 Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, it's indeed my pleasure, privilege and honor to welcome Sadhguru and thank him for being with us and indeed giving me the opportunity to be with you for these 30 to 45 minutes. Thank you and let's start. I wanted to start off with the rally for rivers. I think, you know, 16 states, 9,300 kilometers, in 30 days, 142 rallies. So, I would start off by saying, I know you've spoken about it quite a lot, but I wanted to talk about two specific things, when and where did the idea germinate, Sadhguru? And second, if I could club it together, is your experience of having lived through it? Because we've seen it, you've spoken about it, but I think for this August gathering and, you know, the privilege of yours, so where did the idea germinate and what was your, you know, experience with everybody in the entire thing? My association with forests and rivers of this nation goes back to very early childhood. When I was just ten, eleven years of age, if I found ten rupees, it's a lot of money those days. I would buy enough bread or whatever and I would be gone in the jungles for days. Well, there was a whole drama happening at home and in the town looking for me, but I was so engaged with this because when I was in the jungles by myself, what I realized was this was not trees and animals and reptiles and stuff. This was a mega life by itself. Much larger life than myself. This is how I experienced the forests of South India. Then when I was seventeen, I floated down Kaveri for thirteen days, 163 kilometers and I lived off the river. Just on four truck tubes and a few bamboos, I just floated down. Like this, my engagement with this has been always. But in the last twenty-five years, I've watched with some concern that these magnificent rivers and the most fantastic. For many days, I've lived without food just on the Kaveri river water and the few Nogu and Kabini river water because I wouldn't get any food and I just drank water and did whatever I did. But when I saw that the way the river is dropping down and the vegetation around it is being destroyed at the pace at which it's going. Particularly in the last seven to eight years time, the depletion of Indian rivers is disastrous. With 1.3 billion people on our hands, the way our soil and water is depleting is something that nobody can ignore. I don't think most people will understand unless they actually travel a little bit in the country and see firsthand because what's happening is beyond irresponsible. Beyond that, something totally disastrous we're doing as if we're the last generation here. That's how. That's why most of them are packing off their children to other countries because we're living like we're the last generation. So this is… this rally has been on my mind for last seven years but this is my way. I never speak to even people who are immediately around me. Only fifty-nine days before the rally, for the first time I spoke to our teams. They said, how is it going to happen across the country? How can we unleash all these events we can do in major cities but how can we do in the villages and all this. Then we went into the detail. This detail had worked out and we went into the detail for a few days. Then all the teams across the country got into huddle of their own and started working towards it. But the phenomenal thing was for the first time across political spectrum, all parties across the country responded positively which I thought is really… I need to acknowledge the political parties for this because all of them coming together for one cause is a miraculous thing. It's almost like we've taken the word opposition literally. We got to just oppose everything that happens in the country but they all came together which was wonderful because that was significant because we've drove… when we drove through the sixteen states we drove through states which are ruled by six different parties and all of them came full on board and most of them signed MOUs with us. So my experience of this, the problem with me is I… because I don't have a thinking mind, I have a picturing mind. So I picture every… every small detail in my mind without really thinking in words and what should happen, what should not happen. So literally the rally went almost in total, almost ninety percent just the way I had pictured. So there were no surprises or too much excitement for me. It was nice once again I've driven and ridden across India on my motorcycle. Later on I've driven across the country many times. So almost for last maybe eight or nine years I have not really done such extensive driving. So it was wonderful to drive across India. Though I drive across the world, it's always very exciting to drive across India for a variety of reasons. So it was a… it was a great thing particularly the way ordinary people respond it, you know, people who do not know what's happening in the country or in the world, they don't know what is ecological disaster, what it is, nothing simple… simple people who are fighting for their daily survival. I'm telling you we're like many days the distances were planned in such a way that we would drive for about eight hours to nine hours a day. But most days we ended up driving fifteen to eighteen hours a day, some days twenty-four hours a day. Because everywhere they're stopping us and they've organized events of their own. Small villages have organized events of their own. I get down and you know my Hindi and somehow I speak something. I'm driving through somewhere on the border of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. It's around two a.m., it's raining and I'm… you know my