 Namaskaram and good morning to everyone. What a fantastic day and the 70th Republic Day to be with all of you and this is also a sort of fan moment for me. No. It's a great honor for me to be interviewing you, not interview, sorry, in conversation. Welcome to everybody. Well, this is the first time I'm doing this, so if there are any lapses, I hope you'll excuse me. It's a great honor for me to be personally in conversation with Sadhguru. Like Vivek said, I'm also a big fan. We've listened to, even though I've just met him probably once before, you know, at a cricket match, we've been watching his videos and I think we really look forward to enlighten us on some of the aspects of sports. Sadhguru, we were all presently surprised when we got to know that you agreed to come and visit the center as this is an out and out sports facility. Then we did our research on Isha Foundation and you're connected with sport to find that Isha Foundation received the highest Indian sports award from the government for an institution for promotion of sports last year. Sadhguru, can you please let us know about your love for sports and what you feel about the importance of sports in the day-to-day life? Love for sport, I am a sport. In the sense, to love you need two entities. But I think that is what is missing in too many lives, that they are not a sport. It's not necessary you must be a champion like you, not everybody becomes a champion. But you can be a sport in every little thing that you do or you can be conceited nonsense. Sport means you're willing to lose, you're willing to win. You're wanting to win but willing to lose. Being conceited means no matter what I want to win. So being a sport is very important. Whether you actually play a sport or not is not the important thing that may happen to some people may not happen to some people due to variety of engagements that people have. But being a sport is most important. If you're not a sport, you really have no business here. I don't mean the academy, I mean in the world, really. Because then you're trying to defy the fundamentals of life process. Because the nature of life process is such, it is very much like a sport in the sense the beauty about a game is there's a set of rules. If you don't follow the rules, there's really no game. If you break the rule, there's no rule, there's no game. This is something that most people don't get when they're driving on the street, when they're working in their offices, when they're running the governments and variety of things that people are doing, they don't understand whether I like the rule or don't like the rule. If I want the game to continue in a sensible manner, I have to stick to the rules. I may not like it. I don't like the speed limit, don't like it at all. Because I would like the speed limit to be decided by me, but there is a speed limit. Whether I like it or not, it's important that you stick to the rule, all right? Because then there won't be a game. It's actually looks like adventure when one person breaks the rule. But if everybody breaks the rule, it will be a disaster, isn't it? One guy who just comes in the opposite direction, you know, this is a famous hobby for a lot of people. They're coming in the opposite side of the direction, the DJ is here. No, no, you're not traffic, so it's okay. They are coming in the opposite direction. They think they're doing something adventurous. They don't understand if everybody did the same thing, life would be a disaster, isn't it? So it's very important that right from early age people get involved in some kind of sport because you learn to follow the rule, otherwise there's no game. It's very, very important. I think that's seriously missing in our populations. They've never played a game, they don't know the significance of a rule. What is the problem if the shuttle falls in or out, what is the problem? I can argue you out of it. This is the way the country is running right now. It doesn't matter, it's in or out, I can argue with you endlessly. So one thing is the rule, which sets a human being to a certain pitch that all of us if you have to live together, they have to be some rule, isn't it? Otherwise every moment will be clashing. The next most important part of the game is, I want to win, I really want to win. But if I lose, it's all right with me. See, I don't want to win, no game. Somebody who says, I don't want to win, they think it's saintly, nothing saintly about it is just stupid. I don't want to win, it's not a game, I want to win. Like you did to me today. So you are letting the shuttle fall down when I hit the shot. Because you want me to win, that's not a game. You, the thing is, the moment you say, I don't want to win, there is no game, isn't it? I want to win, but if I lose, I'm all right with it. I'll go gracefully with my loss. This is something most human beings lack. They are such lousy losers, when they lose something, they become so bitter and terrible to each other. These two things, if people have, we'll produce good citizens in the country. So the sport has always drawn me every kind. People thought I went to school, I only went to the playground. I kind of involved in every kind of game that was available in the school. Fortunately, I studied in a multiple… multiple school, which had a lot of opportunity for that. But later on I got too much involved in trekking and motorcycling and hang-lighting. So I dropped this other sport, which took me away from the, you know, field kind of sports. But I've been playing off and on with my schedule. It's very difficult to find time to play. But here and there I'm hitting a ball and after too many injuries right through my body, all kinds of injuries. Now the only game that's really left for me is golf. So I'm playing that off and on. I'm… I'm just… I'm saying this because a lot of people have very cramped ideas about sport. It is not necessary, it's not even necessary for you to think you're going to be a champion. It's not about being a champion, it's about just playing well. Playing well does not mean playing as well as somebody. Playing well means to the fullest capacity that you are, you're playing. Well, if nobody else is playing better than you, you will… there, you know, even if you're a lousy player, if nobody else around you is playing better than you, you will become a great player in that crowd. But that's not the point. The point is, it is a way of stretching yourself to your limits, at least on the physical and mental space. If you don't do this in your life, you will become half a human being in some way. You do only what is within your comfort zone. You will not become a full-fledged human being. Somewhere you must go to a point where you would break on the edge of the breaking point. If you don't go there, then you don't know what is life. Sport is the safest place to do that. You could go in a battlefield and do that, but you may get killed. Usually a battlefield is seen as the ultimate point to stretch yourself, but that could cost your life. Sport and sporting arena is a safe way of going into a battle. Isn't it? Batman and the Racket doesn't kill anybody. Any sport, yes. Any sport, for that matter. But it gives you that feeling of crossing your limits, but still there is no physical danger to you or to the other person. This is a significant platform for people to realize the limits of their own nature. Because it's only when you play a game, you understand how many problems you have within yourself. You