'm not going to listen to that guy. She said, no, no, no, Robert Frost is a fantastic poet. This, this, I said, I don't care who he is, but a man who calls a tree a wood, I am not going to listen to that guy. I didn't let her teach. After twenty-seven, twenty-eight years, I was doing a program in Mysore City and she came to my program. Then she came and hugged me and said, now I understand why you would not let me teach Robert Frost? But it's become common for people to call a tree a wood. This is like if a tiger looks at you and says, ah, breakfast is sitting on the chair. Hello? That's how he would think, isn't it? If I am a tiger, no, no, no, I'm sorry, I'm doing these two things together, tiger and wood together, this is the wrong thing. I am a lion. If I am a lion, I would look at you and think, ah, good breakfast. I'm saying it's all right for him. He is at that level of existence, but it's not all right for you to look at a living tree and think it's wood, isn't it? Yeah, it's reducing it to a function rather than the essence of what it really is. You're not recognizing it as a life? Yeah. Well, I appreciate you sitting down to share this wisdom with all of us. It's a lot to comprehend and just so much gratitude for everything that you've accumulated in your life that you've been able to share with so many people. So, thank you.