right leg is little heavy usually. So like I'm… like maybe I'm doing like one forty, one fifty and blasting out. And suddenly in the corner of my eye I see a blue patch in the rain. Then I thought two, three blue patches which is the rally for the first thing. Then we almost went off half a kilometer away. Then I said somebody was standing there and then we backed up all the cars and you won't believe. One old lady, three girls and two little boys. They're standing there with rally for rivers. They just… somebody told them some Sadhguru from somewhere is coming and he wants to save the rivers. They're standing there at two a.m. in the morning. This is… this is something fantastic, you know. You know, incredible, Sadhguru. I know… I remember even in Bombay the speed at which you were driving actually out of South Coast is okay. Early morning on that day. But, Sadhguru, I think the other thing which you spoke about in the audio visual as well. I think this entire concept of bringing together economic benefit with ecological benefit is something if you could sort of elaborate a little bit more for the audience it would be really good. I think because normally when we talk of anything to do with social… corporate social responsibility or ecological things, the thinking is it perhaps goes contra to economic benefit. And I think here it's… it's sort of, you know, it bust that paradox in a manner of speaking or that thinking. So, we must understand this. Whatever is philanthropy is only a helping hand when somebody is down. It's not a solution. It is not a solution in the real sense. Solution will happen only when it becomes a two-way process and it can be continued. It is sustainable only when everybody benefits, otherwise it's not sustainable. Whether it's in the marketplace or marriage, if both the parties benefit, only then there is a sustainability. So, we… I was looking at how to make an ecological initiative into a win-win for all the people concerned. When I said all the people concerned, one thing is the fundamental entity is the river. And immediately there are farmers and the communities which live there. And there are local governments and there are people who live in the cities and there is a larger government. All of them should benefit, otherwise this will not happen. Somebody will put spanner in the works. So, this is how the policy was constituted. Fortunately, today the government has received this as a very uniquely positive policy. And from Nethi Ayog, it's in the Prime Minister's office and I think in a few days the thing will go out, the advisory will go out for all the chief ministers, what they should do in those states. Almost in Toto, it's being accepted, almost all the recommendations. So, it's been received very positively and the advisories are going out. And I must tell you, as already it was mentioned, I think being in Mumbai, Maharashtra government has been the most proactive government till now for us. A detailed project report is being presented tomorrow to the ministry here. And we should be on ground in action probably by end of April or mid-May. We should be working on the ground, a eighty kilometer stretch across a particular tributary. We are particularly focusing on tributaries because most people reverse means Ganga, Kaveri, Narmadag, Tungabhadra like this. For example, because my engagement with Kaveri is big, Kaveri had seventy-two tributaries, major tributaries. There are many, hundreds of minor tributaries. Out of these seventy-two, in the last twenty-five years, over thirty-seven have died completely, totally gone. What is left is in a meager state. Without the tributaries, how will the river flow? People think still they're in the legend that Ganga came and landed on Shiva's hair and it flowed, they're still in that mindset. They don't understand if a river has to happen, there has to be jungles, there has to be small tributaries, all of them coming together. Somewhere down the line, there is a river. A river did not land from heaven. This is something that they have to be very clear about. Still this point has not gone across. So we have started working on tributaries. We will be… we will need all your support because we will be campaigning to make the tributaries of every state a common name in children's minds and people's minds because everybody should know the names of tributaries. You know the name of a big river that's not good enough because a big river exists only because of these small tributaries. These tributaries has to come into the consciousness of India. It's very important. No, thanks, Sadhguru. I'm also aware that the National Board has been constituted and the first meeting who happened yesterday, if I'm not mistaken, in Bangalore… No, this was the third meeting. …the third meeting. Yes. So anything would you like to share about the board and how… what is the thinking there and what are the… how is it progressing in? So the Rally for Rivers Board, which has very, you know, significant people in the country, we have Supreme Court justices and we have the World Wildlife CEO on it and we have the top water expert. And the father of FPO movement of the farmer, producer organization movement, we have Kiran Majumdar of the Biocon and a few others who are on the ground kind of people. Yesterday's meeting was mainly focused towards how to reduce consumption. So in this we need to understand that people always think water means it is the cities or the industry polluting things. Yes, it is happening. But the major consumer of water in the country, eighty-four percent of consumption is agriculture. And what… the amount of water we're using and what