understand? Most people don't know when they go to the office like this and they come back. They don't know how many problems they have, how much of a issue they themselves are. When you play a game, all your issues will play up. So I think sport must be compulsory till fifteen years of age. It must be compulsory every day a child must play, because otherwise we won't build good citizens in this country. Today is republic day, it's very important because building a nation means building people. A great nation is not going to happen without creating great people. And playfulness and playing by the rule and wanting to win and losing gracefully, these are ingredients which makes a great citizen, it's very, very important. Sadhguruji, from my own experience also, the other thing which sport has taught me is to learn gracefully and when you lose, you always learn something and that you can always apply in your everyday life, as a student, as a corporate. So I think sport also teaches one to accept defeat gracefully because in life, you know, you cannot win every time, you sometimes, you know, have to face defeats. So if you've played a sport, I think it teaches you, you know, how to accept defeat gracefully. Putting your head down, not in shame but in humility, it's very important. We all feel that if we had more such facilities in the country, we would firstly not have to build more hospitals in our country as we would become a healthier nation and also a center like this will help our country with more medals at the international arenas. What is your impression about the facility and how will this benefit the sport community and the youngsters in general? Well, I've seen certain sports facilities in Russia, in Europe and of course in United States but in India, this is the best one I've ever seen. Maybe I believe, you must correct me, I believe probably this is the best one, most comprehensive as it is. I've been into the sports authority facilities and all that but how, not to make any commentary on anybody but it's run in a certain way. If you want a sports facility or anything for that matter, as far as I'm concerned, whether it's education or spiritual process or politics or sports, there must be an air of commitment. If people are not committed to what they're doing, they better not do it, it's a new sense. Anybody who's doing anything without involvement, it's actually a new sense we can do without that activity. And I would take it further, I'm sure you will agree with me because nobody either in the arena of sport, music, art, spiritual process, business or anything, nobody has gotten to any significant space without being devoted to it. When I use the word devotion, people think we are talking about a temple or a church or a mosque, no. In every area of life, if there is no devotion, you will do only mediocre things. You will not do something significant. However it may be, without being devoted, you will not produce anything significant. I feel that is one thing that is lacking in most spaces, casually run places. It is not aimed towards significance or excellence as you… you call your thing as excellence, right? Okay, center for excellence. Excellence will not even be approached because mediocre things will happen when there's no devotion to what we are doing. Devotion means a single-minded focus. Devotion means we are willing to do the same thing without any damn reward in our life. We are not doing a transaction. We're doing something because we see that it's significant. You know this is always happening, I'm sure you will also face it, maybe not so much here but we are a large organization, fully run by the volunteers. Volunteers means… unlike you, you have all the expert coaches, volunteers means nobody is trained for the job. Everybody's trying to do their best. So every other day somebody will be coming up to me and saying, «Sadhguru, I can't work with this person, he's so terrible, I can't bear this. I tell them, see, in this world there are only these kind of people like this, like this, like this, like this, this, the kind of people there are in this world. If you think what you're doing is very significant, you must work with these people. If you think you want to only work with ideal people, you must go to heaven and today, because you're not fit to be on this planet. Yes? You must go. But if you see what I'm doing is very significant, no matter what is the condition, you do the best that you can, isn't it? So that atmosphere, once you create, I believe it is very much visible here, I think results will inevitably come, of course. There is something called as competition, there is something called as competence everywhere else. If gold medals were simply handed out, you could as well go to a jewelry shop and buy it only because it's very hard to attain, it's valuable, isn't it? So it's not that tomorrow morning this center will be hanging gold medals all over the place. That would be meaningless gold medals. But striving for it, being devoted to it is most important. Results will inevitably come somewhere. This is an important thing that people have forgotten. We have taken to this western mentality that we have become goal-oriented. I want to get this or this or this. Now being devoted to the process is the most important thing. In yoga we say, if you have one eye on the goal, you have only one eye to find your way, which is inefficient. You use everything you have to find your way, you will get somewhere. Depending on your strength, intelligence, capability, you will get some distance wherever that is. But everything that you can do, you will do. In our lives, if we do not do what we cannot do, there's no issue. But in our lives, if we do not do what we can do, we are a disastrous life. If this has to be avoided, the most important thing is we are not looking at what will happen in the end. We are very dedicated and devoted to what we are doing now. If this one thing, if we inculcate in our youth, well, they will get somewhere. There's no… nobody can stop them. Speaker- Isha Foundation talks about inner science and inner engineering for a human being. And in the sports world, we find a sports science has now become even more relevant for enhancing the performance and results of the athletes. The western world of course is far ahead of India in sports science. Sadhguru, how do you see the similarity between inner engineering and sports science? Sadhguru- The similarity, the fundamental similarities, both are trying to enhance an individual human being. Let's say… let's say a political rally happens on the street, there the focus is not on the individual, the crowd will do something. You cannot transform a crowd, you can only transform an individual human being. If all these individual human beings are transformed, then there is a big assembly of people who are transformed or enhanced. Even change of competence and experience can only happen on the individual level. Or in other words, building a nation or building a better world means building better human beings at the individual level. If this individual and that individual and that individual in some way do not enhance themselves, there is no way this society will enhance itself, isn't it? This focus has been missing both with whatever you call as sports science or inner engineering, the focus is on the individual. Because without… in sports you have realized without enhancing the individual, just enhancing the facility is not going to happen, the facility is created