we are producing is completely disproportionate and not acceptable in modern times. We are still… we have a history of over eight to twelve thousand years of agriculture, which is a phenomenal thing. But we are still irrigating our lands as we did a thousand years ago. This is called flood irrigation because when the floods came, the rivers irrigated the lands in the very early times. Later on, of course, we built dams and flood irrigated but earlier, flood irrigation essentially meant when the river flooded, it irrigated. But now we're still continuing that process and this is causing a huge damage to India's soil. India's soil depletion is such a phenomenal drop that on an average, most of the soil in the country has depleted at least by thirty-seven to thirty-nine percent. In some places, it's over seventy-five to eighty percent. Twenty-five percent of India is slated to become a desert in the next seven to eight years time. When we say a desert, what it means is the international… the UN standards for soil to be considered as soil is two percent of organic content should be there. In most of the places like Punjab, Haryana, some parts of Marathvada, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, the organic content in the soil is point zero-five percent. It's literally almost… it has become sand. Soil, we're turning it into sand by taking away all the organic content. So the only way you can put back organic content is by the leaf that comes from the trees and the animal excrement. Trees had gone long time ago. I remember this very well when I was involved in farming about thirty-five, forty years ago. The fertilizer companies were openly coming in telling the farmers, you must fell the trees. Otherwise they will eat up all your fertilizer. This is a loss for you. If you have trees, they will grow there. They won't let your crops grow because they're taking away the fertilizer. A massive felling happened in the Ganga region. The tree cover loss in the Ganga banks is in the Ganga basin which accounts for thirty-three percent of our agriculture and twenty-five percent of our geography. It is eighty-nine percent. Eighty-nine percent of the trees you remove. And how do you expect water to be restored in the soil? So, fortunately now our board has been formed for that. And one of your ministers from Maharashtra is a very, you know, very dynamic way of… out of the box way of doing things. We are also being co-opted for making this happen. Like this every river has a sad story. The important thing in this whole thing is seventy-five percent of the river and land is in the farmers' hands. How do you handle this farmer who is just struggling to make a living? And as the video was saying, over three-hundred thousand people committing suicide, their condition is pathetic, their nutritional requirements are… you know, they're in abysmal state, most of the country. Sixty percent of India's population, their skeletal system has not grown to full size. This means we are producing substandard humanity. If your body doesn't grow to full size, neither will your brain grow to full size. This is the kind of people we're producing and we're going on talking about, you know, demographic dividend. Where is the dividend when you produce substandard humanity? Because that is happening in very large scale. So, right now we are looking at setting up certain models, large-scale models where water consumption can be taken. Industry and business has a huge role to play. See, the main part of agricultural disaster comes from… unfolds this way. You need water source and you need to irrigate your land. Irrigation is the biggest investment. Just to give you an example, I was just talking to a Tamil Nadu farmer who is twenty-seven years of age, very enthusiastic, energetic young man. He has three-and-a-half acres. So I asked him, what's your water source? He says he has sunk nine bore wells in three-and-a-half acres. It costs over one crore to sink nine bore wells. He's never going to make it. He has to either sell the land or run away from the village or hang from a tree. This is all the option he's got in the next five years' time. Farmers should be focused on just growing the crop, which he's actually very good at. India is one nation because of our latitudinal spread from Kanyakumari to the foothills of Himalayas. We can just grow about anything you want in the world, just about anything. And we have the skills. Sixty percent of the population knows the magic of how to turn mud into food. This is not a small thing. You take your top qualified people into the land and ask them to grow a crop. It'll be a disaster because it takes a completely different kind of skill, which we have fifty percent. If we handle this right, what we have on paper, if we can execute this in the next ten years' time, we can be the bread basket of India, a bread basket of the world. We can feed the entire world because we have people who have the necessary skills. We have variety of soils, we have variety of temperatures and atmospheres that we need. Everything that they want to have for growing food for the entire world we have. But we have not exploited that simply because we've left the farmer as he was thousand years ago, not hundred years ago. He's still doing the same practices which were done a thousand years ago. We are envisaging a plan how this can be transformed with the involvement of industry, business, government, everything included. This will not take enormous investments. What this takes is organization and a commitment to fulfill that organizational setup. Right now, if you produce little more, it rots because there is no