to enhance individuals. I'm sure, though at an early age you may focus on a group, after that it anyway becomes very, very individual, otherwise individual enhancement doesn't happen, there is no enhancement of the general atmosphere. So by shouting a slogan, people think they can enhance the country, that won't happen. In that sense, this sports science and inner engineering are very, very similar. If we want to look at the difference, the sports science is looking for a certain level of performance. Inner engineering is not looking for a certain result. We don't want to decide the result. We just want to engineer a human being to in the best possible way. We don't know what they will do. Maybe they will do something that we have never imagined possible because my blessing to everybody is may your dreams not come true. Because something that you could not dream of must happen in your life, isn't it? What will you dream of? You will only dream of things that you know. You cannot dream of something that you do not know, isn't it? Is it not important in our lives, something that we could not even think of happens? So inner engineering is focused on just enhancing the human being without any specific purpose. Intensity without intent. No intent that this is what you must achieve, this is what you must… whatever you must achieve, just make the human being grow to his fullest capacity. We don't know what they will do, we will leave that to them. But here you have a specific goal that you… they have come for a specific sport and probably age wise because sport is a very age specific thing. You are thinking by the time they are sixteen they must be here, eighteen they must be there, twenty they must be somewhere else. So it is very specific. Inner engineering is more about just enhancing the human being without any intent because I don't want to fix the intent for their life. I did not allow anybody to fix their intent in my life. Sports is also about lot of competition and with competition there is also the negative side of sport which is you know performance enhancing drugs, pressure from the parents, over age, cheating, also commercialization of sports. So many parents are putting way too much pressure on the young children and many times also interfere in their coaching sessions. So what would be your advice to the parents of young sports people to maintain… how to maintain a good balance between aspiration and putting undue pressure? I would say unless the parents are very actively involved in something with the sport, Vivek should make sure parents don't enter the facility. In fact we have a rule in the academy that parents are supposed to just come and drop and come back again to pick up, they are not allowed to be present during the training sessions. They are not interested in the badminton, they are only interested in fame. Stupid way to approach a sport. You must have some love for what you are doing. What comes out of it in the end, who knows? Out of ten thousand people who play one guy, one Prakash Padukone happens. If not ten thousand Prakash Padukone happens then what the hell is the value of that? So parents are only thinking… they were thinking making their son or daughter into a doctor is a good idea. Not because they want to serve humanity, not because they've fallen in love with human physiology, simply because they think it's good livelihood and it'll get them somewhere or they decided let them do sport because they saw in the Olympics, somebody got a medal and all the pomp that goes with it, they're only thinking of that movement. Such people are a total distraction for the sport. They should not be there. In that home you have to bear with them but where you play, they should not be there such people. I'm saying such attitude will not get anybody anywhere because a human being can desire, a desire only sets the direction for your life. A desire doesn't take you there, it's only your competence which takes you there. Everybody wants to be a winner, all right? Desire will set the direction but desire will not make you win. Winning needs competence. Competence doesn't drop from the sky. For every successful person, oh there is a painful story. Painful does not mean you suffered. Painful means there is a lot of things. I'm sure as an athlete, when everybody else, your friends in Bangalore city were sitting on the brigade road in the pubs and thinking they were having fun, you were running, you were hitting the damn, you know, dead chicken. People thought it's stupid, I'm sure. Yes, many friends think it's just stupid, what's he hitting it all the time? Because they don't understand, competence is built. Well, some natural skills may be there but it has to be worked at minutely. Anything I'm saying, whether it's a, you know, badminton or it's a sport or a driving or spiritual process or anything to reach somewhere, there is a meticulous process. You have to pay attention to things that nobody cares for, isn't it? You have to pay attention to little little things about yourself that nobody even cares to notice in their life. They think if they put on makeup, they're looking nice. But if you get into the sport, you have to look at every damn thing about yourself, how you sit, stand, breathe, the works. So this is a, it's a certain, I mean I'm saying you have to spend your life. In some way, you have to give up a part of your life to excel in something, otherwise it doesn't happen. So that part has to come into it. If parents are like that, it's fantastic. But what I have seen with lots of them is, will my six-year-old boy, they bring and say, he will even win Olympic gold. So in what do you want him to win? Anything. Anything. Anything. Some Olympic gold, just go and buy it somewhere. So they're not interested in the process, they're only interested in the result. Such people should not be allowed into the academy, whether they are parents or onlookers or whoever. People who are thinking about only the end game and not the game, these are match fixers ultimately. So about commerce, see commerce is a good thing. Without commercial involvement, sport will not grow. That we have come to, this thing, because only those nations which were socialist and communist nations at one time, they managed to push sport without commerce, but those times are over. Now it can only grow with commercial involvement, without that it will not happen. But where to stop commerce, where it should be a mixture of commerce and sport, where it should be pure sport, that is a call people like you must take. If you don't take that call, they will invade everything. I find the right balance between sport and commerce. That only dedicated sports person should decide, where is that stop for them. Beyond this commerce doesn't enter, otherwise they will commercialize everything and destroy the sport. But without commerce, without the support of commerce, sport will not go very far in the world today. Vivek keeps telling me that this project has come about mainly through power of intention and similarly looking back at my career, I feel whatever I achieved was through my will power to succeed under all circumstances and challenges. You didn't have a facility like this. You didn't have a facility like this. No, there was nothing. How important do you feel it's to have strong will power or strong intentions to achieve something unique and whether it is possible to develop or improve will power, let's say you know through yoga or through any other techniques. I would like to because different people understand this word will power or the term will power in different ways. Well the English occupiers thought us that where there is a will there is a way. See there are two ways to do things. You can do everything hard or you can do it joyfully. There is substantial scientific and medical evidence to show that when you are in a pleasant state of experience your physiology, your psychological structure, your energies, everything function at their best. There is substantial evidence today. So most sports people I think this is because of sports psychologists and others who are working who are largely western trained are all doing this all right will power. They are trying to do that. I would say there is a better way to play. If you allow me, if you give me some people who are doing well at a certain level, if you give them to me for a week or two weeks, I'll take the will out of them totally. No will of your own because when you have a will, you get a will because of certain accumulated memory within you. You have some ideas based on that you create a will which is a very small thing. There is life here. This is a living cosmos. If you connect with this, you can do almost everything effortlessly and the more effortless you become, the body and mind functions at its best. Well, you know very well on the day when your body and your mind cooperated, that's the way that's the day you really unbeatable, isn't it? You may have talent, but still on that particular day, your body and your mind has to cooperate otherwise it'll go all over the place. To get that cooperation is not by will, but by not having a will of your own. This may sound little crazy to people. This will need lot more explanation to just put it in a very simple way. See, after all you're playing a game. I was, you know the Indian hockey team came and stayed with us for about eight days. Way back when Dhanraj Pillai and Purgat Singh was the captain and our KPS Gill was managing that. We did some work with them and then they came back again for another week and we further worked with them which set that team up in a… to some extent. A few years later, I was walking through the Chennai airport and these boys, all young boys, most of them from the tribal regions of Jharkhand and you know Northeastern, almost six boys in the hockey team were from that region, all from the Tata Academy, Hockey Academy there. So they are going for champions trophy in Germany. Many of them are getting on to an airplane for the first time. So some sports psychologists they've brought and he's talking to them in Hindi. I can't repeat this but what he's saying I'm kind of paraphrasing in English. He is telling them, you know, the prestige of one billion people's expectations is on your shoulders. You have to win this and come. Yeah, boys are winning. One billion people and mahabap ka hijjat. You're going to prove your parents whether they have gave you the right jeans are not today. By winning or not losing the… you know, by winning or not winning the championship trophy, these boys are just shrinking. These are all eighteen, nineteen year old boys except three senior players who are there. Others are just almost first time going into a tournament like that. Then KPSGil saw me and said, Sadhguru, while you come and say some words to this boys, they have never really gone out into an international competition yet. All the senior players were dropped and a full fresh batch except three players, everybody was new in the team. So I went and looked at them, I said this one billion people's expectation and mahabap ka hijjat and all that stuff is going to kill them. I, you know, I said give me a stick and a bob, I played field hockey and I was in school and college. So I just wanted to show them that I'm not just talking to them. So I dribbled around and then they were like, wow, you can dribble a ball like us. I said, you like to play hockey? Yes. I said, no, you guys can't play hockey. I know, where can you play hockey? I said, no, we can play hockey. I said, no, no, no, you can't play hockey. When we can play hockey, I said show me this. So two, three of them came and showed their tricks. I said, okay, you love to play hockey? Yes. You know how to play hockey? Yes. Then just go. This is all you need. You need lust, not intent, not desire. You need lust. I'm using lust because it's not a mental thing, it's a physical thing that needs to happen within you. You want the goal, you want the ball in the opposite goal. You need that lust. You don't try to win for India. You just put the damn ball in the goal and it must stay there. Your business is the ball must stay in the opposite goal. Well, they will do their own thing, that's a different matter. But as far as you're concerned, you have a lust that you want to put the ball there. You don't count how many goals, who is winning, who is losing. Your business is put the ball in the goal, put the ball in the goal, do it and you come, that's it. So they rose from twelfth place to sixth place and came back without winning the tournament of course. But I'm saying, why are we creating such a tension about doing something that we love to do? Sport is such a privilege that you're doing something that you really love to do and the world is acknowledging you if you're at a certain level, there's nothing to crib about. But right now I see most sports persons are like trembling before they go into the match. This is because they've set their intent, the gold, silver, whatever the stress levels. In such a state of stress, stress, your body and mind will not function at their peak. Not functioning at the peak means it's a gone thing. However much you play, somebody may be better than us, always. But our best must happen and that will not happen. The moment you're too concerned about your intent, to… I think you please try this in the coaching, if you want we will help. You train a few boys with intent. You train few others, boys and girls, whatever, without intent. No intent. I don't want to go to Olympics, I don't want to do anything, I just want to play well. I just want to hit the damn thing well, that's all. You will see they will play way better. Not bothering about whether I'm winning or losing, just hitting it well. Because ultimately that's all it is. So sport should relax. Because in relaxation, see this is the problem with people. If you say relax, people become lax. If you say intense, they become tense. To be relaxed and intense. If you bring this quality, you will see sport will take to a different level, all together. Is it possible to develop this if somebody doesn't have like… Oh yes, of course. There is a… there is a whole system how to get there. By changing the chemistry, by not simply pep talking them, by… by changing the chemistry. See, this is the most complex and sophisticated chemical factory on the planet, isn't it? And all human experience has a chemical basis to it. What you call as stress, what you call as anxiety, what you call as misery, suffering, tension, all of it has a certain chemistry. What you call as peacefulness, tranquility, joy, blissfulness, ecstasy, all of them also have a chemistry. So such a fantastic chemical factory, only problem is you're a lousy manager. If you are managing this well, if you kept this blissful every moment, everything that you do, you will do it to the best that you can do. You may not do it as well as somebody, that's another matter. But you will do the best that you