poll storage, there is no value addition, nothing. If you… if the crop is bad, he suffers. If the crop is good, he suffers. And we have a compulsory education system right now. We have done some kind of a survey in Tamil Nadu. I've been asking farmers, how many of you want your children to go into farming? It's less than one percent. In Tamil Nadu, it's less than one percent. On an average in the country, it's less than fifteen percent. So in another twenty years time when this generation passes, our skill of being able to produce food for this many people, we will lose it because the children are going to school, they don't know a thing about how to grow any crop. And neither do they have the body to go back to the farm and work on the land. It's not easy to do that. And in another fifteen to twenty-five years, we are going to lose this ability unless we make agriculture into a highly lucrative process in the coming five years. It is possible to do it. We have done it in small modules. Right now we are trying to set up large-scale modules so that we can show in three to five years time a farmer can easily multiply his income anywhere between three to eight times. If this happens and the village infrastructure comes up as we have and we're talking about entertainment, sport, culture, folk, music and dance, everything to come back, we're seeing how to create this so that it is worthwhile to live in the village. Right now only those who don't have means to escape to Mumbai or to America is still living in the village. Anybody who can escape is gone. It's a trap. It is not a choice, it is a trap. Those who are stuck there are stuck there. You cannot run a nation keeping sixty-sixty-five percent of the population in this condition. Thanks, Sadhguru. On behalf of everyone here, I'd like to commit to you that I think, as you rightly said, it does not require as many resources as it requires commitment. And I think what Rally for Rivers is a movement which has been started and I think some of us have been fortunate to see that movement begin and I'm sure it'll be a historical movement in the country. And I think that commitment which is there from the government, from industry and organizations, from people will make sure that the dream that you have and the work which is being done in this area comes to fruition. Now the United Nations Ecological Program has taken this and said this is literally in the UNEP president's words, he says this is the incarnation of sustainable development. Never before it's been done like this. And on 22nd, on 22nd of this month, March 2018, we are presenting this to the United Nations and all the countries are participating in this because most of the countries within 33 degrees latitude, the same policy could be implemented literally total. Except for the cultural aspects, in terms of weather patterns and other things, up to 33 degrees latitude, this can be effortlessly implemented across the globe. This is something the UN has recognized and we are making a presentation there also. Congratulations, Abdul. And I think this is entirely your initiative and India again becoming a wish guru in this space, actually, thanks to your initiative. I was wanting to now talk about two other things which are very close to your heart. I know and you've been thinking about it. One is this thing you spoke about in the audio visual as well. And I've seen it personally, being there at the Ashram and on Shivratri and all that. Basically, you always say you should be high on life. You don't need chemicals to be high on life. I think this menace in India is growing a lot, but it's there globally as well. Your reflections on addiction and what is it that we should do as a society and collectively as all of us in this space is something I wanted you to share your thoughts on this. So every one of you know today that the greatest chemical factory on the planet is human body. It's the most complex and sophisticated chemical factory on the planet is this. So in one way of looking at yourself is you're a chemical soup. The question is only, do you have a great CEO managing this chemical soup or a lousy CEO? That's all there is. So if you are a lousy CEO, this is going into your bad chemical state. If this is a great CEO, this is in a fabulous state. So the entire movement is towards creating technologies for well-being, not by philosophy, not by looking heavenward, not with morality, but if your chemistry is blissful right now, who can make you miserable, I'm asking? The other thing I think which you've sort of closed you out and you've been talking about is the issue of human trafficking. And I think your reflections in this space because that is the other thing we've sort of need to be cognizant of both in India and globally. This is a very, you know, just about few months ago I met someone in United States who is supposed to be some kind of an expert on the internet affairs and stuff. I never get the time to do what is this browsing or this and that. So I was just asking him, what are people looking for? So many people are on the net, what are they looking for? And he says, matter of fact, I don't know if… I hope this is wrong. He says, seventy percent Satguru is pornography and he tells me every year, I don't remember the figure, some millions of children below fifteen years of age are being sold on the internet. I thought, what's happened to us? We're selling our children's, children to do dirty things. This means we've lost our humanity fundamentally. So as a part of this, we kind of unleashing this in the coming months already it's beginning to take off. I have a few hundred, maybe a couple