can do. Just because I desire, I want to play better than you. Will I play better than you? No. I can play to the best that I can play and stretch myself a little bit. But why should I be looking at you how you are playing? Because I can't play like you. The best I can do must happen – well, technique, training, those things are there. But most important thing is your body and your brain should cooperate. Right now you yourself are an issue, how do you handle the outside issues? The opponent is outside issue. How do you deal with that guy when you yourself are an issue? In your life one thing that you must create everybody, whether you are in sport or not is, you are never the issue. Hmm? Hello? This you must do today's republic day. You know? That means I am never the issue in my life. Other issues come. If I am never the issue, I will dare to confront a thousand different issues voluntarily. If I myself am an issue, I will avoid all the issues in the world, isn't it? So a sports person especially, because everywhere it matters, but in the sports arena it shows immediately, little off in your mind, it will go all over the place. You see people playing, where I was, you know I was at the Augusta Masters last year, I wanted to see Tiger Woods play. All the younger people teed off. Tiger Woods with the back injury and all that he's come back, he teed off. He had the longest drive compared to the young people, people who are almost twelve years younger to him. Then he takes the second shot, 172 yard shot. He lands just three feet away from the home. Then he comes and goofs the putt. After that he's finished. Every ball he hits, it's in the jungle. He just lost his school. Nobody in the world has to teach Tiger Woods how to play golf. He's a phenomenon, all right? But he's just in the jungle every time because he's still fretting and fuming and cursing that putt. So the moment your own body and your own mind does not cooperate, however great a player you are, you're finished, isn't it? In certain games it immediately shows up, especially in individual games it shows up like that. In a team it may not show up, it may give you some time to recover, but here it'll just go off instantly. So it's very important that sports people learn to enjoy and involve themselves in the process, not involve themselves in the result. For that there are officials to do that. That's not even your business, isn't it? Even if you think I won, they may declare you lost because they counted better than you. I'm saying winning and losing is not your business. Unfortunately we are trying to do the scorekeeper's work, the official's work, everybody's work and mess up what I'm supposed to do. So I think training young sports people just for this involvement with the game, we must understand it any aspect of life where there is no involvement, there is no life. When there is an intent, your involvement is compromised because you are standing on the podium when you are supposed to be hitting the shuttle. Wrong place. My last question related to sport, can you please advise the young children and parents on the possible balance to be maintained between play time, education and gadgets and the social media? Are there no… Are there parents from your academy? Are there parents here? Yes. I'm sorry, I said something very bad. They are in a minority, I think. How to find the right balance between even people who are doing well at the highest level, sometimes they tend to get carried away with social media and so how to find the right balance? Because we didn't have these issues when we were playing. So we could be very focused. It's a big distraction these days. No, even then there were distractions. There were no girls in your neighborhood. No more distractions now. Now at least it's long distance, everything. So easily you can turn off the phone but you can't turn off the neighborhood. These days they don't even know who is in the neighborhood, which is an advantage. Now, see, if you casually wanting your child to enjoy a game and learn something, well you can think of these balances, how much education, how much this, how much that. But if your child is showing some promise and above all love for the game and going all out, I think you must turn off your education and every other damn thing. You have a very wrong idea of what's education. I want you to understand this that in the next five to fifteen years time, the kind of education that you went through and your children are going through will be absolutely meaningless because learning and scholarship will be meaningless simply because a simple gadget will know more than you can ever know in your life. Even today don't you find your Google lady is far more informed than you? Hello? A time will come where learning will be meaningless because any process of gathering data, processing it, analyzing it and then expressing it, which is what the whole education system is, which is a deception of making memory look like intelligence. Most people, they have only memory, not much intelligence. But they're posing their memory as intelligence. So if you, how many GB are you? I'm saying today there is a phone with six hundred GB, can you compete? I'm asking. Can you compete in memory? So you, our education is creating this deception that memory is intelligence. Memory is not intelligence. Memory is just information. Information is useful. It doesn't matter where it is. I don't have to carry it in my head. I can carry it in my phone. All the information I want. Today in United States, I was just amazed. If you go to a physician, well, I did not go to as a client, but I was there because of something else that I was supposed to do in that hospital and he was had two, three more patients to look at. He's like one of the well, you know, reasonably well-known physician. And every time patients say something, all this he looks at and their blood reports this, that, that, everything he looks at. And he's got that old fat blackberry phone. He opens up the phone and looks at this, this and based on that, he's treating them. I said, what the hell are you looking at the phone instead of looking at the people? He said, no, Sadhguru, the entire medical textbooks that are available are on my phone. And it analyzes for him what he wants. And if he types out a few words, it gets to him to the point where he needs to know. And based on that, he treats. It's considered normal. Well, a time is coming in the next five years or ten years where he will not be needed. The phone will do it by itself. Machine learning and artificial intelligence is just a step away. Once that comes, this form of education will be meaningless altogether, absolutely meaningless. So pretending that memory is intelligence has to go, memory is not intelligence. This is how a city slick boy is looking smarter than the village boy. If you leave him out there, he won't be able to do a thing but he has information. Because of information, he is looking like he's intelligent. This has to be destroyed. It's very good machine learning is coming because this is causing a huge distress in the human being, carrying information and acting smart. Today, all you have to do among a group of people, you know what is the distance between earth and galaxy Z172? You don't know? Oh, it is twenty-seven million light years. This kind of thing that you're looking smarter simply because you have memory. Only when this form of education is destroyed, human intelligence will unfold. Very important. This