of thousand hours of material that I've spoken. In the last forty years what I have spoken but in the first ten, twelve years it wasn't recorded, it was on conic assets. Later on we came to sonic assets which some of them are preserved. But real recording has happened only in the last seventeen, eighteen years. So in the seventeen, eighteen years the video content we have runs into hundreds of hours. Most of it is just in the archival state. We… we are a volunteer organization, we don't have enough resource to pull it out, edit it and put it outside. There's material just about every kind of aspect. So I said as a part of this, I made an announcement among our own groups that whoever wants to take this material, you take it and use it, you monetize it, you run it whichever way you want. It's all free for you. We will give everything we have free of cost just to make sure in this world we have taken this thing up that in the next three years I want to make sure at least ninety percent of the adult population, I'm leaving ten percent for a certain reason. Ninety percent of the adult population has at least some simple process within themselves that they can do for three minutes a day. Something to settle themselves, something to take care of themselves, something that will not drive them into disparate acts, to do something harmful to themselves or to somebody else, at least where the children are. No, I think that's a great thought, what's up, Guru. I think I'd like to applaud. I can say on behalf of our organization that thank you so much for offering this, we will take it up and we'll do everything. And the good news is that in this August gathering there are a lot of people from media and entertainment who can take up the offer which you're giving. If you want you can send professional teams that if they're willing to spend a month or two in our archives which is a huge heap of material which we're not even able to pull out. There is material about all kinds of stuff. You can take the material and use it whichever way you want, you can monetize it, you can do what you want. We will not ask for anything from you. I want this to just get to the people so that people understand all the problems that you have are made by you. And if at all if solutions have to come, it has to come from within you, there's simply no other way. So, I'd like to open it up to the audience. So, we are very welcome a few questions if you have. So, please go ahead. Sadhguru, Pranam. It said there's a lot of material floating online saying that the next world war will be fought over water. I just wanted to know your views on that. See, to fight a war you need water. Otherwise, how will you fight a war? See, people are always busy making predictions of disastrous things. And people keep asking me also all the time, Sadhguru, what will happen in the next twenty-five years to this country? What will happen to the world? Every time some change happens, people want a prediction. See, this is a call that all of us have to take right now. Do we want a prediction or are we going to have a plan towards our well-being? Those who are incapable of making and executing a plan always fall back on predictions. It is time that human beings plan how we are going to be in twenty-five years. Rather than planning… rather than predicting what will be the disaster we will face, why can't we plan rather than predicting disasters? Namaskaram, Sadhguru. Always inspiring to listen to you. A related question is the indiscriminate use of plastic which is growing exponentially. I read somewhere that even in UK, only ten percent of plastic is recycled, the rest of it is thrown into the oceans. Any suggestions to solve this problem? Thank you. See, there's a whole concerned people or running campaigns in many parts of the world which many of them are in touch with us. They're trying to make plastic the evil. No, plastic is a fantastic material that you could recycle a thousand times or a million times if you want. There isn't another material like that. You can use it just about in any way you want. It is a fantastic material. So plastic is not the problem. It is our irresponsible, unconscious way of doing things which is the problem. So the solution is not in banning the plastic and doing this and that. The solution is only in making the human being conscious enough. There is no other creature on the planet which is using the plastic anything. It is only the human beings. And today we have the ability to communicate all of you are in the business of communication. This is the first time we can sit here and literally speak to the entire world if we wish. When we have such an ability on this planet for the very first time in the history of humanity do not underestimate this. This is the first time that we can sit here and speak to the entire world never before this was possible. When we have such a possibility why is it that we cannot communicate to every human being on the planet and raise this human awareness and consciousness that we will conduct plastic on everything sensibly in a responsible manner. This consciousness has to rise. Just banning this, banning that won't come because if you ban this something else will come. Every fifteen years we realize we've done the wrong things. It's time that we do something in such a way that so much in sync in nature that after two hundred years we should know we've done the right thing. Right now every time we do something after ten fifteen years we realize we're doing the very wrong thing. Right now they're saying the biggest polluter in the future by twenty forty will not be industry will not be cars it