will happen to everybody in the next fifteen, twenty years. But those who are taking to sport can do it right now because if you carry the burden of your memory with you, we call this traditionally this is called karma. You got a bag of memory where your yesterday's experience will decide what should happen today. This is a crippling way to live. If your yesterday decides today, we know your tomorrow is doomed, isn't it? It's very important that we put memory in its place. Otherwise, you please look at yourself or look at everybody around you. If people are suffering, what are they suffering? They're suffering. What happened even ten years ago, they're still suffering, isn't it? They think they're suffering life. No, they're just suffering their memory. And they're also capable of suffering what may happen day after tomorrow, championship. So now they're suffering their imagination. It must be understood, imagination is just a reflection of your memory. And these two things do not mean intelligence. Intelligence is of a different nature. In sport, you need that intelligence. This doesn't need memory. In fact, memory is a huge burden. Your intelligence has to be unleashed beyond your memory. This, if you want your children to really excel in sport, you should not be expecting them as do PhD and also get gold medal in Olympic. It's just not right. I think you should take them off education, just teach them English language and how to count from one to ten to go out in the world and find access and make them read something so that they're reasonably convergent with whatever is happening in the world. But we must understand playing a game itself is an education. Why are we thinking that this is a secondary thing? It is not secondary. So it's very, very important that parents should understand if the child is beginning to get involved in the game and fundamentals you have to check. See, there are a few basics. I'm sure the people who are running the academy, they know this. How somebody's body is built, the geometry of it, the instincts and the, you know, the natural reflexes, if all these parameters they're fulfilling and they have a real love for the game, I think you should just leave them alone. Very important. You just make sure they read different varieties of books and the newspaper and something else to know what's happening in the world so that they don't look isolated. But regular education, what are they going to do, reading chemistry and physics? There is a lot to learn about the sport itself because you can approach sport in a scientific manner. There is, if you can study for a lifetime and still not know the game fully. You've started many important initiatives and awareness programs in our country like we saw in the video, river linking projects, projects related to rural education and farming, environmental issues. But you think we are missing the basics in our education program. You just touched upon this briefly. We are teaching children history, maths and other subjects but basic life skills like even breathing, yoga, health, fitness, learning how to build relationships, these are not included in the syllabus. How important do you think to include this in our education system? See that possibility is coming now. We must understand when… when India got its independence in 1947, the average life expectancy of an Indian was twenty-eight years. When average life expectancy is twenty-eight, you can imagine what kind of survival instincts we have, very desperate survival instincts. So it's taken us fifty-sixty years to slowly work ourselves out of that. The improvement in economic conditions, though we have learned to complain about everything, from what it was to what it is today, phenomenal improvements have happened. Well, still a lot needs to happen, that's a different matter. But if you don't look at what's been done, you don't have the impetus to do better, isn't it? So we have done well for a population that we have. The way we were left resourceless, the way we left dismembered, cutting off all our trade routes, see, India has been the greatest trading nation on the planet. Over thirty-three percent of India, world's economy was India, two-on-fifty years ago. But the trade mainly happened through the land routes, going to Arabia, Europe, Eastern, you know, Central Asia and this side to the other Asian countries. Both sides we cut off all the trade routes. It's almost like cutting off two wings and expecting the bird to fly. We said we'll cut off both the wings and let it fly. I don't know who's genius it was anyway. I mean it's a historical post-mortem, so I don't want to go into it. So, but this is the condition we were left in, without an economic structure, without any kind of system really. People are trying to convince us, no, the British left you railway system. You should have seen those railways in 1950s. They were a different matter, okay? Today Indian railways has built itself up, though it may come half an hour late. It has built itself up to one of the greatest systems on the planet. Really. We have one of the great greatest railway systems in the world. Well, still many things may be lacking, maybe the bathroom stings a bit and all those things are there, but it is transporting maximum number of people. Like this we have built systems. Out of this the economy has improved. People's life standards have improved. Above all life expectancy, average has today 66. From 28 to 66, that is really brought us to a place where we can cool our survival instincts a little bit and play a game. This is what you're seeing in the form of the new parents who are here, which my parents wouldn't think of. My father would be terrified if I… if you tell him, Saturday afternoon we want to play a cricket match, he's terrified. Oh, examination is coming. You're not studying this happening, that happening. How will you make a living? That anxiety has come down because of the economic condition. Otherwise they feared so much if your children did not study well, they're straight on the street. There were no other in-between opportunity. So that fear I think has come down except in a certain… what to say, lower middle class where still that fear is there. In others that fear has come to rest and people can invest their children in something that they love to do rather than whatever. Which, you know, which would have never happened to me but I did my own thing, that's a different matter. I took my daughter off education at the age of fifteen. She finished her tenth class, I said enough of this. I like to dance and in the school she's doing weekly three days takta. I said, this takta is not going to get you anywhere. If you really want to dance, just get off the school and get into your full time. Dance school. So last fourteen years all she's done is just dance, dance, dance. And this has made her into a wonderful human being. Well, her stature also in the society is growing, she's being recognized. Whether she's recognized or not also I don't care. I only told her one thing, do whatever the hell you want but you must do it well. That's all I care. I don't care what you do. This is important. Now we have economic conditions in the country. At least for those of you, if you are sitting here that means you reasonably made it in your life, okay? You are not in that condition, you are worrying for food tomorrow morning. When you reach that stage your children must do something that you could not imagine, that you will do. So sport is one of those things and the scope for sport in India is expanding. Just twenty years ago or even fifteen years ago if at all if your child wants to get into cricket for example which is the national religion, not a sport anymore. Even there only eleven players could play. Others we don't know who the hell they are, who plays for Ranjit Rofi, who plays for the things nobody knows in the country. Today because of the IPL just see there are so many they're just happy playing for the team. They're making their money, they're having a good time and only two months in a year they have to really play. Rest of the time they do whatever they do, they're happy doing that. So I'm saying like this in every sports arena this is opening up. This is the time to invest in sport for sure. So investing your children into something other than what is considered a standard profession is very, very, very important. Anyway I want to tell you this. We've been since I'm saying since 2006 I've been pressurizing the central government but now just about four months ago I think they announced that only fifty percent of the time at school will be for academics. Remaining fifty percent will be for sport, art, music, theater and some skills. They have announced and a large team in NCERT is working towards preparing the curriculum. We are in the process, we have already given a kind of a proto kind of education policy but now we are writing a more detailed education policy how education should be. Well because India is in many tiers there's no one India. There is India where people don't have anything to eat. There's an India which is you know living a substandard life but they're eating reasonably okay. There's an India which lives reasonably well and education and everything. There's another India which is like super rich and we have so many billionaires in the country. So this is not one India there are many layers of India. So for this it is very important the education also needs to be crafted that way. People may think this is segregation but I don't think so. Because if you think everybody must come to the same level and then happen. A nation will not happen like that. It's inevitable it grows in an unequal way but over a period of time we should try to level it. If right now if you level it the only way to level it is bring everybody to the bottom. Bringing everybody to the bottom is not the right kind of leveling. Taking everybody to the top is the right kind of leveling. When you attempt this some people will go up quickly, some people will go slowly, some won't make it. All these issues are there. So education needs to adjust itself. We are running three different kinds of education. We have rural education called Isha Vidya where I think something was on the video. Where we are only looking at economic opportunity for the children because these are all children at least I think about 46% of the children in our schools are first generation going to school. Their parents have never been to school. So for them caste creed various kinds of restrictions are there in the village. They have to move out of that social and economic pit. That's the only goal. So from the age of six we are starting computers, English language, things like this. That's one level of education. Another is called Isha Home School where this is for the more affluent, where almost 37% of the children are from outside the country. Here we are investing a huge amount of time in art, music, sport. Two of our children, I'm very proud of this, are in the junior German professional football. So this is a different kind of school. This is run like a household with, you know, 20 children grow up in a household with dedicated parents and there's a huge investment to what extent we have changed the stuff means. For example, 11th and 12th, two years, I made it three years. I said we have invested so much in sport, art, music. The moment they come to 11th parents will go marks mad. Drop everything and study and study and study. So I said if such children need not stay here, we made it three years. We are investing in leadership, art, music, sport in a serious way. When I said three years, within our own organization people said parents won't agree they will take their children, nobody will be here. The incredible thing is not even one child was withdrawn. So I'm saying parents have matured. They understand one year late doesn't matter but my child comes out mature and stable with lot more skills is far better for them because a whole lot of these parents are thinking of sending their children abroad for even for their undergrad. They would like their children to be far more mature and stable before they go out rather than simply at 17 you just jump out of 12th standard and land somewhere and we don't know what will happen to that child. So like this we have changed. Another school is totally traditional as I was telling you Isha sanskriti where we teach only yoga, kalari paitu, sanskrit language, classical music, classical dance and English language. This is all the education. There's no academic education. You must see these children, they are the most incredible. The focus is on just building human body and human brain to its full capacity without any intent. What will they do? If somebody has a full-grown brain and a full-grown body, whatever is needed they will do in the world. And there is no you and me actually have no business to create our own missions in this world. This is not about your mission or my mission. What is most needed today in the world, that's what we must do. Hello? Don't like it. What is most needed, that is what we must invest ourselves in, isn't it? So for this what is needed is full-grown human beings who have no fanciful ideas of what I want to do. Because what will you want to do, what little things you... I remember when at the age of whatever 10, 12, when I watched all the American cowboy movies, I wanted to become a cowboy. All right? Later on I wanted to badly become a truck driver. Really I was so inspired by the trucks. When they roared my life, my heart went away for them. I thought I will become a truck driver. So should all those things happen in your life? No, it's all right to play with those things for two years and leave them. So I'm saying your dreams should not be fulfilled. Something that you could not dream must happen in your life. For this you must invest in the enhancement of this life. Not thinking what will I do with it? If this is enhanced, you will do whatever. Whatever comes your way, you will do it well and that's important. My final question. Yes, sir. He's saying something. I'm sorry? Just want your views on the justice system prevailing in the country, you know. In the courts they... You're getting me into trouble. How do you think we can address this issue of, you know, taking too much time? Is there anything you suggest? I'm saying as a... As a generation, we must be ready for a little bit of injustice. Yes, I'm saying this very consciously. Because if you don't clear the backlog, it's never going to be fixed, all right? If we want to clear the backlog, we have to set some timeline. If it's a property dispute, in the next one month it must be fixed. Somebody has committed a murder, at least in the next one year it must be fixed. It's a business deal, in the next two months it must be fixed. You must fix a timeline and go for it. Some injustice will happen, obviously. But a great justice will happen for future generations. Right now, people