is your electronic instruments your laptops your iPads your cell phones this will be the most disastrous pollution on the planet. So right now we have to do this till two four to twenty forty and then say this that we have done the wrong thing we're going to correct it then. No we can this is not some rocket science. If you just look at it as I said this entire rally for rivers thing people are asking are you an environment I am not an environmentalist I am not a scientist I have never had anything about environment but I have lived in this world I have lived in this world I eat food out of this world I breathe the air in this world I drink the water in this world I know how it works why is it that I don't know because most people think water comes out of the tap Sadhguru it's already very late one last this thing from my end you know what is absolutely admirable and it sort of got exemplified in rally for rivers is your passion and energy and as you briefly spoke about and you mentioned about it about becoming the great CEO of all these chemicals in this so a message for all of us in the audience what are a few tips or a secret source of becoming a better CEO because you are an exemplary CEO in this space so I think if you could learn from you and that's that is the last thing from my head. See all of you by virtue of your education or geography or birth somehow you've gotten yourself into positions of responsibility and some kind of power communication is power how are we going to use this is the question isn't it how are we going to use this is the question if we want to use it well really well tell me when you are feeling really wonderful let's say you feeling fantastic within yourself this moment are you not naturally inclined to do nice things to everybody around you hello when you are feeling wonderful it's natural for you to share that when you're feeling nasty you also share that hello you do you can't help it isn't it so this is the most fundamental responsibility that we have once life elevates us to a certain position of power and responsibility how we keep this is very important once you are in a position to influence and impact people's lives how you think how you feel how you act how you breathe affects everybody around you so is it not the first thing we must take care of once life has offered this opportunity to us that we are able to impact life around us the very way you sit stand breathe everything should be measured and looked at carefully as to how it works best this is like you're in your position you're in a position of responsibility and power means in some way you're on a fast track if you're on a f1 track then I don't know if you've seen racing machines I've always been engaged with them and if you're on a f1 track then you have to look at everything you know everything and everything and everything over and over and over again the same things I will tell you I was in the Ferrari dock paddock in the Singapore races I was just looking at these guys they have been given hundred octane petrol okay it is the best possible fuel they're putting it through the regular filter they have a racing filter they put through that and they're not happy they're getting some silk cloth and they're putting through the fuel through the silk cloth three times over before it goes into the car I was just looking at this this is this is scary because one tiny speck of something means the car will malperform malperform doesn't mean it will stop it just means if it just misses a little bit like that the race is over for that car so I'm saying in some way when you get to a certain pace of activity in your life you are like a racing machine when you're a racing machine what goes in how you breathe how you sit how you do everything needs to be looked at only then this will perform at a certain level this is not to talk about myself because he's put me in the dock but our lives go like this now I have hundreds of people who do the same thing around me but my life has always been like this I'm minimum 20 hours a day seven days of the week 365 days doing variety of activity not one kind okay today I have hundreds of people around me they're all like this three days if we don't sleep we're still functional we're not going to fall apart oh is this some kind of miracle no if you this the immensity of being human unfortunately has not been explored by most of the humanity human being means it is an immense possibility are we going to make it into just one more creature who eats sleep reproduce and dies one day or are we going to make this into something fantastic that just the very existence is just fantastic to be here just to sit here and breathe is absolutely fantastic if this happens to a human being it doesn't take much if you invest 20 30 minutes a day we will make this happen for you that if you simply sit here it is just fantastic to be alive once you're like this nothing nasty will come in your mind why would you want to do something nasty to anything around you when you have no sense of nastiness in you this is not out of morality this is not out of ethic this is not a controlled behavior do I look controlled I'm wild but nothing will go wrong because why will it go wrong why will anything go wrong with life because the greatest thing that's happened here is life why is it wrong you think creation is wrong it's fantastic but it is too sophisticated the machine it needs a certain level of attention do you agree with me that this human mechanism that all of you carry is the most sophisticated machine on the planet do you agree with me I'm asking have you read the user's manual it's time to do that