take you to the court not for justice, just to make sure you're entangled forever. If I take you to the court, don't think I need justice. I want your life messed up. That's why I'm taking you to the court. Yes. If I really want to trouble you, file three cases on you. It's up to you to come out in the next twenty-five years. Well, we are facing this all the time. All kinds of bizarre cases, somebody will file. Then you have to hire a lawyer and go and do-do-do-do. There is really nothing. It's just figment of imagination. But they can file a case and trouble you forever. So if somebody files a false case, that guy must go to prison. These things have to happen. See, in India, there is a law for prejury, for example. There's quite a stringent law for prejury. But since independence, I don't think even a single person has gone to prison on prejury. This means in public, if you speak a lie, you're prosecutable. Tell me how many people should be in prison in this country. If… if you did enforce that law, would you see definitely more responsibility in public life? Is it not needed? Just anybody can say anything. It's shocking. Anybody can say anything, unbelievable. Without… see, it is not that they're exaggerating something a little bit. Just they're completely making up and saying things and they're surviving in public life. So is it not important if you say something like this, within fifteen days it's settled, you're in or you're out. One of these things must happen to them. So if you do hasten the judiciary, then some injustice will happen. The problem is we will debate this injustice endlessly. I'm saying if you want some solutions, you must be willing for some injustice. Somebody has committed a rape or a murder, that's a different thing. You deal with that differently. Now you and me have a little dispute with this property. I think this two inches of this chair belongs to me. You think four inches of my chair belongs to you. This is property, all right? If some quick decision happens, maybe I will lose one inch. But I can go on with my life, you can go on with your life. The injustice is both of us cannot go on with our damn life and these inches are never settled. Even if you fall dead, it is not settled. Your children will continue with the same stupid case. This is injustice, isn't it? I lost one inch of my land. It is not great injustice. I lost my bloody life sitting at the court. That's injustice, isn't it? That injustice is happening large scale. I think it needs a serious overhaul, except for those cases which are, as I said, rape, murder, treason, whatever, those kind of things, you leave very serious ones. For all others, responsible citizens in the country should be set up as jury. In Bangalore city, if you set up thousand sets of jury, one thousand sets of jury, I am saying of five people or ten people or something like this, I am saying if these two people have a property dispute, if we make you the jury, will you be unfair to them or according to your intelligence and judgment, will you say something fair? If we don't do this and a property dispute is debated and discussed and hearing after hearing, hearing after hearing for twenty-five years, it's just ridiculous, it's nonsense. You're just killing the people, because people, if they get into some trouble, if they go to the court, they did not come out of trouble. They got into more trouble, isn't it? If you somehow stay out of the court, you are a blessed being. If you get into the court, you had it. And some people have become experts. They have a battery of lawyers. They are busy all the time filing cases on everybody, because they just enjoy this drama. But anybody who wants to get on with their life, they want to do business or sport or spiritual process or whatever, they don't want this rubbish, isn't it? And it is those people who build a nation, not the people who create, who enjoy dispute. Those who invest in disputes are not people who build the nation. Those who are looking for solutions are the people who build the nation. I think we must take a revolutionary step, that even if it's not hundred percent by law, we must set up justice system by the citizens, settle all the minor cases and be done with it in the next two years or three years. Courts will become free, then you can think of how many courts do we actually need to serve this population and try to manage that. We have to do that. If we don't do that, nobody will go to court. If they want a settlement, they'll go to the local goon. It's already happening. It's already happening or no? Because the goon at least will get you justice, though in his own way. Yes, this may look absurd, but I'm telling you, all kinds of very responsible, sensitive people are going to the local goon. You must understand this. Not criminals, regular people. Somebody comes and occupies this building tomorrow and doesn't wake it. Suppose now I'm here, I won't wake it. Can you throw me out? Half the people I know here, we'll all sit here and say, this is our hall. You go to the court. What do you do? You will hire the local guy to evict us? Because if you go to the court, your life is finished, your academy is finished. Yes, unfortunately this is how it's happening. See the law is like this. Suppose I come to your home and I steal your car. Now you can't come to my house and take it. That will become crime. You understand? You have to go to the police station. This is here. That is not a very nice experience. And then you will have to find a lawyer, file a case. I will be using your car. Till then. But this will go on for at least six to eight years. By then, I'll give back the car if you want. So in this, this is not justice. By any standards, this is not justice. I know I'm going to get into a lot of trouble with this. It's okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. It's been a great honor and a privilege to be in conversation. I've decided I've reached a stage in my life where I'm going to speak about all the most troublesome aspects of this country. And get into a lot of trouble. Because I got nothing to lose, nothing to gain. Let me at least pick something which will… which may not initiate action now, but at least in future, this will become action. Thank you very much. And it's a very… It's a great privilege to be here. And I'm sure this place will breed many great sports persons in future. Above all, under the tutelage of Prakash and Vivek and so many other dedicated people who are here. Well, in many ways, I don't like to use these words, but in many ways, Prakash has been the seed of badminton in India. When most people had not heard the word badminton, or you still call it badminton or shuttle? No, it's badminton. In the sixties, when I was playing, it was called… We were calling it shuttle, that's what I'm saying. So badminton was with a yellow ball. Yes. This was shuttle for us. It was called ball badminton. Yeah, ball badminton. So when most people had not heard the word badminton, suddenly dawned on everybody. There is a game like that. There's an Indian person doing fantastic on that one. And since then, we know the level of interest the game has drawn. And today, at least there are half a dozen Indians who are at the highest level, at least six, isn't it? At least six, seven of them. At least half a dozen were at the highest level in the world, both men and women. It's truly fantastic. In many ways, you have been the seed for that. We very much appreciate that and it's fantastic. Thank you.